Monthly Archives: July 2017

Ben Caspit on AL Monitor notes that the recent attack by three Arabs on the Temple Mount, and the teamwork of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas to calm the tensions, highlight that the greatest fear of the Israelis is not an attack by the Arabs – but by a Jewish extremist:

The attack was not the nightmare scenario that truly terrifies Israel. In fact, the defense establishment has always been less concerned about a Muslim attack on the Temple Mount, since the Haram al-Sharif is sacred to them. What they really feared was an attack by an extremist Jew in an attempt to set the Middle East and the entire Muslim world on fire, laying the ground for the War of Armageddon between Islam and the Jews and ending with the arrival of the Messiah on his white donkey. Under this scenario, Al-Aqsa Mosque would be destroyed and the Third Temple rebuilt on its site of the original Temple.

Israeli security forces have prevented several such attacks over the years. Only limited numbers of Jews are now allowed on the Temple Mount. They are restricted to small groups, certain hours and can only visit after undergoing a thorough security clearance. Although the possibility that armed Muslims might storm the compound has been taken into consideration, it was never a high priority to which to prepare. Yet, that is exactly what happened. As a result of the attack, Israel made the rare move of closing the area to Muslim prayers through the following day.

Combine true hubris, the desire to be at the center of the action (aka the Drama Queen temperament), and high powered weaponry, and it’s not a good situation. Not that I have a realistic solution, except perhaps that employed by the IDF. I doubt there’s a theological fix for the problem.

Caspit goes on to note that the Trump Administration has withdrawn from this area of responsibility, leaving it up to Israel, Palestine, and perhaps Jordan. Given the temperament of the current Administration in Washington, this is not necessarily bad – but it would be preferable to have the universally respected Kerry involved, rather than retired.

On this dormant thread we discussed how the lack of investment by States in State institutions might ultimately lead to a decline in ownership of cars. Kevin Drum analyzes a recent report linking the rise in tuition rates to declines in youthful home ownership:

As tuition and student debt go up, homeownership rates go down. The authors say that a $1,000 increase in college tuition and fees leads to a 0.24 percentage point decline in the homeownership rate for college students later in life (ages 28 to 30). Thus, the $3,578 increase in tuition from 2001 to 2009 is responsible for a decline of about 0.84 percentage points in homeownership rates among college students from 2009 to 2015. That’s about a tenth of the total decline.

A different analysis suggests the effect may be even bigger: 0.48 percentage points for each $1,000 increase in college tuition. That comes to 2.74 percentage points, which is about a third of the total decline in homeownership rates.

In other words, tuition increases can explain somewhere between a tenth and a third of the decline in homeownership among those with some college education.

So if your favorite metric for success is home ownership, then perhaps pushing down tuition rates should be on your agenda.

That brings up a topic I’d like to explore someday – the selection of metrics to measure the success of society. Does life expectancy really make sense? Do abortion rates really matter? Does infant mortality measure the callousness of society – or a society that makes every effort to save every life, even those that are unsaveable? There is often a nuanced backstory to these metrics, the same metrics that are often used like clubs to beat up competitors, be they other societies or other systems.

Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes is truly excited by a recent suit filed against the Trump campaign:

Last week, a group called United to Protect Democracy filed suit against the Trump campaign and Roger Stone on behalf of three people whose emails and personal information were among the material stolen by the Russians and disclosed to Wikileaks. The suit alleges that the campaign and Stone conspired with the Russians to release information about the plaintiffs—who are not public figures—in a fashion that violates their privacy rights under D.C. law. and intimidates them out of political advocacy.

And if the suit survives motions to dismiss …

… that means the plaintiffs will get discovery. The pleading is rich—very rich and intentionally so, I suspect—with allegations that will provide for plausible discovery requests against all kinds of actors and on all kinds of subjects. It makes reference to the President’s tax returns, for example. It names a large number of individuals, whose depositions plaintiffs might plausibly seek. One of the defendants is the campaign itself, meaning that the campaign’s agents, actors, employees, and documents, are all potentially subject to discovery. So if I’m right that the suit eventually survives that initial motion to dismiss, it will immediately become a gold mine for journalists and investigators. And it will present an intense set of headaches for the Trump forces both inside and outside of government. Think Paula Jones, but not about a single act of alleged harassment. Think Paula Jones—only about everything.

So watch this one closely. It’ll be a sleeper for a while, but If I were the Trump forces, I’d be very worried about it.

Sounds like someone has lined up a great big cannon at Trump.

From time to time I run across right-wing accusations of Obama having been this terrible person, engaged in this or that corruption involving campaign finance or the Iran Nuclear deal – yet nothing ever comes of it. You’d think if there was meat to those accusations, there’d have been credible suits, uproar, removal from office.

Nothing ever came of it.

And then this comes along for Trump. A credible, uninvolved lawyer thinks this could go places and even burn down the palace. If, indeed, it does, then this is a pivotal example of the difference between reality and fantasy – and should be studied by everyone who believed Obama was so terrible as a way to understand how they were wrong. It should be studied in the belief that one should be trying to improve oneself – not how to construct suits to destroy one’s opponents.

Hospitals are notorious for the many interruptions to the rest & recovery of their patients. Having been in one once or twice, I can testify that sleeping is hard due to the strange lighting. But I never dreamed how important it may become to have proper lighting. Linda Geddes reports in NewScientist (8 July 2017):

Up to a third of people are depressed in the weeks following a stroke, while up to three-quarters experience fatigue and poor sleep. “These symptoms can have an adverse effect on cognitive function, recovery and survival,” says West.

He presented data at the Society for Light Therapy and Biological Rhythms conference in Berlin in June, which showed that people recovering from strokes score lower for depression and fatigue, and show more robust circadian rhythms when exposed to solid state lighting. “The effect was comparable to giving patients antidepressants,” says [Anders West of Glostrup Hospital in Cophenhagen].

Hospital lighting also seems to have a dramatic effect on severe depression, which often involves a disrupted circadian clock with delayed sleep periods. At the Berlin conference, Klaus Martiny of the Psychiatric Centre in Copenhagen presented research showing that people being treated for severe depression were discharged almost twice as quickly if their rooms faced south-west in comparison with those whose rooms had a north-west aspect. Depending on the time of year, the intensity of daylight in the south-west rooms was 17 to 20 times brighter.

“These are very depressed patients who tend to stay in their rooms and isolate themselves, so they’re more exposed to differences in light intensity,” says Martiny. The 67 people in the study had been randomly assigned rooms, and those who stayed in the brighter rooms were discharged after 29 days on average, compared with nearly 59 days for those in darker rooms.

Solid state lighting follows the cycles of the sun as perceived here on Earth, starting in the morning with bright blue light, and then fading off as the day progresses. This imitation makes sense, of course, since we evolved in roughly such an environment, given locational variances.

I have to wonder how much our Western, age old belief that we are separate from the animal kingdom has contributed to the mental illnesses we now so often have to treat. It also has implications for space travel and future astro-colonialism. Will we genetically modify ourselves to properly process sunlight from, say, blue supergiants? Or will we engage in some futuristic accelerated evolution? Or will we restrict our colonial instincts to Earth lookalikes?

And, finally, what will be the backlash for the Abrahamic religions? Can a genetically modified human be an Evangelical Christian as well?

Autophagy:

Yeast is basically the MVP of lab organisms. It’s helped scientists claim five Nobel Prizes in the 21st century (2001, 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016). Yoshinori Ohsumi, the most recent prizewinner, used baker’s yeast to identify genes crucial in autophagy, the process by which cells recycle their components. Diseases like Parkinson’s, Type 2 diabetes and cancer have been linked to disruptions in this cellular recycling process. The autophagy machinery in yeast cells is similar to that in human cells, and Ohsumi’s work, which began in the 1990s, gives scientists new targets for possible treatments. [“Everything Worth Knowing About … Yeast,” Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine (July/August 2017)]

Kevin Drum is upset about the news that the UAE manufactured the inflammatory quotes that caused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations to blockade Qatar. Specifically:

This seems to be getting almost no attention today. Why? Do people not believe it? Does news about Qatar just not matter? Am I overestimating how big a deal this is?

This is a deliberate and calculated false-flag operation, designed specifically to create a fake casus belli. Isn’t that a massively big deal?

The how, yes, but the what, no. Wars are often ginned up using deception, such as the recent Iraq War as well as World War II. Add in that it’s half a world away, and mix in American provincialism, and it’s no surprise. It’s sad, and the UAE should be punished in some way, but the skullduggery of ambitious political leaders is as old as the hills.

Show us something new, eh?

All that said, the story is important as an illustrative example of what can happen when the Internet is overly trusted. In a sense, this is an attack on the Internet, because the less we can trust the medium, the less useful it becomes. But now we see international tensions rise because of ambition and opportunity. Is the American citizenry smart enough to understand that can happen to them as well?

Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer presents a nice summation of President Trump’s paucity of appropriate tools on Lawfare:

The clinching case against the political ethics of Donald Trump may be these and any disclosures to come about his and his campaign’s readiness to strike a bargain with a foreign government for help in his campaign and its resistance to an honest public accounting.  But at least we Donald Trump, Jr.’s suggestion of motive. For the Trump campaign, dealing with Russia was business, and for Mr. Trump, that means it was personal—in his own interest. He has wound up in this position because, lacking a conception of political ethics, he has been guided instead by the recipe for success he took with him into politics from a career of business deal-making. And this is not just what moved Donald Trump, Jr. and senior campaign personnel. His father, falsely presenting it as “standard” politics, agrees that “anyone would have taken that meeting.”

A political partnership between Russia and the Trump campaign would have nothing to do with politics as a craft or vocation. Politics ain’t bean bag, but it is also not this.

Again, illustrative of Trump’s intellectual limitations – the idea that there is a different set of ethics applicable to business vs government is beyond him.

I really have to wonder if he’d realize the question, What should be the profit margin of government? is a trick question?

Chicago Now columnist Bob Schneider has officially abandoned the GOP for the Democrats. Among his critiques of his former party colleagues:

They hate education.  Their steadfast crusade to end public education, to deny it money is an attack on our future.  I went to public schools, including a public university.  I received a good education, from dedicated teachers and professors.  That should be preserved and not torn to shreds.

I wish he had given the “why” to go with the “what”. Do they see it easier to control the ill-educated? Is it the old complaint about educators being liberals? Is this some sort of outrage at free enterprise not providing education?

Do they even know themselves?

For those of us who enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) is, on, the surface, more of the same, full of snarky attitude, unexpected dialogue response patterns, crazy action scenes, and snazzy special effects. Thematically, however, it’s somewhat different and better focused.

There are two themes. The first is easy: family. Family, defined by who cares for you and you care for, and not family in a strictly biological sense. This is useful in a world where xenophobia brings concomitant risks of devastating war.

The second theme is the meaning and/or purpose of life, from the point of view of a near-God.  This is portrayed from what appears to be the perspective of a Boltzmann Brain, which is an example of a self-aware entity arising spontaneously from a state of chaos. Often used for mind experiments involving infinite time lines, this apparently ridiculous concept takes center stage (if not under the actual name) in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, exploring the concept of a creature created in the midst of space, and how, upon gaining self-awareness, discovers the metaphysical burden of not having a purpose or meaning to its existence. The result? The suggestion that a non-social creature is unable to conceive of a life spent in the service of the community, which may seem obvious when stated in this way – but, given the alleged existence of the Abrahamic God, raises important questions with regard to its ability to function in such a position.

All that said, it’s easy enough to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Outside of some problems hearing all the dilaogue, which might be a problem with the cinema, it’s an enjoyable experience, even if Groot is not a scene stealer as he was in the first movie. But see the first one before seeing this one.

Recommended.

Balderdash:

I’ve heard some folks arguing that all Trump Jr. was doing was gathering opposition research. Balderdash (this is a wonderful word, by the way; it was originally an Elizabethan term for a jumbled mix of liquors — you know, like at a party when folks pour three kinds of wine, some beer, and half a bottle of gin into a bowl and call it ‘punch’ or something. When you drink balderdash, you speak balderdash). [Greg Fallis]

OK, dug out the bellflower yesterday (dropped three pounds doing it, too), including digging three feet down in one area and madly sifting the soil. I fear the other half of that area, where I didn’t dig all the way down, will see a return of the pest.

Coneflowers and cast-off petunias (found in a trash barrel), aye.

Littoral:

1. of or relating to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.
2. (on ocean shores) of or relating to the biogeographic region between the sublittoral zone and the high-water line and sometimes including the supralittoral zone above the high-water line.
3. of or relating to the region of freshwater lake beds from the sublittoralzone up to and including damp areas on shore.

Noted in “Understanding Iranian threat perceptions,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, AL Monitor:

First are the challenges of the 1980s, namely the Iran-Iraq War and separatist rebellions in Iran’s Kurdistan and Khuzestan provinces, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. The United States and allied Persian Gulf littoral states played a decisive role in exacerbating these crises, including by buttressing separatists and providing Saddam Hussein with every means of support, including ballistic missiles and chemical weapons, which were used to deadly effect. Toward the end of the war, the United States also directly attacked Iranian oil platforms and even shot down an Iranian civilian airliner.

The author is a former Iranian nuclear negotiator spokesman.

Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, as reported (approvingly) by Deroy Murdock in National Review:

“I support Cruz’s and Lee’s idea,” Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes tells me. “Giving people the freedom to choose a plan that meets their needs and that they can afford is the best solution today.” The author of The Way Out of Obamacare added: “The American people voted in November for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. The law is in a ‘death spiral’ and needs to be replaced. …”

Bold mine. As has has been noted by numerous commentators, and, finally, the Trump Administration’s experts on it themselves, the ACA is not in a death spiral. And since Pipes leads her Institute, that casts doubt on all of their work.

Look, lies have consequences, and while there are some limited circumstances where lies must be employed, I tend to limit that to wartime, and this is not wartime. For years the libertarians have evinced concerns over the more subtle effects of single-payer systems in terms of the R&D efforts on new therapies. In my view, in isolation these are legitimate concerns, worthy of discussion and concern^[1].

But if the context is that of brazen lies, then it’s much more difficult to take the liar seriously. After all, either they’re profoundly uninformed (and, so, technically not a lie), or they are misrepresenting reality for some hidden agenda. Neither is trustworthy. And so Pipes has discredited herself. Probably time to go into retirement.

¹Although libertarians rarely, if ever, acknowledge the critical role of government-funded R&D in the development of new products, whether they’re pharmaceuticals or electronics.

In National Review, far right winger Andrew McCarthy is being dragged reluctantly to the precipice, but he wants to remind us impeachment isn’t about crime, which seems to have captured the minds of pundits on the left & right, but about the Constitution:

The standard for impeachment, the commission of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” is not concerned with criminal offenses found in the penal statute books and suitable for courtroom prosecution. It relates instead to the president’s high fiduciary duty to the American people and allegiance to our system of government.

Alexander Hamilton put it best in Federalist No. 65. Impeachable offenses are those

Which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

The bickering over collusion “crimes” misses the point. If an unfit person holds the presidency, the danger to our society is that he will abuse the power that he wields. The imperative is to remove him from office. Whether, in addition to that, his misconduct also happens to violate penal statutes and be ripe for criminal prosecution is a side issue. It is a subordinate legal question, whereas fitness for the presidency is a core political issue. That is why it is rightly observed that impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one.

We are a good distance from being able to assess whether President Trump should be impeached. It is specious, though, to suggest that this is not a question worthy of exploration, or that its answer hinges on whether collusion with Russia amounts to a criminal-law violation.

Our aspiration for presidential fitness is something more than “nothing he has done is indictable.” Abuses of trust go to the core of self-determining, republican governance. It is fatuous to fret over whether they also amount to, say, campaign-finance infractions — even “major” offenses in that category, such as the 2008 Obama campaign’s acceptance of nearly $2 million in illegal contributions, are so trivial in the greater scheme of things that they are commonly settled by the payment of an administrative fine.

All politicians practice a certain economy with the truth, but flat-out lying to the American people on a significant matter is a major abuse of trust. And forfending collusion with a foreign sovereign was an imperative for the Framers.

And I liked this:

The principal duty of the president is to safeguard the nation against foreign threats to our security and system of government. If a president instead has put them at greater risk, if he has conducted himself in such a way as to raise the specter of blackmail by a foreign power, it is always appropriate to question his fitness for the nation’s highest office.

And it’s true there’s nothing in the Constitution stating the President shall be deprived of office merely for violating the law. His position is important in absolute terms. A few violations here and there may be viewed as inevitable in an organization as large as the Executive.

But it’s the accumulation and pattern which is trouble, as I’m sure McCarthy would agree. If our President is incompetent or compromised, then he should be deprived of his position. There must be the reasonable admission of trust, of predictability, in our President, as we had with Obama and Bush I (the two that seemed the most trustworthy in my lifetime; I confess I hardly recall President Carter). President Trump’s long and continual record of lies may constitute a predictable pattern, but not a good one, not something worthy of pride and continued service.

And if he doesn’t think he’s lying, then it implies an incompetence of breathtaking proportions.

Along with noting the health insurance industry has finally broken its silence on the GOP‘s replacement for the ACA, Kevin Drum has just the description of the so-called Cruz Amendment , the modification to split consumers into sick and healthy groups, and thus destroy the health care system:

But now, even the insurance companies are fed up. They have looked into the abyss of the newly-proposed Cruz Amendment, and they understand precisely what kind of hell their own industry would unleash on the world if it passes. Their letter to Mitch McConnell minces no words:

It is simply unworkable in any form …. would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions …. increase premiums …. would allow the new plans to “cherry pick” only healthy people …. creates two systems of insurance for healthy and sick people …. premiums will skyrocket for people with preexisting conditions …. millions of more individuals will become uninsured ….would harm consumers who are most in need of coverage.

The Cruz Amendment is sort of like chopping a baby in half: a solution that sounds appealing only to someone who doesn’t know what happens to babies who are chopped in half. And so I wonder. Did Ted Cruz understand the problems with his amendment when he dreamed it up, but didn’t care? Or did he just not bother to check with anyone who understood health policy before he proposed it? It’s the eternal conundrum: Evil or stupid?

When I was young and just out of college, I recall always getting the cheapest health insurance offered by my employer that I could, figuring the health of youth made this the wisest course. And I was right.

Within the limited context of myself.

But this sort of choice, taken over the entire population, no doubt pushed up premiums for those in need of better coverage, because by offering multiple options, the consumers naturally segregate themselves based on their perception of their private need. If you accept the proposition that the Cruz Amendment basically replicates the health care market pre-ACA, then by forcing the responsible parties to come out with the analyses showing how it leads to increasing premiums, then perhaps our extremist-fringe Senator Cruz has found a way to condemn the health care insurance industry, pre-ACA.

And possibly force us on a path to single-payer.

Regulations exist irrespective of your God, it seems, and Iran is hobbled by them. Alireza Ramezani on AL Monitor reports on the efforts of Iran’s administration to reduce its unemployment level from 12.6% – and one of its biggest obstacles:

Another issue of concern is the excessive red tape, which has been ignored in the government’s employment plan. Hamid Deihim, an economist at the University of Tehran, sees the red tape as a major obstacle that has made investors give up on enterprising. The World Bank’s Doing Business index for Iran got worse in 2017, dropping to 120 from 117 the year before. The index for Starting a Business also fell five units, reaching 102 in 2017. It takes Iranian applicants several weeks to have a company registered, disregarding the potential need for additional licenses from relevant organizations and ministries. This process takes only a few days in the United States and Europe, where applicants are free to have home offices. In Iran, applicants have to rent an office before starting their business, and therefore have to pay extra expenses for the establishment of a new enterprise.

Emad Azimi, the head of the Research Department at the Management and Planning Organization’s branch in Markazi province, in a May 28 op-ed in Donya-e Eqtesad urged the government to eliminate parallel and conflicting regulations when it comes to starting a new business. He said that employment can only be boosted if regulations are eased. However, measures to ease doing business in the country is a dream that can only become a reality in the distant future. As Rabiei has noted, single-digit unemployment rates require a “long-term” comprehensive solution that involves political and economic stability, elimination of red tape, eradication of economic rents and rent-seeking behavior, a skillful workforce and required investment. Thus, unemployment will in all probability continue to remain a source of concern for the authorities — until and unless the government provides a transparent competitive business environment for the real private sector to get the economy going.

Regulations are an important part of any modern economy – but they also are a portal for any old person to stick their hands in and gum up the works.

Last week our friends Kathleen and Doug came visiting, and upon touring the garden, Kathleen pointed at this:

And said, “Roundup!”

My Arts Editor suggested it was a a pretty flower, and was rewarded with a tale of horror and woe, and how only Roundup could do it in. So I took some pictures and uploaded them to iNaturalist. Their response?

Creeping Bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides):

Distribution

This plant is native to Europe and western Siberia and it has been introduced to North America, where it has become an extremely invasive weed. It chokes out other plants, and eliminating it is nearly impossible due to its multiple propagation mechanisms.

Oh, lovely. So I spent an hour digging out most of it tonight, until the mosquitoes came a-swarming and chased me inside; I’ll finish it up tomorrow.

And then gird the ol’ loins for the war of next year, I suppose.

Canada is full of surprises, and Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com gets me informed:

Justin Trudeau may be Prime Minister of Canada and run the country, but under the parliamentary system the country inherited from Great Britain, the Queen is the head of state and the Governor General is her representative, her boots on the ground. And as of September, those boots will be filled by Julie Payette.

Well. So the Governor General is the real power, although probably not exercised frequently. And then about Payette:

Julie Payette wanted to be an astronaut when there were no women in the corps, so she studied engineering and then got a Masters in computer engineering. She was one of four Canadian astronauts chosen among 5,330 applicants in 1992, and went into space twice.

Oh, she is also an accomplished musician who plays the piano and has sung with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. She speaks six languages and is a terrific athlete, and has 27 honorary degrees. She has 1300 hours of flight time, has 311 hours in space and is a deep-sea diving suit operator.

I feel … inadequate.

Big yellow eyes with touches of red. Jaundice? Liver failure while on a bender?

That first one was without the flash.

As ever, my Arts Editor has upgraded my poor efforts.

“Donald Trump Struck a Righteous Blow against Universalism,” David French, National Review.

A curiously fluffy piece, with little real substance. And I could even sympathize with the most basic point: democracy requires a certain soil, although I suspect David and I would disagree on the composition. For me, the embrace of democracy requires a dissatisfaction with the status quo, much as we see with the American Revolution and subsequent formation of the Confederacy (no, not that one) and then the Federal system, and the recognition of the adherence to justice in order to satisfy the citizenry; that the fragmented form embraced in colonial America was considered an ideal speaks to the disaster of theocratic monarchies.

For all that the Trump Administration is amazingly rich fodder for our national corps of comedians, the intelligence community is becoming very concerned about the damage being done to one of the most important features of the Washington bureaucracy – its dedication to truth rather than ideology. On Lawfare, Elizabeth McElvein reviews national attitudes towards various Trump-related controversies and discovers a disturbing polarization, as in this example:

One of the most anticipated episodes in the series of Russia-related investigations was the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee at the beginning of last month. With the testimony billed as a “political Super Bowl,” Americans’ acutely partisan assessment of the proceedings is to be expected: a Quinnipiac University poll found that a slim majority (54 percent) of Americans believe that President Trump fired former FBI Director Comey to disrupt the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. This figure includes 89 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of independents, and just 13 percent of Republicans. By contrast, 39 percent of Americans believe that President Trump fired Director Comey because he had lost confidence in Comey’s ability to lead the FBI well. Support for this position breaks along similarly partisan lines, including a whopping 79 percent of Republicans, 38 percent of Independents and just six percent of Democrats.

Though unsurprising, the intensely partisan nature of the investigations is a source of legitimate concern, especially insofar as it degrades Congressional capacity to conduct meaningful, impartial oversight of the intelligence community. In a recent op-ed, Dan Glickman, the former Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expresses concern that “for the first time … unhealthy partisan divisions by some are seriously impacting the independence and objectivity of the work of the House Intelligence Committee.”

Elizabeth’s concern?

One obvious explanation for these findings is that President Trump has repeatedly cast aspersions on intelligence community findings related the to Russia. At a news conference just yesterday, he responded to a yes-or-no question about Russian interference in the 2016 election by suggesting that “nobody really knows” if Russia was solely responsible. The president’s refusal to affirm the intelligence community’s findings pushes that analysis toward the realm of political subjectivity. These data might also reflect Americans’ distrust of institutional authority more broadly—a tendency that pollster Guy Molyneux characterizes as one of the “least appreciated” characteristics of the American electorate, and which, he writes, Trump was remarkably adept at exploiting over the course of his presidential campaign.

Elsewhere on Lawfare, Joshua Rovner wrote eloquently about the adverse short- and long-term consequence of the politicization of intelligence community analysis, concluding that for members of the intelligence community “any hope of playing a productive role in the policy process rests on the belief that policymakers [Democrats and Republicans] will value the community’s input without automatically suspecting its motives.” The politicization of fact-based analysis should be of utmost concern to those who value the institutional legitimacy of the intelligence community and of fact-based policy prescription and analysis in the national security sphere.

I have little of insight to add, but it’s worth reiterating that a political world which believes everything is politics is headed for disaster – for both them and us. Suppose the political view dictated the belief that the North Koreans would rollover if attacked, despite intelligence reports to the contrary – and so, to solve this outstanding problem, we rolled a division of Marines onto the beach at Majon. And, in retaliation, they delivered a nuclear weapon right into Seoul.

Or Los Angeles.

The role of non-partisan institutions operating in the political environment is absolutely vital, whether it’s the NSA or the Congressional Budget Office. It’s completely OK to question whether an institution is actually non-partisan, but only with strong evidence in hand.

Not the vapid lipping off of a power-hungry politico.

Elizabeth has ample reason for concern – as should we all.

Recent reports that a chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf Larsen C has broken of are common, resulting in an iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg. But in this report from the European Space Agency (ESA), I found this chunk interesting:

The loss of such a large piece is of interest because ice shelves along the peninsula play an important role in ‘buttressing’ glaciers that feed ice seaward, effectively slowing their flow.

Previous events further north on the Larsen A and B shelves, captured by ESA’s ERS and Envisat satellites, indicate that when a large portion of an ice shelf is lost, the flow of glaciers behind can accelerate, contributing to sea-level rise.

Which naturally leads to the question, How fast! How fast! Does Miami go under next week?

Equally seriously, does this affect the Emperor penguins, the stars of this documentary? And don’t confuse that documentary with this video.

Andray Abrahamian on 38 North explores the option of a travel ban in response to the murder of Otto Warmbier, and comes out somewhat against it:

More importantly, tourism has had a real impact on the class of people we need to connect with the most in the long term: middle and upper middle-class residents of Pyongyang. There has been a profound change in social attitudes among the community of citizens that are authorized to deal with foreigners in Pyongyang. In the past decade, there has been increased curiosity, cosmopolitanism, and open-mindedness among members of this group. In addition, these people have friends and friends of friends who also experience the outside world more, mostly through commercial ties with China. These people may not be able to change the country overnight, but they are its most important constituency for change, and in the long run, will become even more important.

Finally, tourism has been an extremely useful source of information for the community of Korea watchers. Tourists often identify and provide valuable insights into social and economic changes in a way that wasn’t possible before. Cutting off this source of information would be a loss for Korea analysts.

Tourism hasn’t been the engine for change that some hoped it might be, perhaps unrealistically, when North Korean officials began talking it up in the mid-1990s. But it is not without its benefits. Thus, any decision to try to curtail US or other tourism to North Korea should not be taken lightly. It would be a satisfying and justifiable moral rebuke and may somewhat reduce leverage that Pyongyang occasionally exploits in its relationship with the United States. It could also prevent the next Otto Warmbier from making a minor mistake that ends up being costly beyond words. However, it would also make people in an isolated place a little less connected to the outside world and harder to understand. Like so much when it comes to North Korea, every option has downsides.

I suppose this could be considered part of the strategic patience option pursued by the Obama Administration, giving the regime an opportunity to change while applying pressure that attempts to shape that change. Will the Trump Administration understand that? Will they still feel that the murder of Warmbier requires some sort of action that is more than giving North Korea the middle finger on Twitter?

And that metaphor spurs another thought. The Trump Administration’s loss of prestige has made the North Korean situation more dangerous because it’s more difficult to guess how the Kim regime monarchy will react to an insult from a country with a depressed prestige level, especially when the North Koreans Kim may perceive the North Korean prestige greatly enhanced due to their advancements in missile, nuclear, and computer technology. But I’m not sure who’s in greater danger – the United States or North Korea.