The Goat Went Over The Ridge, And Seemed In A Hurry, Ctd

Along the intellectual path of goat entrails and special elections, ruby red Alabama had a special election yesterday, and its results must have left Republicans a little aghast.

An Alabama Democrat who campaigned aggressively on abortion access won a special election in the state Legislature on Tuesday, sending a message that abortion remains a winning issue for Democrats, even in the deep South.

Marilyn Lands won a state House seat in a rare competitive race to represent a district that includes parts of Huntsville. Lands, a mental health professional, centered her bid on reproductive rights and criticized the state’s near-total abortion ban along with a recent state Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned in vitro fertilization. [Politico]

Competitive, yes, but …

Lands ran for the seat in 2022 and lost by 7 points to Republican David Cole, who resigned last year after pleading guilty to voter fraud.

Lands’ margin of victory? Almost 25 points. Sure, politics is generally local, and perhaps her opponent, Republican Teddy Powell, was a poor candidate – but a swing of some thirty points or more is not a mistake.

It’s more of a sign. In neon.

It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on Alabama and its local Republican Party, to see if SCOTUSDobbs decision, and the Alabama State Supreme Court’s threats to IVF, not to mention their clownish pair of Senators, Katie Britt (R-AL) of the State Of The Union Response Speech fame, and Tommy Tuberville, who endangered national security by holding up officer promotions in a temper tantrum over abortion services, suddenly transform Alabama into a purple State. Don’t forget, the last time the Republicans nominated a real clown for Senator, Judge Roy Moore, who was of a theocratic temperament and an alleged, but unproven so far as I know, sexual predator, Alabama voters narrowly rejected the Republican in favor of Doug Jones (D-AL).

How Good Is The Indifference And The Firewall?

In news that sounds like a joke, former Rep George Santos (R-NY), who has the sad distinction of having been expelled from Congress for a number of instances of lying and possible crimes, has said he’s running for re-election, citing perhaps the most ridiculous reason imaginable:

Embattled former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., said he is suspending his plans to run for reelection as a Republican and will instead run as an independent, blaming the shift on the “embarrassing showing in the House” Friday.

The House on Friday passed a $1.2 trillion spending package that would finally fund the federal government through the end of September, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed a motion to vacate against House Speaker Mike Johnson – the procedure that led to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

After Friday, “I have reflected and decided that I can no longer be part of the Republican Party… The Republican Party continues to lie and swindle its voter base. I in good conscience cannot affiliate myself with a party that stands for nothing and falls for everything,” Santos said in a post on X.

“I will take my Ultra MAGA/Trump supporting values to the ballot in November as an Independent.” [USA Today]

Those last two paragraphs are just killer for me, because the essence of Santos and MAGA is lying and grifting. It’s the Theater of the Absurd.

But concerning matters for the electorate keep on coming. Erick Erickson, at the beginning of his “ministry’s” Holy Week, in which he prefers not to discuss politics, had this to say yesterday:

I see more and more right-of-center “influencers” trying to use God’s Word as a cudgel against their political opponents.

And here, he offers a video entitled Purging the Republican Grifters. Representatives Gallagher (R-WI) and Buck (R-CO) have not only announced their retirements, but their unexpected and abrupt resignations from Congress (the former on April 19th, the latter already accomplished), and their letters of announcement have indicated deep disgust with the bulk of the Republicans in the House.

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), long a target of right-wing extremist elements in the Alaska Republican Party, yet winner of her seat as a write-in candidate in 2010, which reflects her long-standing popularity and the disconnect between the Alaska Republican Party and Alaska’s electorate, recently expressed her disgust with the national Republican Party, hinting that she may leave the Party for independent status. Leaving the Party in disgust over its allegiance to Mr. Trump, as she puts it, isn’t unprecedented, but Senator Murkowski would certainly be the most prominent member to do so. Will there be more? Former US VP Mike Pence (R-IN) has remarked that he shan’t endorse his former boss, Mr. Trump, but has yet to walk away from the Party. I might have thought Senator McConnell (R-KY) would have done so, but so far he’s not exhibited the independence of thought to do so.

But he, as well as others, may be forcibly ejected from the Party, as Rep Greene (R-GA) has declared the necessity of purifying the Party of dissident elements, with the aforementioned Rep Gallagher (R-WI) perhaps one of her early scores.

Mr. Trump himself is doing poorly in one of the most important aspects of his appeal to voters, his constructed myth of being a successful, dominant businessman. Skipping all the details, Professor Richardson’s pithy summary of how his legal travails are going is the best that I’ve seen:

Trump made his political career on his image as a successful and fabulously wealthy businessman. Today, “Don Poorleone” trended on X (formerly Twitter).

It’s unsurprising that CNN ended up with a headline, which I cannot find at the moment, to the effect that Mr Trump says, oh, yes, he has $500 million available, even as his lawyers argue that he does not and thus should have the size of his bond reduced. It’s clear that wealth is the magic pixie dust for Mr. Trump’s base, at least in his own opinion.

If this all smells of a Republican Party that is falling apart, I agree. But there’s more, and of a nature that may come as a surprise. Professor Richardson mentions it:

This morning The Boeing Company announced that the chief of Boeing’s commercial airplane division, Stan Deal, is leaving immediately. Chief executive officer Dave Calhoun is stepping down at the end of the year. Chair of the board Larry Kellner will not stand for reelection.

On January 5 a door plug blew off a Boeing 737 Max jetliner operated by Alaska Airlines while it was in flight. The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) immediately grounded about 170 similar Boeing planes operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory until they could be inspected. “The FAA’s first priority is keeping the flying public safe,” it said, and added: “The safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 MAX to service.”

Last year an FAA investigation “observed a disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture,” with employees worrying about retaliation for reporting safety issues. After the door plug blew off, an FAA audit of different aspects of the production process released two weeks ago found that Boeing failed 33 of 89 product audits. On March 9, Spencer S. Hsu, Ian Duncan, and Lori Aratani of the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into the door plug failure.

A disregard for product safety, and the safety regulations that lead to desirable results such as planes not falling out of the sky, is a classic sign of an untoward pursuit of wealth and the corporate results necessary for same. The departure of top executives from The Boeing Company, a storied corporation, under a cloud of dishonor, suggests that the negative public reaction to the perceived consequences is acting as a rebuff, even a rethink, of the importance of safety regulations.

“Regulation is evil” is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party, so we can, with some skepticism, take the actions at Boeing to reflect evolving American attitudes: a concern that a rejection of regulation may be less than wise. Similarly, the case built by Democrats that investing dollars in the IRS will result in a positive return, while forcing millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share, is a strong, if more indirect, rejection of the Republican Party tenet that taxation is evil.

All these together suggests we’re seeing a turning point in the political landscape. The substandard officials, both at the Federal and State levels, elected under the Republican banner, the Party chaos at both State and federal levels, the rejection of Republican tenets, the Dobbs decision and its crushing effects on Republican election results, fundamental disregard of democratic rights and norms, these are all acting together to outweigh Democratic blunders, such as botching the management of the transgenderism and border issues.

It’ll still take a catastrophic result to actually burn down the Republican Party, but I think that may occur in November. Large, unexpected losses in Congress, with elevated, unwarranted expectations assisted by Republican pollsters trying to encourage Republican voters, and Trump defeated by a large margin is where it starts. No doubt Mr Trump will be disgraceful in his loss. But, hopefully, actual violence will be limited and, more importantly, properly and publicly shamed by fellow citizens.

Only the compartmentalisation of information, both actively via conservative media, and passively through refusing to engage in active research, can save Republicans, in my opinion.

We may be seeing the beginning of the end of this incarnation of what was once, proudly, the Party of Lincoln.

How Will We Know?

Back in February, WaPo’s Travis Meier thinks his distaste for math qualifies him to judge the needs of society:

For most of us, the [quadratic] formula was one of many alphabet soup combinations crammed into our heads in high school long enough to pass a math test, then promptly forgotten. I’m queasy all over again just thinking about it. As a functioning adult in society, I have no use for imaginary numbers or the Pythagorean theorem. I’ve never needed to determine the height of a flagpole by measuring its shadow and the angle of the sun.

Only 22 percent of the nation’s workers use any math more advanced than fractions, and they typically occupy technical or skilled positions. That means more than three-fourths of the population spends painful years in school futzing with numbers when they could be learning something more useful.

Here’s the problem: maths is the heart of today’s society. We need adults who can solve complex math questions in just about all STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. No doubt, critics of the teaching of maths to young students will respond that those choosing a STEM education should then be taught the hard stuff, sparing everyone else.

But he holds variables constant, if I may be so bold: If the teaching of maths beyond 1+1 is withdrawn, is there not an increasing likelihood that interest in those subjects will fall? And, far more importantly, how do we know who is capable, and who is not?

Education has many goals, but one that is primary, yet unsung, is simply exposure. Algebra is a very early step down the path for STEM disciplines, and by exposing students to it, both we and they can learn whose mind is suited to further education, as well as that vital juice called interest, and who is not.

And so I cannot agree with Meier. To him, math is confusing; for others, it’s clarifying; for society, it is essential; and for the adult who remembers it, there’s a potential advantage. Why disadvantage students by not even exposing them to the dreaded maths?

Hypocrisy Or Clarification?

I’ve been sympathetic, if only contingently, to Republican squalling concerning Democratic meddling in Republican primary contests. Shouldn’t each Party be permitted to select its nominees without interference? There’s even a parallel to draw with the Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential contests.

But E. J. Dionne, Jr. of WaPo brings a countering argument:

The knock on Democrats is that they’re being hypocrites. They’re lifting up champions of the sort of politics the party has set its face against.

The charge might hold some water if center-right Republicans could be counted on to stand up to Trump consistently. The problem: More moderate GOP conservatives have proved repeatedly that, when it matters, they will fall in line behind Trump.

Witness the behavior of Republican Senate leadership during Trump’s second impeachment trial. Yes, seven honorable Republicans voted to impeach Trump and thereby put an end to his political career. Bless every one of them. But their seven votes were not enough, and even GOP senators who were sharply critical of Trump — Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) being the most prominent — rejected impeachment and thereby saved Trump’s career.

In other words, Republican primary voters, despite Democratic operatives’ efforts, still have a choice, are responsible for that choice, and thus are symptomatic of the state of the Republican Party. If they were nominating moderate Republicans, thus thwarting the Democrats’ efforts to put vulnerable, far-right extremists up as nominees, then we’d know the Republican Party is making the effort to be a responsible governing Party.

But it’s not. The Republican primary voters are more than willing to put such fourth-rater, performative morality “politicians” as Gaetz, Greene, Santos, Johnson, McCarthy, and literally dozens more up for election to some of the most important positions in the nation. The Democrats efforts merely, at best, pushes those who already lead, or are in a competitive position, over the top.

That the Democrats can, arguably, achieve this much is a measure of the moral depravity – sorry, folks, but that’s how it looks from outside the epistemic bubble – of the Republican Party primary voters.

And Dionne’s argument serves, I think, as an able justification for Democratic “meddling.”

The Shrinking Edge, Ctd

Do you remember Rep Buck’s (R-CO) prediction concerning the 118th Congress? Well, OK, I didn’t actually mention it before, so here it is:

What’s more, there’s no reason to assume that the list won’t grow: As the Post’s article added, Buck, whose last day is Friday [today], “warned that more resignations could be coming.” [Maddowblog]

And he was right:

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who announced last month he would not run for re-election, will resign from Congress early, he confirmed in a statement Friday. [NBC News]

Even more interesting:

Gallagher’s decision to leave April 19 also means that there will not be a special election to fill his seat. Under Wisconsin state law, vacancies after the second Tuesday in April are filled in the general election, so Gallagher’s replacement will be decided in November and his seat will remain empty until January.

My oh my, I’d call that a message sealed with flaming poo.

So, come April 13th, the Republican House advantage becomes 217-213, as Buck’s resignation becomes effective today for a 218-213 advantage and assuming no other effective events, but there’ll be no chance to recover from Gallagher’s resignation until the 119th Congress.

What is most interesting about this is that we now have three powers in the House, which has been true since the last Inauguration Day, but with the shrinking gap is becoming more and more critical. What are the powers?

  1. Democratic members, who are currently highly disciplined, even unsettlingly well disciplined.
  2. Freedom Caucus members, who need only abandon a Republican cause in very small numbers in order to sink it.
  3. The balance of the Republican caucus, who have the same power as the Freedom Caucus. But do they know it, and are they willing to use it?

It’s getting cold in the Republican camp.

Of course, it’s a bit frustrating that Buck and Gallagher are unwilling to stay in Congress and vote against the nonsense, but the drama of actually resigning, of implicitly notifying the Freedom Caucus, and other extremists, that their behavior is unforgivable, has its own advantages. And if Speaker Johnson (R-LA) can be replaced with a Speaker sympathetic to our foreign policy needs, so much the better.

Will the resignations continue? Point to Buck for predicting someone would resign. But will he be right about more? Can Democrats flip those three Republican seats currently sitting empty while retaining the empty Democratic seat?

Ukraine’s government is watching with fierce attention, I’m sure. So, for that matter, is Putin.

Word Of The Day

Surety:

noun, plural sur·e·ties.

  1. security against loss or damage or for the fulfillment of an obligation, the payment of a debt, etc.; a pledge, guaranty, or bond.
  2. a person who is legally responsible for the debt, default, or delinquency of another.
  3. a person who, as a sponsor, godparent, etc., has assumed or accepted responsibility for another’s debts or behavior.
  4. the state or quality of being sure.
  5. certainty.
  6. something that makes sure; ground of confidence or safety.
  7. assurance, especially self-assurance. [Dictionary.com]

Really? That word is overloaded. Noted in “New York attorney general disputes Trump’s claim that he can’t secure $464 million to post bond,” Graham Kates, CBS News:

[Dennis Fan, a senior assistant solicitor general for the state,] also briefly knocked many of the claims Trump made, noting that they’re not required to find just one underwriter to provide the entire bond, but instead can combine multiple sureties for the full total.

“Defendants’ argument that obtaining a full bond is purportedly impossible is based on the false premise that they must obtain a single bond from a single surety for the entire judgment amount of $464 million,” Fan wrote. “But appealing parties may bond large judgments by dividing the bond amount among multiple sureties, thereby limiting any individual surety’s risk to a smaller sum, such as $100 or $200 million apiece.”

Terms of Endisaster

DISASTER is when your spouse, her hands full, decides to try to open the gate with a karate kick, misses the latch completely, and loses her balance.

CATASTROPHE is when she drops the DQ ice cream cup she was carrying.

APOCALYPSE is when it lands upside down, in the sand.

EMBARRASSMENT is when it turns out you know all four of the horsemen that show up in response to her cursing, but you can’t remember the name of one of them. Was it Fred? John? Hildegaard? Damn, those skulls all look the same when the sky abruptly darkens and giants stride the Earth.

Gimme back our ice cream!

Word Of The Day

Nous:

Nous, or Greek νοῦς (UK/ns/,[1] US/ns/), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real. [Wikipedia]

And then it goes on into neoplatonism. Another source keeps it simple and says

good judgment and practical ability:
Anyone with a bit of nous would have known what to do. [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Golden State Warriors defeat LA Lakers after ‘bizarre’ finale as arena announcer forced to announce shot clock,” Issy Ronald and Homero De la Fuente, CNN/Sports:

It had been a finely poised game throughout even after the Lakers had lost Davis and his defensive nous, which allowed the Warriors to attack more from inside the paint, racking up points in that area of the court.

I wonder if nous is acquiring another meaning.

If You Can’t Decide Who To Vote For On The Generic Ballot …

… well, there is no such thing. Candidates are real people with mouths, experience, presented ideologies, and possibly hidden agendas, unmentioned crimes, and all that rot.

But if you want a generalization, far-right pundit Erick Erickson’s speaking a truth you’ll want to hear, in the context of the announced, but not yet accomplished, resignation of Rep Ken Buck (R-CO) from Congress:

[Buck’s] Heritage Action lifetime scorecard is 91%.

The Club For Growth rates him with a lifetime score of 98%.

CPAC gives him a lifetime rating of 97%.

But he is leaving Congress because Ken Buck has failed to dance like a chained monkey with cymbals for a base that wants entertainment instead of wins. The clown chorus of conservatism is vilifying a guy who has consistently voted for the conservative side over 90% of the time.

Those “scores” are only impressive to other, serious conservatives; for liberals, the effect is rather opposite. And the clown chorus of conservatives?

They’re, to be honest, the lost souls produced by a conservative movement that trained the base to not be serious. They are told to vote straight ticket, to win-win-win, to treat politics as a game, rather than a serious business. Primary candidates and their backers toss around ludicrous accusations, lies about themselves or their favored candidate, and pump up their own ego by repeated claims that their far-right extremist adversary is a Republican In Name Only (RINO), implying that the guy with white supremacist inclinations is … a … liberal.

Erickson’s divergence from reality is, as many pundits have pointed out, the adherence of today’s typical Republican to Mr. Trump and the power structure of their fellows in relationship to Mr. Trump. That’s their number one priority, and they’ve been trained for it, from their evangelical or libertarian roots to their shared victimhood to, I rather suspect, the government duplicity implicit in the Pentagon Papers (see their anti-vaccination attitudes).

Erickson wants to drag them back to a reality where the litmus test is not the loyalty to Mr. Trump, and the implicit criticisms of government and liberalism he embodies, but stances on abortion, imposition of other religious values, taxation, regulation, etc.

I do not think Erickson’s going to achieve that goal. The toxic culture which Gingrich, etc, have constructed for conservatives has produced a monster that will have to fall apart, as it seems to be doing, before Erickson can hope to have his conservatives back.

And it’s worth noting his rigidity on the matter, from above:

… who has consistently voted for the conservative side over 90% of the time.

It’s a statement that, if read closely and with no allowances for the sloppy expressions rife in blogging and, indeed, much of this era, entirely embodies an arrogance and a belief that this is all a game with a well-defined endpoint, rather than an enterprise of impressive complexity: governance.

Keep that in mind when reading any pundit, even an amateur such as myself.

Word Of The Day

Hycean:

hycean planet (/ˈhʃən/ HY-shənportmanteau of hydrogen and ocean; note that the term is not capitalized) is a particular type of exoplanet that features a liquid water ocean under a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. [Wikipedia]

I wonder how many English words are portmanteaus. Noted in “Habitable ocean world K2-18b may actually be inhospitable gas planet,” Jonathan O’Callaghan, NewScientist (9 March 2024, paywall):

In 2015, astronomers discovered a planet 110 light years away called K2-18b, which later analysis estimated to be a super-Earth or mini-Neptune about eight times the mass of our world. Astronomers in 2019 then found evidence for water vapour on the planet. Since K2-18b is thought to be in the habitable zone of its star – the region in which water can exist as a liquid on the surface of a planet – that led to suggestions it might be an ocean world. Prospects were further buoyed by 2023 research finding evidence of dimethyl sulphide, a molecule that, on Earth, is only produced by life, particularly marine phytoplankton.

But now, Nicholas Wogan at the NASA Ames Research Center in California and his colleagues have re-analysed the planet using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and they suggest that the likelihood of the planet being a habitable ocean world is low. They say that an abundance of methane and carbon dioxide found by JWST points to the planet being a gas-rich mini-Neptune with no surface, rather than a habitable super-Earth with an ocean and sea floor, because such gases would be broken down by a chemical process called photolysis if it were an ocean or “hycean” world.

The Shrinking Edge

The Republicans entered the 118th Congress with a ten vote advantage in the House, 222 to 212 (one Democratic member-elect died prior to the opening of the 118th Congress, and was subsequently replaced by another Democrat). Since then, the Democrats have gained one vote to 213, and the Republicans have lost three votes to 219. Various special elections are in the offing.

And next week it could be 218, as Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) has announced he’s resigning on March 22:

Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a hardline conservative who has clashed with his own party at times, announced on Tuesday that he will leave Congress at the end of next week. [CNN/Politics]

His reason?

Buck criticized dysfunction on Capitol Hill in discussing his decision to leave, telling CNN’s Dana Bash, “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress. But I’m leaving because I think there’s a job to do out there.”

“This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people,” he said.

Chives. Sort like the stink bomb of politics. But tastier.

In other words, this far-right extremist Republican thinks the people’s business should be conducted, and it’s not. (See here for Senator Johnson’s (R-WI) incoherently ludicrous position on the matter.) He’s surrounded by incompetents and, well, people with which he disagrees.

The interesting part is that the gap is now only five seats. A few more resignations and we could see, if only briefly, a true Speaker Jeffries (D-NY). Or maybe seat flips, much like that of former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), now replaced by Rep Tom Suozzi (D-NY). in special elections, although there’s not quite enough seats up for grabs at the moment.

See, this is the problem with a Party that, while claiming it’s based on Christian principles, is truly based on libertarian principles of greed, of Gingrichian principles of stopping at nothing for a victory: the guiding impulse of immature people such as Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, Speaker Johnson, and many others come to the fore. What led them to their prestigious positions? Performative morality, behind which any old maneuver is hidden and acceptable. So they keep on riding the horse, expecting a victory, most importantly for themselves, and, as we are seeing in real-time, they are, instead, shredding each other and themselves.

There is a core of Republicans — let’s call them the earnest Republicans — who don’t like the greedy, self-centered types. They want to legislate, to deal with the emergencies and everyday business of the nation in a straightforward manner. Here they have an opportunity to deal a blow to the idiots they dislike, along with Republican Presidential nominee Mr Trump.

How?

By resigning en masse. This would permit the selection of a new Speaker as the majority shifted from Republicans to Democrats, and a Speaker Jeffries would immediately begin work on resolving the government funding issue, and funding military aid for Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine, all critical American allies. These priorities, currently blocked by Speaker Johnson, are, for the most part, favored by the earnest Republicans. But he would have limited time, as special elections would probably put the Republicans back in the majority soon enough.

And it might be a politically fatal blow to Mr. Trump, beset as he is by legal troubles and his own political miscalculations. By showing their defiance effectively, his desperate attempts at having total control over the Republican Party would be very visibly rebuffed.

All that is required is Republican courage. Unfortunately, that’s in short supply these days.

But this scenario remains a possibility.

And it’s also true there are four special elections coming up, and while they may all be considered safe, a properly conducted campaign in each might bust them loose. But it remains true that three of the four are Republican seats, which means it’s likely only one will be won easily by Democrats.

But still, for those who like their drama, there’s some real potential here, initiated by Rep Buck.

Hunting In RINO Country, Ctd

The drama that is the hunt of Robin Vos (R-WI), Speaker of the Wisconsin House of Representatives, continues. according to NBC News:

A group that’s aiming to recall Robin Vos, the speaker of Wisconsin’s state Assembly and a top target of former President Donald Trump, said it has submitted the number of signatures needed to move forward with an effort to oust the Republican leader from office.

Recall Vos said it had gathered more than the nearly 7,000 required signatures from voters in Vos’ district. The filing deadline for the recall effort is Monday.

“I carry with me the voice of more than 10,000 Racine County residents,” the group’s recall petitioner, Matt Snorek, said at a news conference outside the Wisconsin Election Commission shortly before it delivered the signatures. “Together we are challenging the status quo, driven by the numerous ways in which Speaker Robin Vos has failed us.”

As the Democrats demonstrate they are, in general, more civilized than the Republicans, look for the new legislative maps to facilitate a migration of power from the latter to the former. Mr Snorek may be proud to have taken the next step to ejecting Speaker Vos from his position, and thence from the Party, but he’ll swiftly discover that it’s one thing to run your mouth when there are no consequences, and quite another when your legislative lawyers tell you that the actions your mouth is calling for, along with those that seek to replace you, is illegal and you run a real risk of ending up in the pokey.

But that’s the thing about extremists. Whether it’s God, ideologues, or myth, thought and research is neglected in favor of what makes the actors feel good – and that’ll lead you right to the infamous path terminating in black disaster.

Have fun, boys, storming the castle!

Word Of The Day

Moonmoon:

Moons can come in all manner of configurations, too. Two of Saturn’s – Janus and Epimetheus – almost share an orbit. But it could get weirder than that. “In principle, you could have crazy things like rings of moons around planets, like Saturn’s rings but moons instead of tiny little particles,” says Sean Raymond at the University of Bordeaux in France. Along with Juna Kollmeier at Carnegie Observatories in California, Raymond has even postulated that, under the right conditions, moons could have their own moons. These are called moonmoons. [“Why we’re finally on the cusp of finding exomoons around other planets,Jonathan O’Callaghan, NewScientist (2 Mar 2024, paywall)]

Belated Movie Reviews

Whoever put this poster together did not pay attention to the names. My apologies to Mr. Rush and, in fact, to everyone.

After watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) for the umpteenth time, I wondered what negative statement I could make about a flick that is, quite honestly, a very well-made movie of a light-hearted story. After all, what’s not to like about a band of pirates who’ve incurred a divine curse when they bloodily steal a load of Aztec gold originally used to bribe Spanish explorer Cortés? The curse of the gold descends upon them, and, well, there’s little point in detailing the curse. The course of the tale is the attempt of former pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, who was not cursed by the Aztec gods since he had been deposed by his second-in-command, now-Captain Barbarossa, prior to the conquest of the gold, to regain control of the ship in question, the Black Pearl.

But it’s within this framework I find some dissatisfaction. Unlike some recent tales, such as Ghostbusters (1984), no one in this tale even thinks to question the power and judgment of the pantheon, whether it be the heathen Aztec Gods or those of the Christian pantheon; the punishments afflicted, just or not, must merely be suffered and remedied; but there is no appeals to mercy, justice, or questions concerning the legitimacy of the Gods, regardless of origin.

The boundaries are never transgressed as they are in Ghostbusters. Perhaps in the sequels of Pirates the subject arises, but I confess I never much cared for those stories; it was too much about harvesting the audience’s coin, and not enough about saying something of interest.

And so there is my element of unhappiness. I freely confess that an exploration of the topic by the story’s characters might have destroyed an otherwise finely told tale, but, still, there it is. Captain Barbarossa and his crew may have been victimized by the restless Gods, but don’t challenge the very Gods themselves, eh?

No doubt because they bring order to the Universe, some will say. Undoubtedly, quite a cruel order, but you take what you can get from the Gods, eh?

All that said, Pirates is a lovely way to spend a couple of hours if you like cleverness. Recommended.

Watch Out, It’s A Trap!

When it comes to the perks of being the official nominee of a major political party, one of the lesser known advantages are security briefings on events around the world so that the eventual winner of the Presidential Election can hit the ground running. This is not legally mandated, but it is a tradition.

But with Trump’s exceedingly dubious record in handling such secrets, so dubious that he has, in fact, been indicted, will the Biden Administration continue this tradition? Politico reports:

U.S. intelligence officials are planning to brief Donald Trump on national security matters if he secures the GOP nomination this summer — despite concerns about his handling of classified information.

The decision would be in keeping with a tradition that dates back to 1952, but it would mark the first time an administration has volunteered to share classified information with a candidate who is facing criminal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.

Steve Benen is upset:

The problem, however, is that this is an exceedingly dangerous idea. …

For one thing, Trump has spent years carelessly and recklessly sharing sensitive national security information — including with foreign adversaries — for reasons that no one has ever fully explained. It’s happened enough times that I was able to put together a Top 10 list on the subject.

For another, we’re talking about someone who is quite literally being prosecuted, right now, for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House, storing them in a bathroom, on stage in a ballroom, and in his personal office at his glorified country club, defying a subpoena demanding their return, taking steps to obstruct the process, and lying about all of this.

What Benen doesn’t consider, though, is the possibility that this is a trap. Trump gets some key information, and the FBI intercept a communication containing the information … to Vladimir Putin.

Or he’s given false information, and then the CIA’s information monitoring array is sensitized to that information. If a national adversary suddenly is referencing such as information as verified, rather than false, then the jig is up.

So the Biden Administration may take advantage of this tradition to trap Trump, discredit him in the eyes of independents, and leave him in the dust.

I don’t actually credit the Democrats with this much daring, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Currency Always Has Costs, Ctd

Resuming this thread, I think first we’ll first see how Bitcoin is doing.

Yes, much better than last time I looked in on them, when it was around $30K/coin in June of last year. I’ll repeat myself:

… which I don’t take to mean anything in particular, except volatility is not a desirable characteristic of a currency.

But its future? Seeing as Bitcoin remains a voracious consumer of energy, unlike some of its more sane competition, this report from WaPo should be causing concern:

A major factor behind the skyrocketing demand is the rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, which is driving the construction of large warehouses of computing infrastructure that require exponentially more power than traditional data centers. AI is also part of a huge scale-up of cloud computing. Tech firms like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft are scouring the nation for sites for new data centers, and many lesser-known firms are also on the hunt.

The proliferation of crypto-mining, in which currencies like bitcoin are transacted and minted, is also driving data center growth. It is all putting new pressures on an overtaxed grid — the network of transmission lines and power stations that move electricity around the country. Bottlenecks are mounting, leaving both new generators of energy, particularly clean energy, and large consumers facing growing wait times for hookups.

Bitcoin could face being cutoff from energy completely, which should be of deep concern to anyone with serious scratch in the cryptocurrency. Or, if energy prices soar as they would in a marketplace, miners will go out of business rather than lose money, again leaving Bitcoin out of luck.

Of course, miners could try their hand at generating energy. Libertarian theory holds that someone will find that revolutionary technology which will solve the problem and, coincidentally, save everyone else’s bacon as well.

Maybe it’ll happen.

But this comes along:

Companies are increasingly turning to such off-the-grid experiments as their frustration with the logjam in the nation’s traditional electricity network mounts. Microsoft and Google are among the firms hoping that energy-intensive industrial operations can ultimately be powered by small nuclear plants on-site, with Microsoft even putting AI to work trying to streamline the burdensome process of getting plants approved. Microsoft has also inked a deal to buy power from a company trying to develop zero-emissions fusion power. But going off the grid brings its own big regulatory and land acquisition challenges. The type of nuclear plants envisioned, for example, are not yet even operational in the United States. Fusion power does not yet exist.

Which left me wondering: How long before Microsoft, in association with data miners, propose building a Dyson Sphere? In case my reader is unaware, here’s the definition of a Dyson Sphere:

Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to imagine how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet’s resources alone. Because only a tiny fraction of a star’s energy emissions reaches the surface of any orbiting planet, building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy. [Wikipedia]

Yesterday’s mad fantasy thought experiment is tomorrow’s reality? It’s happened before.

Dewey / Truman Level Failure

From the University of New Hampshire Survey Center[1]:

Biden, Trump Running Away With Primary Races in Vermont 2/22/2024 …

Less than two weeks away from the primary on Super Tuesday, former President Donald Trump holds a 30 percentage point lead over former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley among likely Republican Primary voters in Vermont.

And, indeed, Biden did end up dominating in Vermont on Super Tuesday. But how about Trump?

As of around 11:05 p.m., in Vermont, with 93% of expected votes reporting, Trump has 46% of the vote and Haley has 50%. The state marked a rare bright spot for Haley on Super Tuesday, where heading into early Wednesday morning, Vermont marked the only state she took. [ABC News]

The Chicago Daily Tribune fails the accuracy test. No Pulitzer for you.

I’m not aware of any incidents which would explain a 35 point swing in a poll over a two week period in the Trump-Haley race. Other polls followed by subsequent overperformances by Trump adversaries, both directly and indirectly, have been documented in primaries and special elections ever since the 2020 Presidential Election, although the Democratic debacle in Virginia in the 2021 elections does function as a counterexample. And then there’s the reports of underattendance at Trump rallies, his erratic behavior, various ongoing court cases and ludicrous claims, and the generally low quality of those politicos attracted to him.

So is Trump’s poll performance misleadingly strong? Tweedledee5 on Daily Kos sure thinks so:

And the kicker here? In an alarming recurring pattern, the Super Tuesday polling showed a huge systematic error favoring Trump, while his actual margin over Haley turned out to be much lower across the Super Tuesday states. Bringing that up because it’s raising questions about something weird going on to account for these huge differences between what pollsters seem to be finding, and what actual votes are showing, with the polls showing a consistent and very large systematic error, in form of a high (and very false) level of support for Trump that isn’t actually there when the votes are counted. Similar to the way Democratic candidates (and ballot initiatives) have been way overperforming what the polls seem to say. Of course, NYT/Siena being one of the worst since the 2022 mid-terms—with its bullshit prediction of a huge “red wave” in Nov. 2022 (one of the worst misses by any poll in years, in any election) and downplaying abortion, which turned out to be one of the two top issues for voters then, but it’s not the only one. As we’ll see below.

Is polling more and more difficult because the older generation, favoring Trump, will answer polls, while the younger, Biden-inclined[2] generation isn’t even reached by the pollsters? Which is funny, yes, since following the 2016 shocker, a favorite explanation for poll failures, which weren’t all that large, was that Trump supporters were lying to the pollsters.

Meanwhile, I’ve been saying all along that Biden’s margin of victory will increase, not decrease. Lately, it’s crept into my mind, like that mink into the rodent nest, that he might even pick up another entire State. Obviously, this is contingent on an absence of disasters, and improved messaging on the part of the Biden campaign.

That may be what is needed to kick off the sorely needed Reformation of the Republican Party.


1 Rated a 2.6/3 by FiveThirtyEight as I write this.

2 The idea that the younger generations will vote for the oldest candidate in history may strike some as funny, but has an odd tie-in to this post.

Word Of The Day

Anchorite:

A person under religious vows who generally does not leave his or her habitation. An anchorite lives enclosed in a room or cell, usually in very confined conditions. This kind of asceticism preceded organized monasticism. Simeon the Stylite, who lived on top of a pillar, was an anchorite. Julian of Norwich, an English mystic and anchoress, lived in a cell attached to her parish church in Norwich. See Hermit, Hermitess. [The Episcopal Church]

Noted in “Crypt review: Alice Roberts on murder and mayhem in the Middle Ages,” Michael Marshall, NewScientist (2 March 2024, paywall):

As [Crypt author Alice] Roberts explores the Middle Ages, she tackles the killing of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, the sinking of the Mary Rose and the practice of walling oneself off inside a church to become an anchorite – in one story, a woman who may well have had syphilis walls herself off in a church in York. In her retelling, Roberts draws on a host of sources: not just the bones themselves, but historical documents, ethnography and anything else that is relevant.

A fascinating reminder that the tension between communalism vs. individualism, the latter of which is often taken to an extreme in American culture, can see human behaviors that are considered outré in one culture be common and significant in another.

From SOTU

The State of the Union speech for 2024 was last night, not blocked by frantic Republican zealots, and, no, I didn’t listen to it. I spaced on it, I confess.

It sounds like I missed a fun time.

A CNN/Politics report had at least one point that stood out for me, though:

“When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever,” Biden said in his speech, to some laughs.

He went on: “The issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are,” adding later we “can’t lead with ancient ideas.”

Counterfactually, both democracy and theocracy are also very old ideas. I bring them up as exemplars of opposites when it comes to the common weal and efficacy, and by so doing I disqualify Biden’s entire suggestion that old ideas are bad, and by implication new ideas are good.

Rather, all ideas, even that of democracy, should be subjected to intellectually rigorous debates and discussions. The purpose of such claims as [we] can’t lead with ancient ideas is to bypass long discussions, especially those that are influenced by opinions not changeable through rational discussion, such as are inherent to theocracies.

But it remains true that discussion is better than the improper dismissal of ideas for irrelevant reasons, as that can lead to embitterment and violence. Best to discard ideas for specific reasons, such as theocracy being based on ideas about a divinity that may not even exist, as it doesn’t speak to us; or autocracy, another ancient governmental form, being subject to the whims of possible madmen who may claim themselves anointed by the divine, but rule through the power of arms.

Debate engenders inclusion, peacefulness, and prosperity. However, it doesn’t satisfy the needs of pathological specimens who lust for power.

To which I say, tough shit.

Damn Near Horizontal

The rightward lean of the Republicans continues with this RINO hunter:

State Sen. Andre Jacque on Monday announced he is running for Congress, setting up a primary race for the northeastern Wisconsin House seat left open by the impending retirement of Rep. Mike Gallagher. …

[Jacque] said one of his first priorities in Congress would be “restraining the administrative state” and suggested he’d also take aim at environmental, social and corporate governance programs, known as ESG. Asked by a listener whether he changed his opposition to vaccine mandates after his serious bout with COVID in 2021, Jacque said he had not and suggested he led the charge to “stop the persecution that we have seen from the left as a result of COVID.”

Jacque also pointed to his state-level races against Republicans he described as not conservative enough. He claimed his email used to be “wiRINOhunter” — using the acronym for Republican In Name Only. [milwaukee journal sentinel]

Doesn’t learn from experience with regards to COVID, and calls himself a RINO hunter, because he’s convinced purity and zealotry triumphs over humility and thoughtfulness.

And it’s a red district, meaning he has little reason to modify positions and to, well, think a bit.

This is the near future of the Republican Party. Lara Trump, candidate to be chair of the Republican National Committee, has proclaimed there will be purity tests for the Republicans. The Party will continue to shrink and lose influence.

I hope it’s confined only to expulsions, meaning I’m worried about intra-party violence with this crowd.