Monthly Archives: November 2016

Susan Hennessey of Lawfare reflects on the duty of national security workers:

I am also as sure today as I was yesterday that the men and women of NSA are decent, law abiding, and honorable. I wish them continued strength, courage, and judgment in the days and years ahead. And I hope that President Trump comes to recognize the gravity of his task, the many lives that now depend on his even judgment, the ways in which he will shape the world.

This morning I couldn’t help but reflect on that day when Deputy Director Inglis administered my oath of office. The character of people like Inglis both reflects the institution that elevated him and also sets the culture for the next generation. I won’t name current officials out of deference for the non-partisan nature of their work, though plenty of examples of true integrity come to mind. We need people like that issuing the NSA oath, and not craven political hacks all too happy to step into powerful roles abandoned by principled people.

This is why I think it is the duty of rational, reasonable experts to serve their country in a Trump administration, even at the political level, if asked. If he will accept it, Trump must have wise and informed counsel. Americans will be served by principled individuals in government defending our Constitution and role in the world. Those who stay home to satisfy ideals of personal integrity will not make our world safer.

Saturn’s North Pole is changing colors, according to Phys.org:

The first nuclear device lost at sea may have been found, as reported in ScienceAlert:

Wikimedia Commons

The bomb in question belonged to US Air Force flight 44–92075, which originally was meant to simulate a bombing run over California on 13 February 1950 before landing in Texas.

And while the United States has suffered a shock to its system and a grievous blow to its reputation, let’s not forget Turkey, another country backsliding into strong-man politics. Now President Erdogan wants to control the universities, public and private, as reported by Mustafa Akyol on AL Monitor:

Two major changes have now been introduced. First, the intra-university elections at state universities are a thing of the past. The president will simply appoint whomever he wants, without a feedback mechanism involving academics. Second, and more stunning, the president will appoint the rectors of private universities. The latter’s boards of trustees will only be able to make suggestions to the YOK, which will defer the final decision to the president.

Underfit river:

A misfit stream is a river that is either too large or too small to have eroded the valley or cave passage in which it flows. This term is also used for a stream or river with meanders that obviously are not proportional in size to the meanders of the valley or meander scars cut into its valley walls. If the misfit stream is too large for either its valley or meanders, it is known as an overfit stream. If the misfit stream is too small for either its valley or meanders, it is known as an underfit stream. [Wikipedia]

We ran across this term on a tourist sign on Minnesota highway 169, southwest of Jordan, IIRC:

It occurs to me that Trump has made a few promises that will be dangerous to follow up on.

Such as, “Lock her up!”

If, on Inauguration Day, he does take action to lock her up, a huge chunk of the electorate will be completely disgusted with him.

And if he doesn’t, some of his most zealous supporters will become disaffected.

Just how much charm does he have? Can he finesse these supporters? Or will his Secret Service providers be rather busy for the next four years?

Konga (1961) features a chimpanzee that is artificially mutated into a highlands gorilla, and then again to something the size of King Kong. The chimp was brought out of the jungle by a British biology researcher who hungers for the fame that goes with a major discovery, and the chimp is his research subject, once the carnivorous plants have been exhausted.

Yeah, in case you wondered, it’s a slapdash, the hell with science, shambling wreck of a movie; in fact, it swarms with problems. There’s this student that tries to strangle the researcher, and yet isn’t in therapy for anger management. Worse yet, the middle-aged research assistant is so in love with the researcher that she disregards his several murders; only when he chases after a young student with lust in his eyes does she finally break free of his … invisible … charms. The researcher himself takes offense so easily I’m surprised he doesn’t slit his own throat when he looks in a mirror and doesn’t admire himself. While the chimp really is a chimp, the gorilla is clearly just a guy in a gorilla suit, and when he mutates the second time into the faux King Kong, the special effects are terribly awful. The story might have been interesting, but the characters do nothing and do not engage in a whit of interesting thought. Hell, we don’t even get to know if the carnivorous plant that has its, er, teeth in the blond student (let’s see, her boyfriend had his neck snapped by the gorilla, her professor has sexually assaulted her – or at least tried – and now she’s stumbled into a nest of carnivorous plants – as you can see, it’s not been a tip-top day for her) … where was I? Oh, yes – we never find out if she survives the attack from the carnivorous vegetation, or if her piercing shrieks were not enough to cause the protein-craving prepubescent pod-person to grow pedals and skedaddle out of what soon became an EasyBake oven.

About the only good thing is a bit of jazz on a student’s radio, despite Michael Gough’s efforts to bring the researcher’s character to life. Sadly, I think that would be the subject of yet another horror movie.

Don’t go near this monkey.

Here we the three pictures worth seeing from our recent vacation. I like the last one best.

While I suggested finger pointing inside the Democratic Party would be a bad move, finger pointing from the outside is another matter. David French of National Review points to an interesting statistic:

Here’s the thing that I got really and truly wrong, the thing that I missed completely. I had no idea that the Democratic party was so thoroughly alienating it’s own voters. Hillary is will likely end up with almost 10 million fewer votes than Obama in 2008. She’ll end up with almost six million fewer votes than Obama in 2012. Those voters didn’t move to the GOP. People just stayed home. Given our growing population and the enormous media interest in this campaign, those numbers are simply astounding. The Democrats alienated roughly 14 percent of their 2008 voting base.

Yes, I know those numbers will change ever-so-slightly as the remaining one percent of outstanding votes trickles in, but while I knew that the Democratic party had internal problems, I had no idea of the extent of those problems. While I knew that Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate, I had no idea how bad. It turns out that the GOP is more functional and united than the Democrats. I clearly had my problems with the degree of GOP unity (I was aghast at the lockstep support for a man I believed to be morally, temperamentally, and ideologically unfit), that unity was a fact, and it gave Trump enough of a base to win.

It seems obvious enough, given the numbers, so David probably has this right. What were the factors behind this alienation?

It’s hard to count the number of people of a general liberal leaning within my circle of friends and acquaintances who, nevertheless, showed little enthusiasm for Hillary. It’s not entirely clear to me the source of this distaste. Despite GOP rhetoric, she has served very honorably, in my view, as the Senator from New York, and as Secretary of State. Mistakes? Sure – but, outside of the subject of a following point, honest. Mistakes are inevitable, and if made in small quantities, are tolerable. Working in government can be difficult at the rarified levels she performed in.

But she’s also been the target of GOP attacks for a very long time now, and I have to wonder how many folks have succumbed to the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” syndrome – although in my view she’s probably one of the best vetted and cleanest candidates to come along.

But the one source of mud that clung may have been this year’s primary, with DNC Chair and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz reportedly favoring Clinton in the primary, as discussed a while ago. Was there collusion or merely a vile indiscretion by Schultz? I know it made me very uneasy, and it really ticked off some Bernie supporters, despite Bernie’s best efforts on behalf of Clinton. I have to wonder how many Bernie supporters stayed home, dismayed by the appearance – true or not – of corruption in the leadership of the Democratic Party.

And then the nearly incomprehensible email controversy … and so we’re left with a President-elect who may lose interest part way through and resign, a free world aghast at our decision, and a national legislature that remains in GOP hands. To argue that this was a change election seems wrong, given the number of incumbents who continued in their seats, and the fact that the Senate remains GOP. What was it really? Just an anti-Clinton rally? Would Bernie Sanders have done better? What-ifs, the source of heart-burn…

It did occur to me that there’s a very apropos name for the Trump voters, though: Marks. Remember The Sting? They are all marks for the consummate con man, Donald J. Trump. Will he serve the nation, or only himself? Given how much he verifiably LIED during the campaign, his future behavior is unpredictable, and that is a disaster for companies, allies, and citizens.

The only ones who’ll benefit? Enemies.

And Donald J. Trump.

On FB I shared a “we’re going to miss you, President Obama” post, which attracted some attention. One reader:

Speak for yourself.

Which I do, with vigor and facts. See below. Another:

We want to thank your for doubling the national debt, putting an immense burden on the future of the country and our children. What do you have to show for it, nothing beneficial.

I think this is immensely unfair and lazy, which surprises me in this reader. Where to start?

Debt? I will remind the reader that Congress holds the purse-strings, not the President, and while the President could certainly veto the spending and tax bills, there are certain compromises that must be reached in order to move government forward – Congress is explicitly in charge of finances. Additionally, entitlements are out of the reach of the President. If we want to fix the national debt, it could have been done sixteen years ago, but the GOP acted like a bunch of drunken sailors on leave for the first time in a year: the entire debt could have been tackled and no doubt taken care of. Instead, the GOP threw a party to enrich themselves and their patrons, and then chose to fight two wars without raising the taxes to pay for them.

Revere the memory of Eisenhower, who saw this coming: the military industrial complex.

It will take two to tango, Congress and now President-elect Trump. If they want to start working on the debt, the first thing they need to do is take a good, hard stare at Kansas. Slashing taxes is not a magic wand that fixes everything, as they’ve proved; and, as the Great Recession proved, slashing regulation has its own set of pitfalls. But positive steps? Consider raising taxes. Consider cutting those areas that have become bloated – unlike Obama, I advocate cutting the military. It’s a big, fat target. While painful in the short term as some weapons programs would be cut, impacting specific Congressional districts, most economists will tell you that military spending is not as productive as other spending, private or public. We need a good Defense Dept, it’s true; right now we have waaaay too much of a Defense Dept. If, as Trump advocated on the campaign trail, we “rebuild” an already robust military force, we’ll still be deeply, deeply in debt in eight years. Like two or three times more than now. That, after all, was the lesson of the oughts, now wasn’t it? A deeply irresponsible GOP that has fine marketers working for it (after all, someone has to spin their irresponsible ways) and nothing else.

But the reader claims nothing beneficial comes of the doubling in debt. It’s a vague claim, since it requires connecting programs to spending. Or perhaps it does not; perhaps we should simply note the end of the Great Recession; steady economic growth ever since, including the lowering of unemployment beyond even Mitt Romney’s projections for his own plans; the first stab at universal healthcare, the ACA, which eliminates the horrible pre-existing condition clause, gets more sick people to doctors on a pro-active basis (MUCH cheaper than emergency room care), thus removing stress from the health system; the killing of Osama bin Laden and Colonel Gadhaffi; the destruction of ISIL (not finished, yet), the Iran nuclear deal (and if you think it was bad, go read what the Iranians think of it – they hate it – they danced with the Great Satan and now many Iranians wish they hadn’t, and if that’s not a reason to rejoice in the deal, then you are not using reason – you’re just using arbitrary, unreasonable hatred of Obama); etc – including the important element of a steady, calm temperament.

The reader had best take care about reading Obama’s legacy through partisan spectacles, because a whole lot of inconvenient facts can be dumped right on top of him. My expectation? In twenty to thirty years, objective historians will put Obama in the top ten of Presidents. Partisans will hate it, but I think it’s true – his track record is quite impressive, especially given a GOP that has forgotten its duty to back the President on foreign policy. Despite every obstacle thrown in front of him by a spiteful, unreasoning GOP controlled Congress for the last 6 years, he’s executed effective policies that have improved the economy, our security, and our collective health.

And now, just to disprove charges of hagiography (besides military spending, as I suspect the reader agrees with Obama on increasing military spending, which strikes me as bat-shit insane), I’ll stick out a hand and suggest a subject the reader might pursue in which Obama could be justifiably criticized: North Korea. I’m sure we can find common ground here, although I would start out with one common-sense observation: North Korea is a hard, hard topic in foreign policy. While we may agree that he could have done better, I would not be so juvenile as to suggest he blundered or did it on purpose. Sometimes your adversaries find ways to do better than you like.

Wondering if we’ll be returning to the club of countries that torture prisoners? On Lawfare, Robert Chesney points out this will be more difficult than most imagine:

For now, though, I want to highlight a critical but often-overlooked point about what I view as the most important feature of EO 13491:  Section 3(b)’s prohibition on the use of any interrogation method, by any agent of the U.S. government whether military, CIA, or otherwise, that is not among those methods listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3. Waterboarding and other so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques are not part of the Field Manual, and section 3(b) has thus long been understood as a central instrument for barring CIA from using such methods (DOD already was subject to this same obligation via the McCain Amendment in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005).  By revoking EO 13491, then, some have assumed that the door would be opened not just a resumption of CIA interrogation in general but also to the use of the EITs (or worse). [Note: I am not suggesting CIA itself has any interest whatsoever in having such a role or authority, and I should emphasize that any such development would have to come about as a result of presidential directive expressly authorizing–and, indeed, compelling–the agency to follow such a course.]

But this overlooks a critical point:  In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015, Congress and the Obama Administration converted the Field Manual compliance rule from a mere executive order into a statutory obligation, and thus placed it beyond the discretion of future presidents.

It was remarkable to me at the time that this did not get more attention.  It certainly matters now.  That said, the statute is by no means a complete obstacle to revival of the EITs.

Not that a President Trump necessarily wants to re-authorize torture – I firmly believe that no one, perhaps including himself, really knows how he feels on most issues. His willingness to lie – as well documented by the media – makes predicting Trump’s future moves impossible.

At least this would slow him down.

How did America, the “Shining City upon a Hill”† manage to elect a thin-skinned, sexist, racist cretin as a president?  It just seems crazy — until one begins to analyze the depths of despair some large segments of American society have experienced over the past few decades.  And realize how far a desperate people will go.

American journalist and author Glenn Greenwald describes the large reasons why Clinton and the Democratic Party failed to prevail over Trump in his essay in The Intercept today (Nov. 9).  Titled “Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit” it outlines three major points last night’s election results illustrate.  They are:

1. Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find — everyone except themselves — for last night’s crushing defeat of their party.
2. That racism, misogyny, and xenophobia are pervasive in all sectors of America is indisputable from even a casual glance at its history, both distant and recent.
3. Over the last six decades, and particularly over the last 15 years of the endless war on terror, both political parties have joined to construct a frightening and unprecedentedly invasive and destructive system of authoritarian power, accompanied by the unbridled authority vested in the executive branch to use it.

While the entire article is worth reading, the reasons why Democrats blame everyone but themselves (#1 above) and what needs to change most interests me here.  As Greenwald write in July about Brexit, so is true here (emphasis mine):

Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites] are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be many more Brexits, and Trumps, in our collective future.

The elites in this case are the economic elite (the 1%, in both parties), the political elite and the most influential members of the press (journalists).  They collectively caused or ignored or denigrated the plight of many Americans who would go on to vote for Trump.  Greenwald again:

The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much — when they caused a ruckus — and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.

That message was heard loud and clear. The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population — all while compiling their own long record of failure and corruption and destruction — are now shocked that their dictates and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They’re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Their instruments for retaliation are Brexit and Trump. Those are their agents, dispatched on a mission of destruction: aimed at a system and culture they regard — not without reason — as rife with corruption and, above all else, contempt for them and their welfare.

That dam was eventually going to burst.  And it did, in this election where against odds and expectations and prognostications and common decency, they elected Trump.

This oppressive system absolutely needs destruction.  But who could do it?  Who could clean up the mess?  Surely there are decent men and women out there who can see it and could do something about it, if they were President.  Except.  In this country, in this day, only the most connected, most egotistical and most wealthy have any chance at all at winning such an election.

Trump was, in a perverse way, just the right man for the job.  He was wealthy enough and ego-driven enough, and had enough fame, that he could get elected and upset the apple cart.  Will he, not through good intentions and moral character, but rather via outraged supporters and simple chaos be enough to provoke the needed change?  Can he cause the Democratic Party or even the Republican Party to throw off their institutional, elitist self-serving policies and behaviors?

Let’s hope so.

†From the 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” preached by Puritan John Winthrop while still aboard the ship Arbella with future Massachusetts Bay colonists.

Photo credit:  @nodigio on Flickr, CC by attribution.

Metabolist Movement:

CC BY 2.0 Wikipedia

Kisho Kurokawa’s Nagakin Capsule Tower has been under threat of demolition for a decade now. The icon of the metabolist movement was also an important model for tiny living, with so much crammed into such a small space. It was an innovative example of plug-in architecture, where each apartment module could be removed and upgraded. [Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com]

From Wikipedia:

The icon of Metabolism, Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was erected in the Ginza district of Tōkyō in 1972 and completed in just 30 days.^[51] Prefabricated in Shiga Prefecture in a factory that normally built shipping containers, it is constructed of 140 capsules plugged into two cores that are 11 and 13 stories in height. The capsules contained the latest gadgets of the day and were built to house small offices and pieds-à-terre for Tōkyō salarymen.^[52]

The capsules are constructed of light steel welded trusses covered with steel sheeting mounted onto the reinforced concrete cores. The capsules are 2.5 metres wide and four metres long with a 1.3 metre diameter window at one end. The units originally contained a bed, storage cabinets, a bathroom, a colour television set, clock, refrigerator and air conditioner, although optional extras such as a stereo were available. Although the capsules were designed with mass production in mind there was never a demand for them.^[52]Nobuo Abe, was a senior manager, managing one of the design divisions on the construction of the Nakagin Capsule Tower.

Sorry about the formatting of this post.

Continuing this thread, the guardian is reporting that Australian unions are acknowledging the end of coal as a common fossil fuel, and are now advocating for a “just transition”:

Australian unions have thrown their weight behind a transition away from coal-generated electricity, calling for a new statutory authority to manage a “just transition”, supporting workers and communities that rely on fossil fuel-related jobs.

A policy discussion paper written by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said a planned closure of coal power stations – along with both a jobs and energy plan for the country – would “create a more prosperous and diversified economy”.

It called for an independent statutory body, Energy Transition Australia (ETA), to be created inside the environment and energy portfolio, which would be responsible for managing an orderly move to a clean energy economy.

I think this is an important step in that it’s important not to just toss people aside, now that their industry has been identified as a negative rather than a positive. There’s nothing dishonorable about paying money to recompense those engaged in these businesses, whether as workers, management, or owners – because at one time these businesses were crucial to our growth and survival. Blame begins when knowledge becomes available – it does not extend back before then.

(h/t Treehugger.com)

… some closing thoughts on a sobering night, assuming Clinton does lose.

First, it is incumbent upon all members of the next two Congress’, Republican, Democrats, and Independents, to restrain Trump’s worst impulses. A retreat to partisan politics on the part of the Republicans, rather than a sober, adult approach to governance, may rain economic, cultural, and military disaster upon the United States.

Second, both parties need to develop new leaders. While I’m no political junkie, I must state that find it very difficult to think of anyone in either party who’s going to step forward and be ready, at the next election, to run and run effectively for the Presidency on either side. Now, this doesn’t mean I expect more disaster in four years; but this is the time to develop the candidates who have the experience and training – and, yes, there is training – to ably fill the office. Tonight we’re seeing the election of someone with no experience, and whose behavior does not inspire confidence. This is not acceptable in a country that likes to believe it is the strongest nation in the world. We must do better.

Third, a whole lot of people wanted change and therefore voted for Trump. They may get that change, despite the fact he’s limited in what he can do, but they may not like it.

They may not like it a lot.

How are we going to deal with them when they become dissatisfied with Trump? If ACA does, in fact, go away, and all of a sudden they’re once again without healthcare? What’s the worst case scenario? They become more radicalized? By many accounts, these are “low-information” voters – perhaps their main source of information was The Apprentice (not a show I ever watched). How do you transform an angry ex-Trump voter into a more reasonable voter?

Fourth, the Democratic Party should immediately institute a rule – every time somebody tries to point the finger of blame at some other part or member of the party, it should be broken. Maybe literally. The finger of blame is how you tear the party apart. Even pointing it outside the party should be discouraged. Obviously, there was a communications problem, so get to work on it. Is there blame to distribute? Sure. Don’t do it. Those who really screwed up will be edged out, starting with Mrs. Clinton, who will retire as the best candidate to have lost a general Presidential election (with apologies to Mr. Gore) in the modern era.

Fifth, I repeatedly hear that college educated women broken for Trump. WTF? I’ll just be flabbergasted.

And, finally, I look forward to hearing Bruce Bartlett’s reaction.

The world goes on. Work still opens tomorrow. No doubt a large chunk of the life savings will be wiped out soon, since I didn’t cash out today. More years of work while the United States melts down and rebuilds itself. The question is, will our leaders be able to communicate our best ideals to the voters, and make them work?

Or the worst?

Someone on iNaturalist suggests this may be something called Firedots – Genus Caloplaca.

Caloplaca is a lichen genus,^[1] composed of a number of distinct species. Members of the genus are commonly called firedot lichen,^[2]:235jewel lichen.^[2]:235gold lichens, “orange lichens“,^[3][4] but they are not always orange, as in the case of C. albovariegata.

It has a world-wide range, so no surprise finding it at Split Rock.

navajo of The Daily Kos returns to her news reporting duties concerning the Standing Rock standoff. Here’s a small excerpt from a much longer report:

The most disconcerting Standing Rock event was a prayer ceremony held on Tuesday, Nov. 2, at Cantapeta Creek, north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. “A confrontation erupted after law enforcement dismantled a wooden bridge that demonstrators constructed to access a sacred site.” They were met by militarized police, high-pressured OC spray and rubber bullets fired at close range on the completely peaceful demonstration. The Morton County Sheriff claims the Army Corps of Engineers ordered them to remove the bridge and arrest any individuals who crossed the river for criminal trespass. Morton County doesn’t have jurisdiction on federal land. It is unclear exactly who is leading the military operation here. What is clear and has been documented is that the Morton County police felt it was okay to massively pepper spray the crowd and randomly shoot rubber bullets into the crowd.

Ian Reifowitz on The Daily Kos gives a short but fascinating history lesson of a republic I’d never heard:

I teach history. My graduate training included in-depth study of a country once called the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. I’ll venture few of you knew a country by that name existed, and fewer know much about its history. In fact, it was once the largest country in Europe by territory, and in the 18th century had a voting franchise that was roughly as democratic as Britain—i.e., one of the most democratic in the West at that time. Yet it got literally carved up by its neighbors. Why? Because its government ceased to function.

The government of Poland-Lithuania ceased to function because it had a fundamental flaw in the way its legislature operated. The system could only work if its elected officials operated in good faith. When the Commonwealth’s parliament gathered to debate legislation, any individual deputy could block a proposed law. This right was called the ‘liberum veto’ or free veto. A deputy could simply rise and declare: “I do not allow!” Not only would the individual law under discussion be vetoed, but the entire parliamentary session would immediately end, and all legislation already passed would be declared null and void.

Asemic:

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means “having no specific semantic content”. With the non-specificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would deduce meaning from an abstract work of art. Where asemic writing differs from abstract art is in the asemic author’s use of gestural constraint, and the retention of physical characteristics of writing such as lines and symbols. [Wikipedia]

Encountered in the letters column of NewScientist (19 October 2016).

For NPR, April Dembosky reports on another infringement on the right to sue, but this time this is being applied in the health insurance market – Sutter Health‘s contract with companies removes the right to sue the company by the company or the employees:

San Francisco Bay Area companies say Sutter Health is strong-arming them into a contract that would help the hospital system secure its power over prices and potentially raise the cost of medical care for their employees in the future.

Io foreground, Jupiter background
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Outland (1981), starring Sean Connery and Peter Boyle, is a movie with flubbed potential. Connery is the Federal Marshall William T. O’Niel, newly assigned to the corporate mining camp on the Jovian moon Io. He’s the commander of the law & order detachment, and immediately, the corporate senior manager, Sheppard (Boyle), intimates that his workers work hard and play hard – and so should be given some latitude as this is the most productive mine in the company.

But O’Niel discovers that suicides and violence have skyrocketed since Sheppard took over operations. What could be causing this? Corpses are disposed of nearly immediately, since explosive decompression is messy, and autopsies virtually unheard of. O’Niel manages to get some blood from the latest violent person and brings it to the mining camp doctor, who discovers the blood contains a synthetic drug that destroys the brains of the addicts over time.

The movie plays out with finding who is smuggling them in, and ends in a violent attack by imported assassins on O’Neil.

By which time you’re just glad the movie is over. The primary problem with this movie is the characters – while there is potential, the characters are mostly constructed of low-grade cardboard. The two exceptions are the doctor, who displays an awareness of her shortcomings and handles them with some comic utterances, and the primary addict, who although on screen for mere seconds, brings a frenetic, terror-filled humanity to his realization that the prostitute he’s beaten up just might be dead – and that would be a bad thing for him.

But O’Neil and his family? Predictably dull. Sheppard and the other denizens of the camp? Dull. The assassins? Even worse – inept and so empty of character that we hardly even see their faces.

The filmmakers do play a little with the majesty of nearby Jupiter, but in the very first scene I exclaimed, “It looks like a space movie from the 1950s!” Which isn’t a bad thing – but I was hoping for something more impressive. The science is a mish-mash – the lower gravity (1/6th Earth) is acknowledged but not portrayed, except for the very few outside scenes. The suggestion of hibernation for trips to and from Earth is quite interesting – but what about the radiation to which Io is being subjected? Is this not a concern?

The cinematography is adequate, but low-resolution; the audio is OK. The use of music, despite an apparent popularity at the time, struck both of us as awkward and distracting.

But the real problem is the story. Bad characters, very abrupt segues – this could have been an interesting movie, but instead it was dull.

Alison Frankel reports for Reuters how the Democrats have lost all the suits they filed seeking to enjoin the Trump campaign from harassing voters – and why that is a good thing:

I think the rulings for Trump in these cases undermine any future argument he plans to make that the system is rigged. In four different federal courts, judges weighed the First Amendment rights of Trump supporters against racially charged accusations. They not only showed considerable regard for Trump’s freedom of speech but also implicitly concluded that elections are conducted responsibly.

Lloyed Alter on Treehugger.com just made my day with his coverage of how poorly we measure and record time, and a James Gleick proposal to do away not only with Daylight Savings Time – but time zones altogether:

In the appropriately named New York Times, James Gleick uses the switch from daylight to standard time to make a case for dropping time zones altogether, writing:

Most people would be happy to dispense with this oddity of timekeeping, first imposed in Germany 100 years ago. But we can do better. We need to deep-six not just daylight saving time, but the whole jerry-rigged scheme of time zones that has ruled the world’s clocks for the last century and a half…. Let us all — wherever and whenever — live on what the world’s timekeepers call Coordinated Universal Time, or U.T.C. (though “earth time” might be less presumptuous). When it’s noon in Greenwich, Britain, let it be 12 everywhere.

Writing in MNN on the day of the time change last year, I made the same case, but noted that there are alternatives to UTC. I also noted that we have to change the way we do dates as well[.]

Am I thrilled at the idea of getting rid of the Daylight Savings time thing? Even time zones?

Not particularly.

I’m thrilled with Lloyd’s stories.

As we switch out of daylight saving time, let’s admit it — the way we keep times and dates is a ridiculous mess. Last week I missed a phone call to Belgium because the guy on the other end got the zones wrong. A few years back, I ruined a family vacation because I booked a 2 March start as Canadians do, 2/3/2013, where the hotel booked it as Feb. 3 as Americans do, 2/3/2013. In two weeks, I am on a ridiculous 6 a.m. flight because I got the a.m. and p.m. wrong when I bought my ticket.

Coincidentally, in 1876, Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming missed a train because he arrived at 6 p.m. for a 6 a.m.departure. He then proposed Cosmic Time, a 24-hour clock for the entire world — one time for everyone, irrespective of meridian. When that idea got rejected, he developed the idea of Universal Standard Time with 24 time zones, and he became known as the Father of Standard Time.

I once ended up at the airport a full 24 hours early. That is merely the highlight of a life spent wondering what I’ve forgotten, or screwed up, now.

It is so good to hear that other people regularly do that. In fact it’s an utter delight. Perhaps I don’t have to feel like a deeply defective person all the time.

Just some of the time.

Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse on 3 Quarks Daily look ahead to the next election cycle – and what we need to do to return to more placid days of politics:

The biggest hurdle to get over in our rehab will be to firmly renounce the common practice, made even more prevalent in the current election cycle, of pathologizing our political opponents. From the widespread use on the Right of the offensive epithet ‘Libtard,’ to the Left’s regular invocation of DSM personality disorders (particularly, paranoia and narcissism) to explain the behavior of Trump and his supporters, there is an overwhelming temptation to see those who we oppose as utterly irrational, driven not by reasons but simply driven. When we engage the activity of political argument, we first need to preserve the sense that there is an argument to be had. And this requires us to sustain a view of the opponent that unrelentingly attributes to him or her reasons.

But I get the feeling they may be making a mistake often attributed by skeptics (i.e., Skeptical Inquirer and that crew) to the media – attempting to be even-handed when there’s no real way to do so. Consider this chart (from PolitiFact) and commentary from long time political observer Kevin Drum:

Source: PolitiFact

For the arithmetically challenged, 51 percent of Trump’s statement were categorically false, compared to 13 percent of Clinton’s.