Yearly Archives: 2018

WaPo reports on a recent data breach at a popular restauranteur, and what that may mean for its customers:

The records belonged to customers who had registered for the MyPanera program to order food online. The details exposed included their names, email and physical addresses, birthdays, and the last four digits of user credit card numbers, according to the security news site KrebsonSecurity. Customers’ Panera loyalty card numbers were also exposed, KrebsonSecurity reported, which scammers could potentially abuse to spend prepaid accounts.

On Tuesday, Panera estimated that fewer than 10,000 customers had been affected by the leak. KrebsonSecurity put the number at closer to 37 million, though experts say the true number of compromised records may never be fully known. Panera did not return a request for comment or for clarification on the nature of the data breach.

As with so many other data breaches, this one raises questions for consumers. In some respects, it has grown ever more difficult to avoid e-commerce transactions. Many people now manage their personal banking on mobile apps. And consumers appreciate the convenience of ordering goods online. Every relationship and transaction raises the possibility of a data breach.

This is going to continue until one of two things happens.

First, industry comes up with a technological solution in which the security portion of any given application is separate from the actual functionality that makes it useful. This would mean that the majority of your engineers needn’t learn the hard lessons about security, they can just focus on the functionality, performance, and scalability questions which are already difficult enough to solve.

Second, society and the law changes such that no one can write commercial level code without a license. Naturally, every time one of these breaches occurs, those engineers who screwed up lose their licenses. At least temporarily. Let them go do fast food service for a while. Stop screwing up.

I have my doubts about the first solution, and the second will never happen. The future looks bleak for those folks who think giving up their personal information is worth a fast ham sandwich.

Not me. Not yet. I wonder how they’ll get me. What did I forget?

Back in the old mailbag I dive, this time discovering a missive that uses the current assault weapon debate to cover a divisive message emphasizing xenophobia. Here’s the mail, annotated:

To those with an open mind and searching for the truth, here is some education for you.

Not really going to get into with anybody on this but for what its worth here is some education for you. At the top of this picture is an evil black rifle an XM-15e2. On the bottom is an M1 Carbine. Both can hold 30 round magazines. Both have the same rate of fire. Both are available to the civilian market. One was invented for war to defeat oppressive governments that were murdering millions of defenseless and unarmed citizens. Yes that would be the wooden one.

The M1 was manufactured in WW2 and millions were made. After the war many of our boys came home with their M1’s and even more were sold to the civilian markets by the CMP [ed. Canadian Mounted Police] for $20 dollars a piece. “My grandfather bought one.”

Since this was an illegal practice, at least for the Americans (this may be written for Canadians, but since it’s clearly aimed at the American conservative, I’ll write this from that angle), no, granddad did not buy one. He, or his supplier, stole it. A little searching will reveal that truth, such as here or here; I did not find a single site claiming the troops took their weapons home with them. As a matter of fact, the weapons are government-owned, and they didn’t permit former soldiers to retain them.

As I’ve noted in the past, there’s often a big lie at the center of these poisonous letters to the American conservative, and this is the big lie of this mail. Without this lie, the rest of the mail falls apart. Let’s take a look at the direction this fraud takes.

So yes evil assault rifles “your terminology not mine” have been around for decades. So here is the question. How did we have thousands upon thousands of men return home from some of the most horrific fighting the world has even seen, have access to the M1 and didn’t go around killing innocents? Access? Nope. You could go to Sears and buy an M1. You didn’t even have to be 18 to purchase one in the 50’s. To buy a handgun you have to be 21, that didn’t change until 1968.

As I just noted, this paragraph turns to dust. There were no weapons coming home from the war. As for buying them from Sears, that’s unclear after searching – asking the question of Google gets you lots of stuff. But I will note that the veterans of WW II and following conflicts had seen combat up close and personal, and dealt with the shattered bodies and minds of friends and enemies. I suspect that made violence less attractive, rather than moreso.

Well today’s guns have more firepower. Nope, also not true. Ammo cheaper? Hell no. Much, much cheaper in the 40’s and 50’s. So try if you will to take the gun out of the picture and put your focus elsewhere? What has changed?

How about we no longer have a society flooded with vets who could see what assault weapons could do? No?

Nuclear family under attack. God removed from school. Prayers forbidden. School administrators not allowed to punish kids anymore. Defeat is not allowed, everyone gets a trophy. Teasing is bullying. Girls should not be treated as girls and boys should not be treated as boys. When in doubt, administer drugs. Games where you kill people or cops you get points for. Movies that glorify violence. 15 minutes of fame given out on social media for stupidity.

And here’s the divisive message, designed to chip away at American solidarity. If you’re conservative, the nuclear family is almost certainly your family structure of choice; this is the sort of message designed to activate the xenophobic response. The hidden message? Terrible school massacres have only started since those terrible gay people came out and began marrying each other, those transgenders began having their operations, all the great parts of the good old days gone! If we could only go back!

Well, no. We’ve had violence in our society for centuries. Remember the Valentine’s Day Massacre? How about the Bath School Massacre, which was not guns but illustrates schools have never been safe from maniacs. Our history is punctuated with violence, from both explosives and guns. (And ask my sister the psychologist about the 1950s and women. They were not good.)

So welcome to another un-American bit of propaganda, trying to make us hate each other by blaming those who yearn for liberty and freedom for violence which is supposedly new. Do we need weapons of war in the hands of civilians? That’s the keen question here. Don’t let the author of a vicious, misleading lie color your thinking. You can do that yourself.

Have guns change? Yes, went from wood to black plastic. Has our society changed? What do you think? Ramble over.

Ah, and so offhand, isn’t he? But. We. Know. Better.

On Lawfare Professor Carrie Cordero discusses the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the US Presidential Election, and how it hasn’t changed much since Obama left office:

Since then, intelligence community officials in the Trump administration have reaffirmed the intelligence assessment regarding the Russian influence campaign that had begun during the prior administration. In congressional testimony and related statements, intelligence community leaders have made clear—despite the president’s rhetoric to the contrary—that there is no daylight between the intelligence community’s intelligence assessment in the current administration and that of the prior administration. In the national security community, that continuity is expected; but as part of the greater public dialogue, it is notable and important to highlight.

I view the continuity as important in the following ways.

1. It indicates the intelligence community has not been terribly compromised by President Trump.
2. It indicates the intelligence community is relatively undisturbed by changes in the political world, such as exchange of control of the White House. This indicates to me that they are non-partisan
3. It may provide information – eventually – on why President Trump continues to deny their conclusions, and that may be incriminating – politically or even within the justice system – evidence for removing this incompetent amateur from this important position.

Professor Cordero goes on to address WikiLeaks:

As far as I know, consistent with practice, the U.S. government has not ever confirmed publicly whether it has an open counterintelligence investigation of WikiLeaks, although the Washington Post reported last spring that “the FBI has spent years investigating WikiLeaks…” and continued to do so in the context of the exfiltration of sensitive CIA hacking tools.

As a result, the U.S. intelligence community has made specific statements about WikiLeaks—without really saying what it is, who funds it, who controls it and how it obtains information it releases. This makes it difficult for the public to accurately understand how to interpret WikiLeaks’ activities and releases. The current approach also makes it difficult for consumers of information released by WikiLeaks, including but not limited to professional journalists, to understand whether they are reviewing information that has been released as a public service, or as an orchestrated effort intended to manipulate, which activities may be supported, conducted or encouraged by a foreign intelligence service.

Given the near-impossibility for a citizen to verify the information released by WikiLeaks is authentic and integral, I’ve made the decision to simply disregard WikiLeaks from here on out.

At ThinkProgress, Ian Millhiser writes about the history of the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals when it comes to appeals based on claims of rejecting or selecting jurors based on race. As he notes, this is a practice strictly forbidden by the Supreme Court, yet the Fifth seems to be blind to the problem, possibly even deliberately blind:

But even if the Supreme Court does hand down a swift, summary reversal of the Fifth Circuit’s error in Chamberlin, it is far from clear that the judges on this appeals court will take the hint. For three decades, the Fifth Circuit has behaved as if racial jury discrimination simply does not exist in the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It’s behaved this way, moreover, despite the fact that the Supreme Court explicitly stated in the second Miller-El case that there is “widely known evidence of the general policy of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office to exclude black [jury pool] members from juries at the time Miller-El’s jury was selected.”

Ian’s secondary title [what is that called, anyways?] is striking, if perhaps a trifle inaccurate:

What good is a constitution if judges refuse to follow it?

No doubt a question conservatives have asked in frustration in reaction to liberal judges “making law.” But it’s a question that disturbs the heart, because we run this nation under Law, and to find out that an entire circuit is ignoring a SCOTUS ruling is a bit earth-shaking. This may call for some investigation. It’s an interesting article.

Some economists get reputations for always being wrong. Such a reputation afflicts Arthur Laffer, inventor of the Laffer Curve, which shows how lowering tax rates leads to higher revenues for government because of the economic renaissance which follows such changes. Except … it doesn’t happen. Government finds itself in a financial bind.

Steve Benen suggests Trump’s new economic advisor, economist and TV commentator Larry Kudlow, is another economist with a bad reputation:

In political circles, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol is known for a few things. He was former Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff; he’s one of the more influential Republicans in the D.C. media; he’s a notable critic of Donald Trump; and he has an unfortunate habit of making predictions that don’t come true.

Larry Kudlow is similar, except instead of always being wrong about political developments, Kudlow is always wrong about the economy. And while that’s an unfortunate track record for someone who pontificates about the economy on television – Kudlow is a longtime CNBC anchor – it’s an even worse trait for someone who leads the White House’s National Economic Council.

And yet, that’s the job Donald Trump tapped Kudlow for this week.

It’s an interesting thought – Trump guided by someone he likes and trusts, who unfortunately gets it all wrong. Will it continue? And how long will he last, being wrong all the time? Here’s one of his earliest pronouncements, regarding the imminent, threatened trade war, via Reuters:

The official Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday that the U.S. tariffs proposal would cost the United States “dearly”.

“China will not be afraid or back down if a trade war is unavoidable. The country has never surrendered to external pressure, and it will not surrender this time either,” Xinhua said.

The apparent determination not to retreat is at the polar opposite of comments by White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, who told Fox News Channel on Wednesday: “I believe that the Chinese will back down and will play ball.”

I’ll try to remember to keep an eye out for results as well as other prognostications by Mr. Kudlow. For the sake of our farmers, I hope he has this one right.

Here we have Guiron tickling Gamera’s tummy. I do hope it’s not breeding season!

Attack Of The Monsters (1969; aka Gamera vs. Guiron) is an odd, teeth-gritting, yet mildly charming movie starring Gamera, known as “Friend to children,” a gigantic, flying (there’s rockets up that ass, I’m tellin’ ya!), space-patrolling turtle with tusks and an odd devotion to the children of Earth.

In this fifth entry in this series of movies, two boys, Akio and Tom, spy a spaceship approaching Earth, and recognize it is landing near their homes in Japan. The next morning, rush off and find it. Traipsing inside, they find it unoccupied, and pushing a button as children will, it takes off. When in space, they encounter Gamera, who appears to be about three times the size of the spaceship. Gamera saves them from an incoming meteoroid strike, but when he tries to stop the spaceship, it evades and outruns him.

Knifehead of Pacific Rim

Where is it going? To the twin planet of Earth, circling the Sun in direct opposition to our blue marble. Our twin planet is cagily named Terra, the Latin name for Earth, and often used in old science fiction stories. The boys land near an abandoned science station and witness two monsters fighting, with victory going to the monster they later learn is named Guiron, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the kaiju Knifehead of Pacific Rim (2013).

Then they encounter the inhabitants of the station, two lady scientists, and learn they are the last survivors of Terra, endangered by creeping cold and invading monsters. (Hey, what about that spaceship, then?)  Their only protection is Guiron, whom they control. They promise to help the boys get home by repairing the spaceship, which has been damaged.

But there are ulterior plans going on. The ladies really want to put the boys on their lunch menu, as they believe consuming the boys’ brains will give them the kids’ knowledge of Earth – and permit them to blend into the population when they, ah, emigrate. But just as Tom and Akio about to become appetizers, Gamera appears, and the ladies must occupy themselves with loosing Guiron to tackle Gamera.

The battle is strange, with Gamera running around on his hind legs, and Guiron revealing he can throw shurikens that are attached to his knife-like snout at Gamera, which even return to him after taking chunks out of Gamera. But Gamera has a few tricks of his own, including immobilizing Guiron for a few moments, long enough for Gamera to blow fire right up his ass.

No, I’m not kidding. It was quite impolite, I thought, and really a bad example to these kids.

In any case, Gamera loses in a victory for plot twists, and sinks to the bottom of a nearby lake, apparently dead. During the commotion, the boys stumble onto the secret of their destiny (good with olive oil), and do their best to escape – and it’s not a bad try, actually, what with short-range teleport stations and young legs. But their antagonists are equally wily and eventually capture them. But as they begin the preparations for the great feast, they are distracted by something (I forget what), one of the boys awakens from an enforced nap and frees himself, and eventually manages to find the control room and free Guiron from his cave. The scientists try to escape in the spaceship, but Guiron, apparently in a bad mood, slices the ship in half, injuring one of the scientists (turns out that injury in the Terran society is a fatal mistake, which may explain what really happened to the Terran society). Gamera, at the pleas of the children, springs back into action and destroys Guiron by dropping him on his head from about 100 feet up, and while he’s stuck in that position, Gamera uses a convenient rocket to blow Guiron up (the surviving scientist is also finished off).

Yeah, they could have just left Guiron alone, as he was stuck for a while, but instead they blew him up. For something that loves Earth kids, Gamera sure sets a bad example.

Gamera then repairs the spaceship, the boys board it, and Gamera takes them home by putting it in his mouth and taking flight.

What hurt? The dialog and/or dubbing, which was both dreadful and awful. The monsters are hardly any better, just guys in rubber suits, and while Guiron is sort of interesting, Gamera still has rockets up his ass, and this creepy interest in Earth’s children. The special effects in general were also awful.

But there are elements of a real story here. Gamera is not impregnable, as Guiron not only makes him bleed, but knocks him unconscious. And the monsters’ battles do have elements of cleverness, which adds an element of ebb and flow of tension.

And for all that the dialog was awful, the bones of this story are not rotten. Both the boys and their antagonists are clever. The boys formulate a plan and you expect it to work – and it doesn’t. So they try something else. There’s an actual bit of anticipation, although you know the boys are hardly likely to actually end up in an oven.

So it’s sort of looking at a soup full of rotten vegetables and realizing the carrots are not rotten. I wouldn’t watch it again, but I can’t quite categorize it as utterly trite trash. You have to comb it for a while, but there’s just a little bit that’s OK. The soup’s base fish stock was made from a rotten piscine, and most of the veggies are rotten, but every once in a while a bit of turnip is OK.

Good thing I spent most of my time “watching” this actually making and eating dinners, though.

I see that Reuters is suggesting my speculation is correct:

China appeared to be angling to inflict political costs on Trump by striking at signature U.S. exports, including soybeans, frozen beef, cotton and other agricultural commodities produced in states from Iowa to Texas that voted for him in the 2016 presidential election.

The sad thing is that China has drawn a number of complaints over the with regard to its trade practices. Trump, however, has no concept effective action, only of newsworthy action. War is a big-time word, guaranteed to get the blood moving, so he uses that, rather than working with allies to quietly but effectively move China into a more friendly posture vis a vis trade.

Instead, he’s waving a big flag and will probably accomplish nothing – but he’ll trumpet it to high heaven, because that’s all he knows how to do.

Who knows, maybe he’ll get the Chinese to back down and change some practices. I’m not putting any money on it, though, especially since the Chinese kicked Trump’s butt way back at the beginning of this debacle of an Administration.

The trend towards building tall with wood continues as Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects have won a $130 million project in Ontario, CA. From the press release:

George Brown College has announced that Moriyama & Teshima Architects + Acton Ostry Architects have been selected to design The Arbour. This $130-million project will be a 12-storey mass timber building on George Brown’s Waterfront Campus, ushering in the first building of its kind in Ontario. The team was one of four shortlisted teams in this international design competition.

To this non-architect, it has a little bit of a feel of a Brutalist architecture, although, not being primarily concrete, it doesn’t really qualify. But it’s big and not shy and retiring.

And it’s made of wood.

From their Project Description:

George Brown College envisions The Arbour as a landmark, tall wood, low-carbon building that will feature ecological innovation across its entire life cycle and be a model for 21st Century smart, sustainable, green building innovation throughout Canada. To support this vision, our proposed design for The Arbour is deceptively simple, straightforward and, above all else, smart.

The design of The Arbour enhances connections to neighbouring developments and the natural spaces offered by Sherbourne Common and the Water’s Edge Promenade. The soaring solar chimney signals the sustainable systems within, while the angled apex of the Tall Wood Institute speaks to future advancement of tallwood technologies and development of low carbon building methodologies.

Looks like if you’re an architect who’s not investigating the use of wood in your 10-20 story buildings, you may be behind the curve.

CNN reports on a GOP candidate for the Senate and how he views his sought-after job:

Cramer’s comment criticizing Heitkamp’s voting record came in a Wednesday radio interview with conservative North Dakota host Scott Hennen.

“Here’s the good news about Donald Trump: Most of the time, he’s for North Dakota, and that’s my point where I’ve heard her say, ‘Gee, I voted with him 55% of the time,'” Cramer said.

“Can you imagine going home and telling your wife, ‘I’ve been faithful to you 55% of the time?’ Are you kidding me? Being wrong half the time is not a good answer.”

Nor is running around with your head crammed up Trump’s ass.

Look, it’s not unexpected that there’ll be some coordination among Party members on legislation, as one would expect those with a certain ideological orientation to come up with the same answers to the same questions. However, in a general situation, there are always those who will have different answers, even when coming from roughly the same ideological positions. Different judgments and life experiences are part of what brings wisdom to the Legislature.

And, of course, as a member of the legislative branch, his responsibilities are far different from those of the President. Simply from scoping considerations, answers may be different. To say you’ll stand with your leader is to abandon your responsibilities. You must fulfill your legislative responsibilities, not his Executive responsibilities.

But this is fuckin’ Trump. He’s incompetent, erratic, contradictory, ignorant, and incurious. You’re going to marry HIM? You may have oversight responsibilities to ensure he’s not corrupt and damaging the Republic. Are you up for that? After swearing allegiance Trump?

And don’t forget this power-hungry dude. I have to think Mr. Cramer fits into the same mold.

Conspectus:

1. : a usually brief survey or summary (as of an extensive subject) often providing an overall view
2. : outline, synopsis [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “The Passing of the Libertarian Moment ,” Kevin D. Williamson, The Atlantic:

But rather than embodying the future of the Republican Party, Paul embodies its past, the postwar conservative era when Ronald Reagan could proclaim that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” when National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. could publish a conspectus of his later work under the subtitle “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist,” and young blue-blazered Republicans of the Alex P. Keaton variety wore out their copies of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose.

New one on me.

Minnesota and Mississippi may be joined by yet another State – Arizona. The nature of this exclusive club? Hosting not one, but two Senate races later this year.

This is brought about by the potential retirement of Senator McCain (R-AZ), currently battling a glioblastoma (brain cancer). While I admire Senator McCain and regard him as an erratic member of the better half of the GOP, there’s little use in pretending there’s no change he’ll choose to retire before the end of his term in 2020. WaPo has details on a deadline:

If McCain vacates his seat by May 30, there would be primaries in August and a November special election to fill the remainder of his term, provided candidates submit enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, according to Eric Spencer, the election services director in Arizona.

While some close observers contend there is gray area in the way the election laws are written, most agree that if May 30 comes and goes without any vacancy, there would be no election this year and the Ducey appointment, should there eventually be one, would serve through 2020.

This would be yet another seat the Republicans would have to defend unexpectedly, vs only one so far for the Democrats. But who would run? No names, yet, although when McCain first announced his illness, State Senator Kelli Ward demanded that he immediately retire and Governor Ducey (R-AZ) appoint her to his seat. She has since waded into the race for retiring Senator Flake’s (R-AZ) seat, but if two become available, I’d guess the current GOP contenders would split up and cover both races.

All good wishes to Senator McCain, however. He and Flake have tried to be the conscience of the Senate, although their actions have only occasionally backed up their words.

Yesterday’s storm was so awful it killed a ghost. I was fortunate to catch a picture of the poor thing.

Oh, wait, I’m told this is something else.

Darn it, another fine theory shot down by an inconvenient fact!

According to WaPo, Trump’s base should be in their bunkers just about now:

According to multiple reports, people in agricultural communities are on edge over President Trump’s trade war with China. Now that China has retaliated against Trump’s tariffs by announcing its own tariffs on more than 100 American products, fears of a serious escalation are becoming more real by the moment, with stocks sliding and companies registering their objections over Trump’s actions to the White House.

New data supplied to me by the Brookings Institution show that agricultural communities are right to worry about what’s happening. But that’s not all: The data also show that other targeted industries should be worried as well. And it reveals that those who are vulnerable to negative impacts from these trade tensions are mostly concentrated in counties carried by Trump, though a lot of them are in counties carried by Hillary Clinton as well.

Makes me wonder if the Chinese are deliberately selecting Trump’s base as a target, or if the nature of the trade is such that Trump’s base would get his regardless. Interestingly, MPR mentioned tonight that we run a trade surplus in terms of agricultural goods with China. No more? That’s not so clear, as the MPR report suggests:

“If there’s going to be retaliation by [China], the odds are pretty high that it’s going to impact agricultural products,” said [Agricultural banker Kent] Thiesse.

Thiesse said that’s because the U.S. has a trade surplus with China for agricultural goods overall. So it’s not surprising China would target that sector for reprisals. But China’s demand for U.S. farm commodities also gives him hope that the two sides can reach a deal.

Thiesse, who works for MinnStar Bank in Lake Crystal, said since American farmers help feed the Asian nation, any reduction in that supply could be a problem for China.

“Are they going to be able to find enough soybeans in the next twelve months in the rest of the world to fulfill their needs if they aren’t buying as many from the U.S.,” said Thiesse.

Soybean producers are hoping that’s what will happen.

In any case, I’m sure the Chinese will be delighted to cause more turmoil in what used to be the most influential nation in the world; an ever-weaker President will, no doubt, aid their plans to supplant us in that regard.

In case you were wondering about the social aspects of SCOTUS during this highly partisan era, here‘s Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Research News @ Vanderbilt:

She credits mutual respect for sustaining the collegiality of the nation’s highest court despite some strong differences. She cited fellow Justice Clarence Thomas as the judge with whom she disagrees the most, but said the way he treats people outside the courtroom is endearing.

“He knows the name of every single employee in the building,” Sotomayor said. “I can stand here and say I just love the man as a person. He has the same value towards human beings as I have, despite our differences.”

Which tends to put attempts to discredit the members of SCOTUS in a dark light.

There’s something grimly funny about the Laura Ingraham situation. She’s the Fox News host who taunted school massacre survivor David Hogg concerning his college admissions failures; he then returned fire by listing her show’s commercial sponsors and suggesting his Twitter followers might call them up and discuss that support. Sponsors began dropping, although I haven’t tried to keep track.

So who’s rallying to her beleaguered side? From WaPo:

Embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham has found some unlikely allies: Russian bots.

As Business Insider reported, Russian-linked Twitter accounts have rallied around the conservative talk-show host, who has come under fire for attacking the young survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting.

According to the website Hamilton 68, which tracks the spread of Russian propaganda on Twitter, the hashtag #IstandwithLaura jumped 2,800 percent in 48 hours this weekend. On Saturday night, it was the top trending hashtag among Russian campaigners.

The website botcheck.me, which tracks 1,500 “political propaganda bots,” found that @ingrahamangle, @davidhogg111 and @foxnews were among the top six Twitter handles tweeted by Russia-linked accounts this weekend. “David Hogg” and “Laura Ingraham” were the top two-word phrases being shared.

Wading into controversy is a key strategy for Russian propaganda bots, which seize on divisive issues online to sow discord in the United States. Since the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting, which claimed 17 lives, Russian bots have flooded Twitter with false information about the massacre.

Assuming botcheck and Hamilton 68 are accurate, the rush of Russian bots to the rescue of Ingraham is a rather noir commentary on the status of a voice that would want to be associated with liberty and the right-wing. The Russians have little history with liberty, what with a dubious recent Presidential election and the attempted assassination of a former Russian spy in the UK. Further, the fact that foreign ‘bots on Twitter are being used to rally support suggests she’s dependent on foreign support to stay afloat, a suggestion which might be dubious in itself, but is hard to separate from authentic support.

Do authentic American Twitter users who support her know about the Russian support? Are we learning how to recognize efforts to stir up divisiveness, or are we not yet getting it?

Beats me.

These are the restrained hats.

The vampires are out to get you, if you live near their castle and are a villager, or so we’re lead to believe in Twins of Evil (1971). This is a dull story of that village near the castle, and the lives and deaths of the various villagers. First, there’s the painfully devout Brotherhood, led by Gustav, who have a hobby of capturing the local social outcasts, subjecting them to a quick trial as to whether they’re evil or not, and burning the losers. Up in the castle lives a vampire or two, who occasionally take victims from the village.

Into this village come a set of orphaned twins, lasses visiting their Uncle Gustav, who distinguish themselves with a couple of pairs of gorgeous hats, and cleavage nearly as magnificent as their hats (the uncut version, from what I’m seeing on the Internet, is considerably gamier). But one of them is predisposed to evil, and when the Count living in the castle puts the bite on her, she doesn’t die, but transforms into a vampire. She wreaks a little havoc over the next few days, but eventually the old bloodlust lures her into putting the bite on a member of the Brotherhood while he is on his way to a meeting, and she’s captured with blood on her chin, as it were.

Well, it was probably a soul-crushing meeting in any case.

She’s imprisoned, and, in case you didn’t guess, while the cats are away, because these meetings are never cancelled, the vampires shall play, in this case substituting the innocent twin for the vampire twin. We come close to burning the innocent one (and Anton, the handsome choirmaster and local atheist, nearly gets laid, but that would have ended badly), but disaster is averted, and the vampires are tracked down and staked.

Yeah, it was dull. The technicals were fine, but the story was numbing. Perhaps if I’d viewed an uncut-for-TV version … but I doubt it.

NewScientist (24 March 2018, paywall) reports on another way we can cross our circuits:

ELLIOT FREEMAN was a student when he first noticed that he could hear Morse code. Looking out into the dark one evening, he spotted a lighthouse flashing a signal. “Every time I saw the flash I heard a distinct buzzing sound,” he says. “I thought ‘That’s kind of odd. I should look into that sometime.’”

It turns out Freeman isn’t alone. He is one of a group of people who experience a phenomenon called visually evoked auditory response. This form of synaesthesia makes people hear noises when they see certain silent moving images. Now he has carried out the biggest study of the condition so far and found that one-fifth of us seem to experience it.

With his colleague Christopher Fassnidge, Freeman, a psychologist at City, University of London, built an online survey that tests for this response. They found that about 22 per cent of the 4000 respondents rated more than half the videos in the test as stimulating clear sounds.

22% showed visual-to-audio synaesthesia? Wow!

This does remind me of some experiments done a few years ago in which computer code was translated into sound, and then programmers would attempt to detect problems with the code by listening to the sound generated from the code in question. There was some evidence that this actually worked, but I’ve not heard anything since the initial report.

Here’s my guess how Windows 10 might sound:

Just kidding!

Way back in 2015 we talked a bit about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, and how it appears to be approaching Three Stooges territory. Tonight, my partisan mail included this notification from the Democrats:

Wisconsin: With precincts still coming in, progressive candidate Rebecca Dallet has easily won a race for state Supreme Court, ousting a right-wing justice appointed by Scott Walker.

Perhaps the right wing magic is beginning to fail in Wisconsin, a state I tend to identify as more of a labor bastion than a right-wing bulwark; in fact, I’ve been puzzled by the support for Governor Walker. But I don’t live there – perhaps the Democrats fouled things up and disgusted the voters.

Now it may be the Republican’s turn.

I was trying to take pictures of our April snowstorm, but instead ended up proving the Universe is flat.

Now I’m tempted to get window screen and make it wavy before taking pictures at extreme angles.

Stoat:

The stoat (Mustela erminea), also known as the short-tailed weasel or simply the weasel in Ireland where the least weasel does not occur, is a mammal of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae native to Eurasia and North America, distinguished from the least weasel by its larger size and longer tail with a prominent black tip. Originally from Eurasia, it crossed into North America some 500,000 years ago, where it naturalized and joined the notably larger, closely related native long-tailed weasel. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Why ancient deer returned to the sea and became whales,” Colin Barras, NewScientist (24 March 2018, paywall):

Some of the most spectacular species now living in the sea have land-living ancestors. Whales are descended from animals similar to deer, while walruses evolved from animals a bit like stoats.

The competition in the special election for AZ-8 continues to draw attention, even as Republicans claim they have a comfortable lead, reports Politico:

Source: Ballotpedia

House Speaker Paul Ryan will headline an April 18 fundraiser for Arizona Republican Debbie Lesko, according to a copy of an invitation to the event obtained by POLITICO. Attendees to the Capitol Hill fundraiser are being asked to give up to $2,500.

Lesko, a former state legislator, is running for a suburban Phoenix seat that President Donald Trump won by 21 percentage points. Party officials say their internal polling shows Lesko with a comfortable lead over the Democratic candidate, physician Hiral Tipirneni.

Yet Republicans are taking few chances after last month’s loss in a special election for a conservative Pennsylvania seat.

They don’t call out President Trump, who appears to have very short coattails, but a more predictable extremist – Speaker Ryan. There’s a hidden danger here for the Republicans, though. If Lesko fails to win what should be an easy victory in this district, this will taint Speaker Ryan. He’s strongly denied rumors that he’s intending to retire at the end of this current term, or even resign in the midst of it.

Source: Ballotpedia

However, if his presence fails to spur the faithful on to victory (yes, I chose that metaphor quite deliberately), and the Democrat takes the prize, or loses narrowly, that may spur Mr. Ryan to change his mind. If he leaves his seat open, which is the Wisconsin 1st district, then the Republicans lose the advantage of incumbency. Could the Democrats take the Speaker’s seat at the mid-terms?

The Republicans fear looking weaker and weaker, which is why they’re pouring resources into a “safe” seat. But there may be more at stake than is apparent.

The city of Atlanta was recently hit by a ransomware attack by a savvy gang of hackers – they only want somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 – $50,000, which is more than doable for a big city. Paul Rosenzweig and Megan Reiss on Lawfare explore two of the lessons:

Second, this episode is a prime example of a situation where what is good for the city is at odds with what is good for the federal and state governments.

Knowing it could lose a significant amount of data if the ransom is not paid, the city of Atlanta is facing a serious burden. Six bitcoins, while expensive, is almost certainly far less than the costs and man-hours that went in to the creation of the data that could be lost and will need to be recreated as a result of the freeze. If we were advising Atlanta as a client, our advice would be simple: “Pay the ransom.”

However, the federal government will almost certainly see things differently.

And you can guess why – paying the ransom will simply encourage the criminal behavior. A prime example of scoping, and why the Federal government isn’t a business.

Third, this episode should serve as a cautionary note on the unfettered growth of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency can have malignant uses that seem to overwhelm—in both volume and effect—the benign purposes to which it can be put. The Atlanta attack is yet another example of a situation that would be nearly impossible to replicate in a world where no cryptocurrency existed. In the long run, the attack provides another data point in the ongoing effort to determine whether and how cryptocurrency should be regulated.

This would be a radical form of value transfer.

Yet, crime occurred prior to the advent of cryptocurrency. While not wishing to step on the authorss venerable toes, I have to wonder if the many ways to conceal and handle stolen money are not roughly equivalent to this particular scheme. I’m also somewhat baffled by their assertion that this scheme wouldn’t work without cryptocurrency. There are many ways to transfer value, which money is just one representation, from one entity to another – I have to wonder if it’s worthwhile to get hung up on the method of payment.

designboom has the word:

a campaign revealing mini furniture for cats is unveiled in japan amid a new generation of craftsmen’s hopes to build upon a once-prosperous industry. the 60-second clip shows the feline friends-come-guinea pigs getting comfy on genuine furniture scaled down to their size.

Pics on designboom.

Remember our vengeful expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats for the attempted murder of a former Russian spy? Business Insider discovers this is just a bit of political theater:

But there’s a catch.

A State Department official confirmed to Business Insider that the White House’s diplomatic expulsion will not require Russia to reduce its staffing levels in the US, and vice versa. In other words, the 60 diplomats who were kicked out — many of whom were undercover intelligence operatives— can be replaced by others.

USA Today first reported the news on Friday.

The revelation initially gained traction in Russian state media, which said an anonymous senior White House staffer told the Russian government that it could send new diplomats to take the place of those who had been expelled. The Russian state media outlet Vesti quoted the official as saying, “The doors are open.”

Or, in other words, Please replace your 60 spies with a different set of 60 spies. There’ll be a slowdown in spy production, true, but nothing truly damaging.

In a way, I find this revelation reassuring, because it returns Trump to his pattern of Russia-loving, and deception. For a while there, he actually looked like he was doing the right thing, and while that, in itself, is a good thing to see from our Executive Branch, it was somewhat disturbing to see an anomalous behavior.

But now we find that, behind the curtain, he’s still pulling the levers so as not to hurt Russia.

Good ol’ Donny, back in pattern.