Monthly Archives: February 2019

On Lawfare, Benjamin Wittes, et al, make an important observation regarding the public Michael Cohen hearings yesterday:

The second notable feature of the hearing was that it was really two hearings. One was a sometimes frustrating, sometimes incompetent, sometimes serious effort to learn what the committee could about the conduct of the man who currently serves as president of the United States. The other hearing alternated in five-minute increments with the first but was a different exercise entirely. It involved a confrontation between a man who had devoted a decade of his life to making Trump’s legal, ethical and personal problems go away—a man who once reveled in being dubbed Trump’s “fixer”—yet who now had become one of those problems, and was being confronted by a phalanx of 17 applicants for his old role.

Indeed, with the notable exception of Rep. Justin Amash, who engaged in a serious colloquy with Cohen about how Trump communicates indirect orders to his subordinates, none of the Republican members of the committee showed any serious interest in developing the factual record about the president’s conduct: not on matters related to L’Affaire Russe, not on payments to paramours, not on other corruption matters. They showed up, rather, as fixers—very much as Cohen himself would only recently have done. They were there merely to discredit the witness. And in this project they confronted a problem: It is actually hard to brand someone as a liar when he walks in, having recently pleaded guilty to any number of lies, and brands himself as a teller of untruths. There’s not much you can say about such a person that he hasn’t just said about himself.

It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? President Trump’s next right hand man might be one of those Republican House members, yet they haven’t the wit to look at the man in front of them and see themselves behind that table in a few years time – or behind a defendant’s table in a court of law.

And – more importantly – they seem to be stuck in political attack mode. Rather than take their jobs seriously, they simply defend their President from potentially devastating testimony from a man who is obviously at the heart of the alleged matter. Their roles should have been to ask tough questions in an attempt to discern whether Cohen is telling the truth now, evaluate accompanying evidence, and, if their dispassionately reached conclusion is that he’s telling the truth, then begin deciding the implications of the evidence.

Not, as one Rep whose name I did not catch, yelling “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” In a Nation less prone to drama, I’d feel the need to reprimand such childish behavior. As it is, his constituents should harbor serious concerns about his judgment.

I suppose the title of this post is a misnomer, though: the morality of the GOP these days is “Whatever is good for President Trump.” That is how cults often roll. And the behavior of the GOP Reps corresponds – with the exception of Rep Amash, as Wittes notes – very well with cult members. And it makes it hard for independents, like myself, to take them seriously on an intellectual level.

The Chief Justice continues to find common ground with the liberal wing of SCOTUS, this time on a ruling that Alabama’s court system did not adequately investigate whether or not death row inmate Vernon Madison’s mental condition is such that he recognizes why he is to be executed:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s four liberals in saying Alabama death-row inmate Vernon Madison deserves another chance to prove that strokes and worsening vascular dementia have left him unable to remember his crime or why the state wants to execute him. [WaPo]

The ruling was 5-3, with Justice Kavanaugh not part of the proceedings. While I wouldn’t care to state that Roberts is swinging left just yet, it does appear he has more sympathy for the arguments advanced by the liberals than for the conservatives.

Incidentally, Justice Alito is fairly blistering in his dissent, which was joined by Justice Thomas and IJ Gorsuch. From the opinion, Madison v Alabama, p 19:

What the Court has done in this case makes a mockery of our Rules.

Petitioner’s counsel convinced the Court to stay his client’s execution and to grant his petition for a writ of certiorari for the purpose of deciding a clear-cut constitutional question: Does the Eighth Amendment prohibit the execution of a murderer who cannot recall committing the murder for which the death sentence was imposed? The petition strenuously argued that executing such a person is unconstitutional. After persuading the Court to grant review of this question, counsel abruptly changed course. Perhaps because he concluded (correctly) that petitioner was unlikely to prevail on the question raised in the petition, he conceded that the argument advanced in his petition was wrong, and he switched to an entirely different argument, namely, that the state court had rejected petitioner’s claim that he is incompetent to be executed because the court erroneously thought that dementia, as opposed to other mental conditions, cannot provide a basis for such a claim.

I have no idea if it’s customary to indulge in such hyperbolic language in SCOTUS dissents, nor as to the accuracy of Justice Alito’s claims. But I can’t help but note that first sentence is an ugly little bit of grunge. I suggest, oh, The Court’s opinion in this case makes a mockery of our Rules.

While Michael Cohen has been offering public testimony to Congress today, I’ve been bothered a little bit by the CNN headlines, which have been quoting Cohen as using the words ‘racist,’ ‘con-man,’ and ‘cheat.’ I’ve finally figured out why.

Racism is not in the same category as con-man and cheat.

While the former is repugnant and, to tell the truth, stupid, the latter two are indicative of illegal behavior. And that’s the truly important part of this testimony. The racism doesn’t really matter when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, unless you can prove a hate crime has occurred, and that somewhat dubious category of crime is difficult to prove because it requires insight into the state of mind of the alleged criminal. This can be available, of course, but it’s always a bit more arguable than a bloody knife and a body.

So don’t let me get off point here. Cohen is testifying to possible illegalities and lies by the President, and those are important as a basis for sending him on his way in two years, and possibly even for an impeachment, although honestly the GOP has no spine in the matter. His racism? It may be true, but it’s not relevant, really.

And that’s just me being obsessive, I suppose.

Hope these don’t make it into my dreams.

There are some movies that I really hesitate to review, and Attack of the Mushroom People (1963; in Japan, Matango) falls into this category. An anomalous collection of Japanese people board a yacht for a long sail. They range from a egotistical corporate executive, to a famous singer, to a professor of psychology, a writer, an apparent nobody, and the boat’s captain and mate.

The inevitable storm comes up, but – to my surprise – no monsters board the ship and hunt down the occupants. Instead, it sustains enough damage to distress the crew, although the passengers seem merely irritated. As they transition from distress to real nutritional deprivation, a fog-bound island appears and they make their way onto shore.

The hunt is on for food, and they find a few roots, clams – and a bounteous crop of mushrooms, which they carefully avoid. From the top of a hill, they spot another wreck. A visit reveals an abandoned ship whose log is mysteriously vague; even the nationality of the ship is questionable. It’s clearly a research vessel, but gear is present from both Communist and free world countries – and why is a radiation meter present?

They take up residence, and not a moment too soon, as strange figures appear at the portholes. But it’s all quite leisurely, building the tension until we begin to see the various personalities begin to fall apart under the pressure. The big windup doesn’t come from without, but from within, and somehow that’s more satisfying.

I found it annoying at the same time I was fascinated. The acting was on par with general Japanese kaiju movies, with which I’ve never been comfortable. But here it’s as if the audience is watching stereotypical characters from one genre finding themselves in another, and it can lead to a certain cognitive discomfort.

And that’s what makes me wary of this review. Perhaps, for a Japanese person of the era, the characters seemed perfectly natural. I don’t dispute their reactions to the tension brought on by whatever has happened to the crew of the wreck our immediate characters have found. It’s an interesting dig into the psychic tensions of what may be generic examples of certain categories of people. But the whole thing may be colored by my American perceptions.

So, if it sounds interesting, give it a watch. The first 10 or 15 minutes were tedious, but when the storm hits, things become more interesting. And if you have a clue as to how to evaluate this movie, let me know.

I’ve been watching the measles outbreaks with grim bemusement (yeah, figure that one out), as they center around areas in which anti-vaccination crusades have taken hold. In other words, they’re paying the price for their own bad judgment, which is not a bad way for things to go. WaPo published an article on the subject today, which includes this dubious remark:

Jill Collier, a registered nurse, told lawmakers she was against the [vaccination] bill because she believed it would harm the doctor-patient relationship. “We cannot blanket-mandate an injection for a child and hold their education hostage for noncompliance,” she said.

And why not? Look at it the other way: your unvaccinated kid forces those children who are implicitly incapable of tolerating the vaccine (such as for genetic reasons) to stay away from school for their own safety. You’ve just denied them an education just as much as this bill might restrict your’s.

Only, unlike your behavior, their’s is not voluntary.

For a post from long ago on the subject of vaccinations and public health, see here.

This post from Steve Benen on Maddowblog has been bothering me for several days, and I’ve finally decided to get it off my chest. It concerns the both the characterization of the political landscape as well as the implications that come from it.

As we discussed a few years ago, part of the problem is that the “independent” label, in practical terms, has little real meaning. It’s widely assumed that self-identified independents see themselves as moderate/centrist voters. As the argument goes, the left sides with Democrats, the right sides with Republicans, which leaves independents in the middle.

It’s a tidy little summary, but it’s not true. The Monkey Cage’s John Sides published a piece several years ago that doesn’t appear to be online anymore, but it continues to ring true.

[H]ere is the problem: Most independents are closet partisans. This has been well-known in political science since at least 1992, with the publication of The Myth of the Independent Voter.

When asked a follow-up question, the vast majority of independents state that they lean toward a political party. They are the “independent leaners.” … The number of pure independents is actually quite small – perhaps 10% or so of the population. And this number has been decreasing, not increasing, since the mid-1970s. […]

The significance of independent leaners is this: they act like partisans…. There is very little difference between independent leaners and weak partisans. Approximately 75% of independent leaners are loyal partisans.

Gallup’s findings, often seen as proof of strong independent support, show that most of the Americans who describe themselves as independent actually lean towards one party or the other.

So why do so many Americans bother with the label? Perhaps the most important thing to understand about independents is that there are so many different kinds of independents. Some are on the far-left or the far-right, and see the major parties as too moderate. Some are closet partisans who get a personal sense of satisfaction from the independent label, using it as a synonym for being “open-minded” or a “free-thinker.”

Nowhere in the post is addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that political parties change position on the political spectrum^[1]. The Republican Party has been flying rightwards since the days of Gingrich, or perhaps even Reagan. Or even Goldwater. Recent activities within the Democratic Party suggests there’s at least a bigger standard deviation in terms of political position across the party than there used to be. Will conservative-inclined voters continue to vote Republican in the face of a Republican President whose main hobby appears to be lying in order to keep his cultists solid? Will liberal-leaning independents buy-in to the New Green Deal and a proposed further push of the health system to the left, not to mention a worrying movement towards forming their own cult? And what are we to make of numerous moderate Republicans who’ve renounced their party ties in favor of being independents – or even Democrats?

But let’s ignore all that and concentrate on the implications of Benen’s argument. How, then, are political campaigns to be structured? Well, we already know the answer to that hypothetical, because it already is an aphorism of the trade: Get the base out!

But I fear the move towards cultist strategies in which the tenets of the cult are reinforced at the expense of real intellectual debate. We see this in the empty-headed attempts to destroy the ACA without a responsible plan for replacing it, which may have damaged the Republican brand among independents – if you disbelieve Benen. But many strategies attach to the cultism angle. For example, blogs, which formerly functioned as opinion bullhorns with little respect for orthodoxy, are gradually dragged into line as the writers are insensibly influenced by the political currents of their favorites. As they become mere outlets for propaganda, they lose their value, little more than a place for the authors to bray in unison. Don’t think it won’t happen? I saw it happen with REASON Magazine during the Obama years. Under editors Postrel & Sullum (1990s-2008, roughly), it was an interesting, if sometimes usefully flawed, exploration of alternative approaches to governance, and how the market might resolve problems society encounters. Under Welch, though, it became a right-wing rag whose only goal was to level any old criticism at Obama – and I never renewed. Not because I had voted for Obama, but it was dull, sometimes incomprehensible, and quite often dishonest.

Is that how we want our political discourse to run from either party?

Governor Hogan’s On The Issues Political Spectrum position.

Right now, the parties are so differentiated that it’s hard to see an “independent” voting one way or another on overtly political ballots (i.e., something above the level of your town council, if you’re not in a big city), although there are some edifying exceptions, such as Governor Hogan (R-MD), who must have captured a large number of independent votes in the very blue state of Maryland in order to win by 14 points last year. Tellingly, Hogan is a never-Trumper and quite moderate Republican who probably appealed to moderate Democrats, especially as his opponent, Ben Jealous (D-MD), scores as a Left Liberal. However, in 2014 Hogan’s opponent, Anthony Brown, scored as a Moderate, and also lost, albeit by a smaller margin than Jealous. Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) also springs to mind.

My point is that I regard Benen’s view of the political landscape to be without nuance and rather chilling. I’d prefer to think of the citizenry as calm, rational people who evaluate candidates based on attributes such as ideology, competency, personal character, and that sort of thing – not to which party they may currently belong.

OK, stop laughing. They can have their delusions, I’ll keep mine.

¹ The mouse in the room is the fact that voters also change positions on the political spectrum. Without data, I can only suppose that it’s credible to argue that the net result of such movements is of little relevance year to year, but over decades it will add up. It’s tempting to point at examples, but without solid data it’s a waste of time.

I’ll solve the puzzle, Alex. Oh, this isn’t Wheel of Fortune? And Alex is the wrong TV host? Well, shiiiiiiit.

A movie in the classic B-list tradition, Giant From The Unknown (1958) tells the story of the discovery of a Spanish consquistador from the 1600s – still alive and kicking in the hills of California in the 1950s. Indulging in bloody murder and mayhem, “Diablo” Vargas does his best to cover up the sins of this script, the foremost of which was the terrible role assigned to the lead female, the daughter of the archaeologist in search of Vargas. She is, at best, vapid. And a bad screen kisser. Of course, there’s the handsome local with whom she’s tangling tonsils, the local sheriff who hates the handsome local, various minor characters, and a not-too-awful hunt-down-the-murderer scene, in which the locals actually suffer significant casualties.

But it’s all fairly dull. The daughter grates on the nerves, the archaeologist is just a trifle too, ummmm, sciencey, and I kept hoping they’d push the sheriff off a cliff. But it’s Diablo who takes the tumble in this one, leaving us with another yawner worthy of watching only because we were both sore from shoveling snow. In fact, the mystery gecko was perhaps the most interesting part of the movie. He’s a real scene stealer.

Believe it or not, this little guy embodies the most important plot mechanism of the movie.

I shot these last week sometime, and sort of liked them.

Paul Waldman wrote several days ago about what he perceives as the next big Trump scandal^[1]:

We begin with a company called IP3 International, described as “a private company that has assembled a consortium of U.S. companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia.” IP3, which has an all-star team of former generals and federal officials on its staff and board, was pushing hard on the Trump administration to approve its plan to build these reactors despite the lengthy process required to transfer nuclear technology abroad. And according to the Oversight Committee’s report, they had help:

A key proponent of this nuclear effort was General Michael Flynn, who described himself in filings as an “advisor” to a subsidiary of IP3, IronBridge Group Inc., from June 2016 to December 2016 — at the same time he was serving as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during the presidential campaign and the presidential transition. According to the whistleblowers, General Flynn continued to advocate for the adoption of the IP3 plan not only during the transition, but even after he joined the White House as President Trump’s National Security Advisor.

So Flynn is working with this company while he’s also working for the Trump campaign and transition. He then gets into the White House and has the chance to push the company’s plan to build dozens of nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia.

The other key person inside the administration was Derek Harvey, the senior director for Middle East and North African //affairs at the National Security Council in the early days of the Trump administration. Harvey was later fired by Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, and then went to work for Trump lickspittle Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But in the White House, he was an unusually strong advocate for IP3′s idea, despite the legal impediments meant to make sure that materials and technology capable of being turned into nuclear weapons don’t spread throughout the world: [omitted – HW]

I hadn’t seen a lot elsewhere, but then came the AL Monitor e-mail report on lobbying efforts in Washington:

House Oversight Committee Democrats on Tuesday released a report detailing whistleblower allegations that sources inside the Donald Trump administration worked with private business interests to “rush” the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East nations, bypassing congressional oversight.

The report found that former national security adviser Mike Flynn and his associates teamed up with the Saudis to lobby the White House on building 40 nuclear reactors across the region in what they dubbed a “21st-century Marshall Plan for the Middle East.” Flynn had previously worked with IP3 International, a consulting firm run by retired generals, in 2015 and 2016. During Trump’s presidential transition, IP3 International sent a letter pitching the idea to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and lobbied Thomas Barrack, Trump’s longtime friend and chairman of his inaugural committee, to implement the plan. Barrack in turn organized an event during Trump’s inauguration that was attended by foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

After Flynn was ousted as national security adviser over his undisclosed ties to Russia, Derek Harvey, the then-Middle East director at the National Security Council, continued to push the proposal in coordination with Flynn. Harvey also reportedly asked NSC staff to add talking points on the proposal for Trump’s April 2017 meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt. Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, ultimately put the lid on the plan and ousted Harvey. But Trump has since dismissed McMaster. The president met last week with IP3 International and nuclear industry developers to discuss developing nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, indicating that the plan may still be on the table. On Friday, the Government Accountability Project and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued six federal agencies for failing to respond to their 2018 request for public records on the nuclear plan. Read our full Saudi lobbying coverage here.

It’s like they worship the God of money to the exclusion of all else, isn’t it? Meanwhile, I don’t know if this will turn into yet another a scandal or just a disaster for the Middle East, the latter given the difficulties of building and running nuclear power plants.

And will they care? I don’t think so. And, given how the base imitates Trump, they won’t care, either.

¹ It’s appalling that I have to write the phrase “next big Trump scandal,” isn’t it?

Damn gutters decided to freeze up, along with everyone else’s. And that lead to this!

Yep, you thought it was going to be something terrible. However, I spent half the day defrosting the gutters, with the valiant assistance of my Arts Editor. We didn’t entirely succeed, and I’m typing this between hand cramps.

Reliquarium:

(Actually finding a definition seems impossible. Here’s the definition of reliquary.)

A container used to hold holy relics, usually of a saint. Generally only large churches, cathedrals, and monasteries would have such relics, and they would usually become popular pilgrimage destinations for people coming to pray to the saint in question. A reliquary could be practically any type of container, but were frequently ornately decorated chests of boxes, like the one on disply at St David’s Cathedral in Wales. Many reliquaries were destroyed during the Reformation, and few that survived are on public display because they are so valuable. [Illustrated Dictionary of British Churches]

Noted in the beginning of Hugo award winning story The Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance (1962):

The apartments of Joaz Banbeck, carved deep from the heart of a limestone crag, consisted of five principal chambers, on five different levels. At the top were the reliquarium and a formal council chamber: the first a room of somber magnificence housing the various archives, trophies and mementos of the Banbecks; the second a long narrow hall, with dark wainscoting chest-high and a white plaster vault above, extending the entire width of the crag, so that balconies overlooked Banbeck Vale at one end and Kergan’s Way at the other.

A fight for survival masks an inquiry into alternative modes of philosophical treatment of the Universe. I no longer read modern SF for want of time, but I had a lust to reread this classic, and finally found it in a collection of Hugo award winning stories.

I find myself agreeing with part of conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt’s recent opinion on Chief Justice Robert’s siding with the liberal wing of the court in staying the Louisiana abortion law while it makes its way through the courts:

Why might a conservative, “originalist” justice vote for a stay of the Louisiana law? Consider what may happen next:

The Supreme Court can choose to grant certiorari in June Medical Services and then agree that the Louisiana law does not conflict with WWH and uphold the circuit court’s decision. Or a Supreme Court majority could in fact overrule WWH upon full consideration of the record. Indeed, the court might (and I pray does) go even further than that and reverse Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

To have appeared (even by inference) to have done this last thing by denying a stay would have been derided as a “sneak attack” on Roe. The court depends on the public’s enduring respect to maintain its standing, especially on the most controversial cases. Shortcuts to long-sought and fervently desired outcomes are no way to preserve that standing. Full briefing and argument, both before the court and in the public arena, is the preferred path. And it isn’t a close call.

The important point being that allowing the law to be implemented while it’s under Constitutional litigation constitutes an illicit attack on the activity; I’m surprised the conservative wing didn’t join the liberal wing, regardless of their opinion on abortion itself.

That noted, I don’t agree that Roe v Wade or any of the other opinions ought to be overturned. That the issue is divisive has little connection to the discernment of justice, only with how varied our precepts are when it comes to the divine, fetuses, infants, and the status of the latter two in American society. A decision was made to permit the directly concerned pregnant woman decide, which may be the best compromise we can hope for.

These attempts to make abortion illegal are clearly the actions of minds who fail to respect others’ opinions. It’s a step over the line from persuasion or proselytization into fascism.

But it appears, from external actions, that Chief Justice Roberts is carefully safeguarding the reputation of the Court. It’s too bad the dissenters don’t understand that.

In case you’re interested in more information about the trend in ambassador selection, I ran across an article on Lawfare by the researcher who put together the chart concerning recent ambassador selections, Professor Ryan Scoville. He notes that evaluation of the proficiency in the ambassador corps is difficult:

Are political appointees less effective in office? How do their backgrounds compare to those of career ambassadors under accepted metrics of competency, such as experience in organizational leadership and basic familiarity with the language and government of the receiving state? What is the role of money in the selection process? Do any tendencies emerge with respect to specific bilateral relationships? And have any patterns evolved across recent administrations?

Evidence to answer these questions has been in short supply. With a few noteworthy exceptions, commentators have not attempted to collect information in any sort of systematic way. Instead, they have relied heavily on anecdote and impression to critique or defend political appointments.

But Scoville does what he can:

Two findings carry overarching significance: First, since 1980, the average political nominee has been materially less qualified than the average career nominee under a number of standard measures, including language ability, knowledge of the receiving state and its region, and experience in U.S. foreign policy and organizational leadership.

Take, for instance, the issue of language. The certificates suggest that while 66 percent of career nominees possessed a degree of prior aptitude in the receiving state’s principal language, the same was true of only 56 percent of political nominees, as shown in Figure 1. Upon excluding ambassadorships to English-speaking states, the gap was even larger (56 percent versus 28 percent). In short, a sizable portion of nominees have been completely unable to communicate in the most relevant foreign tongue—and this is particularly true of those who come from outside the foreign service.

And I’d say both of those numbers are scandalous. We’re a big country – is it that hard to find qualified diplomatic personnel and train them in the appropriate language?

But the gap is interesting, and telling.

It’d be interesting to partition the nations receiving ambassadors along criticality lines. I mean, the ambassador to Liechtenstein is probably not a critical posting, while the ambassador to Russia is of the highest priority. When we break them out this way, how do the numbers work out? Does the influence of campaign contributions endanger proper diplomacy even more?

Scoville puts some of the blame on Congress:

… Congress could enact statutory measures to further enhance the transparency of the appointments process, including by simplifying financial reports, mandating information on a broader set of qualifications and requiring the administration of periodic performance surveys to embassy personnel, followed by the disclosure of survey results. These measures might help discourage the nomination of relatively unqualified donors—and, in doing so, bolster the effectiveness of U.S. representation in an era of seemingly waning American influence.

As the Senate remains under the control of the Republicans, who continue to exhibit lap dog tendencies towards Trump, I do not expect any positive reactions in the near future. McConnell is a thoroughly political creature whose leadership skill are, at best, impaired.

This guy’s hair had more character than everyone else put together.

The Riverside Murder (1935) has moments of vague cleverness, an easily fooled housekeeper, and excellent use of children’s scissors in the cutout of paper characters.

In other words, it’s just cold oatmeal smothered in Worcestershire sauce.

And he writes more eloquently about ecological devastation than I possibly could in the second part of his weekly tri-partite diary entry for New York:

For my own part, I’m haunted all the time by the knowledge of what my lifetime will have witnessed. Humans are committing countless species to death; we are destroying the life of our oceans and skies; we are changing the planet’s ecosystem more quickly than at any time since the asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs. From the perspective of life itself, we are conducting a holocaust of the natural world. How is the knowledge of this not traumatizing?

Same here.

A new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research notes, according to the BBC, that “since 1950, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold.” Last week, research emerged showing that the insect biomass is declining by 2.5 percent a year, which means that we may wipe out the entire insect population within a century — and lose a quarter of it in the next ten years. This amounts to what Jill Kieldash describes as the “actual structural and functional collapse of the natural systems which have supported life on Earth for the last 400 million years.”

This is what ecologists and environmentalists have been living with for decades. American “conservatives,” who these days seem to be anything but, don’t seem to comprehend how gut-wrenching this can be.

Andrew doesn’t seem to connect the dots to get to over-population, but it’s probably percolating and will come spilling out, by and by.

Tourism venture Virgin Galactic sent its spaceplane into space for the second time this morning, qualifying all three people on the flight for their commercial astronaut wings. [Loren Grush, The Verge]

Gotta be impressed, two flights in one morning. Kudos to VG!

When the new furnace stenched the house up, we opened a window and put a big ol’ fan in it:

Maybe a different angle will make it look better.

Maybe not.

Remember the Spectre software security hole? There’s some bad news, according to NewScientist:

A critical security flaw affecting computers the world over is here to stay, and there isn’t any software that can properly safeguard against it. That is the conclusion of engineers trying to fix a vulnerability in processing chips known as Spectre – and it is leading to a rethink of the way that computers are designed.

The exact nature of the vulnerability isn’t disclosed, but here’s a hint:

Spectre takes advantage of a feature of computer chips known as speculative execution. To speed up processing, chips make guesses about future calculations, which are then discarded if incorrect.

We still don’t know exactly what information can and can’t be stolen, so while software fixes have seemed to work well so far, it is impossible to know whether they are actually effective, says Paul Kocher, a cybersecurity researcher who initially helped find Spectre.

Possibly the discard of the result of a calculation. But then you’d expect it’d be fixable in hardware. The report makes it sound like it’s a fundamental vulnerability, though. I’m a little too busy to dig into the technical literature.

Perhaps future chips will come with an option for using the vulnerable optimization. Nothing like confusing end users just a little bit more. Or perhaps the vulnerability can be monitored for utilization, and if a maleficent actor seems to be using it, the optimization is turned off, and the operating system notified.

When your workmanship isn’t quite what it should be.

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) is one of those uneasy explorations of humanity’s arrogant intrusion on the territory of the divine, and the inevitable pushback in reaction, all in the incongruous context of 1950s America. We open on elderly, independent researcher Carter Morton’s lab, where he’s working on some ill-defined project with the assistance of supercilious Oliver Frank, who hardly gives him any respect. When Morton leaves to steal some Digenerol from a former employer, though, we learn that “Frank” is actually the grandson of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein, and his assistance of Morton is a cover for his own research, in which he’s assisted by the gardener and long time friend of Frankenstein, Elsu. Elsu’s task?

To bring fresh bodies. After all, Dr. Frankenstein can’t work without raw materials.

Some people tolerate caffeine better than others. Like Trudy.

Morton has, of course, a young and nubile niece, Trudy, and she likes to host parties of other young men & women, which make for a bit of a meat-market effect, at least for Elsu. Fortunately, the storytellers exercised restraint and so only two or three bodies, oh maybe four, pile up, while Dr. Frankenstein, in between bouts of monster-construction, tries to inflict his flaming passion on any nubility that happens to come his way. These efforts have predictably morose results, but not as morose as what passes for his final project, a truly hideous yet cheesy resulting mismash of man, woman, and maybe too much makeup, which I found unsettlingly vulnerable to suggestion from anyone who wanted to shout at it. Him. Her.

In the end, Trudy and her fiancée manage to hold off both the monster and the good doctor long enough to find the trusty vial of acid, and soon the doctor is dead and the monster in flames, leaving us with the saccharine couple playing tonsil hockey, despite all the dead bodies.

I suppose, if we wanted to lend this movie some credibility, we could talk about how this is one of those stories which seeks to execute a rear-guard action against the oncoming ogre of science. After all, the creation of life is traditionally the realm of the divine, not the mundane. Nor is Dr. Frankenstein a do-gooder who happens to stumble into quicksand, but rather a repulsive picture of arrogance, an egotist who only seeks to prove his family’s superiority, and thus it should come as no surprise that some divine creature has basically ground him under her heel as a comeuppance. Perhaps it’s more vivid to say that she has held him upside down in the quicksand until the bubbles of air ceased to rise. Your pick.

Self-indulgent? Sure. Did he deserve to die from a face full of acid? I’ll let you decide. But you may regret those 90 minutes of your life if you do choose to watch this modest addition to the monster horror genre.

I’ve mentioned the race for the Representative’s seat for NC-9, which has yet to be filled from the mid-terms because of alleged misdeeds by operatives for candidate Harris (R-NC), who claimed victory but was not certified as the victor. The North Carolina election board has decided to throw out the result and rerun the contest:

The North Carolina Board of Elections voted unanimously on Thursday in favor of holding a new election in the 9th Congressional District after an investigation into absentee ballot irregularities.

The decision comes shortly after Mark Harris, the Republican leading in the contested race, said a new election should be called. He told the state board he does not condone the activities that have come to light after testimony this week and he feels that the public’s confidence in the process is shaken.

The control of one seat in the House of Representatives isn’t going to mean much in terms of legislation, but I expect to be flooded by mail from at least the Democrats on this. For one thing, it’s a lever to get more money out of party members. Not being one, I do not feel obligated to do the cultist thing.

But, potentially more importantly, this is the contest in which the winning side will get to do a big dance of victory. If the Republicans win, they can declare that it doesn’t matter if there is an appearance of corruption in the race, their voters will come out and vote for them anyways. In essence, there’ll be little need to change their behaviors, so like any bad child, they’ll continue.

For the Democrats, a victory speaks to the ability to beard the lion in the lion’s den, a flag they can wave to excite the partisans, and an incumbent who’ll have an even greater chance of victory in less than two years – and any possible halo effect which might come with that victory. It’ll suggest to party members that their brothers and sisters in that other party might be finally waking up from their long, long nightmare.

Which I doubt is a proper conclusion.

So the next few weeks (election date doesn’t appear to be set just yet) should prove interesting.

Axios‘ Harry Stevens has a fun new table concerning the characteristics of the ambassador corps of various recent Presidents:

Stevens makes the easy point:

Why it matters: The data undercuts Trump’s campaign claim that his personal fortune places him above the influence of donor cash — and shows how campaign contributions can help secure jobs for people with relatively weak diplomatic backgrounds.

But let’s take this a step further. This chart also shows that Trump only knows money as a metric. It’s not just that he loves it, mind you, but it’s really all he knows about measuring the competence of, well, anyone. It’s become the tie that binds him to his incompetence.

And it demonstrates the crass folly of believing excellence in business (if one chooses to believe that of Trump) translates to knowing anything about running government. For him, if you can afford to buy yourself an ambassadorship, well, that’s enough for him.

At least, apparently, Reagan, another conservative, understood the difference, or at least those who served under him did. Then again, he’d been governor of California, so he had some basis for understanding.

Following up on the Timbs v. Indiana civil asset forfeiture case mentioned on this thread, some good news has been handed down by SCOTUS:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines applies to state and local governments, limiting their abilities to impose financial penalties and seize property.

The decision delighted critics of civil asset forfeiture, who welcomed it as a new weapon in their war against what’s been labeled “policing for profit” — the practice of seizing cash, cars and other property from those convicted, or even suspected, of committing a crime.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on her second day back on the bench after undergoing cancer surgery in December, announced the court’s decision , saying the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause protects against government retribution at all levels.

It’s not an outright ban on this inherently corruptive practice, but it’s a step along the path to the holy grail of a ban. No, let me retract that, because holy grails are never attained, and I believe that if the ACLU and allied organizations continue to pursue this goal, they can achieve a complete ban on this practice.

And that would be a good thing.

Politicians need to think about metrics and tying compensation to those goals, not just willy-nilly turning the police off on their own insofar as funding goes. If society wants a police force, then it should fund it properly through appropriations, not by forcing the police to forage for themselves. While I know that at least some of my conservative friends would just call it corruption which needs to be corrected, I think the proper label is mismanagement by the politicians.

And I don’t care if I’ve just dissed Democrats or Republicans, or pissed in either group’s holy water. Utilizing civil asset forfeiture is an error in judgment.

Note the unanimity of the Court as well. This isn’t a political matter, this is a matter of proper justice.

This sort of behavior is really beginning to sour me on, well, I suppose unlimited personal freedom. First consider this (all bolds mine):

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that climate change remains a national security threat.

“Global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond,” Coats said in the U.S. Intelligence Community’s annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” report. “Climate hazards such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, sea level rise, soil degradation, and acidifying oceans are intensifying, threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security. [Yahoo! Finance]

And then this:

Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country and many sectors of the economy that are expected to grow in the coming decades. [U.S. Global Change Research Program]

And in response, the Trump Administration is leaping into action by … convening another panel.

The White House is working to assemble a panel to assess whether climate change poses a national security threat, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post, a conclusion that federal intelligence agencies have affirmed several times since President Trump took office.

The proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security, which would be established by executive order, is being spearheaded by William Happer, a National Security Council senior director. Happer, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, has said that carbon emissions linked to climate change should be viewed as an asset rather than a pollutant. [WaPo]

Really? Another panel? And apparently run by a non-expert who happens to have an odd view on the subject.

If, as I expect, we continue to see a worsening of the climate, as predicted by the climate scientists, which hurts just about everyone in the world, I hope that the US electorate embraces this litmus test for all future high political office candidates: Do you approve of the science denial practiced by the Trump Administration? If the answer is yes, no vote for that candidate.

Once again, Chief Justice Roberts has sided against his more conservative colleagues in deciding a case, this time concerning whether or not a death-row inmate is eligible to be executed or, due to mental deficiencies, not eligible. Here is The New York Times report, and here is the opinion, including the dissent by Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, while Kavanaugh’s position is unknown.

The case revolves around a factual finding, which is an unusual facet for the Court to decide upon. In fact, that appears to be the basis of the dissent:

Having concluded that the Court of Criminal Appeals failed to apply the standard allegedly set out in Moore, the Court today takes it upon itself to correct these factual findings and reverse the judgment.* This is not our role. “We do not grant a certiorari to review evidence and discuss specific facts.” United States v. Johnston, 268 U. S. 220, 227 (1925); see also Salazar-Limon v. Houston, 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (ALITO, J., concurring in denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 2) (“[W]e rarely grant review where the thrust of the claim is that a lower court simply erred in applying a settled rule of law to the facts of a particular case”). If the Court is convinced that the Court of Criminal Appeals made a legal error, it should vacate the judgment below, pronounce the standard that we failed to provide in Moore, and remand for the state court to apply that standard. The Court’s decision, instead, to issue a summary reversal belies our role as “a court of review, not of first view.” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7 (2005).

But Roberts wrote a concurrence to the majority:

When this case was before us two years ago, I wrote in dissent that the majority’s articulation of how courts should enforce the requirements of Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304 (2002), lacked clarity. Moore v. Texas, 581 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2017) (slip op., at 10–11). It still does. But putting aside the difficulties of applying Moore in other cases, it is easy to see that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals misapplied it here. On remand, the court repeated the same errors that this Court previously condemned—if not quite in haec verba, certainly in substance. The court repeated its improper reliance on the factors articulated in Ex parte Briseno, 135 S. W. 3d 1, 8 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004), and again emphasized Moore’s adaptive strengths rather than his deficits. That did not pass muster under this Court’s analysis last time. It still doesn’t. For those reasons, I join the Court’s opinion reversing the judgment below.

Frustration with a bullheaded Texas court? Or more legacy work? Probably the former.