Monthly Archives: December 2017

In the academic journal The Science Of Nature (never heard of it before, so I’m wondering how much to trust the material), Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer give some remarkable estimates concerning spiders … en masse:

Source: Spiderzrule.com

Based on estimates of the average spider biomass m⁻² in various terrestrial biomes, extrapolation suggests that the total standing biomass of the global spider community equals 25.09 × 10¹² g (= 25 million metric tons fresh weight; Table 1). Biomass estimates m⁻² follow the order forests > grasslands/shrublands > croplands, deserts, and tundra, which also reflects the order of total spider biomass per biome type worldwide.

…. of literal and abstract.

What is it?

A grab into the email-bag left me with some pins in my hands, the pins that were sticking out of the dolls of California state lawmakers. I listened closely, and realized they needed me to say something which I’ve not mentioned strongly before, and that’s the problem of assertions made without presenting the opposing side’s reasoning.

So here’s the mail, this time piece by piece as I try to address each issue:

This is what we get from elected officials. They all should be fired

Why wouldn’t you want to move to sunny California?

CA Legislative Year Closed on Friday….So what did they Accomplish ?
You Won’t Believe Some of the New CA LAWS!! Check out #13…the last one

Update today from Jeff Stone, Republican state senator on the further progressive destruction of California:

Fellow Californians:

Friday will be the end of this legislative year — Here are some of the highlights of this session:

1. SB-1: increases your gas taxes by approximately 20 Cents (Nov 1) and your vehicle license fees by an average of $100 (Jan 1st).

I found SB-1, and it does appear to have something to do with transit and taxes, but I don’t read legalese well enough to judge this author’s interpretation. Let’s stipulate it, and then guess what – I applaud it.

Why?

Something that’s been noodling around in my brain recently has been the idea that humanity is awful when it comes to questions of scale. As an engineer, I’ve run across a great deal of code that handled, say, 10 items just fine, but when faced with 100,000, its performance is unacceptable. This sensitivity to increases in the number of items is often unnecessary, but it comes about because the engineer fails to consider the possibility of increasing volume of data.

Similarly, I think humans in general remain unaware of how the volume of people can impact the environment in unforeseen, negative ways. So when I see a tax such as this, I discard the automatic Oh God It’s A Tax reaction, and I ask what this does. In this case, it increases the cost of ownership of cars. We already subsidize fossil fuels, which, since it’s through general taxation, nixes the emotional impact the true price of fossil fuels – which results in us driving cars more rather than using other forms of transit. Remember, cars are identified as one of the bigger sources of pollution and climate change gases, not to mention the more that are bought, the more roads must be built – to the discouragement of the environment.

This isn’t social engineering – this is an attempt to bring to the attention of drivers the true costs of being drivers.

2. Passed Cap N Tax which will increase gas 0.63 to 0.93 cents a gallon change and the taxes that go with it. So do the math projection….
(0.12 + 0.63 = 0.75/gallon + current $3.10/gallon = $3.85/gallon)

See #1 response.

3. Proposed increase on a new tax every residence will pay for tap water in the State!

Oh, this merits an exclamation point! But what’s the justification? Via The Mercury News of San Jose:

For the first time Californians would pay a tax on drinking water — 95 cents per month — under legislation aimed at fixing hundreds of public water systems with unsafe tap water.

Senate Bill 623, backed by a strange-bedfellows coalition of the agricultural lobby and environmental groups but opposed by water districts, would generate $2 billion over the next 15 years to clean up contaminated groundwater and improve faulty water systems and wells. The problem is most pervasive in rural areas with agricultural runoff.

“My message is short and direct: We are not Flint, Michigan,” co-author Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said at a Wednesday rally outside the Capitol, where demonstrators held signs reading “Clean water is not a luxury” and “Water is a human right.”

California has become notorious in recent years for its floods, droughts and wildfires. In fact, it strikes me as ridiculous that an attempt is being made to lampoon a tax which, in reality, will bring home to the consumers at least some of the cost of living in a State that is experiencing drought, not to mention questions about aquifers (I’ve written about California water problems starting here). This sounds like a good start.

4. A $3.46B parks bond to pay for parks in “disadvantaged communities” meaning Los Angeles The debt service will be over $200 million a year. The good news is some money goes to help fix the Salton Sea which should have always been a State responsibility!

US News mentions this:

It would aim to improve access to parks and open spaces in disadvantaged communities, said Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, the bill’s author.

“This park bond, throughout the process, has focused on making sure that we prioritize the areas that prior park bond investments forgot,” the Coachella Democrat said. “What we’re trying to accomplish here is to continue to highlight the beautiful parks, outdoors recreational opportunities that CA has to offer.”

No mention of Los Angeles, but then I didn’t see the point. While $3 billion sounds like a lot to me, California is a big and rich state, so maybe that much over 30 years isn’t so awful – despite reported Republican objections. So what?

5. Law to release any lifer (murder, rape , child molestation, etc.) who is 60 years old and has already spent 25 years in prison! Charles Manson would have qualified today. What about victims?

US News is on the case again:

Weber’s bill would write into law a 2014 federal court order that requires California to consider releasing inmates age 60 or older who have served at least 25 years. Death row and other no-parole inmates were excluded by the judges, and her bill further excludes cop killers and third-strike career criminals.

The clarification is enlightening, now isn’t it? Lot of exclusions not mentioned in the original mail as well as discovering this is a response to conform to a court order. As US News mentions, this would save money with little or no danger to the public. Seems reasonable to me, although I don’t think of 60 year olds as helpless cripples … any more.

6. A new $10 charge on all residents living in a mobile home parks to address living condition enforcement in those parks? Why does the left embrace these regressive taxes on the poor?

TruthOrFiction.com addressed this one, so I’ll just borrow it:

This one refers to Senate Bill 46. The bill doesn’t create a new $10 charge for all residents living in mobile homes — it would extend an existing charge of $4 per mobile home lot . The fee, which supports Department of Housing and Community Development inspections of mobile home parks, is already in place but was scheduled to sunset in 2019.

Incidentally, the link happens to be to TruthOrFiction’s analysis of a similar letter. Since I’m mostly through my own analysis, I’ll continue.

I’ll also point out that this is another illustration of GOP hypocrisy. Generally, they like to preach about personal responsibility, and certainly this tax would fall into that category – better living conditions paid for by those who live there. But, hey, it’s a chance to take a shot at the opposition, so shitcan the personal honesty and fire away, eh?

Also, this assumes those living in mobile home parks are poor. It’s certainly the stereotype – but I have to wonder, knowing at least one software engineer who chose to live in a mobile home park, and thought it was superior to the traditional home.

I wonder if he still feels that way.

7. We picked an official dinosaur of the State of California. Really ? Yes!

I won’t even look this one up. I’ll just say – too damn cool! Which one is it!?

8. Blackmail Tesla to either unionize with the United Auto Workers Union or forfeit State incentives to buy their electric cars! Just another Union Grab!

Not precisely accurate. From The Sacramento Bee:

But the legislation, amended late Monday to be ready for votes before lawmakers adjourn for the year on Friday, also would inject the state into an increasingly acrimonious union organizing campaign at automaker Tesla’s Fremont plant. Beginning in July 2018, manufacturers that want to be eligible for state zero-emission vehicle rebates – a major driver of Tesla sales – would need to be certified by the state labor secretary “as fair and responsible in the treatment of their workers.”

The United Auto Workers union has set out to organize thousands of Tesla workers, some of whom allege that the company had illegally intimidated them. The National Labor Relations Board’s Oakland regional office filed a complaint against the company late last month. 

A reminder that the ACA is still open for business. Kevin Drum assesses progress so far:

Just a reminder of my seat-of-the-pants methodology here: We know the numbers for the federal exhange (HC.gov), and they’re currently up by 22 percent compared to last year. So I’m projecting that the total number is about 22 percent higher than last year as well. That gets us to just above 6 million total signups.

Ahead of last year’s pace, eh? I suppose Trump will just deny that he tried to sabotage the ACA. Can’t be a failure, after all.

Catherine Padhi on Lawfare says the United States is operating under a national state of emergency – in fact, 28 of them currently. And we’ve been in a state of emergency for 38 years. Ever wonder about this?

In 1976, Congress attempted to pull back the president’s emergency powers by enacting the National Emergencies Act. First, the act revoked (two years after its enactment) any powers granted to the president under the four states of emergency still active at the time. Next, it prescribed procedures for invoking these powers in the future. No longer can a president give force to the hundreds of emergency provisions by mere proclamation. Instead, he must specifically declare a national emergency in accordance with the act and identify the statutory basis for each emergency power he intends to use. Each state of emergency is to end automatically one year after its declaration, unless the president publishes a notice of renewal in the Federal Register within 90 days of the termination date and notifies Congress of the renewal. Finally, the act requires that each house of Congress meet every six months to consider a vote to end the state of emergency.

Not once has Congress met to consider such a vote. It is not exactly clear why. But the provision would have lost much of its intended force even had Congress complied: It originally allowed Congress to end an emergency by concurrent resolution (that is, if majorities in both houses voted to end it). But in 1983, the Supreme Court declared this sort of legislative veto over presidential action unconstitutional. A 1985 amendment to the act now requires a joint resolution to end the emergency, meaning that any Congressional vote to end the emergency is subject to the president’s veto, which may be overridden only by two-thirds majorities of both houses.

Sure slips my mind. What’s going on currently?

As of today, 28 emergencies remain in effect. The list still includes the first emergency authorized under the act—President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 emergency, declared ten days after Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in Tehran. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump renewed the emergency for the 38th time.

Ah. So it’s Iran’s fault. Should have guessed.

Devil strip:

What counts as a salient linguistic feature can vary from case to case. A famous example involved a ransom note demanding that the money be left on the “devil strip”. Asked by police to help out, linguist Roger Shuy at Georgetown University in Washington DC happened to know that “devil strip” was an extremely rare name for the grassy area between the pavement and the street – so rare, in fact, that only people in Akron, Ohio, use it. When Shuy asked the police if they had a suspect from Akron, their jaws dropped. They did, and the subject eventually confessed. [“Write yourself invisible,” Michael Erard, NewScientist (25 November 2017, paywall)]

You’re ordering a pizza? Now?

The flashy, drawn out battles of Windtalkers (2002) certainly draw one’s attention, but their real function is to cover up a mediocre, mistaken story. Windtalkers refers to the Navajo communications men of the United States Marines, employed during World War II in the war against Japan. A communications code was developed based on the Navajo language, and so the Navajo were used on the front lines to relay information to the rear areas.

But this story is not really about them. It’s about one of two men who are assigned to act as escorts of two of the Windtalkers. Their assignment is not to protect the Windtalkers, but to protect the code – which may include killing the Windtalkers themselves, if necessary, for if the Japanese can force information out of a captured Windtalker, then the code is broken.

And more American lives can be lost.

The story moves on from there, with a perfectly (and unfortunately) telegraphed climax to come. The non-Navajo on which the story focuses was a loser in civilian life; in the war, he led a small force of men that were wiped out. When he recovered from the injuries suffered, he was offered this new assignment and given a promotion.

All of that is interesting, but the story really doesn’t use this information all that well. The story and its message muddled. We continue through the invasion of the island of Saipan, losing men, showing how the Windtalkers help zero in the heavy artillery on dangerous Japanese positions, until the unit to which the Windtalkers are attached is ambushed, and one is captured.

And then killed by an American, following orders. It’s not at all surprising, the audience knows it’s coming.

And, in all truth, I think a far more interesting story might have been explored by focusing on the Navajo. Was there controversy within the community at the thought of serving with the Americans? Were they really subject to the stereotypical racism as shown in this movie? How were the survivors of the war treated by the Navajo Nation upon return? These are all interesting questions that could have been fruitfully explored.

But this movie really isn’t that.

It’s not a bad war movie, but that’s all it is.

Evelyn Douek on Lawfare surveys the near-future as technology will soon be able to put words in your mouth in such a way as to make it seem real – and what that means for the regulatory apparatus:

Professors emeritus Les Hatton and Gregory Warr think peer review has run its course, as noted in the blog on Times Higher Education:

First, peer review is self-evidently useful in protecting established paradigms and disadvantaging challenges to entrenched scientific authority. Second, peer review, by controlling access to publication in the most prestigious journals helps to maintain the clearly recognised hierarchies of journals, of researchers, and of universities and research institutes. Peer reviewers should be experts in their field and will therefore have allegiances to leaders in their field and to their shared scientific consensus; conversely, there will be a natural hostility to challenges to the consensus, and peer reviewers have substantial power of influence (extending virtually to censorship) over publication in elite (and even not-so-elite) journals.

Publication in the highest-profile journals reinforces the hierarchies of status in the scientific community and promotes very effectively the prestige-, career- and profit-driven motives of authors, journal editors, publishers and (less directly) universities. This state of affairs exerts a particularly baleful influence on interdisciplinary research.

I suppose that, as someone who’s never published a paper and doesn’t hardly read beyond abstracts, I should be properly bashful and keep my thoughts to myself – but what fun is that?

I can’t help but notice these condemnatory paragraphs are all about implementation and not about design. That is to say, some constructs, tangible or intangible, are designed to fail, and no matter the quality of the components to build the construct, it will fail when implemented. Once a design is proven to be inadequate to its needs, it should be discarded, and in a better world, it will be instantly.

But that’s not what I’m reading here. Read that first paragraph again. These are not complaints about how peer review is designed, only in how it’s being implemented. The design of peer review is to have personnel competent in the relevant field review the methods described in a given paper to ensure they are appropriate for the collection and analysis of the data, and to ensure those methods have been properly employed (i.e., did they do 2+2 and get 4?). This must encompass papers that argue new methodologies for collecting and analyzing data.

None of this can be construed for necessarily requiring “… protecting established paradigms and disadvantaging challenges to entrenched scientific authority.” In poker, you can bluff all you like, but in the end, the cards talk. Same in the best papers and research – your ideology may call for water to have a memory, but when the evidence says no, it says no.

Source: Futurism.com

But as any good design engineer knows, you can always design something that is worthless because the proper materials are not available or are too expensive. Think of the proposed Space Elevator, basically a cable anchored at some point on the equator, extending straight upwards well beyond geostationary orbit (35,786 km altitude) with a counterweight on the end. Once available, it’d make it far cheaper than today’s lift rates to get payloads into orbit – but no known material has the characteristics necessary to implement the Space Elevator (some might argue that, so put one up and falsify the general argument, eh?).

If we extend this idea to peer review, then the question is whether the parts – the human beings – involved are incapable of fulfilling the requirements of honestly evaluating the methodologies, calculations, and claims of a research paper. And I suspect the professors have actually answered that question with a resounding No!, because they note elsewhere that the papers themselves are not reaching the rigorous standards appropriate for scientific research:

However, for any innovations in scientific publication to succeed two conditions would need to be met. The first, as noted above, is the provision with a publication of all the information necessary for independent reproduction and repeatability of the research, and the second is the improvement in the culture of science such that less than rigorous work and deceptive publication practices are no longer tolerated.

Amen. This applies to the peer review, in spirit, as well, and I believe is attainable. In that first paragraph, they suggest that peer review simply functions to shore up old paradigms and reputations. But this is not self-evident, because, ideally, peer reviewers are anonymous and honest. The first is easy enough to ensure, while the second is somewhat problematic. But the point is that because they are anonymous, no reputations are at risk or enhanced – at least, not profitably to the honest peer reviewer.

I suspect in today’s environment the wrong motivations / goals are employed. The goals of cash and jealous prestige are always the flies in the ointment that is science, and occasionally these must be met and put down, like rabid dogs, to remind the individual members of the scientific community that cutting corners in the pursuit of momentary wealth, or jealously guarding your reputation by shattering incipient new paradigms, only does harm to the entire scientific enterprise. At their very core, scientists are striving for the clearest possible vision of reality; letting the cataracts of wealth, fame, jealousy, and other such human foibles form over your eyes simply wrecks the view – for everyone.

Andrew Sullivan is hoping the baker wins his SCOTUS fight – on artistic freedom grounds.

Which is why I think it was a prudential mistake to sue the baker. Live and let live would have been a far better response. The baker’s religious convictions are not trivial or obviously in bad faith, which means to say he is not just suddenly citing them solely when it comes to catering to gays. His fundamentalism makes him refuse to make even Halloween cakes, for Pete’s sake. More to the point, he has said he would provide any form of custom-designed cakes for gay couples — a birthday cake, for example — except for one designed for a specific celebration that he has religious objections to. And those religious convictions cannot be dismissed as arbitrary (even if you find them absurd). Opposition to same-sex marriage has been an uncontested pillar of every major world religion for aeons.

I think it’s a mistake to conflate religious marriage with civil marriage, as obviously the baker is doing, and I think Andrew may be doing. Much like the Kim Davis affair (a post I really enjoyed writing), we’re getting all stirred up over settled legal controversies.

That said, I can appreciate the problems of an artist trying to work in the private sector. Suppose you’re a painter who works on commission. Should you be forced to accept every offer that comes your way? Intuitively, that’s nonsense. Nor should the painter be forced to disclose their reasons for refusing a commission. Is a baker an artist? Many would argue yes. So why should he be forced to supply a cake to anyone who wants one?

And yet, I wonder. I suppose one could argue that the difference between the painter and the baker is that the baker’s prices are advertised (although negotiable, as most anything can be), while the painter negotiates each price. Hmmmm. I think it might be a fragile approach.

Then, in classic independent style (and why Andrew remains on my intellectual and attitudinal menu), he takes the baker down on religious grounds:

One final thought as a Christian. Sealing yourself off from those you consider sinners is, in my reading of the Gospels, the reverse of what Jesus taught. It was precisely this tendency of the religious to place themselves above others, to create clear boundaries to avoid “contamination” from “evildoers” that Jesus uniquely violated and profoundly opposed. If Jesus is your guide, why is this kind of boundary observance such an important part of your faith? Are you afraid your own faith will be weakened by decorating a cake? Would you have ever had dinner with prostitutes or imperial tax collectors as Jesus famously did? What is this Christianity you are so dedicated to? Somewhere, the fundamental Christian imperative to love others and be humble before them has been lost.

In other words, if the liberals were more liberal, and the Christians more Christian, this case would never have existed. It tells you a great deal about the decadence of our culture that it does.

Being agnostic, I’ll just take Andrew’s word concerning the Gospels, but his description sounds very good and important to me. As a heterogenuous country, it’s always important to be reaching out to those in other other cultural segments, whether the segmentation is economic, religious, or ethnic; otherwise, we see provincialism and, soon, intra-country xenophobia sets in. One example of the latter is the continuing nattering about being in “fly-over country,” which is shorthand for those in that part of the country (say, Iowa) feeling their opinions are ignored by the “liberal elites” on the West and East Coasts of the United States, and this leads to a certain disdain.

Then they limit their conversations to each other, and they become increasingly sterile, drifting back to the Golden Age (in their minds), never remembering the bad aspects of those times. Their representatives become increasingly extremist, and because they’ve lost contact with the “other”, they don’t really understand that. Thus, we’re stuck with folks like Rep. King of Iowa.

I suppose, since I’m not too far off from Iowa, I should print up a big sign that says “George Washington Liberal,” plant myself in an Iowa diner, and talk to all comers. Darn near everyone wants to think President Washington would have liked them, so it’d be a conversation starter.

Colbert made a joke about it last night. NBC News wrote about it, too:

President Donald Trump will have a physical exam early next year and will make the results public, the White House said Thursday, a day after the president appeared to slur his words in a public address.

Near the end of his policy remarks Wednesday on Israel, Trump, 71, began having difficulty with words that included the letter “s,” voicing some of them as “sh.” He ended by saying what sounded like “and God bless the United Shtesh.”

Scores of people asked on social media whether the president had had a stroke or was struggling with dentures, which he isn’t known to use.

Let’s hope he hasn’t had a stroke or any other related neurological event. I don’t say that for either patriotic or sentimental reasons; I am being entirely hard-headed about this. Trump should never have been nominated, Trump should never have been elected, and at this juncture he has proven to be an even worse President than we could have dreamed, enfeebling the government, nominating sub-optimal judges, engendering scandal after scandal, and generally alienating the world.

If he has had a stroke, all of his supporters, who should be shamed that they ever voted for him, will be able to hide themselves behind the excuse that Trump was suffering from an illness well-known to affect judgment, and thus he wasn’t the same man as they voted for. Thus they can escape the necessary soul-searching and taking part in the national renewal which we’ll need, post-Trump. Such a renewal includes confessing to our own errors in judgment, having remorse for them, vowing to do better, and then healing the rifts which have erupted in today’s society.

Without the participation of those who enabled Trump’s electoral victory, such a process would be weak and ineffective.

It’d be much better to have this entire Russian scandal be completely aired out, and if Trump and his cohorts are indeed guilty of colluding with the Russians, then bounce them out. Force the GOP to choose between enabling someone who is arguably a traitor, assuming the Russian scandal has the worst story behind it, or dumping Trump out.

We need to have that traumatic surprise which might bring enlightenment to at least some of his supporters, an opportunity to learn that such a crass idolator of money should not be in charge of the government.

Gene drive:

In genetics, gene drive is the phenomenon in which the inheritance of a particular gene or set of genes is favorably biased. Gene drive can arise through a variety of mechanisms and results in its prevalence increasing in a population. Engineered gene drives have been proposed to provide an effective means of genetically modifying populations or even whole species. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Gene drives can beat pests, but we can’t afford any mistakes,” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (25 November 2017, paywall):

NEW ZEALAND is considering using genetic “extinction” drives to tackle invaders such as rats, possums and stoats. These gene drives are essentially genetic parasites that can spread and wipe out populations.

But leading gene drive researchers are calling for caution. They argue that no country should tackle invasive species in this way unless these can be certain the drives won’t spread beyond that country’s borders (PLOS Biology, doi.org/cgcb).

Possums, for instance, are protected species in neighbouring Australia, so it would be a disaster if a possum-killing gene drive was deliberately or accidentally introduced there. Instead, conservationists should release only smart gene drives that cannot spread in other countries.

I heard a year or two ago that vinyl is coming back, record factories re-opened, and record players are hot once again. Damn that ex-brother-in-law for borrowing my record player and never returning it.

Anyways.

Now the next step is being taken, as Paul Marks reports in NewScientist (25 November 2017, paywall):

Yet some feel there is magic left in the cassette. And so, like vinyl, they are hoping to fuel a revival.

Behind this is what’s billed as the world’s last cassette maker, National Audio Company of Springfield, Missouri. With stock dwindling, and its South Korean supplier no longer making raw tape, it had to act, not only to fuel bands like Metallica that still use cassette, but also a growing number of indie bands who want to do likewise. So it bought machines once used to make magnetic strips for credit cards to repurpose for making tape. …

Music on tape has a unique, vital sound and record labels are picking up on that. Encoding audio as varying magnetic fields, as tape does, is bound to give a different quality to other methods.

For the record (hah!), I do still have a Denon tape player. Hidden in my attic.

AI-powered scarecrows work as well, NewScientist (25 November 2017) reports:

It can detect and identify pests, before responding intelligently with the right combination of sound or light. Each of these “sentinels” has a library of startling and scary noises: predator sounds, animal alarm calls, irritating tones and self-generated noises. Teams of the devices can protect large areas.

In tests earlier this year in Gabon, the scarecrow worked. “Elephants usually turn and escape as quickly as possible back the way they entered,” says Ashley Tews of Australia’s national research organisation CSIRO, which developed the system.

Which is actually fairly important, as elephants that invade human precincts are often killed because of the danger they pose, and their persistence.

After writing last night’s post concerning the recognition of Jerusalem as a possibly shrewd move by Trump, along comes WaPo and makes it clear that he’s just trying to beat his predecessors – again. And without understanding what might happen:

Several advisers said [Trump] did not seem to have a full understanding of the issue and instead appeared to be focused on “seeming pro-Israel,” in the words of one, and “making a deal,” in the words of another.

Once Trump indicated 10 days ago that he would not sign a second waiver, national security adviser H.R. McMaster began putting together options that officials assessed would result in the least damage.

The debate came to a head at a White House meeting Nov. 27 to hash out the waiver issue. According to people briefed on the meeting, Trump repeated his earlier assertions that he had to follow through on his campaign pledge, seemingly irritated by objections over security and the break with previous policy.

“The decision wasn’t driven by the peace process,” one senior official said. “The decision was driven by his campaign promise.”

Chief regional allies including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt — where senior government officials have said they still have little sense of the parameters of the broader peace plan being fashioned by the Kushner-led team — were not told definitively that the decision had been made until late last week. All have described the Jerusalem decision as a step backward in the peace process.

When Trump made contact with Arab allies ahead of his announcement, it was to notify them, not to discuss the matter.

According to Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Trump “just went on saying he had to do it,” despite the Palestinian leader’s fervent objections.

Ah, well. Sometimes, trying to see what others don’t results in exactly that.

The stamp of corruption.

Midway through RoboCop (1987) I finally came to understand why I was enjoying what really seems like a slight action movie: it’s addressing one of the premier issues in today’s society, the problem of confusing the responsibilities and processes of one sector with another.

OCP is a company with its fingers in many fields, and it’s just signed an agreement with Detroit to provide law enforcement services, in return for the right for total renovation rights over portions of Detroit. Their newest offering is an automated robot, fully armed. One small problem: on its debut, it shoots and kills an OCP employee. That project is suspended, allowing another project involving a man/robot hybrid to proceed. And the man?

A dead cop.

They call it RoboCop.

He’s quite the success until he discovers that one of the senior managers of OCP is responsible for the death of another manager – and upon trying to arrest the guilty party, he finds his programming has a hidden constraint – senior managers of OCP may never be arrested by their own products.

Some might call this corruption, but to my mind it’s really just a corporate safeguard. After all, the corporation cannot afford to be disrupted by its own forces over what is really an internal mattter … right?

This makes RoboCop a graphic illustration of the problems that can occur when permitting a private company to intrude into governmental responsibilities. The clashing codes of conduct, morality if you’re daring, dangerously degrades the efficiency and trustworthiness of the service, and we can see why, if we have the wit.

There’s also a lovely scene following his discovery of the constraint. He escapes the rival robot that was set on him by the rogue senior manager, but on exiting the stairwell, he finds the OCP police force waiting for him, and as they shoot at him, the impacts force him into a dance of bruised innocence that seems to convey a sense of betrayal. As RoboCop, he is above corruption, and for having such a morality, he is subjected to the forces of death by those who would benefit from manipulating the system. In some odd way, it’s a tragic scene, from which he escapes only because of those cops who still cling to the precepts of law enforcement honor.

Eventually, RoboCop avenges himself on the gang that killed him, and the senior manager gets his comeuppance. While the story is straightforward and fairly predictable, it has enough humor to make it worth watching to the end. So if you find yourself at loose ends, want to watch something straightforward, and have never seen RoboCop, it might be worth your time.

As WaPo once again issues a correction of President Trump, this time having to do with DoD budgets, it occurs to me that the fact-checking organizations should be more aggressive in checking Trump, as well as all major candidates during Presidential campaigns. Each time a candidate or the President is scheduled to speak, they should set up desks outside the venue, connect to their fact checking back ends, and then check each and every assertion the candidate makes during the speech. Through the use of high speed printers, by the time the attendees are exiting the venue, the fact-checkers should be able to create paper packets which correct those assertions which are fallacious.

Remember Trump’s assertion we were experiencing historically high rates of crime? Imagine handing out a packet with a big old graph showing the lie, with FBI Crime Statistics stamped all over it, to the excited attendees, and watching them deflate. And then get angry. And then probably throw it in the garbage.

The more advanced organization would also pull out statistics for the town where the event occurred, just for comparison. Maybe this little burg IS having a crime problem. This would illustrate that the crime problem is local, not national, and thus not to take Trump seriously.

Just an idle thought.

There’s been the expected uproar over President Trump’s announcement that his Administration will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – the first nation to do so, as I understand it. I found Akiva Eldar’s analysis in AL Monitor an interesting take on it. Even the article title intrigues – Netanyahu left without any cards to play.

Every rookie cadet in the foreign service knows that in diplomacy, as in business, there are no free lunches. When a seasoned businessman like President Donald Trump grants Israel the coveted US recognition of Jerusalem as its capital, he expects a quid pro quo. That is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orderedmembers of his government to lie low and, to the extent possible, abstain from crowing over the expected news from the White House. As a former furniture salesman (Netanyahu once worked in marketing for an Israeli furniture firm), the prime minister knows that an overly enthusiastic buyer jacks up the price of the goods. Netanyahu can assume that Trump will not risk upsetting his Saudi clients over the sensitive issue of Jerusalem — holy to both Muslims and Jews — just to please his Jewish and evangelical supporters/constituents. No one gives away such a gift, and with a 50% discount, at that. The first recognition by a foreign nation of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state will come with a price tag, and it won’t be cheap.

Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner, speaking on Dec. 3 at the Saban Forum in Washington, indicated that his father-in-law’s administration was preparing another pricey gift for Israel. The president’s adviser told participants at the prestigious gathering that many countries in the region, traditional enemies of the Jewish state, now view Israel as a potential partner given their shared enemies: Iran and the Islamic State. He noted that the US Mideast peace team, which he leads, was focusing on efforts to implement what the countries in the region want — “economic progress, peace for their people.”

The price? Get the peace thing with the Palestinians figured out.

However, hatred of Iran, love of Israel and even covert intelligence support are not the only ingredients of regional peace. “If we’re going to try to create more stability in the region as a whole, you have to solve this issue,” Kushner said, referring to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The Saudis, Egyptians, Qataris, Jordanians, Emiratis, “everyone we’ve spoken with,” all view a solution to the Palestinian problem as important.

Indeed, with all due respect to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and despite the importance of efforts being invested by the president of the United States, two additional partners are needed to advance resolution of the Palestinian problem: Palestinians and Israelis.

As much as I view President Trump as a clumsy, uninterested amateur, even a delusional man who would be better spending his time in a private hospital, this time I have to wonder if he’s on to something. A big old carrot’s being dangled in front of Israel, but it’s still out of reach because Trump has also said he doesn’t know when the actual, physical movement of the embassy to Jerusalem will happen. This isn’t a private message, this is a big old public If you want the rest of this, you know what you have to do.

And also keep in mind that Netanyahu is in personal peril due to the corruption that has surrounded his administration. Handled skillfully, he may be able to use this opportunity to distract everyone, or at least dilute the findings of the police. And, of course, add to his legacy.

It’s not subtle, but then Trump has all the subtlety of a bull moose in rut. Along with the threats of Iran and the Islamic State in the region, which changes the calculus of diplomacy, it may be enough to tip that particular balance. Although I still have to wonder how a city considered holy by three different religions is going to be managed, both politically and practically. Hell, the different Christians sects sometimes have violent riots with each other over what seems to me to be trivia.

Gallup‘s latest Party Affiliation poll should be disheartening for the GOP … who have, of course, governing dominance at the moment.

So the question in my mind is what has more importance here? Is it just Democratic incompetence, culminating in an inability to get their voters to the polls? Or completely unable to persuade Independents to their cause?

Or is it gerrymandering showing a very ugly face? This won’t explain the Senatorial dominance of the GOP, slender as it is, but it might explain their current dominance in the House.

And this result probably explains the recent trend of Democrats winning Republican seats in state-level special elections, as last happened last night in Georgia:

It was already a foregone conclusion, but Democrat Jen Jordan has become the newest member of the Georgia State, ending a two-thirds supermajority previously enjoyed by Republicans.

Jordan, a lawyer, won the election over Howard, a pediatric dentist, with 10,681 votes (64 percent) against Howard’s 6,017 votes (36 percent).

Howard and Jordan entered the runoff after drawing the most votes in a crowded field during the initial election. The seat was previously held by Republican Hunter Hill, who resigned to run for Georgia Governor, so it was a big surprise that two Democrats garnered the most votes. [Cobb County Courier]

A “jungle primary” resulted in two Democrats facing off. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee claims the Democrats have flipped 33 seats in 2017. I’m not sure how many Democratic seats have come under GOP control in the same time period, but it seems unlikely they have anywhere near as many.

It doesn’t take any insight that the Democrats have high hopes for the 2018 midterms; they feel they just need to beat the mighty GOP marketing machine, which is quite formidable.

But, for me, what will it take for the GOP to reconsider its suicidal – and country-damaging – ways? Or are they too addicted to the donor-supplied cash, who now seem to be directing the GOP, at least in part?

The next national level special election is for the former Senatorial seat of Jeff Sessions, where accused child molester and stalker Roy Moore of the GOP is up against Democrat and “pro-abortionist”, as the GOP‘s literature says, former Federal prosecutor Doug Jones. I suspect the GOP, which has recently turned against its stated principles (with the exception of a few Senators) to back Moore after all, will retain the seat – Alabama goes its own way, even at the expense of its moral standing (and soul, if you believe in such things), and right now they perceive “the establishment” as being against Moore. Polls are all over the place, so it’s not worth citing them.

But the Democrats are actually in a win-win situation, if they are smart enough to take advantage of it. Moore is reportedly clever – he knows how to talk to Alabamans – but not particularly bright. If he wins, he’ll function as a screaming red canker on the hide of the GOP, and by highlighting this fact, and the evident fact that the GOP will embrace anyone of dubious morals and intellect, the Democrats should be able to swing more Independents to their side.

And if they win, it’ll spotlight the GOP as a Party in terrifying moral – and demographic – decline.

We’ll see how this plays out.

Paul Waldman remarks in WaPo on the tax bill currently in conference committtee:

Those are value judgments, rooted in how Republicans tend to view the worth of different people. They operate on the presumption that the economic system is fair, and the results of that system provide a measure of different people’s virtue. If you’re rich — even if you got rich by choosing the right parents — they presume that you deserve to be taxed as lightly as possible, while if you’re in need of the kinds of help we offer low-income people, then it reflects a moral failing. If we give you any help at all, it should be as grudging as possible, accompanied by stern lectures and even rituals of humiliation such as drug tests.

Which inspires me to ask, How about if we require drug tests when you’re inheriting money, and if you fail the drug test, you don’t get the inheritance?

Seems fair to me. It even makes sense. Why should some crack-head son of a billionaire get all that money just because Daddy found a way to make it? What did you do, sonny, that earns you that amazing inheritance? (Hey, we could make it into a game show!)

America was built on the idea of it being a meritocracy, and this attempt to protect estates is distinctly un-American.

For readers who like national monuments, Trump’s desire to erase Obama’s legacy has resulted in a reduction of two of monuments from Obama’s era. From The Salt Lake Tribune:

To the cheers of Utah politicians and dismay of environmental and tribal groups, President Donald Trump swept into Utah on Monday and erased most of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National monuments — shaving 2 million acres from their boundaries and replacing them with five smaller monuments.

The historic move was swiftly met with a lawsuit filed by a coalition of conservation organizations and threats of another from American Indian groups, as opponents claimed the reductions are illegal and denounced them as potentially opening pristine lands to development. Protesters along Trump’s route and in downtown Salt Lake City shouted and waved signs opposing his changes, and for a time halted traffic.

But, as Steve Benen points out, Interior Secretary Zinke is playing the “say the opposite of reality” game:

Wait, what’s the hundredth prime number again?

If only the premise of Escape From New York (1981) were palatable. From my science fiction days, I remember “they” would say you got one unbelievable assumption in a story. But it just doesn’t work here. The sacrifice of Manhattan, with all its valuable buildings, to be a high-security prison for all the criminals of the United States simply rings completely false.

Add to that the lack of interesting thematic material, and Escape From New York becomes merely another mindless action flick, as Air Force One goes down in Manhattan, and the President must be found and extracted by one “Snake” Plisken, former Special Forces, later arrested and convicted on charges of attempting to rob the Federal Reserve.

What’s turned him from military to armed robber? For that matter, what’s caused the 400% increase in crime? We don’t know. Not a hint. It makes the movie much less interesting. It seems like everyone in Manhattan has heard of Snake. Some have even heard he’s dead. Where do those two bits of info lead?

Oh, nowhere.

If you want mindless action, this isn’t too awful. Good sequences. But it’s not gripping, it’s boring.

I’ve been laughing all day at this silly-ass assertion that the President cannot be obstructing justice:

John Dowd, President Trump’s outside lawyer, outlined to me [Mike Allen]] a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.

The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd claims. [Axios]

Dowd is suggesting the President has no standards to live up to as chief law enforcement officer.

BUT THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE FACT OF THE MATTER.

Law enforcement is ideally always held to a higher standard than the general citizenry. Because they’ve been permitted special powers as law enforcement personnel, they are also expected to adhere to standards that the rest of us need not.

In essence, no, Dowd, the President is not permitted to attempt to influence possible future cases. Not of Hillary Clinton. Not of himself.

And he most certainly may not use those powers to stop investigations into this own behaviors. That is inherent in being a law enforcement officer.

And it’s all in your own words, Dowd. If only you had given this matter deeper thought.

Sort of like your client.

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare is having some trouble digesting Alan Dershowitz’s arguments against Trump indulging in obstruction of justice. He has four questions for Dershowitz, the first being this:

James Comey has testified that the FBI first opened an investigation of Russian interference in our election in July of 2016. This was presumably a counterintelligence investigation, in the first instance. To comply with Justice Department guidelines, it could only have arisen because some information came in—probably as a result of ongoing monitoring of foreign intelligence targets—indicating a degree of interaction between the Russians and Trump campaign officials or figures. That is, the FBI would have had to make a judgment, at a minimum, that a counterintelligence investigation touching the Trump campaign or someone within it “may obtain foreign intelligence that is responsive to a foreign intelligence requirement.” If there was a criminal component to that investigation, it would also have had to have information suggesting that “An activity constituting a federal crime or a threat to the national security has or may have occurred, is or may be occurring, or will or may occur.”

So here’s my first question to Dershowitz: Assuming that the information that came to the FBI in July 2016 properly met the standards for predication of either a national security investigation or a criminal investigation, should the FBI have declined to investigate it? That is, should the FBI have shrugged at the possibility of Russian recruitment of Trump campaign officials because Dershowitz concludes without the benefit of that investigation that “Even if it were to turn out that the Trump campaign collaborated, colluded or cooperated with Russian agents, that alone would not be a crime”? Note that Trump was not president at the time and that, therefore, no question arises at this stage as to whether a president can obstruct justice by exercising his constitutional authority to supervise the executive branch.

The story does not end there. Because when the FBI began investigating this matter, evidence arose of potential crimes among senior members of the Trump campaign. For example, in the course of investigating L’Affaire Russe, the FBI—and later the special counsel’s investigation—developed information suggesting that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates had engaged in a giant money-laundering scheme. Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment letter for Mueller specifically gave him jurisdiction over “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

The rest are interesting questions, as I think Benjamin more or less ridicules Dershowitzs’s arguments.