Monthly Archives: March 2017

Asher Steinberg has been studying one of Judge Gorsuch’s most important opinions. Here’s his summary, on Notice & Comment:

David Sanger on 38 North surveys the new Secretary of State Tillerson’s words during his trip to visit China and his comments regarding North Korea. Here’s the second point, which is somewhat disconcerting:

The second point Tillerson made in public, again as reflected in the lede of the story, is that “the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action ‘if they elevate the threat of their weapons program’ to an unacceptable level.”

Think about that one for a moment. If one takes the Secretary literally, the North would not need to conduct an ICBM test to prompt American action. Such action—in whatever form it took—could be prompted merely by the North’s leaders merely staying on the course they are on. Is this an empty threat? Maybe. It’s a new administration, with all new players. We don’t know. So all we can do is report what they say.

Far be it from me to prescribe a course of action when it comes to the North Koreans. But if this makes me nervous, how do the North Koreans feel? Or is Mr. Kim so certain that Trump is just a blowhard that he’ll ignore these words and continue onwards? I’ve noticed a lot of belligerents (Saddam Hussein comes to mind, as do generations of Soviet leaders) will trash-talk their opponents so hard for so long that they come to believe their own words – and when the riposte is finally delivered, they are shocked at the forcefulness, reduced to humiliating scrambling or dying. Is Mr. Kim making this mistake?

The behavior of the judiciary in response to Trump’s Executive Orders and other activities has been fascinating. But now we’re getting reactions to the judiciary, and I’m glad we have Lawfare and Quinta Jurecic to point them out:

But most notably, in its analysis of McCreary, the [new Justice Department] brief also asserts that:

The Order, in contrast, conveys no religious message and was revised to eliminate any misperception of religious purpose. And it reflects the considered views of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Attorney General, whose motives have not been impugned.… Virtually all of the statements [by Trump] also preceded the President’s formation of a new Administration, including Cabinet-level officials who recommended adopting the Order (emphasis added).

Cabinet-level officials, of course, swear their own oaths upon taking office. The not-so-subtle message is that even if the judiciary can’t trust the President’s judgment and the President’s oath, it can trust the judgment and perhaps the oaths of those who serve under him at the highest level. The brief does not specifically cite the Cabinet members’ oaths, but it does specifically cite their good faith—the presumption of which, as Ben and I have argued, flows directly from the oath. Their motives, unlike those of the President, the brief says, “have not been impugned.”

In other words, by emphasizing the good faith of Trump’s subordinates, the brief evinces at least a tinge of doubt about the good faith of Trump himself. If we could trust the President’s good faith as of the moment of swearing the oath, even if only as a matter of deference, there would be no need to rely on that of his Cabinet. The structure of the argument—that the President swore an oath and thus is entitled to a presumption of regularity, and that his cabinet is entitled to the same presumption even if you can’t trust the President individually—seems to acknowledge that the judges of the Fourth Circuit might at the very least have questions about Trump’s oath.

This argument—trust the cabinet members if you can’t trust the president—suggests something of a fracturing of the unitary executive. It also raises a question asked of Ben by an audience member after his recent talk on our essay on the oath. As she put it: “If you don’t believe the president’s oath … do you feel it undermines the oath of anyone he’s appointed?”

It’s a great question – are the Cabinet members just as tainted by the President’s erratic behavior? And is Quinta really missing a point in that the President issues Executive Orders, not the Cabinet? Will the judiciary let that assertion in the brief slide by, or will they reject that part (to the extent that a brief is rejected) and all of its consequent reasoning?

But the implicit admission that the boss is prejudicing their case by being a loose cannon is really the staggering part. Could a more responsible Congress use this brief as part of the evidence in an impeachment and/or trial hearing?

The ethics of assassination might make for a fascinating movie subject. But don’t look for that in The Assassination Bureau (1969), a farce concerning an organization which takes on assassinations of deserving characters for a fee, until a reporter meets with the chairman and buys an assassination of … the chairman.

Calculated chaos ensues, with the vice chairman machinating to assassinate the crowned heads of Europe.

Oh, it could have been fun, and there was a small amount of cleverness – but not enough to take one’s mind away from the general pointlessness of the story. Pure fluff.

The humpback whale population has described a ‘U’ due to human activities, as these graphs suggest.

Source: Maui Whale Watching

Our ability to monitor whales before their tremendous population crash was infinitesimal, of course, so biological questions concerning their behavior in large numbers remain largely unanswered.

Source: ESA Success

But for how much longer? NewScientist (18 March 2017) reports on, well, the beginnings of big parties:

IN A baffling change to their behaviour, humpback whales are forming massive groups of up to 200 animals. No one is quite sure why yet, but it could be their long-lost natural behaviour when population levels are high.

Humpbacks aren’t normally considered to be terribly social. They are mostly found alone, in pairs, or sometimes in small groups that disband quickly.

But research crews have spotted strange behaviour on three separate cruises in 2011, 2014 and 2015, as well as a handful of public observations from aircraft. These super-groups of up to 200 were spotted feeding intensively off the south-west coast of South Africa, thousands of kilometres further north than their typical feeding grounds in the polar waters of the Antarctic (PLoS ONE, doi.org/b33z).

No, this is not an advanced beauty treatment!

In an odd mixture of British quality movie making and American schlock horror, The Deadly Bees (1966) never quite achieves net mediocrity. Vicki is a popular pop-singer who has suffered a nervous breakdown and is sent to isolated Seagull Island for a couple of weeks of quiet. There she finds two bee keepers, neither much caring for the other – and then the bodies start piling up, first her host’s dog, then her host’s detested wife.

But Vicki isn’t another passive female figure. She’s looking, if in proper British form, for a solution to the tragedy, and works with the other bee keeper to discover if her host is to blame. When she’s the target, she figures out a way to survive.

And there’s a twist or two occurs before we find out whodunit.

But, honestly, we don’t really care.

The bees are pleasantly schlocky, while the characters have that quaint British feature of not really caring if they’re sympathetic or not, and that’s a pity – if we’d cared for, or detested more, the host’s wife, then her appalling death may have stirred up the audience more.

Add in a couple of loose ends, such as an agent who seems to be on the verge of intruding on her rest, and then never reappears, or the junior inspector who might have added to the complexity if he’d gone to Seagull Island in response to the anonymous threat of using bees to kill someone.

Perhaps it’s a jab at British bureaucracy.

All in all, a wasted effort.

Andrew Sullivan is out with his weekly missive, including ruminations on how Trump is serving to separate true conservatives from expedient conservatives, and that provoked some thoughts that this may indicate a basic flaw in today’s American conservative philosophy – but I shan’t pursue that, someone with more qualifications should. But I’d like to respond to his last section:

The response of Americans to terror is to be terrified — 9/11’s trauma has never been fully exorcised. Until we get over that, until we manage to stiffen our upper lips like the Brits, jihadist terrorists will exercise control over the American psyche like no one else. We can do better, can’t we? If we want the Constitution to survive both Islamism’s threat and the potential response of a beleaguered Trump, we’ll have to.

My response is one I’ve written before, in the context of the rehabilitation of that sad traitor to American tradition, Senator Joe McCarthy, and so I’ll just quote it:

This attack on two of our pillars of civil society – the right to think and speak what one wants, and not to be falsely accused and maligned by government actors – are not to be set aside at the paranoid ravings of anyone. I recently ran across a quote of President Trump’s from 1989: “CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!” While I’m aware this can be read in more than one way, I’ll choose the most negative and reply, “No, Mr. President, our Civil Liberties give us a critical bulwark in our quest for safety, and he who advocates for their removal or neutering is nothing more than a traitor to the United States.” Think about it – our civil liberties are not luxuries, not privileges, but instead they are what safeguard us from the deprivations of tyrants, foreign and domestic. So long as we safeguard them, we’ll stand a better chance of survival in freedom, than we would without.

The implied choice of either safety or civil liberties is a false choice. The latter does not detract from the former, it reinforces our safety, even if it’s in ways that perhaps President Trump would prefer to see weaker.

In Egypt, a land of some 92 millions, there is worry about the spreading plague of atheism, as N. A. Hussein reports in AL Monitor:

Recently released statistics from the Family Court affiliated with the Supreme Judicial Council, with offices across all governorates in Egypt, revealed that 6,500 women had filed for divorce, or “khula” — separation and returning the dowry to the husband — in 2015 over their husbands’ “atheism or change of belief.” …

The court has yet to issue any statistics for 2016. It is still not known why the court refrained from doing so. The court might not have the right amount of data necessary for the statistics, or it does not want to shock the Egyptian community with the alarming rate of divorce because of atheism and change of belief.

Among 92 million people. Think about the panic the thoughts of atheists are inducing in such a large country. But there’s more:

[Ibrahim Najm, an adviser to the Grand Mufti of Egypt] added that Dar al-Ifta approved an index prepared by the Red Sea Research Center, affiliated with Secular Global Institute in all countries of the world, stating that Egypt has 866 atheists.

I’m not sure what to make of that number in relation to the previous number. But then, the writer is puzzled as well:

Noteworthy is that the figures announced by the Family Court are alarming and not commensurate with those of Dar al-Ifta, which seems to be providing inaccurate data about the real number of atheists in Egypt.

“Although the number is not large … it is the highest in the Arab countries. Libya has only 34, Sudan 70, Yemen 32, Tunisia 329, Syria 56, Iraq 242, Saudi Arabia 178, Jordan 170, and Morocco 325,” Najm said.

Following one of the links above to another AL Monitor article, this from 2014, gives me this interesting quote:

The occupation of our brains by gods is the worst form of occupation. -Abdullah al-Qasemi

As agnostic, I have nothing against religious folks who are willing to live under the usual strictures of the United States; by the same token, I have a great suspicion on those who would change those strictures, as I see them as a constraint on religious violence, and a boon to rational behavior. Recently, though, and confused by the evident ignorance evidenced by many highly religious folks, I’ve been puzzling over people who are obviously intelligent, but whose knowledge base seems insufficient and defective. It’s occurred to me to urge them to quit going to religious classes and maybe skip the occasional church visit in favor of participating more in our political life – by concentrating on learning more from independent information and news sources.

So this, too, was interesting, from the same 2014 article, as the writer discusses prominent Kuwaiti scholar Ahmed al-Baghdadi:

“I am not afraid of religion, or bearded or turbaned people, and I see that music and developing an artistic sense is more important than memorizing the Quran or religious classes. [The classes] that are already there are more than enough. I do not wish to waste my money on teaching religion. … I do not want my son to learn from ignoramuses who teach him to disrespect women and non-Muslims,” he continued.

Baghdadi went on to say that he wanted his son to learn sciences and foreign languages, not to “become an imam” or a “terrorist.” “The only people who went to religious institutions in old civilized Kuwait were those who failed in scientific studies.” Needless to say, Baghdadi’s article caused an uproar leading the writer to express his intention to seek asylum in the West. Although Baghdadi never declared himself an atheist, he was highly regarded among the underground Gulf atheist community as someone who championed their causes and demands.

My bold, and I do so for the reason that a religious institution, along with the direct good & bad (for let us be honest, all human institutions do both) it does, also provides a ladder of power, for someone must direct the institution, be the title Mufti, Pope, or Pastor, and by the same token, the person assuming the role will have great influence to achieve personal goals. These goals may be selfless, selfish, or both; there is no restriction on the category.

But because this is an institution built entirely on the study and employment of a collection of knowledge which, in my view, is most likely constructed wholly from the human imagination, the requirements of intellectual attainment are not comparable to, for example, a particle physicist, who is studying hard reality. Learn some theology, construct a flexible or even innovative interpretation, realize that a self-destructive philosophy is not profitable in any respect, and you’re in business. Baghdadi’s remark is a handy condensation of this observation.

The study of a religion is not just a field of study, it’s a path to power, and perhaps the most handy one for those who are not so subtle of mind. But that is not my attribution for the concern about atheism in its currently reportedly small numbers; it has probably been sullied by the dominant religions, and the local populace merely reacts as instructed. Even those in positions of power in those religions may not use this analysis, for many books of religion warn against the atheist.

But if God is God, then what does he care if someone disbelieves him? The cry of apostasy betrays the essential human foundation of religion.

Back when Papal Authority meant Worldly Authority

Not particularly familiar with Michaelangelo? The mini-documentary preceding the TV showing of The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) provides a useful and interesting introduction to the legendary sculptor, exploring a number of his objects in close detail.

And then it’s on to the movie. A dramatization of Julius’ decision to force Michaelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, we get to follow Michaelangelo around as he starts, stops, restarts, and has the usual emotional artist problems with his subject, all the while mistreating his patron as well as the woman in love with him. I suppose, having done no research, a glib assessment of the good artist would suggest the man was OCD, or perhaps autistic.

But that is neither here nor there. As a classic movie from a classic era starring classic stars (Heston & Harrison), I was disappointed; it all rang a trifle false. Perhaps it felt like it was ticking all the boxes – artistic agony, spots of humor, irrational behavior, artistic purity. A problem in Belated Movie Reviews is that I’m looking at movies out of context, meaning that other movies viewed since then inadvertently color my assessment of these movies, an anachronistic twist in the time continuum which may not be remedied.

Another problem is that I’m sick and may simply misperceive what is, in reality, a brilliant movie.

But I couldn’t help feeling that Harrison was mostly smirking his way through the movie, even as he returns from the Papal war campaigns with severe wounds and ends up in his deathbed, only to be rescued by Michaelangelo (Heston) with a magnificently subtle bit of snark.

It’s hard for me to say. My Arts Editor says all the musical accompaniment is an anachronism, music not composed until centuries later in a form not invented until after the time portrayed in this movie. But undeniably this is a professionally made movie and won’t kill you to watch. So if you’re looking at a rainy afternoon, this might fit the bill for the lazy.

Oh, and I enjoyed the marble quarry scene. I had never thought about the process. Good to know.

Adsorb:

Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions, or molecules from a gas, liquid, or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the adsorbate on the surface of the adsorbent. This process differs from absorption, in which a fluid (the absorbate) is dissolved by or permeates a liquid or solid (the absorbent), respectively. Adsorption is a surface-based process while absorption involves the whole volume of the material. The term sorption encompasses both processes, while desorption is the reverse of it. Adsorption is a surface phenomenon. [Wikipedia]

Referenced in yesterday’s post concerning a game for building metal-organic frameworks for reducing climate change gases.

In Land of Doom (1986) we are presented with a mildly interesting glimpse into an underground city, where the locals have lived for thousands of years. It may be similar to this abandoned city, more recently discovered, or like Derinkuyu, located in Turkey, where this movie was made:

The permanence of the dwellings leads me to consider the impermance of the life that it houses. In fact, it’s a fine contrast to the plot of this movie, a Mad Max derivative starring a guy prettier than Mel Gibson, but not nearly as talented. Something’s blown up civilization, and the murdering rapists are driving the survivors to extinction. The city will persist, but not the life inhabiting it.

Nor the ewok-derivatives.

Yeah, don’t see this dog unless you want to see the terrain. Or have a head cold, like us.

Eileen Harvala publishes a report on a new game under development in a University of Minnesota College of Science & Engineering  bulletin:

Metal-organic frameworks are a new class of nano-materials that are useful for a variety of safety, filtering, and manufacturing tasks. They are porous crystalline materials made by inorganic and organic units linked together by strong bonds. Because they have high levels of thermal and chemical stability, MOFs have important applications such as gas storage, catalysis of organic reactions, activation of small molecules, gas adsorption and separation (air purification), biomedical imaging, and proton, electron and ion conduction.

In phase one, the building phase of the game, each player is tasked with designing MOFs that block or adsorb as much harmful gas—carbon dioxide (CO₂)—as possible, while allowing harmless or even helpful gases—nitrogen (N₂)—to pass through as freely as possible. Each player is given a canvas of 3 by 3 unit cells, and can use the game’s building block library and available budget to buy different building blocks to create structures that will form an important defense matrix for the action phase of the game. Once the player feels that the defense matrix is ready, preliminary chemical calculations are performed to prepare some of the parameters for the action phase of the game.

During the action phase of the game, a wave of asteroids (CO₂ molecules) and supplies (N₂ molecules) drops from the sky and hits the defense matrix. While the objects are in the matrix, a real-time simulation of the underlying     chemical structures is used to determine whether the supplies and asteroids are destroyed or pass through the defense matrix. The asteroids and supplies that pass through land on the player’s world unless destroyed by the player’s-controlled laser cannon. Each asteroid (CO₂ molecule) that lands decreases the player’s health and each successful supply drop (N₂ molecule) increases it. The player must remain healthy and save his or her world. The higher the player’s score, the better the chemical properties and filtering aspect of the created MOF. If successful, the player moves on to the next wave.

Sounds interesting, and an interesting way to gather up optimization strategies. Unfortunately, it appears that the game is only currently in release for Win64 platforms – I have a VirtualBox running Win32, so that won’t work, and I cannot provide a review of the game. Perhaps my Arts Editor’s laptop is Win64, I’ll have to check. For readers interested but too shy to click the above link, here’s the link in the article. And here’s the how-to video.

It can always be problematic jumping on horses in the international arena, so the Saudis’ embrace of the Trump Administration should prove interesting. But is their excitement a matter of content, or simply of the pressure of events? Bruce Riedel explores that topic in AL Monitor:

The enthusiasm for the new US team is a reflection of the deep disappointment with the Obama administration. It’s more than a bit ironic since Obama courted the Saudis avidly his whole term in office. Riyadh was his first destination in the Arab world and he traveled to Saudi Arabia more than any other country in the Middle East, including Israel. He sold more than $110 billion in military equipment to the kingdom, far more than any of his predecessors.

But Obama also flirted with backing the Arab Spring. He hailed the departure from power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. He encouraged the Bahraini royal family to compromise with the Shiite majority for political reforms on the island. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pressed for gender equality around the world. For the Saudis, the US support for political and social change and reform, however half-hearted, was an unprecedented departure from traditional US support for the status quo and authoritarian leaders in the region.

But they’re smart:

Last week, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud completed a three-week trip to Asia with a stop in China where the Saudis signed $65 billion in new trade agreements. The Asia trip and especially the China visit have been trumpeted as strategic moves by the kingdom. The Saudis are especially interested in military cooperation with Beijing.

And something I’d forgotten:

The other irritant is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows the kingdom to be sued for its alleged role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump supports the bill that Obama vetoed only to be overridden. Now hundreds of family members of victims of the 9/11 attack have filed a lawsuit against the Saudis for allegedly funding al-Qaeda before 2001 and for allegedly providing assistance to the hijackers. Saudi diplomats in the United States and Germany allegedly were involved in the plot.

There are fundamental problems with friendly relations between autocratic and democratic countries because of the differing assumptions about how society should be organized. Of course, an autocrat like Trump should help spackle over those differences during his time in office, but the complicating factor is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, mentioned above, which leaves Saudi Arabia open to the blot of the word terrorism on its honor.

I wonder, though, if Obama should have filed suit against it in the Supreme Court, claiming Congress was overstepping its authority and infringing on the right of the President to conduct foreign policy.

Tumpline:

A tumpline (/tump-lyne/) is a strap attached at both ends to a sack, backpack, or other luggage and used to carry the object by placing the strap over the top of the head. This utilizes the spine rather than the shoulders as standard backpack straps do. Tumplines are not intended to be worn over the forehead, but rather the top of the head just back from the hairline, pulling straight down in alignment with the spine. The bearer then leans forward, allowing the back to help support the load. [Wikipedia]

Seen in “Reexcavating The Collections,” Wayne Curtis, American Archaeology (spring 2017), mostly offline only. Too bad, it was a lovely picture of a tumpline rediscovered in a museum basement collection. Textiles such as those are extremely rare given their unstable nature, but the date of collection is in the 1890s, so they’ve been preserved for more than a century.

It’s a long movie, but it’s a darn good movie: The Missiles of October (1974) gives a history of the move / counter-move of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Make no mistake – this is not the Star Wars (1977) of the Cold War, full of explosions and frankly evil characters. This is a movie overwhelmingly about meetings – meetings which decide the fate of the world.

The genius of this movie is its implicit invitation to the viewer to test their decisions against that of the President and his advisors. So you’re a cowboy and would have taken out the missile sites as soon as they were identified, stuck your chest out and taken the return fire with aplomb, would you? In a scene in which Congressional leadership is informed of the situation, one Senator says just that, and is rewarded by a harsh riposte from President Kennedy – “Within the first 30 seconds your entire constituency would be killed, Senator!” Because we discover that our military refuses to guarantee a kill ratio of 100% of those missile sites, implying a return fire of several nuclear warheads. And the movie invites many more such tests of the opinionated man’s decisions – and why they are so often wrong when taken from without. For the sober viewer, it’s a lesson in incomplete information, and in more ways than one, as we watch JFK fret over his information, always requesting better information.

There is a stark historicity to this movie, driven by top-flight performances by the actors, as well as its lack of musical accompaniment. This lack of a clue forces the audience to pay attention to the dialog, the hints at motivation, the suggestions that neither side is without fault in this confrontation, as the Bay of Pigs debacle bears passing reference (I wish there’d been more on this incident), while Soviet dissembling regarding the nature and purpose of the missiles is also brought up.

And during this we also see the Administration frantically covering up for tactical reasons – not out of embarrassment, although there’s a fair amount of that, but in order to surprise the Soviets at their own game. International relations are not always a public game, a lesson most of America still does not understand.

As an added bonus, it’s difficult not to compare and contrast with the Trump Administration. It truly makes me ill comparing the painstaking search for the best alternative to all out war by JFK, vs Trump probably waving it all off after half an hour and commanding a general to just shoot the crap out of Havana.

And then blaming it on reading a newspaper.

And I don’t write that out of gratuitous bitterness, but because this script doesn’t scant on the real frustrations and conflicts the characters run into. JFK loathes the idea of being the next war-chief Tojo, who planned the Japanese entry into World War II, which he mentions enough that Dean Acheson, who has a profoundly differing opinion on response, finally brings up as he knows JFK worries about it, to which JFK replies, I know you know. There is a depth to the political passions that is only hinted at, a theory of mind which gives much depth to this movie.

There’s also the unsettling reminder that the inhabitants of Congress are often simple creatures. JFK angrily quips, You get them together and they follow the one with the biggest bomb. (Possibly a paraphrase.) It’s a ghastly allusion to the problems of having a leadership made of amateurs who often have no training, with little conception of the nuances of international relations. As that’s an accurate description of the current occupant of the White House, this movie brings some real insight into what sort of damage we may be suffering silently while he fiddle faddles around. Given his predilection for watching Fox News, perhaps they should show this movie for his edification.

ALL that said, there is of course the lingering question of accuracy. The meetings portrayed were secretly recorded, as noted here; were the recordings available to the playwright/screenwriter, Stanley R. Greenberg? I haven’t found any material on the topic, although social scientists note there seems to be a lack of “groupthink” – and this was definitely a group that often conflicted with each other. The source for the material used to portray the Soviet meetings is even less clear.

Nor was my Arts Editor pleased at the lack of substantive female characters.

In sum, if you can get your jollies from seeing how the end of the world can be averted through meetings, diplomacy, and some very finely applied power, then this is for you. It was certainly for me – the edge of my seat was a little worn.

Strongly Recommended.

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com notes a proposal for a circular runway:

Airports take up a lot of room that could be used for other productive purposes, and often their runways do not align with the wind direction, making landings difficult. But Designboom shows us what might be the answer to the problem: make the runways into a big circle. Designboom notes that ” that making runways ring-shaped can have a positive environmental impact. since planes will not have to compete with strong cross winds, they will burn less fuel in the area around the airfield. ” They are also much smaller.

The idea, from Henk Hesselink of the Netherlands Aerospace Centre, is in the news thanks to a recent BBC video.

A link to the video is on Treehugger.

Lloyd is not entirely happy with the Internet, though, because a bunch of pilots forgot to read up on the proposal before taking a poo on it:

But this episode is particularly strange; people are writing long dissertations about why it cannot work, without a single reference back to the original research, with one expert at NYC Aviation actually starting a long essay by saying “I must concede that they may have answers and solutions to my below issues that were not provided in the short BBC report” and then goes on for pages.

If there is one thing I have learned as a blogger, the first rule is that you click through to the source, even if your finger gets tired.

Which reminds me of one of the three laws of Arthur C. Clarke:

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong. [BrainyQuote]

If the calculations check out, then someone is just going to have to try it and see.

While reading Lawfare‘s summation of the problem of Russia and Representative Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who appears is less interested in investigation and more in keeping Trump up to date with regards to how the investigation is going, it occurred to me that once again we’re seeing the problem of power politics, particularly in its core aspect: loyalty.

Nunes served on Trump’s transition team, and while this should not automatically disqualify him from leading an investigation into Trump’s campaign in search of serious illegalities, he should be aware that there should be a certain distancing between himself and Trump. In fact, this distancing is always necessary when it comes to governmental entities tasked with investigating other entities.

But, given the tight bonds of loyalty exhibited by the GOP voters, and now by a sitting investigative chairman, I think we can see there is a limit to the bonds of loyalty, and they need to be considered carefully by those who sit in those seats. Just as blind straight ticket voting is potentially damaging to the nation, so is the application of the core loyalty once a Congressional seat has been obtained. This is an issue which should be discussed nationally, not just in the context of Representative Nunes’ disgraceful behaviors (it’s rather like a child, running to the bully who’s subverted him), but in the greater context of the incompetency demonstrated by Trump in his nominees and conduct.

Excessive loyalty is damaging. Competency and wisdom are far more important.

And the failure of Congress to make any substantive noises about impeaching him.

And, in case you’re new to the blog, I’m not a Democrat. I’m an Independent. I’ve been disgusted with Trump since he first began running, and it’s only gotten worse.

PETA has sent me a survey, and stamped on it prominently:

You have been selected to participate in an important survey of Minnesota residents …

I live for the day I’m selected for an unimportant survey.

Andrew Sullivan and other bloggers started talking about the GOP “echo chamber” years ago, and, having been away for a couple of days with illness, it really struck me that the GOP may be disconnected from most of the United States these days. The obvious example is the ACA replacement bill. Kevin Drum provides a lovely graphic illustrating the problem:

And yet Speaker Ryan seems bent on jamming it through the House. This is a bill basically held hostage by the far-right Freedom Caucus, a group of 40 Representatives who, by voting en bloc, seem to be able to remove at will all the important elements of a health bill, such as pre-existing conditions, hospitalization, or anything else you can name.

But this is a new issue, relatively speaking, and perhaps the public will grow to like it, as unlikely as it seems. So let’s take a look at something that would be more shocking. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price was formerly Representative Price of Georgia’s 6th district, a “deep red” (heavily GOP leaning) district, meaning that his 2016 victory, winning with 61.6% of the electorate, was actually his worst showing – he even once ran with no opposition from the Democrats. His move to Secretary of HHS means a special election will be held to replace him.

A triviality, right? But the GOP can read polls and apparently they’re more than a little worried. From National Journal:

Re­cog­niz­ing the high stakes in an up­com­ing spe­cial House elec­tion in sub­urb­an At­lanta, the GOP-aligned su­per PAC Con­gres­sion­al Lead­er­ship Fund is spend­ing an ad­di­tion­al $1.1 mil­lion in tele­vi­sion ads against the Demo­crat­ic front-run­ner, Jon Os­soff. After its first spot showed foot­age of a col­lege-aged Os­soff dressed up as Han Solo to poke at his im­ma­tur­ity, the new ad cam­paign is tread­ing on more fa­mil­i­ar ground, con­nect­ing the 30-year-old Demo­crat to un­pop­u­lar House Minor­ity Lead­er Nancy Pelosi.

This on top of another buy – major dollars for a district so safe that sometimes Democrats can’t even scare up a challenger. Why? Heavy presents the case:

A new poll released March 20 shows progressive Democrat Jon Ossoff increasing his lead in a special election to replace Tom Price in Georgia’s 6th congressional district.

The “exclusive” poll, performed by conservative-leaning zpolitics and Clout Research, shows Ossoff ahead of the 18-candidate field with 41 percent of the support of those polled.

Especially this:

The survey ran from March 15-16 and found that Ossoff, a first-time candidate with a business and national security background, has built on his lead in the race in comparison of a poll that was released in February. In that poll, Ossoff received 32 percent of support while Handel was at 25 percent and Gray was third with 11 percent.

A 9 point jump in support? He’s still not free and clear, but the 6th district has abruptly become a drain on GOP resources – no doubt a real shock to the system.

The intense discussion of the health bill, not to mention the mental stability of President Trump, may be serving notice to the public to pay more attention to politics and elections – and that, in turn, may cause the GOP’s tendency to talk to itself to become more emphasized.

Working against this thesis? Control of Congress. But that may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. As a RINO-enforced collection of nominees and bills are passed, making clear the extremism elected to Congress, it may be a self-destructive victory for the GOP.

A glimpse into insanity, the classic silent film Phantom of the Opera (1925) is a powerful story of the consequences of a society too obsessed with beauty and grace, where one man suffers a terrible accident, leaving him hideous, and is outcast from Paris. Now in hiding in the Paris Opera House, his mysterious presence a symbol of titillating terror, the abyss separating him from human society erodes his basic respect for humanity, leaving only one bitter peak of his former life:

His love of beauty.

For he is a voice teacher, coaching a lovely up and comer, Christine, from the shadows in which he moves, never revealing his shattered visage to her. She is now the understudy, and he demands, through written correspondence, that the owners of the Opera House make her the prima donna over the current prima. But, the mother of the current demurs, and the next time the current prima donna performs, a chandelier suddenly falls into the audience, precipitating panic.

Investigations intensify, from a spurned lover as well as the police; the Phantom finds an Opera House employee has discovered one of his secrets and ends his life. And Christine soon vanishes, drawn into the shadows of the Phantom, where the sensitive nerves of the Phantom are once again plunged into a salt bath. Her rejection of his ruined face plunges him into infernal madness.

Frantic searches ensue, the Opera House employees snatch up torches, and after one more fruitless ploy, the Phantom is plunged into the river.

There are irritating facets to this movie: “The Strangler” appears to be a deus ex machina, although later it appears it’s simply the Phantom. Christine is, in my Arts Editor’s words, “a wench”. But the innovative use of symbolism, lighting, and the inventive story keeps this movie moving right along, its message perhaps more applicable now than ever.

Recommended.

Petrichor:

14. Cherrapunji also holds a long-standing record for highest rainfall in a 12-month period: 86 feet, 10 inches, set back in 1860-1861.

15. The folks in Cherrapunji might be tired of it, but many people enjoy petrichor, the scent that often follows rainfall. Two Australian researchers coined the term back in the 1960s.

16.A U.S.-based team working at about the same time identified geosmin, a byproduct of soil bacteria, as the source of earthy notes in the distinctive smell.

[“20 Things You Didn’t Know About … Rain,” Gemma Tarlach, Discover (April 2017, paywall)

Ever get that gassy feeling?

On top of Strange Invaders (1983) comes Invisible Invaders (1959)! A terribly, terribly earnest movie concerning a nuclear scientist who has just quit a commission on nuclear weapons in disgust, and is faced with the corpse of another scientist who delivers an ultimatum that the Earth must surrender to the invisible (and asthmatic) invaders from outer space who have conquered the rest of the Universe.  This was probably conceived as a high tension thriller, with the scientist, his daughter, another scientist, and an Air Force representative ensconced in a bunker while they listen to the world falling apart around them, where they become the world’s only hope to roll back the invaders.

Sadly for them, they are beset by a veritable host of zombies, logic errors and aesthetic errors, including “If they can inhabit dead bodies by literally slipping into them, why can’t they just walk through walls?”, and, “Isn’t that a bit gross?”, and, “If you’ve taken over the Universe, then why do you want us to surrender? Why don’t you kick our asses and be done with it?”

Surely an MST3K candidate of high standing, we laughed our way through most of it, although the consistently adequate-to-good acting was certainly soberly appreciated. As I’ve just acquired the second head cold of the season, this was more appreciated than it might have been otherwise. If you watch, make sure you do it with friends or family who have an aesthetic appreciation of snark.

Back in 2010 NASA discovered one of the sources of trajectory errors: bumps in the gravity field of the Moon. From 2010, here’s a map:

Source: NASA

NewScientist (11 March 2017) is now reporting that those mascons are old impact craters:

Jay Melosh at Purdue University in Indiana and his colleagues were searching data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission for traces of underground lava tubes when they came across two large buried craters.

These had been hinted at last year, when Alex Evans at the University of Arizona and colleagues used GRAIL maps to find evidence of more than 100 craters buried beneath seas of basalt formed by ancient volcanic eruptions.

One of the new craters, called Earhart, is about 200 kilometres across and is almost completely masked by a later impact and subsequent lava flooding. Another discovery is a buried crater 160 kilometres in diameter, which has been called the Ashoka Anomaly (Icarus, doi.org/b2j9).

From the GRAIL mission page:

On a map of the moon’s gravity field, a mascon appears in a target pattern. The bulls-eye has a gravity surplus. It is surrounded by a ring with a gravity deficit. A ring with a gravity surplus surrounds the bulls-eye and the inner ring. This pattern arises as a natural consequence of crater excavation, collapse and cooling following an impact. The increase in density and gravitational pull at a mascon’s bulls-eye is caused by lunar material melted from the heat of a long-ago asteroid impact.

“Knowing about mascons means we finally are beginning to understand the geologic consequences of large impacts,” Melosh said. “Our planet suffered similar impacts in its distant past, and understanding mascons may teach us more about the ancient Earth, perhaps about how plate tectonics got started and what created the first ore deposits.”

And knowing what created the ore deposits might help guide us when searching for new deposits – here or on other planets.

Conspecific:

Finally, many animals maintain specific territories, within which they are intolerant to the presence of conspecifics (i.e., members of the same species). According to Polis, crowding increases the frequency with which individuals violate the space of others. By reducing overcrowded conditions, cannibalism can serve to decrease the frequency of territory violations. [“The Case for Cannibalism,” Bill Schutt, Discover (April 2017, paywall)]