Monthly Archives: July 2016

This is the off-year for the apple tree – last year it fruited to the amount of maybe 150 lbs. These shots courtesy of my Arts Editor …

Shows off the hostas….

The Quatermass Experiment (1953, aka The Creeping Unknown) is a surprisingly effective taut drama concerning the first flight into space. Three astronauts go up, but when the spacecraft comes back down, there’s only one left – and two empty suits. We follow along as the man in charge, Quatermass, bulldozes his way through British politeness towards finding out what happened to the missing astronauts – and what’s happening to the survivor.

This is a quality production. The acting is at a professional level; the characters are written with some lovely quirkiness, the pretty lady is not preserved, but bullheadedly takes her own initiative and pays the price; the extended search for the monster is well-written, full of twists, turns, horror, and suspense. That poor little girl. But the details were often handled with great respect, such as the live-TV crew that finds the monster in the midst of its documentary and desperately tries different cameras and finally switches to another host, all the while dealing with the police. Most shows would have just had them support the police, but in reality they would have had multiple responsibilities – and the movie shows that.

The special effects range the gamut from mundane to, for the era, quite spectacular. Not in a flashy way, but simply “I believe this” – I refer to the sequence in which the film from the spacecraft is under review. My Arts Editor and I were spellbound seeing this sequence, not only as it was a good reveal that something had happened during the flight, but it was also really very much within the realm of what you’d expect to see. A quiet professional take on the matter.

And yet, for all that the above may sound like a rave, it was, in some undefined way, a trifle flat. Perhaps it’s dated, since we know enough about space to know what is depicted is unlikely, although I suppose not impossible. Perhaps the British sensibilities of the era don’t quite work for an American such as myself. In the event, I wouldn’t mind hearing other opinions of this well-regarded film, which actually initially aired as a serial on the BBC, and, according to Wikipedia, cleared the British streets as everyone had to catch it each episode.

Lloyd Alter @ TreeHugger reports on the unpaving of America:

[John Laumer, author of Trend Watch: Unpaving Rural America “Back To The Stone Age“] noted that there were some environmental benefits and concerns that should be considered:

• Asphalt is a refining byproduct. Less will be needed (either way).
• Vehicle speed is slowed as a practical matter, which means higher mileage.
• Rolling friction is increased, which means more fuel consumed
• More car washing is required, absolutely.
• More erosive sediment movement from the cartway and into streams and lakes.
• More cracked windows and chipped paint and broken headlights, which mean more materials consumed.

…

So in the end everyone pays anyway; much higher gas consumption, and probably more car maintenance, more SUVs and fewer Prii or other smaller, lighter, energy efficient cars. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to have a road tax that covered the cost of actually maintaining the roads?

I’d rather pay a higher tax than replace my vehicles at shorter intervals. I should imagine there’s more safety issues involved as well.

For those who read The [Daily] Dish but didn’t receive Andrew’s notice about upcoming activities, I’ll reproduce his mail here.

Dear Dishheads,

It’s been a while but I’m excited/psyched/terrified to be live-blogging the two party conventions for the next fortnight. From 8 pm till closing each night, I’ll be glued to the TV and channeling my thoughts instantly – as in the olden times – except this time for New York Magazine at nymag.com. Chas Danner, an old Dish colleague who now works at New York, will be helping me filter the various Internet responses to the proceedings, and I truly hope you’ll come along for the ride.

We will, of course, be open to reader emails during the night – and the email address will be posted at the top of the live-blog. Think of it as a pop-up Dish for two weeks, a chance to gather round together again as the end of the republic nears.

Hope to see you next Monday night as the events unfold!

In Dishness,

andrew

I doubt I have the stomach for watching that much convention, but his live-blogging may be interesting.

Hyperobject.

Climate change – its impact, complexity and persistence – is hard for human brains to parse. In his 2013 book Hyperobjects, the philosopher Timothy Morton described how “things that are massively distributed in time and space relative to humans” defy our intuition. Global warming is one such hyperobject: a panel about the ocean hinted at others.

It stretches my brain. A little. A river would be another hyperobject.

[edited – added link and the following.] Thanks to “Face to face in the Arctic with a terrifying new sublime”, NewScientist, 2 July 2016, amended online later.

For those of you, like me, who don’t really understand the Israeli situation, here’s what appears to be admirable historical and current summary from Professor Asher Susser on Lawfare:

In the new regional reality, as some Arab states sink ever-deeper into crisis and disarray, and as the Sunni Arabs struggle with Shi’ite Iran’s hegemonic design, Israel has acquired genuine Arab allies who make common cause to contain Iranian influence. The days when Israel was alone against all the rest in the Arab world, as it had been in its early years, are over. Israel has lasting and stable peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and a fledgling informal relationship with countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is also building up relationships with the non-Arab states of the region. It has just signed a new agreement for reconciliation with Turkey and earlier in the year, Israel came to agreements for strategic cooperation with Greece and Cyprus.

Readers continue to remark on this thread:

Exactly. 42%? That’s fracking insane.

Yes, and (in chorus with many others) doesn’t bode well for the future of this country. On the other hand, I do not think they can be conceived of as a homogenuous bloc, but rather a fractured mess. Another:

I don’t think it is so much a pro-trump thing as it is anti-hillary.

Which is something I don’t really get. I was around 30 when President Clinton took office, and I’ve never really understood the profound enmity the Clintons seem to have acquired amongst the right wing. It’s certainly true she’s made mistakes – but then who doesn’t make mistakes when trying to run the government of the largest democracy in the world? To some extent, Bill’s high intelligence, along with his ability to take the issues of the opposition and make them his, makes their hatred of him more understandable; perhaps it just washes off on her.

First, the candy corn vine, which we had last year and is just starting to bloom this year.

And then for our move to yellow out in the garden…

I should imagine these are lilies, with a cleome in the background.

Last growing season Deb found picking the tomatoes – in particular the black cherry variety – back behind the garage (we have a detached alley garage) a frustrating experience. This season she’s experimenting with forcing the tomato plants to display their wares with more … enthusiasm! Her approach? Twine is affixed to the ground (via spike) and the garage’s soffit. Here, have a picture:

And then she’s encouraging the tomato plants to use the twine as support. Of course, it doesn’t do this naturally, so she has to put each vine on the string manually – but so long as they stay on the twine, it should simplify picking.

Finally, a side view just for giggles.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, some of the pictures may not show up. If this happens to you, click on the broken picture icon and they should – slowly – show up.

What does not have a subsurface ocean these days? Even Pluto is a candidate, as NewScientist (2 July 2016) suggests from an article in Geophysical Research Letters by Noah Hammond, Amy Bar, and Edgar Parmentier:

If Pluto still has an ocean, then global volume expansion would still be occurring, suggesting extensional tectonic activity could be ongoing. This is consistent with the observations of Moore et al. [2016] who suggest that the relative youth of tectonic features could be consistent with the partial freezing of an ocean. Additionally, tensional stresses at the surface and ocean pressurization, due to the ice shell thickening, could make cryovolcanic resurfacing more likely [Robuchon and Nimmo, 2011].

Or, as NewScientist puts it:

If it had frozen solid, the pressure from the outer ice would have squished the ocean into a denser form called ice-II, reducing its volume. Pluto would have contracted, covering it in wrinkles.

But New Horizons saw deep cracks instead, suggesting Pluto is slowly growing through the formation of normal ice, which has a larger volume than liquid water.

NASA suggests Pluto’s moon Charon may have had an ocean in the past.

If anything swims in that ocean, it’ll need anti-freeze for blood – like certain fish. Wondering about ice-II?

Ice II is a rhombohedral crystalline form of ice with a highly ordered structure. It is formed from ice Ih by compressing it at temperature of 198 K at 300 MPa or by decompressing ice V. When heated it undergoes transformation to ice III.[1] Ordinary water ice is known as ice Ih, (in the Bridgman nomenclature). Different types of ice, from ice II to ice XVI, have been created in the laboratory at different temperatures and pressures. It is thought that the cores of icy moons like Jupiter’s Ganymede may be made of ice II.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via slate.com.

David Hambling reports in NewScientist (2 July 2016, paywall) how “hot ice” or crystsal icing may have taken Air France 447 down – and how it ties into climate change:

… one apparently minor detail is beginning to take on new significance: ice blockage in a sensor called a pitot tube, which measures air speed.

That shouldn’t have happened at 35,000 feet. According to our understanding of weather, it is not possible for ice to form at this altitude. …

Unlike normal icing, crystal icing happens at altitudes where water should not be liquid. The culprits are plumes of crystals around 40 micrometres across, no bigger than grains of flour, which are invisible to weather radar that pick up normal precipitation.

Because they’re solid, these crystals bounce off the wings and other areas equipped with sensors and defences. But when they land on the warmest parts of the plane – such as the engine or pitot tube – they melt. This also happens in contact with the heated windscreen, where they can cause the weird “rain” sometimes reported.

Once a layer has partially melted, it accretes more crystals. When these layers accumulate in the engine, they can stall it, or break off in solid chunks that damage the engine (see diagram).

Ice build-up in the sensors leads to more insidious damage. On flight 447, the ice crystals blocked the pitot tube, which started giving false readings, showing the plane flying too slowly.

[Edit] Here’s that diagram:

[End edit] And the connection to climate change?

There’s even a chance the problem could get worse. “The warmer, moister world predicted by climate change will have more convective instability, ” says Sue Gray, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, UK. “These systems will be more vigorous and more frequent.”

And according to a recent analysis by Rolls Royce engine labs, these increases in extreme weather could make the conditions in which crystal icing flourishes more frequent. In a presentation, Rory Clarkson, an engine specialist with the company, offered an inconvenient but undeniably safe answer: “Restrict operation during severe weather.”

What will this bring? Nothing but evil.

Where is the Martin Luther King, Jr. of today, one who realizes & communicates that violence begets violence, that we must come together in our shared needs, not our trivial differences? Neither side can win this fight, not in the long term – not the white supremacists, not those driven to terrible acts of revenge. They, both, are covered in blood and dishonor; their relatives & friends in disbelief and profound horror.

Adding to our string of old science fiction films, we recently viewed The Man from Planet X (1951), which tells the story of the approach of another planet, somewhat in the vein of When Worlds Collide (also 1951, reviewed here), but in this case the population of the approaching planet has plans to come to Earth, rather than we fleeing Earth. To this eventuality they have sent a scout …

… and to the credit of the movie makers, they keep the story strictly to the human viewpoint, as two astrophysicists, the beautiful and intelligent, even proactive daughter of one of them, and the war-time friend of one of the astrophysicists, now a journalist, find themselves deep in the marshes of a Scottish island, the part of Earth which will be facing the new planet on closest approach, located in a convenient stone building. During a bit of gallumphing about by the daughter and the journalist, an alien probe, made of an incredible metal, is found, thus awakening the avarice of one of the astrophysicists, an unfortunate story-telling device which telegraphs substantial portions of the plot.

The the scout is found, and, in an interesting twist, the poor fellow’s spacesuit is not functioning properly; the journalist fixes it, and while the fix is a little silly, it advances the plot in an engaging manner. The scout is brought back to the castle, where the astrophysicists try to communicate with them, and come up with the approach of using geometry – a sort of visual logic, if you will. I was surprised at the logic displayed by the movie makers.

And at what is a promising juncture, the movie falls apart.

The greedy scientist betrays the conveniently ill senior astrophysicist by concealing the success of the communication while physically controlling the scout, yet in some never revealed manner, the scout breaks free and takes the daughter captive. The astrophysicists disappear, and a desperate signal for help is sent from the Scottish island to a passing freighter (in itself a lovely bit of overcoming an obstacle), and the local Scottish village begins to depopulate as the scout takes more captives. Help arrives from the mainland in the form of Scotland Yard, and eventually a rescue and destroy mission is formulated and carried out (during which the scout is disabled, and yet mysteriously recovers, a serious lapse of story-telling logic). The captives, who somehow learned (telepathy?) the plans of the alien, reveal that the scout must setup a homing beacon for the invading forces, and so the spaceship must be destroyed (and, to much hilarity, suffers total annihilation). All is wrapped up, with nothing more than potential losses. We watch as the alien planet goes flying by, raising questions about just how that entire population was going to transfer to Earth in the blink of an eye…

There was a lot of good going on in this movie. The actors are professionals and not even the Scottish villagers chewed the scenery. The scout plays his role effectively, displaying good will and vulnerability, as well as the necessary aggressiveness, despite being stuck behind a space helmet and a huge mask. The makeup is particularly good for the 1950s – not quite convincing, but then again, if Doctor Who didn’t have to be convincing to be effective, why should this? The special effects are, however, mediocre at best, laughable at worst.

The characters are believable and empathetic. Even the scout, our invader, is at least an ambiguous antagonist, believable in the actions and reactions in which the plot takes him. Collectively, they were a good population for the story.

But the problem is the last half of the plot. The avarice of one of the scientists has been mentioned, and it doesn’t really fit into the general popular temperament of a scientist; the early reveal means we are unsurprised by many elements of the plot. The promising start of the daughter character is wasted as she disappears into the clutches of the scout. And, finally, there’s no real element of insight gained – they ran the characters through the plot, things happened, the good guys win at virtually no cost – maybe a touch of PTSD, we might speculate. No real change happens. And perhaps that’s the worst of it – a good story shows how human – or intelligent entities – actions and emotions cause change to themselves and those around them. In this movie, there’s a little bit. But not enough.

Postscript: I do have to say good things for a movie that has provided my Arts Editor with inspiration. The result?

In case you were wondering, yes, that’s myself and my Arts Editor. The original may be found here.

Tesla’s new AutoPilot feature for their car offerings has been involved in its first fatality. First, what is AutoPilot? From the Tesla blog:

It is important to note that Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled. When drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains, among other things, that Autopilot “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times,” and that “you need to maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle” while using it. Additionally, every time that Autopilot is engaged, the car reminds the driver to “Always keep your hands on the wheel. Be prepared to take over at any time.” The system also makes frequent checks to ensure that the driver’s hands remain on the wheel and provides visual and audible alerts if hands-on is not detected. It then gradually slows down the car until hands-on is detected again.

Which is to say it’s not yet foolproof; it may never be. But then, neither are human drivers. Given the supervisory requirement on the human occupant, I wonder if they would have been better advised to name this CoPilot.

So on to their reaction to the incident:

We learned yesterday evening that NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation into the performance of Autopilot during a recent fatal crash that occurred in a Model S. This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles. Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles. It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations.

Following our standard practice, Tesla informed NHTSA about the incident immediately after it occurred. What we know is that the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S. Had the Model S impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, its advanced crash safety system would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents.

There’s a couple of takeaways here: Tesla’s claim of a first fatality at 130 million miles, which is significantly better than American and world wide averages. Of course, these are small numbers (i.e., 1 fatality) and hardly constitutes an average. But let’s make an unwarranted assumption and assume these numbers will hold up, even if I do feel it’s a little irresponsible to be quoting such numbers so early in the game.

Secondly, the claim that neither AutoPilot nor the driver could see the truck.

Here’s what engineers & scientists are going to see and hear: aggregate accident and fatality numbers and how they compare to traditionally piloted cars. As Tesla points out, the raw data is processed to measure accidents and fatalities, and for engineers who want a clear view of how it performs, this will be the important part, along with questions concerning efficiency (fuel) and throughput (i.e., easing of traffic jams) through coordination of driving.

But how about the rest of the population? In fact, it may be unfair to exclude the engineers and scientists. I’m talking about emotions here. Let’s frame the question right here: your best friend is in a fatal car accident, and you’re sitting at their wake, thinking about their last moments and trying to understand how you’ll feel about it. If they died behind the wheel, perhaps killed through the carelessness of some other driver, it’s going to be a terrible feeling.

But what if they were using AutoPilot, a fully implemented AutoPilot that allowed them to take their attention elsewhere? I don’t know about you, but to me the idea that some automatic driving system may have been responsible for my death puts a chill in my spine. This is because I’m no longer the one in control of the car, nor is it an entity in which I can feel some link, some feeling that I understand how their mind works well enough to trust that they’re well-trained and are doing their best to drive well.

This is an entity built on silicon and Big Data algorithms and who knows how it works? Often even the designers don’t understand the details of particular decisions; how about that mother with her infant?

This is the concern that makes me wonder if we’ll ever really use self-driving cars. Science geeks will look at the numbers and realize that accidents and fatalities have gone down, various efficiencies are up, and this is all working out. But the fight will be with the problem of control and trust of the entity in control. If it’s not understandable, will the average driver be willing to entrust their life to it?

I’m not sure.

With regard to the second point, I wonder if we’re going to expect technology to be better than us. I think the potential is there, but is it right for Tesla to stress that neither AutoPilot nor the driver could see the truck? Are they certain the driver was paying attention at the critical moment? If we do expect technology to outclass us as drivers, will this lead to risky, unjustified behavior?

With regard to the selection of Pence by Trump for the VP slot, a reader remarks:

Calculated move by Trump to pull in the far right ultra conservative wing who despise him.

Another replies:

I always thought the Klan was the far right, and they endorsed him. Who are these people on the far right who hate him, and what do they believe in?

Well, not all on the far Right are KKK – much of the fundamentalist movement is also far Right as a best characterization. And that group seems to be convulsed by Trump. Here’s an article from The Atlantic’s Jonathan Merritt back in September, 2015:

Donald Trump is immodest, arrogant, foul-mouthed, money-obsessed, thrice-married, and until recently, pro-choice. By conventional standards, evangelical Christians should despise him. Yet somehow, the Manhattan billionaire has attracted their support.

According to the most recent polls, Trump is one of the top picks for president among evangelical Christians. One Washington Post poll even had him as the group’s favorite by a margin of six points. His first major rally in the Bible-Belt fortress town of Mobile, Alabama, drew an estimated 18,000 attendees. And on September 28, prominent televangelist Paula White will reportedly lead a delegation of evangelical leaders to meet with the mogul in Trump Tower.

“Why do they love me?” Trump replied when asked about the trend. “You’ll have to ask them. But they do. They do love me.”

Back in May Mugambi Jouet suggested in The New Republic a reason why evangelicals love Trump:

But Trump and his evangelical supporters think alike in more ways than people realize. Fundamentalist approaches to evangelicalism have long fostered anti-intellectual, anti-rational, black-and-white, and authoritarian mindsets—the very traits that define Trump.

The historian Richard Hofstadter explored the roots of the issue in his 1966 book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, which described how the spread of evangelicalism since the eighteenth century fostered the notion that education is an obstacle to faith. Not all evangelicals thought alike, although many were convinced that people need not read any book except the Bible. As the influential preacher Dwight L. Moody (1837-99) proclaimed, “I do not read any book, unless it will help me to understand the book.” Hofstadter concluded that this anti-intellectual conception of religion extended to life outside the church. Hardline evangelicals became particularly disdainful of reflection and refined ideas, leading some to be drawn to “men of emotional power or manipulative skill.”

I’ve never read Hofstadter, which I now regret a little, as that last phrase, ‘leading some to be drawn to “men of emotional power or manipulative skill“,’ precisely echoes some recent conclusions of my own. Without trying to be offensive (but no doubt achieving it anyways), it had recently occurred to me that if you’re willing to strongly believe in a specific deity to the extent that the deity’s book is the center of your life, you fail to develop the instincts, as it were, to detect the fallacies & frauds employing charismatics, who proclaim falsehoods so loudly, because those same tactics are employed by those who are part of your faith community. There is an important distinction between message and methods of communications, and to my mind an alarming number of people, not constrained to the evangelical fundamentalists, do not understand this. I recall sitting in  two medical conferences about a relative of mine. Virtually the same information was presented, but one MD was very upbeat, while the other (the first one’s partner) was a much more sober person. My Dad and I walked out of the second conference saying nothing new had been learned, but other attendees were deeply swayed by the presentation style. Similar remarks may be made of the evangelical support for Bush & Cheney, and the poor decision making that befell the nation afterwards.

I have to wonder if it’s accurate to say that a true debate between a rationalist of any stripe and a fundamentalist is itself a fraud and a circus, because there is no single metric by which to measure the contestants. The rationalist audience will analyze the facts presented, the arguments built on those facts, and tote up the points for each debater. The fundamentalists, on the other hand, will employ a scale in which defense of the faith is the most important facet. This will consist of appeals to popular parts of the Bible, thus demonstrating some familiarity with the theology. If this reminds you of the debates in the wonderful movie Inherit the Wind, be not surprised, as that’s in the back of my mind as I write this. In particular, remember the fury and discouragement of the rationalist lawyer, played by Spencer Tracy, at the obstinacy of the judge. In more modern times, while I did not watch it, the 2014 debate between Ken Ham, a creationist, and Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and of The Planetary Society played out in the same way, as I understand it. On a far more speculative note, the Turkish upper-classes may have stumbled into this quagmire, and even triggered the attempted coup. Why say “triggered”? Because downgrading reason below faith in a deity and the arbitrary book representing the deity can often lead to poor decisions – and if the populace has been taken in by the methods of those now in power, some military personnel may have felt it necessary to remove those in power and let the citizenry detox, as it were, while those who had been in power are shown to be frauds, charges which have already been flying in regards to Turkey’s President Erdogan.

And then there’s those who’d make democracy a shrine unto itself…. but I shan’t walk down the path today.

There are those evangelicals who don’t care for Trump. In March of this year, the Christian Post covered one such megachurch pastor’s experience – Max Lucado:

Lucado mentioned that his recent blog about Trump got 15 million reads, and said while many agreed with him, others wanted him to “shut up.”

Lucado, who ministers at the Oak Hills Church, said while Trump claims to be a Christian, he is using “a language that is so incompatible.”

Referring to Matthew 12: 34, Lucado said, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. He pointed out that Trump has called 64 people “losers” in a short period of time.

But Trump loves the Bible, as he said a few months ago, “Nothing beats the Bible,” the host said.

Lucado laughed, and then said, the core of the Christian faith is that we are sinners who need forgiveness, but Trump said he didn’t need to ask for forgiveness.

“For a person to say that they are Christians but never need forgiveness is like a swimmer saying I’m a swimmer but I never get wet, and I’m a musician and I never pick up a musical instrument… Grace is the oxygen of Christian faith,” Lucado said.

 

Lucado continued that he doesn’t have an answer to why evangelicals are rallying behind Trump.

“I do not have an answer. I apologize. I have had my own church members come up and criticize me for that blog and I’ll ask them, do you not see a disconnect here? And it’s almost like the ends justify the means in their mind,” he said.

Ed Stetzer on The Exchange blog (hosted by Christianity Today) addresses this issue:

Many evangelical leaders are embarrassed by the evangelical support of Trump. That’s reality. Yet, some of those leaders are responding poorly. Our gut reaction is to dismiss his supporters as not being “real” evangelicals, and to question their faith.

I’d like to suggest a different approach.

Rather than looking down with scorn on evangelical Trump supporters, perhaps we should sit down with them, listen to them, and hear their concerns.

He discusses some of the reasons given by the rank and file evangelicals.

So ….. circling back to the original point: why Pence? Back to The New Republic article by Jouet, and we find the answer:

The Minnesota State Fair is hosting some sort of hot rod weekend, and I happened to snap these pictures while out for a walk. Just a couple; I didn’t get one of the rusty old convertible on a trailer with a price tag of $6000 – gotta wonder just what it was. Anyways, enjoy this spotless Bel Air!

Gotta love those torpedoes!

With a background of an attempted coup (NYTimes) in Turkey today, the issue of national secularity – or lack thereof – is surely part of the struggle. President Erdogan, characterized as an Islamist, appealed for his supporters to take to the streets, according to the New York Times:

After Mr. Erdogan spoke, many of his followers obeyed his orders to go into the streets, and mosque loudspeakers exhorted his supporters to go out and protest against the coup attempt. [My bold – HW]

So just how secular has Turkey been? AL Monitor’s Mustafa Akyol reports on what he sees as the delusional empty shell of religion within society in the wake of the deadly Islamic State attack on Ataturk Airport:

In other words, as belated as it is, Turkey has begun taking a bolder stance against the terror organization that now threatens the world.

However, Turkey also needs a war of ideas against IS [the Islamic State]. Sadly, Turkey’s ruling religious-minded class seems to have little willingness and potential to do that. The reason is not any love affair with IS or any sympathy with its carnage. The reason is that most of Turkey’s Islamic opinion leaders who have the means to counter IS ideology instead choose to blind themselves to the nature of the problem and explain it as a Western conspiracy against Islam.

This tirade is most visible in the pro-government media sector, which reflects a large part of the Islamic camp. As explained in a recent Al-Monitor piece, several articles appeared in this sector after the attack on the Istanbul airport, putting the blame on “the CIA.” Moreover, there is a whole narrative explaining the very rise of IS as nothing but a Western plot to create a Trojan horse within Islam in order to stain the religion and advance Western imperialism in the Middle East. …

The big problem now with this entire obsession with Western conspiracies is not that it looks ridiculous to anyone who has a better sense of the world. The big problem is that it keeps Turkey’s new ruling class in a bubble of self-delusion, blinding them to the bitter and complex realities that Turkey faces. They seem to have almost no idea about the religious ideology of IS and its brand of Salafi-takfiri-jihadism, or of the social and political dynamics that drive thousands of young Muslims to this zealotry.

The human urge to see ourselves on the side of right will happily engage in all sorts of fancy & fantasy in order to avoid blemishing that which they hold most dear, and I do not hold anyone blameless in this arena, as we’ve seen this from the most conservative of theocrats (who conveniently designate that since God endorses them, they can do no wrong) to the most left-wing of the Marxists and Communists (“We torture you for the good of the State!”). I fear that humankind never evolved to have a disinterested viewpoint, so the alternative of a tremendous blow to the ego implies that we’ll never see these falsehoods stop. Or if we do, it’ll be time to stop calling ourselves humankind.

The motivations of the military involved in the coup remain murky at this time, as do their prospects.

As Donald Trump announces his running mate, former Representative Mike Pence, Steve Benen @ Maddowblog points out a salient feature of now Indiana Governor Pence:

In the 107th Congress (Pence’s first, covering 2001 and 2002), for example, out of 435 members of the U.S. House, Pence ranked #428 – meaning that 427 members were to his left, putting the Hoosier on the far-right-wing fringe. The results were roughly the same in the 108th Congress and the 109th.

By the 110th Congress, Pence was at #432, putting him to the right of nearly everyone in the chamber. The results were roughly the same in the 111th Congress and the 112th. …

Indeed, the Indiana Republican developed a reputation on Capitol Hill as an ineffective extremist who, despite 12 years in Congress, was literally never the chief sponsor of a bill that passed into law.

You have to wonder how well an extremist such as Pence will work with Donald, who though difficult to classify, occasionally appears to hold liberal viewpoints.

Pence was also deeply involved in this mess, including one of my favorite newspaper headlines of all time:

Brooking’s Markaz’s Robert Einhorn concurs with the expert consensus that the JCPOA is working out as planned, despite the sad plaints of conservatives on both sides:

… opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. No one can dispute that Tehran has sharply reduced its capacity to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons and would need at least a year to rebuild enough capacity to produce a single bomb.

Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. True, Iran temporarily exceeded the agreed ceiling on heavy water but quickly rectified the infraction, which most observers attributed to the practical difficulty of ensuring that production overages are exported in a timely way rather than to an intention to circumvent the limit. Critics have also pounced on a German report that Iran’s illicit attempts to procure nuclear and missile items continued in 2015. But Tehran’s requirement to import all nuclear items for its permitted civil nuclear program through the JCPOA’s procurement channel—and stop procuring items outside the channel—did not kick in until January 2016, and neither Washington nor Berlin has information that illicit efforts continued after that time.

But…

Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal. Many proponents of new sanctions legislation genuinely seek to reinforce the deal—for example, by renewing the Iran Sanctions Act without attaching poison pills. But for some other members of Congress, the bills are designed to undercut the JCPOA. In a July 11 statement of policy, the administration threatened to veto three House bills, stating that they “would undermine the ability of the United States to meet our JCPOA commitments by reimposing certain secondary economic and financial sanctions lifted on ‘Implementation Day’ of the JCPOA.” For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the nuclear deal.

It would be interesting to know if the continued opposition State-side remains a general & childish enmity of the President’s policies and accomplishments, some unvoiced technical concerns, or if some members of college remain opposed due to influence from Israeli PM Netanyahu or even Sheldon Adelson.

The JCPOA has also had knock on effects, as AL Monitor‘s Narges Bajoghli reports:

“They’ve gotten incredibly sophisticated,” [anonymous hacker] said as he marveled at the speed at which Iranian hackers have been able to create a defensive and offensive arm against Western cyberattacks. Yet, as he neared 2015 on his ad hoc timeline, his pen began to slow.

“With the Iran [nuclear] deal, we saw a parallel cooling down of attacks in the cyberworld. The nuclear deal has not only opened discussion with the Iranians on nuclear issues, but it has created a mutual detente in the cyberworld, and that’s huge, because cyberwarfare between Iran and the West was getting to really bad levels.”

David, an Iranian-American internet security specialist who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, agreed. He said, “Before the Iran deal, we were witnessing a heightened level of cyberwarfare between Iran and the US/Israel. It was getting to a very [worrisome] level, as Iran’s capabilities had increased exponentially in a very short period of time. But the Iran deal has put a halt to all of this.” David’s employer is one of the leading US firms that monitor Iranian cyberactivity.

As a software engineer, I admit to a certain – professional – curiosity as to what sophisticated means. And what does all of this include?

The West and Israel reportedly targeted Iran with four pieces of cyberweaponry between 2010 and 2012: Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss. Each time, the Islamic Republic retaliated almost tit for tat, stealing encryption keys and certificates. In 2013, Israel said Iran was constantly attacking its power grid and water systems.

David said, “It was with Operation Cleaver [2014] that targeted US defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, that the United States began to really look at and study Iran’s cyberactivities. We concluded that Iran’s cyberactivities are now on par with China.” The FBI issued warnings about Operation Cleaver, which was known to have hit US Navy servers and caused breaches in other major targets.

In the end?

In a 2014 interview with Reuters, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said, “I’ve grown to fear a nation-state that would never go toe to toe with us in conventional combat and that now suddenly finds they can arrest our attention with cyberattacks.”

Alex [anonymous hacker] said he agrees with Hayden’s assessment. “That’s why the Iran deal has been so significant. These cyberattacks were happening because the United States and Iran distrusted each other and we were after their nuclear program, so they were retaliating in kind. The Iran deal has slowed all of this down and hopefully will ensure that we don’t have to be attacking each other in this fashion,” he said.

In another AL Monitor article, Barbara Slavin covers a controversy concerning the amount of information the IAEA is providing in their quarterly reports:

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which publicizes the quarterly IAEA reports, said that by “failing to provide more information about the status of key technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and the implementation of its JCPOA commitments to date, the IAEA is withholding vital data about the status of Iran’s nuclear program. It risks undermining public transparency and confidence in the agreement.”

“As an analyst, I always want more detail and information, but I think the IAEA provides enough to demonstrate Iran’s compliance,” Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation programs for the Arms Control Association, told Al-Monitor. “Given the skepticism about past noncompliance, more detail would be helpful.”

Amano, queried about the low level of detail in the report at a press conference in Vienna on March 7, said, “Our role is to provide factual, objective reports including the details the agency considers necessary.”

Experts acknowledge that the tone as well as the length of the reports has changed as the IAEA has moved from a position of questioning what amounted to a suspected criminal — the agency’s attitude toward Iran since undeclared nuclear facilities were discovered in 2002 — to monitoring what amounts to that country’s nuclear probation.

It’s Screamin’ Jay, leaving my wife prostrate with laughter…

NewScientist’s Andy Coghlan (2 July 2016, paywall) reports how little guys have … littler guys:

PARASITIC bacteria that are entirely dependent on the larger bacteria they infect have been discovered in human saliva. The tiny cells have gone undetected for decades, but appear to be linked to gum disease, cystic fibrosis and antimicrobial resistance.

The finding suggests that many other forms of parasitic bacteria could exist and be living inside us – we just hadn’t been able to detect them until now.

“This microbe is clearly the tip of the iceberg,” says Roland Hatzenpichler of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

CF?

We might find that these species have an important role in human diseases. McClean’s team has found high concentrations of the new bacterium’s DNA in people who have gum disease or cystic fibrosis.

And also drug resistance. Although these conclusions have to be extremely tentative and contingent, but it makes for some fascinating thoughts.

Bernie finally chooses the strategic moment to endorse his rival:

In terms of the presidential election this November, there is no doubt that the election of Donald Trump as president would be a devastating blow to all that we are fighting for. His openly bigoted and pro-billionaire campaign could precipitate the same decades-long rightward shift in American politics that happened after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That rightward shift after Reagan’s election infected not just politics as a whole but led to the ascendancy of the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party — an era from which we are still recovering.

I cannot in good conscience let that happen.

To have all of the work we have done in elevating our progressive ideals be dashed away by a complete Republican takeover of Washington — a takeover headed by a candidate that demonizes Latinos, Muslims, women, African Americans, veterans, and others — would be unthinkable.

Today, I endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our next president. I know that some of you will be disappointed with that decision. But I believe that, at this moment, our country, our values, and our common vision for a transformed America, are best served by the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Hillary Clinton.

While Steve Benen had complained about Sanders’ deliberate approach to endorsing Hillary, I think Sanders was displaying respect for his followers, not only by successfully pressuring the Democrats into adding many of his positions into the official party platform, but by showing his voters that Hillary is deserving of their support. If I’m to believe the commentary on the Daily Kos, there’s a lot of disappointment at Bernie’s second place finish as well as distrust for Secretary Clinton, and it was important for Sanders to persuade them that she shares at least some of the most important positions. While Benen clearly wishes Trump to lose, it’s not important that Clinton lead the polls at this time – only at the end. For what it’s worth (no doubt quite a lot), the inestimable Nate Silver believes Clinton is in a commanding position, currently with a 66% chance of victory. From another article:

Historically, high numbers of undecided voters contribute to uncertainty and volatility. So do third-party candidates, whose numbers sometimes fade down the stretch run.⁶ With Clinton at only 43 percent nationally, Trump doesn’t need to take away any of her voters to win. He just needs to consolidate most of the voters who haven’t committed to a candidate yet.

By the same token, there’s the possibility of a landslide against Trump, whose floor is unusually low given that he’s getting only 36 percent of the vote now. Polls-only gives Clinton a 35 percent chance of winning by double digits nationally,⁷ which would make her the first candidate to do so since Ronald Reagan in 1984 (and the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964).

A 20 percent or 25 percent chance of Trump winning is an awfully long way from 2 percent, or 0.02 percent. It’s a real chance: about the same chancethat the visiting team has when it trails by a run in the top of the eighth inning in a Major League Baseball game. If you’ve been following politics or sports over the past couple of years, I hope it’s been imprinted onto your brain that those purported long shots — sometimes much longer shots than Trump — sometimes come through.

But the polls establish Clinton as a fairly clear favorite. And in contrast to almost everything else this election cycle, the polls have mostly been right so far.

Chris Reeves reports from his home state on the travails of Westboro Baptist Church, which has the charming web address www.godhatesfags.com:

It’s stories like this that can make my blood boil. The Zika virus puts newborns at risk of suffering from “… microcephaly, severe brain malformations, and other birth defects.” These are typically irreversible problems. Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog reports on efforts to fund the research effort on Zika by Congress:

It’s a pretty straightforward plan Senate Dems are proposing: if both parties are roughly in agreement on the amount of money that needs to be invested, the bill can pass the chamber if Republicans would simply agree to remove thepoison-pill provisions – blocking Planned Parenthood funding, taking funds from efforts to combat the Ebola virus, and cutting the Affordable Care Act – that Democrats can’t accept.

But the Republicans continue to refuse, making the current bill – a compromise Senate Republicans struck with House Republicans – a take-it-or-leave-it offer: either Democrats play along with the GOP’s culture-war priorities, or there will be no federal response to the Zika threat.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, which sent Congress an emergency funding request back in February,reminded lawmakers yesterday that political gridlock “could delay research and development of a vaccine to protect against Zika and tests to detect it.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told ABC News yesterday, “We getting to the point where both the CDC and the NIH are actually running out of money, and we have important work to do.”

And so, with Congress going into a long summer break, time is lost.

Does the GOP understand how the Democrats can use this against them? I suggest, in a breathy woman’s voice:

Incumbent XYZ voted to withhold funding for research on the terrifying Zika virus [add photos of diseased infants] because they are miffed at the success of ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood at easing the plight of low income Americans.