Yearly Archives: 2019

On-set nickname: Miss Grumpycakes.

Earth is a danger to all of the Universe, so some Federation of civilizations sends a glowing, radioactive woman to, well, interfere with a kidnapping. She touches the bad guys and they fall down dead from radiation poisoning.

The title of this whopper is so much better than the actual story: The Astounding She-Monster (1958).

Oh, and we get to the end of the movie, and the message left by the alien is … “Come join our Federation.” Wait, what? Continuity!

Oh, this was dreadful. Please do not waste your life on this one.

Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes, etc, evaluate Attorney General Barr’s letter concerning Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign:

The brief letter sent by Attorney General William Barr to congressional leaders on Sunday afternoon summarizing Mueller’s findings is a complicated document. In key respects, it contains very good news for President Trump about a scandal that has dogged his presidency since before he even took office. The determination of just how good the news is—whether it amounts to the exoneration Trump claims on these points or whether we’re dealing with conduct just shy of prosecutable—will have to await the text of Mueller’s report itself. But for those who quite reasonably demanded a serious investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and of cooperation and coordination with it on the part of the Trump campaign, it has to be significant that Mueller, after the better part of two years of investigating, has not found that anyone associated with the Trump campaign knowingly conspired with Russia’s efforts.

In other respects, however, Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report is ominous for the president. While Mueller did not find that Trump obstructed his investigation, he also made a point of not reaching the opposite conclusion: that Trump didn’t obstruct the investigation. Indeed, he appears to have created a substantial record of the president’s troubling interactions with law enforcement for adjudication in noncriminal proceedings—which is to say in congressional hearings that are surely the next step.

Which is to say, the President may have committed criminal acts when it comes to obstruction of justice, but Mueller did not feel he had the freedom to prosecute those in view of DoJ policies. He leaves that to  Congress to consider.

If you’re depressed Trump wasn’t marched away in handcuffs, it’s worth recalling that we have, on record, an amazing collection of falsehoods and braggodocio which should eliminate him from consideration for a second term – even if his base continues its insane love affair with him. We have indications of character defects, crimes committed prior to his election to the Presidency, and many other defects.

But, perhaps most importantly for the health of the Republic, is the Lawfare conclusion:

Whether this proves the beginning of the end of L’Affaire Russe or the prelude to a series of additional disclosures about activity on the part of the Trump campaign and the president himself that are disturbing but happen to fall just short of criminal activity, it is important not to lose sight of the significance of the investigation having been completed. That Mueller was able to complete his probe into a sitting president without having his investigation blocked—despite ongoing presidential braying against the probe and menacing of the Justice Department’s leadership—is no small thing.

That Mueller was able to write his report, to document his findings in a fashion that can allow for transparency and, if necessary, accountability, is of immense value. The question of what to do with the record Mueller has compiled will ultimately fall to Congress.

It’s not an impregnable Presidency. Names such as Manafort & Gates will ring forth as emblematic of a sick, corrupt campaign that has led to one of the most corrupt and swamp-driven Administrations in a very long time.

I also liked Wittes’ approach in another post:

The end of a criminal investigation is thus a funny moment. While the subject will generally claim vindication, it actually does not mean that you cannot judge her conduct morally. It does not mean that she cannot be held accountable in myriad non-criminal fashions. She can be ridiculed. You can campaign against her on the basis of the unindicted conduct. You can write histories of the scandal that denounce her behavior. You might even be able to sue her successfully. The end of the investigation only means that the state will not punish her using the specific instrumentality of the criminal law. It means only that the we won’t “lock her up.”

This is another post well worth reading.

Democratic candidates for President have been noising about the idea of increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices, along with possible changes to how appointments are made, all in the hopes of reforming the Supreme Court. Candidates O’Rourke, Buttigieg, Harris, Gillibrand, and Warren have all mentioned it as a possibility.

I think this is a mistake.

It’s necessary to remember that a sizable number of Americans do not pay attention to the minutiae of government. For those of us who watch politics, the denial of a confirmation hearing to Judge Garland was a sickening symptom of the rot at the core of the current conservative movement. The subsequent awarding of the open seat to Neal Gorsuch, followed by Kennedy’s retirement and then Kavanaugh’s nomination, subsequently confirmed, was the height of dishonor for Senator McConnell, who orchestrated the tactics to retain the seat in contravention of all law and tradition, even as he and his compatriots lied about it.

But most Americans have already forgotten about these events, or, at best, they have to be reminded about them. And then they’ll just shrug about them.

So when Democratic candidates talk about changing the Supreme Court around, it’s not perceived as a matter of correcting a structural problem, but as pure & bitter politics. SCOTUS is not perceived as broken by most of America, and in politics, perception is all. This seems to be more of a matter of playing to a Democratic base that is rightfully outraged at McConnell’s dismal tactics of total war against his fellow Americans, but it’s necessary for the Democrats to remember that they have to play to the independent and moderate Republican voters, or they will continue to lose elections.

There are plenty of issues which need attention, from climate change to trade to immigration, and they need to bring innovative approaches to those problems to the voters. There’s no reason to risk alienating voters by bringing up a change to an institution which has not yet pervaded the public consciousness as needing reform – and may never do so.

Who’s cardboard and who’s real? $xx if you can guess!

There’s a sociological puzzle to Phantom of Chinatown (1940) for which I have no solution. This murder mystery revolves around the death of expedition leader Dr. Benton. He’s returned from leading an archaeological expedition into the Mongolian desert, where he retrieves a scroll that might give the location of “eternal fire.” He dies during a presentation on the subject back home in San Francisco.

Into the mix are then thrust the San Francisco PD, Win Lee from China, and James Lee Wong, a Chinese-American. Wong is a friend of Benton’s, and so takes on a private investigation of his death, a subject of some resentment by the SFPD representatives. His investigation of expedition members, as well as Win Lee, eventually leads to the setting of a trap, revealing that a supposedly lost member of the expedition is still alive, and directing the plot to steal the scroll.

The real mystery here, though, is the presentation of the various characters. As my Arts Editor remarked, it’s a casually racist movie in the attitudes of the Western European-derived Americans towards the Chinese. Yet which characters are the best drawn?

Win Lee and, by far, James Wong. They feel like real people, thoughtful and with lives beyond this story. Everyone else? Pulled out of the locker in the movie studio’s backlot, to be returned upon completion of the movie.

This story is no great shakes, but if you’re looking for a way to pass an hour or so, it might amuse you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUHzkZpUCTA

Sometimes you need a picture of something extraordinary to remind yourself of other things.

Today’s picture of the Sun, from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

There’s nothing like the craven submission to another’s will to curry favor:

[The ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio)] said he was all “for erring on the side of transparency.” But asked whether he would urge Trump to release the full [Special Counsel Mueller] report, he replied, “That’s the president’s call.” [WaPo]

Uh, no, it’s not the President’s call, you bloody idiot. The President does not get to decide how much of the report should be released, that’s up to the Attorney General. The President should have no influence on the matter.

But it is your responsibility to deliver an independent opinion which best benefits the Republic. No, I didn’t say the Republican Party, I said the Republic. And if you think burying a report which condemns the President is the best for the Republic, then it’s time for the voters of Ohio to replace you.

Somebody’s not going to make it to the end of this story. Who forgot to pay off the author?

For a 1950s-60s B-class sci-fi movie, I have to say The Day of the Triffids (1962) is one of the better examples of the genre: its characters feel like they have, or had, lives of their own beyond the movie, they move in believable story arcs, there’s a real sense of apprehension, and even if you find the triffids ludicrous, they are ludicrous in a way that is unsettling, as if they are life, but not as we know it, to quote an old chestnut.

For one long night, the Earth is bombarded with an immense meteorite storm. They burn up in the atmosphere spectacularly, which lures the entire population out for a “Once in a lifetime show”. However, for one security guard at a London arboretum, the show will be coming to an early, bloody end … The next day, all of humanity (but why not the pets, and the wildlife?) is going blind.

But there are exceptions. Bill Masen, a merchant mariner, was in hospital for eye surgery, and was thus protected by his bandages. When he wakes up the morning following the light show, anticipating the removal of said bandages, no one answers his calls, and he ends up taking them off himself. Thus, we experience with him the wreck of the hospital, his encounter with his now-blind doctor and how, after an examination, the doctor commits suicide.

Bill decides to travel to his ship, which gives us a taste of the piercing tragedy of a world gone blind – not in piles of bodies, but the personal tragedies of those, blind themselves, desperate to reach and help their own loved ones, all while a burgeoning population of triffids are supping on their ready-made prey. Bill’s inability to help brings the tragedy home, and it’s a relief when he discovers a young runaway orphan, Susan, who spent the night hiding in the baggage car of a train, and was thus spared this universal malady. Together, they find his ship, abandoned, and listen on the radio as an airliner, calling for help, crashes.

“Why do you keep your secret lover out on the ledge, my dear?”

Meanwhile, a couple living in an isolated lighthouse cum laboratory have also been spared blindness, probably because Tom was blind drunk during the night. His emotional depression meets its match in the frantic need to discover how to survive and destroy the triffids, and we follow their methodical, frustrating approach to the problem, all while holding off the triffidian invasion of their lighthouse.

Back to Bill and Susan, they discover a sanctuary in France, run by several sighted French, for the blind. But the triffids are on their way and preparations are made to evacuate. But, believably, a troop of French prisoners invade and destroy the sanctuary, and then all die under assault of the triffids, with only Bill, Susan, and french lass Christine getting out. They’ve heard the radio announcements of evacuation by submarine from Spain, and that becomes their goal. Will they get there?

Back at the lighthouse, Tom and Karen are becoming frantic as each chemical assault on their sample of triffidian cells is a failure. When the triffids resort to battering their way in, they make their despairing way up the stairs, and, in the end … discover the answer.

And it’s a classic movie poster, too. No one gets snatched up in her nighty.

It’s a hoary old aphorism of science fiction authors that your audience will always permit 1 to 1.5 incredible things in a story. The Day Of The Triffids is, really, an outstanding example of how to best utilize this truism: the triffids may be ridiculous out of context, but the context built by the believable actions and reactions of the characters we follow, and the reports they and we hear, transform them from fun little special-effects efforts into monsters which become the center of gravity of this story. Through them, the characters are permitted to embody the theme of Never give up, fight to the last breath – because sometimes only in that last breath do we discover the solution for which we’ve been searching.

The film quality itself is so-so, given its age, but I have to say that I rather enjoyed this old flick. If you haven’t seen it before but enjoy science fiction, or film history, give this one a whirl.

As a computer scientist (a guy who writes programs, really), I have very little use for probability & statistics in my line of work, which is to say that I’m not what they call a natural scientist, a scientist who studies the natural world. My use of probability is more or less nil, and statistics & instrumentation only comes into play when I’m working on performance and scalability problems – and then it’s nothing more than rudimentary use of the services of that field. I know the term p-hacking has come to the forefront in science, a term indicating scientists are manipulating the data they collected in order to find something significant to say about their latest study, but it and its relationship to statistical significance are not explicit parts of my life.

So I’m fascinated and bemused to see this interview Retraction Watch published with Professor Nicole Lazar (principally; Ron Wasserstein and Allen Schirm contributed to the answers, as co-editors of a publication on the subject) of the University of Georgia on the obsolescence of the phrase statistical significance:

So the [American Statistical Association] wants to say goodbye to “statistically significant.” Why, and why now?

In the past few years there has been a growing recognition in the scientific and statistical communities that the standard ways of performing inference are not serving us well.  This manifests itself in, for instance, the perceived crisis in science (of reproducibility, of credibility); increased publicity surrounding bad practices such as p-hacking (manipulating the data until statistical significance can be achieved); and perverse incentives especially in the academy that encourage “sexy” headline-grabbing results that may not have much substance in the long run.  None of this is necessarily new, and indeed there are conversations in the statistics (and other) literature going back decades calling to abandon the  language of statistical significance.  The tone now is different, perhaps because of the more pervasive sense that what we’ve always done isn’t working, and so the time seemed opportune to renew the call.

Dr. Lazar helped edit and publish an issue of The American Statistician devoted to this subject, but, sad to say, I shan’t try to read it because of my abysmal ignorance of the subject. I’ll be fascinated to observe, however, if this recommendation takes hold in the world of science, and how it’ll change how we do science.

My correspondent responds to my last remark concerning attempts to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia:

I’m surprised I didn’t mention this earlier: Saudi Arabia seems intent upon having their cake and eating it too at the expense of the rest of the world. They’ll sell their oil to gain riches, but will power their nation with nuclear and renewables, and make themselves a nuclear power. Of course, by the end of the century, it may well be too hot for humans to even live in Saudi Arabia at all.

I’m visualizing the world’s largest geodesic domes encompassing their cities.

While the attempts to transfer the makings for nuclear weapons by American business & military men is naturally quite worrying, since it appears to be completely commerce-related, the performance of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) has been dismal. If he continues to fail to reach the standard required of a Saudi royal, there’s a few possible things that might happen:

1. He’ll be replaced. But is King Salman, reportedly ailing, really up for replacing his favorite son?
2. He’ll continue blundering on, alienating family and Saudi business people, and possibly get himself knocked off.
3. He’ll assume he can continue the authoritarian act outside of his country and get his hand burned.
4. He’ll ascend to the throne at the passing of King Salman, doesn’t improve his judgment, and Saudi Arabia continues to blunder along.
5. The royals are overthrown by dissatisfied subjects.
6. He improves his judgment and takes command of a nuclear project.

Which will happen? Which is even best? Hopefully, we can keep #6 out of the mix through the efforts of the FBI and other agencies tasked with keeping nuclear technology out of unauthorized hands.

I see Rep Steve King (R-IA), accused white supremacist, has decided to shore up his support in his district, as CNN reports:

Speaking at a town hall in his district Thursday, King suggested that Hurricane Katrina disaster victims were asking for government assistance after the deadly storm hit, pushing a racial stereotype.

“Here’s what FEMA tells me. We go to a place like New Orleans, and everybody’s looking around saying, ‘Who’s going to help me? Who’s going to help me?'” King said, adding that he made four trips to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“We go to a place like Iowa, and we go, we go see, knock on the door at, say, I’ll make up a name, John’s place, and say, ‘John, you got water in your basement, we can write you a check, we can help you.’ And John will say, ‘Well, wait a minute, let me get my boots. It’s Joe that needs help. Let’s go down to his place and help him,'” King said.

I won’t bother to explore the point that a bit of flooding, damaging as it is to the nation’s food industry, has any comparison to a direct hit by a major hurricane. The farmers have a little water in their basement. In New Orleans, their houses were underwater. Add in the bit that New Orleans, being below sea level, probably shouldn’t exist in that location due to its vulnerability to disaster, and his comparison is laughably specious.

But It’s worth taking a moment to dissect everything going on here.

First, he’s praising his constituents in a time of stress. Remember, King’s margin of victory in the recent mid-terms was nothing to brag about, compared to his previous victories. Since then, he’s been stripped of his committee assignments by his own Party as punishment for being too explicit concerning his white supremacist views.

Second, anyone who’s part of a community wants to believe their community is great^[1]. King is busily building up the ego of his constituents by suggesting they do the right thing, in contrast to other people.

Third, and related to the previous, Iowa is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of Western Europeans. New Orleans, rightly or wrongly, is considered a ‘black’ city. King’s tactic is a just-below-the-surface irritation of latent racism, another attempt to smear a city of others with a reputation for laziness and dependency. This is a time-worn tactic of those defending a position inherently unjust and, in honest discourse, indefensible.

Here’s the desired result: not a strong Union, but a weaker Union. Not that key sympathy for those in greater straits than our own, but disdain that they don’t just hitch themselves up by their bootstraps. In essence, King is not working to build a stronger Nation, but to tear it down. It’s a set of actions and attitudes which should require his immediate resignation from the House of Representatives, but, being a craven person, he won’t.

Thus, the Iowa GOP faces a real test in 2020: who will they nominate for the position of Representative to Congress for Iowa’s Fourth District? Will the base insist, once again, on Rep King? It’d be a gamble, as he’s doing nothing for the district in Congress right now, and probably won’t in the next Congress, either. Worse, the victory margin trend is narrowing for King, and there’s little reason to believe that the Democrats who made that happen last year will be asleep in 2020; more likely, the independents will side with them over a Republican of sleazy reputation. Hell, he’s even been repudiated by the national GOP.

But, important to the base, his TrumpScore is 92%.

Yes, next year should be quite the test for the Iowa GOP.

¹ Except community organizers, who believe their communities have systemic defects which require correction. They’re usually correct.

You want me to do WHAT with this guy?

Feeling like mocking a movie? Well, you won’t come up with a better title than The Astro-Zombies (1968), but alternate dialog opportunities, if that’s your thing, are a bumper crop here. This is an amazing bit of tripe featuring a rogue surgeon creating, well, you-know-whats, some fairly incompetent CIA agents, and a team from some Far East nation that is out to steal the technology of the surgeon. And what does this consist of? Well, it has something to do with brains and hearts in fish tanks, solar cell power packs, women in next to nothing and big, lumbering cars.

And mysterious credit scenes populated with toy robots that make machine gun noises.

Hoo-dandy, this is an awful one.

My guess? National Security Advisor John Bolton, the guy with the ‘stache. Yesterday, he gave a detailed briefing on the sanctions being imposed on North Korea, according to Josh Lederman of NBC News:

Less than 24 hours ago, top National Security Council officials sat down reporters in the EEOB to walk through these #NorthKorea sanctions and how important they are

— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) March 22, 2019

Today? In a gobsmacking move, President Trump tramples all over him:

From The Volokh Conspiracy’s weekly Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions:

Fresno, Calif. police seize cash pursuant to a search warrant, give property owners an inventory sheet stating they seized $50k. Allegation: The cops actually seized $276k, stole the difference. Ninth Circuit: It isn’t clearly established that cops can’t steal things they’ve seized with a search warrant, so they get qualified immunity.

The sort of thing that makes me wonder if the Republic is about to go into the drink, or if whoever wrote that misinterpreted the Court.

A reader remarks on the GOP Senators breaking ranks to rebuke the President’s national emergency declaration:

Maybe they are starting to see the writing on the wall. If they want to retain their power, they need to reign the president in. Otherwise, we may be facing President Ivanka, president for life. I’m not kidding. We are living the exact story of how authoritarian nepotism works.

I think my reader hyperbolizes a bit. I seriously doubt enough Americans would be willing to put up with that kind of shit from Washington; nor would the military. Such a setup would have to offer some big advantages to a lot of American citizens in order for it to be accepted.

If a recession were to occur during President Trump’s first term in office, that would probably limit him to a single term.

In this iteration^[1] of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders (2018), we meet and follow a new version of Christie’s famous Hercule Poirot: he’s old, he’s despised by his adopted country’s police force, he’s uncertain, and he’s haunted by memories of people now gone – and a former occupation. Into this mix comes a series of murders which seem to revolve around incidents from his own past, around letters of the alphabet, around what almost seems to be madness. He treasures his quiet, and all the more when the police begin to wonder if Poirot, himself, might be the murderer.

In this maelstrom he finds he must battle his own weaknesses, following clues while sadly observing the flailings of those few who still remember him. This is not the Hercule from the popular TV series, so cocky and certain of himself. Now his deductions must take into consideration his own past, the fallibility of those memories, and whether or not he was a star detective, addicted to the celebrity – or a careful craftsman for whom this grim business is why he exists.

And we see the other end: the murderer, going about his grim business, yet all unconscious of it. Is the murderer suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder? Epilepsy? Madness? It’s a tricky business, trying to connect the murders to the pattern. Nor are his victims blameless themselves, and at one point I thought … but nevermind. I was wrong, but I invite you to be wrong on your own terms.

This is no light-hearted adventure, no light-hearted Murder on the Orient Express. This is grim all the way around. And not badly done.

¹ Technically, this is a BBC TV series, but it comes in three hour long episodes following a single set of connected incidents, so to my mind it’s a movie. A single story, so to speak, of a non-episodic nature.

From a quick Q&A with President Trump:

Q Do you know when the Mueller report will be released, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: I have no idea. No collusion. No collusion. I have no idea when it’s going to be released. It’s interesting that a man gets appointed by a deputy; he writes a report. You know — never figured that one out. A man gets appointed by a deputy; he writes a report.

I had the greatest electoral victory — one of them — in the history of our country. Tremendous success. Tens of millions of voters. And now somebody is going to write a report who never got a vote.

So we’ll see what the report says. Let’s see if it’s fair. I have no idea when it’s going to be released. …

Q    Mr. President, does the American public have a right to see the Mueller report?

THE PRESIDENT:  I don’t mind.  I mean, frankly, I told the House, “If you want, let them see it.”  Again, I say: A deputy — because of the fact that the Attorney General didn’t have the courage to do it himself, a deputy that’s appointed appoints another man to write a report.  I just won an election with 63 million votes or so.  Sixty-three million.  I had 206 to 223 in the Electoral College — 306 to 223.

And I’m saying to myself, wait a minute, I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country — and even you will admit that — and now I have somebody writing a report that never got a vote.  It’s called the Mueller report.

So explain that, because my voters don’t get it.  And I don’t get it.

Now, at the same time, let it come out.  Let people see it.  That’s up to the Attorney General.  We have a very good Attorney General; he’s a very highly respected man.  And we’ll see what happens.

But it’s sort of interesting that a man, out of the blue, just writes a report.  I got 306 electoral votes against 223.  That’s a tremendous victory.  I got 63 million more.  I got 63 million votes.  And now somebody just writes a report?  I think it’s ridiculous.

But I want to see the report.  And you know who will want to see it?  The tens of millions of people that love the fact that we have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.

Staccato sentences, unconnected ideas, lies, frantic repeating of talking points, and gibberish. For me, this speaks of a man who has lost the integrity of his thought processes.

That makes it hard to really analyze what this Administration is doing. At least that part that Trump is actually controlling.

From a friend, to whom I’m now eternally indebted:

Of course, this isn’t good enough. I’d like to see this done on a continental basis, with the possibility of then seeing the impact of non-political boundary events, such as plagues.

Soteriology:

Soteriology (/səˌtɪəriˈɒlədʒi/; Greek: σωτηρία sōtēria “salvation” from σωτήρ sōtēr “savior, preserver” and λόγος logos “study” or “word”^[1]) is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many religions.

In the academic field of religious studies, soteriology is understood by scholars as representing a key theme in a number of different religions and is often studied in a comparative context; that is, comparing various ideas about what salvation is and how it is obtained. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Politics is religion, and the right is getting ready for the end times,” Michael Gerson, WaPo:

What I am talking about is the appropriation — really, the profanation — of religious ideas to serve ideological purposes. During the 20th century, this was often the preserve of the left. Marxism provided a soteriology — a theory of salvation — that caused people to die and kill in service to a redemptive ideal. It is what made communism so appealing — and so dangerous. It gave oppression the veneer of idealism.

Bevy:

1. a group of birds, as larks or quail, or animals, as roebuck, in close association.
2. a large group or collection:
   a bevy of boisterous sailors. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Grizzly Bears Might Return to California. Is the State Ready?” Brent Crane, Discover (April 2019):

The reserve is a picturesque expanse of shrubby hills and fields of wild oats cut through with gurgling creeks. Bevies of quail patrol dirt roads, while camera traps set up near water troughs capture images of deer, mountain lions, black bears and even rattlesnakes. The “chaparral bear,” the old nickname for California grizzlies, would have done just fine here, Alagona says.

The visual of a pack of quail, heavily armored and armed with bazookas, peering out of the ditch of the dirt road, pursues me through my dreams.

A reader sends a helpful link in response to my remark about lead levels in the Twin Cities area:

https://mndatamaps.web.health.state.mn.us/interactive/lead.html?fbclid=IwAR1b3QsQtpGx4VyMxRrbl_UU9IFm5V_q_BiCU_LoKweLZMb0q_hZWBldjj0

Which leads to this interactive map (interactivity not available on UMB):

Of more interest is this view, which I believe I found under Census Tract Map:

While these are measurements of children of recent vintage, I sort of think it’s still a good proxy for past decades. Now an overlay of where violent criminals grew up would be of interest, if I’m understanding this properly. Not necessarily dispositive as to causation of the violent tendencies, but definitely indicative.

I wish I had more time to properly explore this map.

Kevin Drum has a complaint about the mass media:

This allows me to complain about my two pet peeves from last week. First, the unbelievable amount of attention paid to a tiny little college admissions scandal. We still don’t know how many people were involved, but at appears to be something like 0.01 percent of the entering freshman class of America’s most elite universities. This is a rounding error, and it’s for a scandal that only affects about 5 or 6 percent of American families in the first place. What’s more, it’s just standard issue cheating, not even a symptom of some new or systemic problem. It deserved a few column inches on A7, not flood-the-zone coverage everywhere we looked.

And then there’s the president of the United States coyly suggesting that he has “tough” supporters who might—wink wink—get even tougher under the right circumstances. Sure, it’s just Donald Trump acting like his usual asshole self. But still. Doesn’t this deserve a few front-page stories? I mean, maybe it’s just a coincidence that hate crimes suddenly spiked as soon as Trump became president. But then again, maybe it’s not.

This bothered me, but I couldn’t quite figure out Drum’s error, and we’ll skip over the relatively minor error of assuming that the entire problem has been found – that is, is this the entire cactus, or is this an iceberg a mile high and ten miles deep?

Then, while reading this Lawfare article concerning the technicalities of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1961 and how they were eventually used to disassemble and destroy the very democracy it was designed to protect^[1], it came to me.

See, while the Venezuelan article immerses itself in an abstract summary of specified Venezuelan Constitutional procedures, as well as how members of critical institutions were intimidated into silence and submission by threats from eventual President Hugo Chavez and his followers, it sort of skips over perhaps the most important part of the destruction of Venezuelan democracy, and that’s the yawning abyss between the elites and the poverty-stricken. I’ve consulted a couple of sources on this, and they seem to agree that one of Chavez’s main charms was his loud support for the most destitute of society.

But yawning abyss is a terribly insufficient description. We need to remember the tendency of South American elites to engage in any activity which will secure their place in society. Remember Chile and General Pinochet? These behaviors, from favoring the rich in the court system to just outright killing of peasants, generates enormous resentment, destroys faith in the societal model, and fractures the nation. In a sense, the fleeing of poverty-stricken Venezuelans to Chavez was a rational response on their part. Society isn’t working for them. Find something else that works.

So how about that college admissions cheating scandal? Consider its salient features: Rich people buy their kids’ way into colleges for which they might not otherwise qualify, wherein everyone else must struggle with stringent standards, and often fail.

Is that fair?

Of course not. And that generates division in our society. Sure, it’s only a few kids involved. A rounding error, to quote Drum. So far. So fucking far.

But societies must have cohesion, and this is another chip out of that cohesion. Fractured societies fall to fighting, lose production, spirit, begin to have food riots, and before you know it you have a broken country. Even a broken governmental paradigm.

Now, you can handle this in one of two ways. The first, covering it up, results in a big old abscess full of pus, which gets worser the longer the prick is delayed. Sure, maybe you take a chance on it never being exposed, but those are long odds.

The second is to expose it to public loathing immediately, as our press has (hopefully) done. It’s embarrassing, there’s going to be a lot of speculation that the kids who have unknowingly benefited are not ready for society due to this bit of bad parenting, and maybe a few more foolishly rich parents will be caught doing the same thing.

But through the public debate that comes with the exposure, society has at least a chance of not being damaged by this idiocy. But if it’s not, if it festers?

It alienates the poverty stricken, the middle classes – everyone who isn’t in on the cheating.

OK, so Trump opened his mouth and his dementia carried him along to claim the military and police and a biker gang would support a coup d’état on his part. Let’s think about that. If the military is truly ready to support such a thing, then we’d better talk about the education scandal because we haven’t a chance against an American military that’s ready to turn on its own families. We Just Don’t. If the military can be persuaded to commit such a heinous action, then this nation doesn’t deserve to exist.

If the police are ready to support it, but not the military, the police get squashed by the military.

And a biker gang? Maybe this is an example of Trump’s wit, because it’s just damn silly.

But for all that the education scandal is a rounding error, it just illustrates that Drum’s looking through the numeracy prism at the wrong time. The importance doesn’t lurk in the numbers, but in how it potentially affects society, as it goes through our adversaries’ magnifiers and becomes worse and worse.

Until that rich family in the gated community doesn’t dare leave because of the rioters outside. Or me in my middle class community. All because trust has been destroyed.

And society fractured.

¹ No, really, I kid you not!

The Hill is reporting that the State of Washington’s moving to force anyone seeking to be on their Presidential ballot to reveal their tax returns:

Washington’s state Senate passed a bill this week that would drop President Trump from the state’s 2020 presidential ballot until he releases his tax returns.

The bill, which advanced Tuesday to the state’s House of Representatives, according to CBS News, would require any candidate on the ballot for president in the state to release five years of tax returns before appearing in a general or primary election.

Senators voted by a 28-21 margin to approve the bill, according to CBS. The state’s attorney general and solicitor told lawmakers in a letter this week that the proposal likely was constitutional, but analysts expect the law if passed to be challenged in federal court.

“The disclosure requirement you propose is likely Constitutional,” the two wrote to lawmakers, according to CBS, adding that the measure “would definitely be challenged in court.”

And if the Democrats are smart, one of them will challenge the law. Because it’s possible that when Trump’s campaign sues, a Federal court would rule that, while the lawsuit is unresolved, the law is suspended, and if the lawsuit is filed sufficiently late, it might not be resolved until after the 2020 elections, thus letting President Trump slip onto the ballot without revealing his tax returns.

There’ll be arguments about privacy, but I think they are superseded about the importance of the voter knowing whether or not the nominee is truthful as to their claims. (Indeed, now I’m tempted to suggest that nominees should be required to support contentious assertions, but I hesitate to suggest Yet Another Law.) Many voter interviews have indicated that Trump voters considered his alleged success in the private sector to be a reason to vote for him.

One of the Republican opposition remarked:

“We’re on really risky ground when we’re trying to place conditions on a federal election,” said Sen. Hans Zeiger (R), according to CBS.

I don’t think so. States choose how they select electors to the Electoral College. This is clearly a requirement the State has the prerogative to impose, in my view.

Should be interesting. Would he submit falsified returns? Just drop out? Or just try to make it all fly based on his supposed charisma? (Don’t worry, I never fell for President Clinton’s supposed charisma as well.)

This mouse may be dissatisfied with its existence.

Some movies just go right into the WTF category, and I think Blood Tea and Red String (2006) may be one such. Mostly stop-action, it seems to tell the story of the mice and the … bird-hyenas. Maybe. I see Wikipedia suggests rats. But they had beaks.

In any case, the bird-rats, yes, we’ll go with that label, have constructed a doll into which they’ve implanted an egg, and put it up over their doorway. Maybe it’s supposed to be a scarecrow. The mice steal it in the middle of the night, speeding away on their turtle, and seem to fall quite unhealthily in love with it in their lair. The bird-rats track their doll down… and I’ll just let it go at that.

This is not something you rate. It exists, you exist, and if it makes sense to you, Godspeed, eh? Apparently, there’ll be two more in this series. My goodness, I’ll have to see those as well.

If your dream of the evening is sophomoric teenage boy humor, then I can recommend The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). A collection of vignettes working around a parody of Bruce Lee movies, it features nudity, satire, and anything else that can be linked to sex. I chortled several times. My Arts Editor moaned.

And never, ever again.