Response to today's WBUR "On Point!": the topic, stopping domestic terrorism

 My remedy: Let there be a federal law or executive order that henceforth, the US Justice Department have exclusive power to license all single-shot long guns for hunting and for personal protection (modeled on Switzerland, where all men are drafted for training in how to use long guns that they are obliged to disassemble and keep at home to protect the homeland if ever the need arises), AND REQUIRE THAT ALL OTHER PRIVATELY OWNED GUNS MUST BE TURNED IN TO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO DESTROY. Just a thought:-) love and peace, hal

WARNING to ALL computer users!

This "service" is a computer worm, pure and simple.  I use the Microsoft partner RegCurePro's package including cloud backup.  AVOID THE "SERVICE" BELOW!


From: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 5:18 PM
To: MyPC Backup
Subject: RE: [#3988995] Biggest ever discount today Harold

If I get one more message from you about your worm, I WILL file a formal consumer complaint with the Ohio Attorney General's office.  Desist!  hal

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 4, the verse Jill selected for our wedding vows.

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, skype name halpep, "Peacemaking" at pepinsky.blogspot.com; Ohio Bar registry no. 0024994
 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-6341 1-614-885-6341

Please note:  My mind isn't big enough to handle social networking.  I do not respond to requests to befriend on Facebook or to become Linked In.  That leaves me free to take time to respond to email on this one account, and to answer home phone calls, which I very much enjoy receiving.  Thanks for your understanding.  love and peace--hal
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________________________________________
From: MyPC Backup [sales@mypcbackup.com]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 5:01 PM
To: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Subject: Re: [#3988995] Biggest ever discount today Harold

Hi Harold,

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Why (n-1)?

To my fellow criminologists (primarily)

Why (n-1)?

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, “peacemaking” at pepinsky.blogspot.com

April 14, 2014

                My first day in my office in Albany, I made a point of introducing myself to Leslie T. Wilkins.  Shortly thereafter, Les invited me to team teach a seminar in one of the school of crimjus’s core areas: Philosophical Issues of Law and Social Control.  He proposed over lunch that we invite another philosopher from the university.  He first picked Stefan Temesvary, one of only several members of the Astronomy Department (later abolished entirely by a colleague who led the university “task force” in making the decision, as he explained to me at yet another lunch meeting).  Stefan had been forced as a draftee German physicist to develop the V-2 rocket at Peenemunde that was to rain bombs on London; he described watching a rocket “…go up…., and then it came down” with an ironic grin.  Next came Jim McClelland, a philosopher in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education in which my wife Jill received her Sociology Ph.D.  I vividly Jim using his inaugural lecture in our seminar to fill 2 blackboards with symbolic logic as “proof” that only anarchism works.  That seminar remains the highlight of my teaching experiences.  Les, Barb, Jill and I became close friends, and visited them twice in England after Les’s retirement.  I dedicated my 1980 book, Crime Control Strategies, a systems analysis of what it meant when each major measure of crime and criminality, from convictions of crime, through arrests and self-reports, on through measures of criminality down to “recidivism.”

                Les mentored me personally and enthusiastically (often as I sat with him after hours in his living room) throughout our times together.  One thing he pointed out to me was that regression models simply made analyses of variance ordinal rather than descriptive.  And regression was indeed what he brought to his collaboration with Don Gottfredson to create the statistical system that became the first U.S. federal parole guidelines, which as I predicted to Les, soon became perverted into the notorious federal sentencing guidelines, to justify further incarceration rather than to promote safe and early release from prison.

                What struck me as most peculiar about analyses of variance was that the numerator was not simply divided by the total number of cases, but by (n-1).  I accepted implicitly that as Les said, that any 1 case in itself had no variance, and so “n” by itself had no variance, and Les’s insistence that you had to have at least 3 cases to have enough variation to infer variance, but it is only as I write today that I think I can see why, in Euclidean geometric terms.

                In purely mathematical material terms, 1 case equals a dot, a location that has purely unique significance in itself, or in plain English, doesn’t matter at all, or in scientific terms, has no significance.  You have to place one dot in relation to a second dot in order to show what direction they are headed.  You have to have three dots for them together in the “third” dimension in order for them as a group to have any substance at all in common.  And you have to move the three dots toward a fourth in order to show any movement of any substance, the “fourth” dimension commonly known as “time.”

                In social science, dots are called “variables.”  I learned in chapter 2 of my grad statistics text that it is a “fallacy” to “affirm a null hypothesis.”  Suppose we compare a group of people who have never been convicted of a felony, say murder, and find that the people who are black in one population have on average murdered more people than the people who are white.  Individually, the fact that someone happens to be black or white is insignificant—the variable black or white is fixed for each individual who happens to be black or white; it only signifies anything when it is some average of 3 blacks and 3 whites; in itself, the fact that blacks “commit” more “murders” than whites doesn’t even tell you anything but which group of any 3 blacks versus group of 3 whites is more likely include someone convicted of murder.  As for comparing 2 blacks to 2 whites, the odds of any single white or black being among all those convicted of murder is simply fifty-fifty.  The odds of any single black or white person being convicted of murder in my “violent” country are less than one in ten thousand, period.

                My fellow criminologists, please refrain from thinking you know anything about how dangerous or crime-free any individual is by statistical profile.  If this be your “best evidence” of what to expect from any human being you have no firsthand knowledge of, you know nothing.  Love and peace--hal

               

Think One Step Ahead

THINK ONE STEP AHEAD

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, “peacemaking” at pepinsky.blogspot.com

April 10, 2014

                My wife Jill and I have just survived the most intense moment in our 41 years together, me (in)voluntarily committed to a mental hospital for what turned out to be exactly 30 days, emerging rested and at peace with myself and my body, Jill emotionally exhausted.  I have gotten through it with minimal effort by simply following one peacemaking rule I had long embraced even before I became a volunteer victim-offender mediator in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1997: Think first of how I feel, then pause long enough to pick a way of expressing it that reassures others that I am perfectly safe to be with.  Invariably, living by this one simple rule, I feel safe in any situation, period.  Love and peace--hal

ANNOUNCING MUTTAKI KAMAL'S NEW BLOG: http://creationfrenzy.blogspot.com/2014/04/bengal-strength-and-failure.html

  Muttaki's first post contains historical references to British colonial records with the considerable environmental contamination and destruction of a much-prized indigenous fabric for clothing.  Oh, how much destruction "foreign investment" causes!  love and peace, hal

one question about yesterday at Ft. Hood

Why train young men to kill?--love and peace, hal

all's well

                            All's well
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, "peacemaking" at pepinsky.blogspot.com

  In one hour, I take my guitar to my late mom's nursing home, the Laurels of Worthington, where Kristine Provan will be for us to do our less than hour-long singalong.  Then I have a brief meeting with Marcia Conrad to set a time for her Columbus State students to do an environmental study of our houses.  Our gas bill maxes out at $250 in the worse winter weather, and the electric bill for ac on hottest summer days maxes out at $250 too.  We have double-paned glass throughout both houses, all the insulation we need.
  That is all the business I have for today.  It is purely relaxation before I get a good night's sleep and go for a routine abdominal CAT scan to verify that I have no aortic aneurism there tomorrow at 8am, after which I return home for my usual breakfast.
  All of which is to say that life is copacetic.  love and peace, hal

In support of those who live and work on the floor where I stayed

From: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 5:00 PM
To: president@osu.edu
Cc: tammy.moore@osumc.edu
Subject: FW: Please share this with all staff AND patients

I was discharged last Friday at the end of 30 days of involuntary confinement on the 2nd floor of Harding Hospital.  Perhaps you can help mend the plight of all who work and live there.  If I can assist in this matter, just ask.  regards, hal

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 4, the verse Jill selected for our wedding vows.

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, skype name halpep, "Peacemaking" at pepinsky.blogspot.com
 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-63411-614-885-6341

Please note:  My mind isn't big enough to handle social networking.  I do not respond to requests to befriend on Facebook or to become Linked In.  That leaves me free to take time to respond to email on this one account, and to answer home phone calls, which I very much enjoy receiving.  Thanks for your understanding.  love and peace--hal

---

From: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 4:51 PM
To: tammy.moore@osumc.edu
Subject: Please share this with all staff AND patients

Today I stopped outside your doors and said hi to all of you (including Judy) before having a routine visit with Dr. Sanders, on the 5th floor.  I am cooperating fully with a complete but non-invasive physical suggested by my primary physician, Dr. Draeger, whose skill and small-town doctor common sense I trust implicitly.  Accordingly, I'm just scheduled for a routine visit upstairs, two weeks from today at 9:30.

I want to repeat an offer I continue to make to every patient and staff member in this ward: If you want to know what this retired lawyer thinks about any situation you're in, just call at the number below (I always check for messages), and we'll talk.  If you want to see the beautifully restored house no. 7 I moved into in 1957, and now live in again, just call or write for an appointment any business day when my wife is away at work.

Here's an irony: my wife can remember my two weeks of anger, which sadly I vented on her too.  It was torture for her, needless too, for I would have cooperated voluntarily to any reasonable stay with you all; I can only remember glimpses of then and am alive with memories of so many of you, individually.  There is not a one of you I would not help if I can, or welcome into my home.

I continue to abhor the air you live in (the 5th floor is fabrezed to death), and the petty rules like carrying the clipboard that you endure with remarkably good cheer.  Judy's husband told me the cheese has become sanitized and the chicken dry since I left.  I may take my time, but I will not forget you.  love and peace to all, hal

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 4, the verse Jill selected for our wedding vows.

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, skype name halpep, "Peacemaking" at pepinsky.blogspot.com
 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-63411-614-885-6341

Please note:  My mind isn't big enough to handle social networking.  I do not respond to requests to befriend on Facebook or to become Linked In.  That leaves me free to take time to respond to email on this one account, and to answer home phone calls, which I very much enjoy receiving.  Thanks for your understanding.  love and peace--hal

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