Monthly Archives: April 2016

For decades the right of American society has denounced the judicial system, including SCOTUS, for decisions that go against its desires. Their resultant strategy has been to attempt to load SCOTUS, and to some extent the lower courts, with sympathetic jurists, which has not been an entirely successful, or unsuccessful, strategy. The recent contretemps since the death of Justice Scalia is merely the latest battle in this war to win the Law to their side.

But this is not an isolated phenomenon. In Israel, of all places, the Law, in the persons of the Supreme Court, is under attack from the right, as reported by Ben Caspit of AL Monitor:

Though the Israeli right has long called for placing a limit on the power of the Supreme Court and allowing the country’s elected officials to rule, never before have these calls been so vociferous and so dangerous. This was evident in an impassioned clash that erupted during the opening session of the Israeli Bar Association’s annual conference in Eilat on April 4.

Raising the banner of revolt was Israel’s young Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Naftali Bennett’s partner in the leadership of HaBayit HaYehudi. In her inaugural speech to the conference, Shaked focused on the Supreme Court decision March 27 that led to the delay of the deal that Israel signed with the firms operating Israel’s offshore gas fields, including the large US corporation Noble Energy (for distribution of resources and benefits).

“A judicial body that has no responsibility for filling the [country’s] coffers is the one that allows itself to empty them,” she said. “This is yet another example of [the court] exerting its authority, but bearing no responsibility for it. The court has once again become a place for adjudication of purely political and macroeconomic questions.” Surprisingly, Shaked’s speech received thunderous applause from the hundreds of lawyers and top Israeli legal figures who were present in the hall.

Mr. Caspit notes how the Knesset has been attempting to limit the powers of the Supreme Court, and then surveys the Israeli political landscape, concluding:

Many think that Smotrich is the very personification of the kind of Jewish extremism that thrives and flourishes on the hills of Judea and Samaria. He is the fulfillment of what philosopher and professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz raged about prophetically in 1982, when he warned against the rise of a new race of “Judeo-Nazis.” The problem is that in the past, people like Smotrich had to hide and keep their opinions to themselves. Now, however, they feel confident enough to express their opinions loud and proud. They can even serve as legislators in the Israeli Knesset.

Which is distressingly similar to characterizations of some Trump supporters as white supremacists. But to return to the thread, the Kansas legislature is also tired of decisions rendered by its own Supreme Court. From The Wichita Eagle:

Stung by court decisions on school finance and death penalty cases, lawmakers are working toward creating a specific list of impeachable offenses, including “attempting to subvert fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power” and “attempting to usurp the power of the legislative or executive branch of government.”

At present, the only guideline for an impeachable offense is the Constitution’s provision for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The Senate bill specifies some, but not all, crimes that could qualify. It advanced on a voice vote, with a roll-call vote set for Tuesday morning. SB 439 would also apply to constitutional officers of the executive branch, such as the governor or attorney general.

Exactly why the Legislature believes it may neuter another branch of government has the authority to compel favorable decisions from the courts is not clear. I should think that only a referendum modifying the State’s Constitution could succeed in imposing these changes.

But it’s a great way to assassinate your enemies.

Oh, heck, he probably already knows.

(h/t Benjamin Wittes @ LawFare)

Lawfare‘s Paul Rosenzweig reports on an epic cyber breach and data release of Turkey’s data:

Yesterday, someone (no credit claimed yet — though note the suggestion that the hackers are American) posted online what appears to be the personal information of EVERY Turkish citizen — all 49+ million of them.

From the hacker’s note on their efforts:

Lesson to learn for Turkey:

• Bit shifting isn’t encryption.
• Index your database. We had to fix your sloppy DB work.
• Putting a hardcoded password on the UI hardly does anything for security.
• Do something about Erdogan! He is destroying your country beyond recognition.

Lessons for the US? We really shouldn’t elect Trump, that guy sounds like he knows even less about running a country than Erdogan does.

Suggests they may be a rather liberal, or possibly libertarian, lot. Christopher Miller on Mashable points out that Turkey’s population is somewhat larger than 49 million – closer to 79 million. Regardless, it’s a big breach and will cause heartburn for some. Hopefully, they’ll be an object lesson for everyone else.

On LinkedIn Enrique Dans has been busy condemning one of the great economic drivers of the 20th century (if you’ll forgive the pun) in an article entitled “Cities without cars: no longer science fiction”:

As rumors abound about Uber creating fleets of driverless Teslas or Mercedes (since denied), how close are we to creating truly car-free cities: have we finally begun to realize that as a species we made a huge mistake over the last century by turning our lives and economies over to the automobile?

Are we about to embrace a world in which we stop owning cars — surely one of the dumbest things to spend money on — and start using more logical alternatives that will allow us to rethink our urban spaces? Will this happen within five years, ten, or fifty?

It’s always somewhat discouraging to see a monocular view of a problem. Can’t we look at it a little differently? Perhaps even dig in a little bit further? For example, did we make a huge mistake by using cars instead of horses, or are the horses greatly relieved? What’s the real genesis of the problem of cars – the fact that they exist, or the fact there’s so many of them? If the latter is your answer, perhaps the next logical step is to ask if we made a terrible mistake when we embraced pro-natalist policies to the point where the mothers are worn out and the ecology is strained just by our search for food?

Or our embrace of individualism in the States, rather than a more communal approach to life? And while communal approaches are more prone to damage individuals if & when corruption sets in amongst those in charge, is this something we should have tolerated in the name of ensuring a higher likelihood of survival?

In the end, perhaps my complaint here is merely on style points: he begins his argument with a blanket condemnation. There is little nuance, and that lack of nuance suggests he has not thought very deeply on the topic, as if he’s going to paint over some rust without ever asking if the rust is caused by a leak in the roof that is weakening the foundation and about to lead to disaster. So I find I cannot even read an article on an otherwise timely, fascinating topic, without squirming and wondering just how deeply he thought about it.

And time is limited.

As noted earlier, Mississippi was considering its own “religious liberties” law, and, for those of us keeping score, that has now passed, according to Steve Benen:

As the MSNBC report noted, the new state law, set to go into effect in July, “prevents government agencies from taking action against state employees, individuals, organizations and private associations that deny services based on religious objections – usually interpreted to mean religious objections to same-sex marriage, transgender rights and even extramarital sexual relationships.”

NPR clarifies the new law:

The law is not a broad religious-protections law, such as many recent controversial state laws. As we reported last week, the Mississippi legislation protects only three beliefs or convictions: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that sex is “properly reserved to such a marriage,” and that words like “male” and “female” are “objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at birth.”

The law protects, among other things, state employees who refuse to license marriages, religious organizations who fire or discipline employees and individuals who decline to provide counseling or some medical services based on those oppositions.

On the corporate front NPR reports there is unrest:

LGBT advocates in Mississippi had been calling for Bryant, a Republican, to veto the legislation, as had members of the business community such as the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, Nissan North American and Tyson Foods.

The Family Research Council described business opposition to the measure as “economic blackmail” and celebrated Bryant’s signature. “No person should be punished by the government with crippling fines, or face disqualification for simply believing what President Obama believed just a few years ago, that marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement.

Evidently Mr. Perkins doesn’t believe in growth and evolution. Unfortunately, that part of the remark comes off as superficially sophisticated, but is really an admission of a certain rigidity of viewpoint, not to mention the implied argument is completely irrelevant.

In a secular nation such as ours, religions must accept curbs on their behaviors or we risk returning to the colonial, even pre-colonial days where ‘religious bigotry’ didn’t just mean someone calling you names, but you being burned at the stake. We are one nation, and whether or not you believe ‘under God’ should be appended to that statement, there is no doubt that laws such as this one are a direct contradiction in that they permit, they socially legitimize hatred of those elements of our society who are a little bit different – but are hurting no one, and in fact contribute substantially.

Stay tuned as we wait to see who else cannot stand their fellow law-abiding, good hearted Americans.

Peter Boyle played varied roles, from the father on Everybody Loves Raymond to the monster in Young Frankenstein, but one of his earliest roles was as a super-aggressive mobster in Crazy Joe (1975). From his early years as part of a hit man squad to his final reach for power and position, Peter’s Joe knows nothing but straight-ahead ambition. Sometimes his mouth does his thinking for him as Joe’s resentment and anger boil over in front of his boss, and it all comes in like a high, hard fastball from Peter. He disregards the traditions and rules of the mob, he attempts to rub out his ailing boss, and finally he pushes his associates over the edge. He’s betrayed to the police.

In the can, his brother brings him various classics: Camus, Tolstoy, and others unmentioned, and as the years pass, he reads and learns. When the race riots come to his prison (the movie appears to be set in the 1950s), he is instrumental in negotiating modifications to prison protocols in return for peace. So is he a good man?

No!

Limitless ambition uses all the tools available, regardless of their imputed moral qualities, and from the negotiations he gains the friendship of the leader of the race riots, and thus access to his resources when they are free from jail. Joe is immediate and ruthless in his use of them, cutting a swath through the mobster families, and achieving a temporary position in the city, before, in perhaps the weakest scene in the movie, he’s rubbed out as he inexplicably celebrates his birthday in another mob family’s territory.

And yet, the inexplicability points to the film’s devotion to realism; not the overwrought hyper-realism of today, but the realism where no one bursts into song, or a happy ending is a requirement. Mobsters with both good and bad qualities live, execute their trade, and sometimes die. The traditional burial alive in concrete constitutes one scene, but it’s not the horrific, run for the bathrooms sort of scene, but a cold depiction of what the mob families could do. This may not be Casino, but for the era, it’s plenty horrid. And the inexplicability of having our lead die where any sane man wouldn’t have gone?

Crazy Joe is based on a real person, Crazy Joe Gallo. A diagnosed schizophrenic, it’s easy to think he might have thought himself safe, to have made one more mental error, and finally paid the price for it, and the film is prepared to go there, to prefer realism over the charm of a story. In fact, Joe Gallo did die in a restaurant in another mob’s territory.

All that said, the movie could have been better. Pacing is flat. Peter and the script do not allow us to see his inner dialog to any great degree, with the exception of a heroic effort to save children from a burning building; it’s as if what you see is what Joe was, through and through. It’s difficult to empathize with hoodlums, thieves, murderers, and worse, and little can be done for it, so to some extent this is, in a certain sense, a documentary for those folks who don’t know about the dark underside of everyday history. Crazy Joe existed, and while the movie brings him to life, it’s worth reading the link, above; he was a fascinating character, who moved from the bottom of the ladder to socializing with high society after a movie (not this one) was made based on himself. But read it after viewing the movie, as it’s quite interesting to see just how many elements and events in his life actually made it into the movie, albeit in slightly altered form, including an entire Italian-American Civil Rights League that I’d never heard of.

But it does take some persistence to make it to the end.

This is just cool.

… you would have read recently about an unusual group of warthogs. In a national park in Uganda, the warthogs have developed a very friendly relationship with local mongooses. The warthogs treat the mongooses like their own personal spa. In return, the mongooses get to eat their fill of delicious ticks.

On the Inkfish blog at Discovermagazine.com.

A bit of GOP partisan humor happened across my virtual desk this morning, and I’m feeling that engineer’s urge to…  improve it. Let’s see what I can do! To be fair, I’ll quote the entire missive, in italics, so we can see where the anonymous author did well, and where they missed an opportunity, I’ll cross out the mistake and put in a suggested replacement, in bold and not in italics. I’ve included links to provide proper documentation of the improvements, because, well, I’m an engineer.

Democrat[ic] Convention Schedule
Monday, July 25, 2016
11:15 AM

Free lunch, medical marijuana, and bus ride to the Convention.
Forms distributed for Food Stamp Medicaid enrollment sponsored by special guest Governor Matthew Bevin (R-KY).
1:30 PM

Group Voter Registration for Illegal Immigrants.everyone, managed by the Society of Arizona Election Officials
3:15 PM

Address on “Being the Real You”
Rachel Dolezal, former Head of the Seattle NAACP and
Caitlyn Jenner, assisted by Donald Trump
(which Donald will show up TBD)
4:30 PM

“How to Bank $200 Million as a
Public Servant and Claim to be Broke”
Hillary Clinton
4:45 PM

How to spend $130 Million to buy the Presidency become a Public Servant
and not make it to the Nominating Convention
Jeb Bush
4:50 PM

How to have a successful career
without ever having a job, and
still avoid paying taxes!
A Seminar Moderated by Al Sharpton (pastor, host of “Keepin’ it real with Al Sharpton“) and the Reverend Jesse Jackson (civil rights leader, informal diplomat, radio host) on the performance of Mark Driscoll in this role
5:00 PM

Why Billionaires Should Never Pay Taxes!
A Lesson In Civic Responsibility
Rex Sinquefield (R-MO)
5:10 PM

Medals of Freedom presentation to
Army deserter Bo Bergdahl
for serving with Honor and Distinction (special live video from his prison cell while he awaits court-martial by the Obama Administration)
National Security Advisor Susan Rice Stephen Colbert
5:30 PM

Supreme Court Justice seat presentation to Harriet Myers
special guest George W. Bush
5:45 PM

Invitation-only Autograph Session
Souvenir photographs of Hillary and
Chelsea Clinton, and conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly dodging Sniper Fire in Bosnia
6:30 PM

General vote on praising Baltimore rioters Trump supporters
and on using the terminology
“Alternative Shoppers” instead of “Looters Corporate Welfare Queens”
7:30 PM

Breakout session with Bill Clinton
for women on avoiding the upcoming draft regarding his ongoing support of nominative determinism when pardoning  millionaire Marc Rich
8:30 PM

The White House “Semantics Committee” Meeting.
General vote on re-branding “Muslim Terrorism” as
“Random Acts of Islamic Over-Exuberance”, and how our playful spanking has remanded them to their nannies.
9:00 PM

“Liberal Bias in Media“ How we can make it work for you!
Tutorial sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS,
the Washington Post and the New York Times, for Fox News viewers who’ve not been able to keep up with all those damn liberals
with Guest Speakers Brian Williams and Bruce Bartlett
9:15 PM

Tribute Film to the Brave Freedom Fighters Innocent detainees
still incarcerated at GITMO
Michael Moore Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell
9:45 PM

Personal Finance Seminar –
“Businesses Don’t Create Jobs”
Hillary Clinton
11:00 PM

Short film, “Setting Up Your Own Illegal
Email Server While Serving in A
Cabinet Post and How to Pretend
It’s No Big Deal”
Hosted by Hillary Clinton, followed by Senator Mitch McConnell’s feature length presentation of “Shirking Congressional Duties and Besmirching the Dignity of the Office”, written and directed by TBA
11:30 PM

Official Nomination of Hillary
Bill Maher and Chris Matthews

Late Addition! New time slot opened up for the homeless Republican National Convention!

Due to scheduling conflicts, one event only!

Official Nomination of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz
John Kasich, Best Man
Marco Rubio, Flower Boy
Joyfully hosted by Hillary and Bernie

Gene Wilder. Madeleine Kahn. Marty Feldman. A can’t-go-wrong combination of legends, right? But The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975), starring these three and Dom DeLuise, goes horribly wrong. Wilder stars as Sigerson Holmes, Feldman as the traditional sidekick, and Kahn plays a theatrical hussy who happens to be a congenital liar unless she’s sexually excited.

It’s wacky farce from beginning to end – but it failed to catch our sympathy, to engage our intellects as satirical farce must. Is it poorly made? Or is it just dated and beyond our understanding? The sad part is that the cast is there, and some elements are there. Feldman is a great comedic character actor. But consider the interrogation scene. This scene should have been hilarious: Wilder needs to know the identity of Kahn’s character’s father, and must use foreplay to entice it out of her. But rather than howling with laughter, we found our teeth itching. Thinking about it, it’s clear that the only plot-driven purpose of the scene is for Wilder to extract critical information from Kahn; perhaps it would have been funnier if Kahn had been slyly – in the vein of the Avenger’s Black Widow, whose own interrogation scene in The Avengers was really something to savor – extracting information from Wilder as well. The implied complexity engages the intellect and would have opened the way to more clever humor – upon which the best farce is built.

Compare it to another satire, The Cheap Detective, with Kahn and Peter Falk. This was much more successful, and I suspect it’s because there’s so much more going on between the lines. Ladies with multiple ploys and identities, witty plays on Hammett tropes, it has its lurches – but it’s affectionately remembered and I’ve watched it several times, picking out new implications every time. I doubt I’d pick out much new if I were to view The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother again.

Oh, and I may have lied. We don’t know it’s a wacky farce from beginning to end – because we didn’t make it to the end. It was that bad.

A reader addresses energy consumption:

I don’t have the numbers at hand, but my sense is that we waste a huge amount of energy heating and cooling homes and buildings, and on transportation. I’m building a Passive House. It’ll use roughly one-tenth of what a new code-built home uses for energy per square foot. Think of the huge amount of energy that goes into making disposed-of plastic bottles and packaging, each year. I think a rigorous survey of energy usage would show gross inefficiencies just about everywhere.

Your mention of packaging disposal reminds me of the European Union and some vague memories I have of the EU’s approach to this problem. I found a possibly out of date answer here:

Unlike the US, where the Federal government has an advisory role in matters relating to nonhazardous solid wastes and the states have a patchwork of disposal laws, the EU has taken a more direct and active role in regulating the disposal of packaging wastes.

The EU packaging directive implements extended producer responsibility principles, which place the burden for mitigating post-consumer impacts of packaging waste on manufacturers. This is done by imposing a surcharge or fee on specified products, requiring manufacturers to participate in product recycling or material recovery programs, or both. …

National legislation and regulations implemented pursuant to the Directive also were to impose packaging design, composition, and manufacturing requirements limiting packaging volume and weight to the minimum amount necessary to maintain an adequate level of safety and hygiene for the packaged product and the consumer.

Likewise, packaging was to be designed to permit its reuse or recycling or to decrease its environmental impact when disposed while minimizing the presence of noxious and other hazardous substances as a constituent or component of the package.

National implementation of the Directive varies, but packaging manufacturers generally have borne the costs of implementation and compliance.

EuroStat has coverage through 2012:

In 2012, 156.8 kg of packaging waste was generated per inhabitant in the EU-28. This quantity varied between 45.0 kg per inhabitant in Bulgaria and 206.2 kg per inhabitant in Germany (Figure 10). Figure 1 shows that paper and cardboard, glass, plastics, wood and metals are, in that order, the most common types of packaging waste in the EU Member States. All other materials represent less than 0.5 % of the total volume of packaging waste generated.

Packaging waste in my book is an externality, and the EU seems to treat it that way by making it the responsibility of the manufacturer to cover the cost of recycling it. How about the United States? Ignoring significant questions concerning methodology, categorization, and completeness, this EPA report from, happily, 2012 says the following:

The breakdown of MSW [Municipal Solid Waste] generated in 2012 by product category is shown in Figure 8. Containers and packaging made up the largest portion of MSW generated: 30 percent, or over 75 million tons.

With a population of 314 million, this suggests about 478 lbs of packaging waste per capita, or 216 kg. Recall that the EU figure is 156.8 kg. Of course, direct comparisons ignore questions of affluence and other factors not related to the EU Packaging Directive, so one must be cautious or ask a scientist in the field to estimate the true influence of the Directive on the waste stream. And then there’s the question of whether the mass per capita is a good proxy for energy usage for packaging, or is there possibly an inverse correlation between energy use and packaging mass? And, if so, is it worth the extra energy to reduce the waste stream?

With regard to analyzing energy usage, Greener Package reports this is already in process with regard to packaging:

In response to climate change pressure, leading retailers and consumer packaged goods companies are placing more emphasis on their supply chain to manage carbon. Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and many other companies have established formal plans to query their respective supply chain partners on energy consumption and associated carbon emissions and, in some instances, use those results as a metric for purchasing decisions. So to stay competitive, packaging organizations are wise to more deeply analyze their energy usage, develop a sustainability strategy, and implement optimization activities.