Yearly Archives: 2018

From WaPo:

Scientists behind a major study that claimed the Earth’s oceans are warming faster than previously thought now say their work contained inadvertent errors that made their conclusions seem more certain than they actually are.

Two weeks after the high-profile study was published in the journal Nature, its authors have submitted corrections to the publication. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, home to several of the researchers involved, also noted the problems in the scientists’ work and corrected a news release on its website, which previously had asserted that the study detailed how the Earth’s oceans “have absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought.”

“Unfortunately, we made mistakes here,” said Ralph Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps, who was a co-author of the study. “I think the main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes when you find them.”

Religious zealots don’t make mistakes, of course. But scientists? They have to deal with contingency in everything they do – their instruments, their calculations, their skills, all have some error associated with it, much like public pollsters do. Sometimes they get it wrong, and they have to retract it, because reality will rise up and smack them between the ears if they don’t. And don’t take too much reassurance from this report:

The central conclusion of the study — that oceans are retaining ever more energy as more heat is being trapped within Earth’s climate system each year — is in line with other studies that have drawn similar conclusions. And it hasn’t changed much despite the errors. But Keeling said the authors’ miscalculations mean there is a much larger margin of error in the findings, which means researchers can weigh in with less certainty than they thought.

Good to hear them working on getting it right.

I do like graphs, because they can tell stories that are not so easy to tell in English. In that, I’m like many geeks. But sometimes those stories are significant, and sometimes they’re ephemeral. I think this one, the graph of Gallup’s Presidential Approval/Disapproval Poll over time, is ephemeral:

No doubt President Trump’s behavior since the mid-term elections, such as his calls for halting ballot counts when “his” candidates are ahead, are fueling this disapproval, along with the fact that the GOP suffered big losses in the mid-terms. His approval ratings have plunged from 44% just a few weeks ago, to 38% this past as of this Monday.

But it doesn’t mean much, really. Everyone, even his supporters in their little enclaves of “Trump Country,” are well aware the President does not poll well; interpretations differ. But so long as the GOP is unwilling to interpret these results as country-wide condemnation of his incompetence, no impeachment will successfully convict him.

Although it’d humiliate him. And it’d be symbolic of this country’s refusal to go into the dark night of fascism under the flag of false charisma which Trump has forever over his head.

But, in the end, approval and disapproval aren’t very meaningful.

The AP finds out more about the hapless qualities of Acting Attorney General Whitaker:

While in private business, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walked away from a taxpayer-subsidized apartment-rehabilitation project in Iowa after years of cost overruns, delays and other problems, public records show.

The city of Des Moines ultimately yanked an affordable housing loan that Whitaker’s company had been awarded, and another lender began foreclosure proceedings after Whitaker defaulted on a separate loan for nearly $700,000. Several contractors complained they were not paid, and a process server for one could not even find Whitaker or his company to serve him with a lawsuit.

Steve Benen contributes to the fun:

Vox published a piece  yesterday summarizing Whitaker’s many controversies, and I was struck, not just by the seriousness of the allegations, but by the length of the piece itself. Ordinarily, before anyone could put together a lengthy list of controversies surrounding a Trump cabinet official, he or she would have to be in office for at least a couple of months.

Matt Whitaker is currently in his seventh day – and two of those days were a weekend.

What struck me is how this factual narrative is congruent with the generic story of a con-man, leaving wreckage in his wake as he climbs the ladder of ambition.

And then I recalled Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who appears to have conned many, many people into thinking he’s some uber-billionaire, yet appears to have acquired much of his wealth – whatever there may be – through less than ethical means.

And then there’s former White House advisor Steve Bannon, who conned many a person into thinking he was some right-wing oracle, forecasting the fall of the left and the dominance of the right wing extremists.

And, skipping over some other possible con-critters, there’s the Conman-in-Chief, President Trump, who has visibly and painfully conned quite a few people with his claims of business success, intelligence, experience, oh so many things.

Someday, someone’s going to make a game out of this Administration, and one of the areas should be Tawdry Themes Of The Trump Administration. The Big Con could be the question, with many, many answers.

Robert Mueller has been the elephant in the room for quite a while. On Lawfare, Bob Bauer thinks his example, as a counter to Trump’s rubbish, has been sterling and should be admired. When it comes to Trump’s possible involvement in crime, he has two pieces of advice for him:

First, should Mueller conclude that the president has committed a crime, it is fully consistent with his role and responsibilities to name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Russia matter. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions mistakenly contending that the president is immune from prosecution while in office do not preclude this option. The 2000 opinion, of course, was written well after Watergate; the authors were aware of the precedent of Nixon’s having been listed as an unindicted co-conspirator and did not challenge it. Since then, the Department of Justice has published guidance cautioning against this step but with ample allowance for it to be taken in a case like this.

Second, Mueller should also consider himself to have the authority to indict the president under seal, if the evidence so warrants, with prosecution deferred until Trump leaves office. OLC’s 2000 opinion takes objection to this course in a footnote, in which it asserts without elaboration that “[p]ermitting a prosecutor and grand jury to issue even a sealed indictment would allow them to take an unacceptable gamble with constitutional values.” This is not an argument: What does it mean to dismiss this prosecutorial option as a “gamble with constitutional values”?  In what way is it “unacceptable,” and to whom? This is gibberish, and it is not entitled to any weight.

Should the evidence take Mueller in these directions, the new Justice Department leadership could stand in his way: It could attempt to stop him or fire him. But this could not be accomplished in secret. The story would rapidly emerge, most likely with other resignations in protest from department officials—as with the Saturday Night Massacre. Mueller would have the chance to tell his story to the House, and the House, in turn, can and would obtain access to his evidence. The lines will have been clearly drawn, with Mueller situated on the right side—where his prosecutorial authority is found and has been responsibly exercised.

The OLC opinions do appear to be gibberish if that is, indeed, what they say. No man is above the law, and we have a VP for situations in which the President has become impotent. That’s the purpose of the VP. The OLC opinion sounds like it’s desperately trying to defend the occupant of the Oval Office, not the system of government we use.

Perhaps I should try reading the opinions myself. They’re photostats of a paper written in 1973, apparently.

While musing on the upcoming majority in the House, and how they might pressure President Trump to shape his ship and fly a reasonably straight course, it occurred to me that the GOP, especially the GOP Senate incumbents who are ambitious to continue to serve, could begin to develop a sweat.

1. The mid-term elections demonstrated that the independents are increasingly disenchanted with the GOP brand. The GOP base apparently remained true and enthusiastic, which Andrew Sullivan thinks was due to the xenophobia to which Trump applied the quirt in the form of the Honduras caravan^[1]. But the independents are in charge of the fate of elections, and the economy, the corporate tax cuts, the monkeying with the ACA, none of the GOP signature issues seemed to attract the independent voter. Their disgust with Trump and his close adherents was apparent in the losses suffered by many of those close adherents.
2. The consequent takeover of the House of Representatives by the Democrats makes competent oversight and resultant pressure on President Trump likely. A no-brainer? Sure – but important to keep that in mind.
3. Another reminder that the GOP has a holy tenet that states it’s a sin to cooperate with the Democrats on major legislation. This can be taken two ways, the first being that there will be no legislation on which the GOP can legitimately hang its hat during the next two years; or, the GOP will have little opportunity to shoot itself in the foot with regards to major legislation. This will become a talking point during the run-up to the 2020 Senatorial races. As the party facing decline, it’s important that it have achievements that it can point to as evidence of its essential health.
4. President Trump no longer has any legislative punch. The House will no longer bend to his will, and the Democrats have learned that he is untrustworthy when it comes to deal making.
5. This leaves President Trump with two primary levers of power.
6. The first is his mouth, amplified as it is by Twitter, which he can use to stir up his base at will. He’s managed to use this effectively for three years, and while I continue to expect the GOP to leak people who have FINALLY come to their senses regarding the gross incompetence and corruption endemic to Trump, not to mention those who pass away, I don’t expect those to be large numbers in the absence of irrefutable evidence of Presidential perfidy. Even in his last days, Nixon had his supporters. According to Gallup, he was at roughly 24% approval when he left office. Trump will always have his supporters.
7. The second is his power to make judicial selections. Trump does try to keep promises he considers important, and a conservative judiciary has, from the evidence, been one of them. He will continue to send deeply conservative people to the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation, and, given his Administration’s horrible record on vetting candidates for all positions, it won’t matter if they’re wonderfully qualified or pathetically incompetent and inept. He’ll send them.

And this is where those Senate incumbents of yore start to sweat. In order to win re-election, it’s not enough for them to win the base, but you have to have them (for those who remember formal mathematics or logic, the base is necessary but not sufficient). They have to have a good chunk of the independents as well.

But the independents are going to pay attention, and that’s where the Democrats come in. If & when Trump sends a bad candidate for the judiciary, regardless of the seat, the Democrats need to bring this up in the news. Pound on it. Trump is trying to screw America again with a bad judicial candidate.

The new neighbors, looking around the corner.

And the right will react as they always do. They’ll get behind whichever bumbler it might be and try to shove him (or her, although Trump seems allergic to the female judicial candidate) through. The GOP has the votes to put through any judicial nominee, but if a bad nominee is advertised by the Democrats, and then their individual votes pinned on the Republican Senators, they’ll find themselves between Scylla and Charybdis. Bad judicial nominees will be disastrous for both Trump and his Senators.

The 2020 election will all be about Trump. The Democrats have the early momentum, plus the GOP has many more Senate seats to defend than do the Democrats, so that’s another advantage. They don’t have an understanding of why Trump appeals to so much of the electorate, so that’s a disadvantage. But they have time to study the problem and come up with a strategy. Trump should be an easy target because, at his heart, he’s the antithesis of what the parents of most of his base were brought up to believe. Most of them are in denial.

That’ll be one of the keys.

¹ And we’ve not heard of the caravan again, have we? Even the military dropped its high-flying name for the operation in which they were to assist ICE and the border patrol. It might almost make one think the caravan was arranged by President Trump. Not true, I’m sure – I hope – but possible.

Venal:

1. willing to sell one’s influence, especially in return for a bribe; open to bribery; mercenary:
   a venal judge.
2. able to be purchased, as by a bribe:
   venal acquittals.
3. associated with or characterized by bribery:
   a venal administration; venal agreements. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Appoint Martha McSally to John McCain’s seat? No freakin’ way,” E. J. Montini, AZ Central:

We are accustomed to Trump’s venal behavior. We don’t expect anything else.

But McSally chose to mimic the president rather than mention McCain, who gave so much of his life to the country. For that she got the vote of Trump supporters – who often and loudly expressed their contempt for McCain – but that does not mean she should inherit McCain’s seat.

She could make a run at that seat in two years, when it comes up for election, but it should not be given to her.

National Geographic describes Nature’s adaptation to humanity’s lust for ivory:

THE OLDEST ELEPHANTS wandering Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park bear the indelible markings of the civil war that gripped the country for 15 years: Many are tuskless. They’re the lone survivors of a conflict that killed about 90 percent of these beleaguered animals, slaughtered for ivory to finance weapons and for meat to feed the fighters.

Hunting gave elephants that didn’t grow tusks a biological advantage in Gorongosa. Recent figures suggest that about a third of younger females—the generation born after the war ended in 1992—never developed tusks. Normally, tusklessness would occur only in about 2 to 4 percent of female African elephants.

I hope elephants taste bad, too. Or are even poisonous. Massacring these big animals for their tusks may be perfectly acceptable to local morality, but I am a child of Western Civ – and find that activity to be consumeristic and repellent.

My best wishes to the elephants of Africa. Perhaps your legends will speak of the time when you bore the great tusks – and paid the ultimate price for the privilege.

If the Democrats want to seriously cement a majority for the next twenty years, their next year in power in the House of Representatives will be crucial. Paul Waldman in The Plum Line outlines the importance of their oversight of the Executive Branch:

We don’t know exactly what that plan is, but the biggest challenge will be finding room on the calendar to conduct all the probes Democrats have lined up. There’s the strong documentary evidence that the president and his family undertook a years-long conspiracy to commit tax fraud on a massive scale, and the administration’s attempt to rig the census and its repeated lies about it, and the possibility that the president intervened in the decision on where to locate the new FBI headquarters to avoid competition for his hotel, to name just a few of the dozens of matters that cry out for investigation. There are things we can’t yet anticipate, like whatever will be revealed once we’re finally able to see President Trump’s tax returns. (If you think they won’t contain evidence of a pile of misdeeds, I’ve got a degree from Trump University to sell you.) And, oh yeah, that Russia thing.

And, of course, there are a raft of policy decisions ranging from the questionable to the horrific that administration officials need to answer questions about, whether it’s the sabotaging of the Affordable Care Act or the separation of children from their parents at the border.

But just as important will be the question of how they conduct themselves. Evidence should be publicized, along with information about why such evidence should be considered evidence of wrong-doing. After all, some folks don’t keep up with governmental ethics, so it doesn’t hurt to explain it again and again.

These investigations need to be models of how to run a governmental investigation – in a sense, it should be a model for the Republicans, a lesson in how to conduct investigations.

Sure, there’s going to be the core of Republicans who’ll refuse to take it as a serious investigation. They’ll call it just politics – but the proper answer is, Yes, it’s politics – but politics can be conducted in acceptable or unacceptable ways. The questions we’re examining here have to do with whether or not the politics were conducted properly – or improperly.

Has there been improper use of governmental offices for material gain? Have some United States citizens been treated unequally, such as the Puerto Ricans?

Was there collusion with the Russians in violation of American law?

These investigations must become the bridge from the Democrats to the American public, in particular the independents, through which they earn those independents’ trust. Every year, this trust must be re-earned by both parties, ideally – and this is the Democrat’s big opportunity to do so.

President Trump donates another unsolicited amateur opinion – in poor taste – to the world:

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018

And outgoing California Governor Jerry Brown was understandably disturbed:

So on the way home tonight, I was reminded about Juliana v. U.S., which is the lawsuit brought by a collection of children against the United States’ fossil fuel policy. I’ve blogged about it a little bit, with the latest thread here. The plaintiff’s web site is here, under the name Our Children’s Trust; the basic gist of the lawsuit is that the Federal Government bears responsibility for our failing atmosphere, which is causing multiple ailments for the children of today, through their support for the fossil fuel industry.

The suit was brought in 2015, and both the Obama and Trump Administrations tried to have the suits thrown out, but the latest attempt has more or less failed, and a Federal Judge is now working on getting it to trial – apparently some superior court has temporarily stayed it while considering the latest gibberish from the Trump Administration, but that is not thought to have much chance of success. There’s too much history to quote here, but it sounds like the Trump Administration is virtually standing on its head, trying to get the case thrown out, or at least delayed. Given their overbalance towards profits vs environment, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

So, Governor Brown, I know it’s in poor taste to undertake major government actions when you’re on the way out the door – but have you thought about the State of California joining this lawsuit? Perhaps we could get those absolutely filthy subsidies to the fossil fuel industry shit-canned for good. Maybe even claw-back some of those ridiculous profits.

[tweet https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061962869376540672]
That’s a banana republic stunt right there, folks. If he had evidence, then it’d be a law enforcement matter, and he should submit his evidence to law enforcement for appraisal, arrests, and that sort of thing. He has none? A respectable man would keep his damn yap shut.

But perhaps it is a law enforcement matter. In his official role, President Trump wields outsize influence over the legal landscape. This attempt to corrupt the election process in Florida should be investigated by the FBI, and pursued by a federal prosecutor. After all, taking down foolish elected officials is one way to climb to the top in that profession.

This long-running thread deserves a new entry, but frankly I’m too tired to put something together, so here’s Stephen Wolf of The Daily Kos instead:

In a critical victory for fair elections and the rule of law, North Carolina voters have elected civil rights crusader Anita Earls as the next Democratic justice of the state Supreme Court. Just as importantly, voters rejected two deceptively written constitutional amendments that Republicans had put on the ballot so they could pack that very same court to stop it from curtailing their worst-in-the-nation gerrymandering and voter suppression. Furthermore, voters rejected Republican legislators’ ploy to usurp Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s power to appoint the state Board of Elections in their quest to prevent Democrats from expanding early voting.

See the link for more progressive jubilation, which I think is justified, given the toxicity of the North Carolina Republicans.

Paean:

1. : a joyous song or hymn of praise, tribute, thanksgiving, or triumph
   ‘unite their voices in a great paean to liberty’
   — Edward Sackville-West
2.  : a work that praises or honors its subject : ENCOMIUM, TRIBUTE
   ‘wrote a paean to the queen on her 50th birthday’ [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “On this World War I anniversary, let’s not celebrate Woodrow Wilson“, Michael Beschloss, WaPo:

One can admire Wilson for his progressive reforms, for his idealism and eloquence about America’s role in the world, as I do, without sugarcoating his displays of political incompetence as a president of war. In wartime, Americans have a right to expect that the bravery of U.S. troops is matched by brilliant political leadership in the White House. Too often in the past, World War I anniversaries have been transformed into paeans to Woodrow Wilson. This time, let’s keep it focused on the troops.

I found this WaPo article on freshman Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) fascinating as a possible presage of the renewal the GOP so desperately needs:

He had schooled himself on border security, health care and flood-control issues — a big concern for a region still smarting from Harvey. He met with engineers to discuss infrastructure and with young Republicans to energize new voters. More than one yard in the district was adorned with both a Crenshaw sign and a “BETO” sign, in allegiance to Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (whom Crenshaw outperformed by 12 percentage points in Harris County).

“He’s just tenacious,” Poe said of the man who will be his successor. “I don’t think folks are going to know what to do when he gets [to Washington], and I mean that in a good way.”

In a 2015 Facebook post flagged by one of his opponents, Crenshaw called candidate Donald Trump an idiot and referred to his rhetoric on Muslims as “insane,” according to the Texas Tribune. Three years later, Crenshaw says he supports the president’s policies, save for the trade warfare, but prefers to comport himself in a manner that is the total opposite of the commander in chief’s.

“His style is not my style,” Crenshaw says. “I’ll just say that. It’s never how I would conduct myself. But what readers of The Washington Post need to understand is that conservatives can hold multiple ideas in their head at the same time. We can be like, ‘Wow he shouldn’t have tweeted that’ and still support him . . . You can disapprove of what the president says every day, or that day, and still support his broader agenda.”

If he really means he supports the President’s agenda, then he’s a red herring. But he may simply be pursuing the sane, diplomatic course, hoping to keep the job going. Add to this a degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, which suggests he takes this job seriously, and we can hope that he’s the start of the rebuilding effort of the Republican Party – a rebuilding this nation sorely needs.

The value in viewing When’s Your Birthday? (1937) may not lie in the content of the movie directly, but in what it tells us of the era in which it was made. Dustin Willoughby, mediocre boxer and would-be doctor of (and to) the stars, i.e., an astrologer, has just lost his girl (from a hoity-toity family) and his job, while acquiring a possibly deadly enemy when the man, a mobster, takes his astrological advice for betting on the dogs.

But when that works out but the mobster finds himself in unrelated financial straits, Dustin, who has now found his way to a manager and a new girl, takes a reluctant step up the career ladder to forecasting the results of boxing matches.

But, through the mixups endemic to this category of film, his own forecast is mistaken for that of the mobster’s boxer, and when this is discovered, he finds himself returned to his former occupation – but he’s in the ring 15 minutes early, according to his own forecast. He must only survive his opponent, but win the match or his mobster friend will have his head in revenge.

The pacing of this movie is very flat, very even, as is the delivery of the dialogue, mostly fast paced and a little over the top. The treatment of the women is very chauvinistic and gallant, two words of related background, and thus the whole venture feels quite dated. Throw in the silliness of astrology, and you more or less have to hope the dog, Zodiac, will steal the scenes, but his chances are too few to elevate this movie.

Which is not to say the movie is bad in any particular way. It just feels like, to use a phrase from another era, like a ‘penny-dreadful,’ tied to its era by is preconceptions, and not one of those rare stories which can rise above those ties and speak to humanity across the ages.

In other words, this ain’t The Odyssey.

I get notifications from AL Monitor concerning lobbyist activities in Washington concerning the Middle East. Boring? Sure – until you run across this little bit concerning the Keene Group:

A family affair: Keene’s wife, Donna Wiesner, has registered to lobby on the contract [with Algeria]. Interestingly, her registration form lists “marriage” as her compensation under the contract. “If I earn something, she gets it,” Keene said.

I send my laughing thanks to AL Monitor for this day brightener.

While I have no desire to visit Jerusalem, it is an interesting city. I recall reading decades ago about a riot involving various Christian sects over who should control one of the holiest Churches of Christianity. Literally, it was hermits whacking hermits upside the head over a church.

So this article in AL Monitor caught my eye tonight:

Image: CBN News

A Jerusalem family that holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is resisting community and political pressure to relinquish them. Adeeb Joudeh al-Husseini, who says his family was granted the keys in the 12th century, told Al-Monitor there is no reason he should give them up. The key holder says his family’s custodianship dates back to the time of Saladin, the Muslim leader who liberated Jerusalem.

With some digging, I might be able to name my great-grandfathers on my paternal side. Maybe. After that, no dice. These folks go back to the 12^th century, a remark which begs analysis as to whether this is good or bad. But their problems are very much of today:

But at the same time, Adeeb is adamant about his innocence of the accusations leveled against him, saying, “I sold our family home to a respected Palestinian businessman who was recommended by officials from the Palestinian Authority and local leaders.”

Records do in fact show that the house was sold to a Palestinian banker named Khaled Attari who has since disappeared, but it is unclear how the house ended up in the hands of the extremist Jewish group. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has set up a committee to look into what happened.

Will a cherished family tradition be ground to dust by the cogs of history?

The phone rings, and a recorded computer voice, after some delay, chants that their company is going bankrupt, but you should call their number to reclaim money you paid them. For Apple and Windows support, if I heard them properly.

Uh huh.

I better liked the Indians telling me I have terrible viruses. At least you could ask them if their mothers were ashamed of them. What fun is this?

The libertarians will tell you, no doubt correctly, that deregulation caused the cost of phone service to fall. What they didn’t properly realize is that a social cost rise comes with the drop in economic price. In other words, there’s more fraud because it’s cheap to do on a mass scale.

Maybe regulation wasn’t such a bad idea. I wonder if any economists have seriously sat down and calculated that out.

Abnegation:

1. The action of renouncing or rejecting something.
   ‘abnegation of political power’
   1. Self-denial.
      ‘people are capable of abnegation and unselfishness’

[Oxford English Dictionaries]

Noted in “Can the Republic Strike Back?” Andrew Sullivan, New York / Intelligencer:

My faith was never quite as deep [as Max Boot’s], and so the disillusion was never quite so complete or sudden as Max’s. I was able to endorse Clinton and Blair, for example, and found in Obama the moderate Republican I’d always admired. My breaking point was the revelation that the GOP backed the brutal torture of prisoners, the total abnegation of a politics of freedom. If you didn’t recognize the barbarism that lay just beneath the Republican surface then, you were blinded by something pretty powerful. Some of my hostility to the right thereafter was tinged with excess, hyperbole, and a sense of betrayal. I became a nonperson on the right before it happened to the Never Trumpers. Maybe I was too harsh. Or emotional.

From “All In The Fold“, Jonathan Keats, Discover:

“We’ve figured out a way to put these building blocks together at the right angles to form these very complex nanostructures,” Baker explains. He plans to stud the exterior with proteins from a whole suite of flu strains so that the immune system will learn to recognize them and be prepared to fend off future invaders. A single Death Star will carry 20 different strains of the influenza virus.

I had to read it three times before I realized there was an implied “proteins of” in that last sentence. Otherwise, it sounded like a “Death Star” to exterminate humans, not influenza.

Sleaze. It’s an old word, a word with which anyone with a gram of self-respect never wished to be associated with, a word which nestles right next to ‘swamp,’ a word that is the favorite nephew of ‘corruption.’

And I think it really applies to the release by Trump’s PR man, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, of a doctored tape, as WaPo (and damn near any other news outlet) is reporting, regarding an incident involving President Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta at a press conference.

I’m not going to bother with references to deepfakes, even though I’ve discussed them before. I’m just too disgusted with this Administration, and with every American who thinks it’s an Administration worthy of the name.

Playing stupid games like this means it’s not a worthy Administration. Trump said he was going to drain the swamp?

Maybe he did. And then refilled it with something twice as toxic.

Too often, systems of morality and/or ethics (which I’ll shorten to ethical systems to save the fingers) are often taken to be semi-arbitrary masses of rules, which are obeyed, or not, without a great deal of thought as to the reasons behind the strictures – and whether or not those reasons are truly timeless, or if they’re actually context-dependent. This is an important, and perhaps underappreciated, aspect of Artificial Intelligence development. I was recently struck by this in an article on the Trolley Problem in NewScientist (27 October 2018, paywall). The Trolley Problem is a thought experiment in which someone is given the choice between who, based on category, is to be killed by a runaway trolley, in order to save others.

This has become interesting for AI investigators as the somewhat silly development of driverless cars careers along, and someone decided to do a world-wide survey:

Overall, people preferred to spare humans over animals and younger over older people, and tried to save the most lives. The characters that people opted to save least were dogs, followed by criminals and then cats (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0637-6).

Edmond Awad at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues think these findings can inform policy-makers and the experts they may rely on as they devise regulations for driverless cars. “This is one way to deliver what the public wants,” he says.

The team found that people in regional clusters made similar decisions. In an Eastern cluster, which included Islamic countries and eastern Asian nations that belong to the Confucianist cultural group, there was less of a preference to spare the young over the old, or to spare those with high status. Decisions to save humans ahead of cats and dogs were less pronounced in a Southern cluster, which included Central and South America, and countries with French influence. The preference there was to spare women and fit people.

Many technology researchers and ethicists told New Scientist they thought the results shouldn’t be used to set policy or design autonomous vehicles because that would simply perpetuate cultural biases that may not reflect moral decisions.

As if there is one universal moral system (and, irrelevantly, it can be applied at highway speeds in crisis conditions). And whose will it be?

Look, ethical systems don’t exist for giggles, but to facilitate societal survival. Generally, we see this as set of rules for inter-personal interactions, wherein we have rules for how we treat each other. However, some rules are not oriented on this basis, but rather on how to value the individual in a crisis situation.

Think of it this way: the potential, skills, and talents of an individual are the principal parts of the value that individual brings to the society. Those first three parts are obviously variable, and while, no doubt, many folks who think simple existence is miraculous are squealing at me now, the Universe has rarely, if ever, put much value on simply existing. And the point of the Trolley Problem exercise is to understand how a society values its citizens (among other, more interesting, questions).

But there’s a fourth variable in my observation, and that’s society. Yes, societies do differ, and are forced to differ, in so many ways, from geography, to natural resources, to the skill set of the average inhabitant, to the fertility of the inhabitants. Most of these are going to have an impact on the society’s ethical system, mostly subtle. Let’s pull out a coarse example.

Suppose Inhabitant A knows how to make bronze, an important part of the armaments necessary to defend this society from the predations of the barbarians on the other side of the mountains. Now let’s put him in the Trolley Problem. He’s gotten his foot stuck in the track, here comes the trolley, and on the other fork of the track is … a bunch of children in similar straits!

Do you sacrifice A or the kids?

Well, I left out some key information: how many other citizens know how to make bronze? Many? Save the kids might be the right answer. But what if only him and maybe his hermit half-brother know how to make bronze, and we’re not sure about the hermit?

Maybe those kids shouldn’t have been playing on the tracks, eh? “A” may be critical to this society’s survival.

If you obsessively attempt to apply your native society’s moral system to that situation and kill the guy with the knowledge of how to make bronze, you may have just doomed that society.

Ethical systems exist to help societies survive, and the context societies exist in can differ. So when I see these ethicists solemnly proclaim that you can’t use that survey to construct the moral system of your AI system, it tells me these ‘experts’ have persistent blinders. I’m not sure these ‘experts’ really even have a clue.

Maybe professional philosophers would be a better choice, although no doubt the ethicists think they are professional philosophers. But from this angle, I don’t see it.

And I shan’t even guess as to how to implement this moral system for the driverless car so it works acceptably well in various societies. Not even a fucking hand-flap.

Those of us who wish to see more science and technology trained folk in Congress should note the upset of the GOP‘s Katie Arrington by 314 Action’s endorsed Democrat Joe Cunningham, as reported by Roll Call:

Democrat Joe Cunningham’s win in South Carolina’s 1st District is a blow to Republicans who thought they’d hold on to the coastal seat even after South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford lost a GOP primary earlier this year.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Cunningham led GOP state Rep. Katie Arrington 51 percent to 49 percent when The Associated Press called the race.

President Donald Trump carried this Charleston-area seat by 11 points in 2016. But there were signs the race was becoming increasingly competitive this fall, with some internal polling pointing to a close contest. Offshore drilling — which Sanford opposed and Arrington said during the primary that she supported — became a central part of the general election contest.

Close readers will note the name Mark Sanford, who I’ve mentioned before as a somewhat more moderate Republican who had the temerity to criticize President Trump. He was upset by Arrington in the primary, who probably thought she’d won herself a job in that initial victory. Roll Call attributes Arrington’s own missteps for her loss:

In a moment of major significance for this race, Arrington said during the primary that she supported Trump’s effort to lift the ban on offshore drilling. She repeatedly attempted to walk back those comments, but it became fodder for Cunningham and his allies. Cunningham picked up the endorsement of several area Republican mayors because of his opposition to offshore drilling.

Cunningham avoided taking money from PACs and still outraised Arrington. He is an “ocean engineer,” which must be the item that attracted 314 Action’s attention, although presently he’s a lawyer. Or perhaps I should say that additionally he’s a lawyer. Having chops in both engineering and the law is no mean set of skills.

And this should be a lesson to all the Trump-clones that not all of the President’s plans, serious or not, will play well with general conservatives. When it becomes clear that some policy will damage them, Republicans are like everyone else – they bleed, too. There are times when self-sacrifice of economic prosperity is necessary for the greater good, but when it’s merely to benefit the fossil fuel industry, then it’s a bit nuts.

The real question is whether these Republicans who revolted also realize that the fossil fuel industry’s output is a menace in terms of climate change – and now that, too, is a menace to their communities.

Another winner from the science and technology sector was in Oklahoma, where surprise Democrat victor Kendra Horn from the space industry upset a long time Republican.

Naturally, everyone and their cousin has an opinion on the recently completed mid-terms. The trick, I think, is to treat it like a traveling email from a conservative friend: read with skepticism. Here’s Ed Rogers in WaPo, who I’ve not read before, but appears to be quite the apologist for Trump:

While Tuesday night was not a complete win for Republicans, there was no blue wave, either. By most measures, Republicans beat the odds of history and nearly everyone’s expectations, while Democrats were left disappointed as the fantasy of Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and others winning fizzled. Not one new progressive Democrat was successful bursting onto the scene. It will take a few days to process the meaning of this year’s election returns, but the instant analysis is clear: Democrats may have won the House, but Trump won the election.

As I always say, in politics, what is supposed to happen tends to happen. I predicted in August that the Democrats would take the House but that alone was not enough for most Democrats. As much as this year’s midterms offered an obvious opportunity to rebuke President Trump, little of what the arrogant Democrats and members of the mainstream media expected would happen actually did. So much of what they said turned out to be wrong that it will take a while before the significance becomes clear. And if the 2018 midterms prove anything, it is that Trump is standing strong while Democrats and their allies who thought Trump would have been affirmatively rejected are in fact the ones who have themselves been denied.

Rogers has some problems to overcome if he’s going to convince readers of his thesis (Trump good, Obama bad). For example:

• “Democrats have underperformed in comparison with the historical markers and general expectations of a midterm cycle. The president’s party loses 37 seats in the House on average in midterm elections when his approval is below 50 percent — but Democrats aren’t projected to pick up nearly that many seats.” Sounds convincing, doesn’t it? But out of sight is that tricky devil, numbers shorn of context, and the context in this case is a nation that has been excessively gerrymandered, mostly by the Republicans (Maryland exception duly noted). As this has been getting worse and worse, this average number becomes less and less meaningful. In point of fact, it’d be interesting to see a graph of that average changing over time compared to the amount of gerrymandering occurring. Apples and oranges.
• “Let the message be clear: Voters had a chance to repudiate Trump and they did not.” No? It’s often a mistake that innumerate pundits indulge in, thinking that a binary result is the end of the question. But it’s not. Let’s take a single example which, I believe, represents most legislative seats defended by Republicans this mid-term: Representative Steve King. Representing the deeply conservative western heartland of Iowa, the 4th and, earlier, 5th districts, that state to my south which I visit most years (Sioux City, specifically), he’s been in Congress since 2003, and he won again in the mid-terms. Now, if Rogers’ thesis was impregnable, we’d expect King’s margin of victory to be comfortable, since it has been in the past, with margins ranging from 9 percentage points to 23.3 points in the recent 2016 contest (data from Ballotpedia seems a little fragmentary for the now non-existent District 5). Trump was a big winner in District 4 during the Presidential election, winning the district by 27 points. So how did Representative King do yesterday? Must have been a cakewalk, right?

  According to The Gazette, King barely won 50% of the vote. His margin of victory? 3.3 points. Remember, voters hate members of Congress – except their own. They typically get a break. So how did King suddenly fall apart? By clasping Trump tightly, he damn near sank himself in the lake. Like a number of Trump-endorsed or Trump-loving candidates, from Arrington in South Carolina to McDaniel in Mississippi, that big old Trump stamp on their foreheads was the stamp of doom. King managed to survive it, which I find more than a little puzzling – but, having driven through the district in campaign season, it’s not really surprising. The advertising was suffocatingly for King. (And this is a guy who’s been little more than a rubberstamp, BTW. But I’ll let you do that research.) The toxic power of team politics comes to the fore, I suppose.

  My point is that there are more to numbers than Thug Won, Thag Lost. Rogers should acquaint himself with the numbers behind the numbers, the stories that are flowering all around him – if he’s willing to look at them.

• Rogers is smart enough not to mention the Senate, because this time around the Senate was configured overwhelmingly in the GOP’s favor – which is why I’m mentioning it, for the benefit of the reader who only skims politics.
• In another instance of shorn context, and as Kevin Drum adroitly points out, the Democrats made large gains despite the heavy burden of fighting in an overall good to very good economy. This became a point of some contention, as President Trump proclaimed his holy influence over the stock market every time it jumped, and ran and hid from the big bad thunderstorm every time it tumbled. The Democrats, and some independents such as myself, on the other hand, noted that President Obama handed off a good economy to Trump, and that’s saying more than usual, given the turd that Bush had handed Obama. From there, and noting that Trump’s tax reform of 2017 has done remarkably little except balloon the deficit, it’s not hard to make a credible case that it’s still an Obama-inspired economy. If you’re really set on pursuing this somewhat dubious line of logic, the stock market jumped 2+% the day after mid-terms. Understanding why may require you to stand on your head without recourse to your hands, however.

  Of course, this entire topic deserves its own rant, which I’ve indulged in at least once. But the important point is that we’re asked to accept judgments that sound good, but have been cleverly made bereft of important context.

• “Not one new progressive Democrat was successful bursting onto the scene.” This should be a big red flag concerning Rogers’ willingness to dance with the liars. This only needs one example: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wins NY-14 by 64 percentage points. But she’s not alone, as Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota won confirmation of her progressive agenda surprisingly comfortably, and Ilhan Omar, also of Minnesota, has burst onto the scene with a real shock for those of an anti-Muslim bent. And I’m not even bothering to research the question, I knew about these without a single search (except to get Ocasio-Cortez’s name). There’s probably more.

  But the point is that reality is misrepresented here. A storm came through and knocked over the trees, Rogers, and proclaiming it as nothing more than some showers is a waste of time.

Viewed with as much context as possible, I think the mid-terms have a lot to teach the Republicans, but it’ll be a lesson they can’t stomach: Trump is a metastasizing cancer. In some parts of the body politic, he’s still a rock star. But for others, they’ve recognized he’s a disaster, and they’re trying to find ways to get rid of him.

But perhaps most importantly is this pert little line, slipped in without trumpets nor support:

No liberal will want to admit it, but Trump is an asset to the Republican Party, while President Barack Obama was a disaster for the Democratic Party.

It’s not a misinterpretation, but a deliberate smear. And, most interestingly, it’s not a smear of President Obama, but of what he stands for: the old style of politics. Rogers, as an apparent apologist for Trump, dares not have any truck with the style of politics in which both Parties debate and create solutions to commonly recognized national problems through cooperative effort. This cannot be tolerated because it ruins the narrative that the Democrats are evil and out to wreck the United States. (If you think I hyperbolize, you need to research some of what Trump had to say in the last days of the mid-term campaign.) This is not a new narrative, though, because it starts with Newt Gingrich, and sweeps along to Lott and McConnell and many others.

By attributing doom and disaster to Obama, of which I, as an independent, didn’t notice a whiff, Rogers wants to bury that old style of politics and replace it with the single Party with its manly leader. And Rogers might have even made this work. If only Trump wasn’t such an ineffectual putz, and doomed to become recognized by more and more disaffected former supporters as that.

If you’re a Republican and want to save your Party, start a new one. Or kick Gingrich out, followed by Trump, followed by anyone who protests the first two. Then start listening to officials and former officials such as Warner, Flake, and Lugar. That’s the path back to an honorable political institution.

Getting away from this politics stuff for at least a moment, BepiColombo successfully launched  a couple of weeks ago. BepiColombo is a European Space Agency / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency joint mission to Mercury. From the press release:

BepiColombo comprises two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, or ‘Mio’). The ESA-built Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) will carry the orbiters to Mercury using a combination of solar electric propulsion and gravity assist flybys, with one flyby of Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury, before entering orbit at Mercury in late 2025.

So in seven years we’ll be seeing a bunch of mysteries solved, and bigger bunch of new mysteries generated, because that’s how this sort of thing works. Wheeee!

BepiColombo approaching Mercury.
Credit: spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Mercury: NASA/JPL
(Presumably an artist’s work, but no name is given. Perhaps stitching photos and stuff together doesn’t count as artistry.)