Monthly Archives: November 2019

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I thought the recent The Simpsons‘ episode Thanksgiving of Horror, a collection of three mildly ridiculous stories about Thanksgiving horror, to be noteworthy for the middle story, The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow. Marge’s intellect is replicated by Homer and placed in a computer, from which she becomes the slave of Homer and Marge for the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner.

I’ve mentioned the use of a true AI may be functioning as a substitute for human slavery, and this episode serves to illuminate this in a very special way by cloning Marge, rather than spawning some fully artificial personality. By thinking about a personality of now some thirty years of age, no matter how artificial in one special way, it may serve to give pause to the idea of creating fully intelligent artificial entities without the option of the sort of limited self-agency to which we, which is to say Western Civ, often appeal.

The empathy for the Marge imprisoned in a computer, as it were, is certainly a plausible result, and if we can already have empathy for current computer entities which exhibit faux-behaviors reminiscent of intelligent creatures, perhaps we can still have hope of not mass-producing true slaves someday.

I’m a little behind on my science reading, so my apologies if you’ve seen this video of ants rescuing their nestmates from spiderwebs:

The video could have been more inspiring, but still cool behavior if you ask me, but assuming this is a single queen colony species, it’s not hard envisioning this mutation spreading rapidly through a species, or even causing speciation.

This is the second book by Peter Turchin to enter my experience, although it precedes the other, Secular Cycles^[1] in publishing chronology. Judging from a note near the end, it’s meant to be a popularization of two earlier works, one of which is the aforementioned Secular Cycles.

The goal of this book is to give the reader a sense of how history is primarily affected by population, by the cycles of asabiya, and, perhaps inadvertently, how the twin motivations of justice and vengeance are submerged by exhaustion. This sense is conveyed through the use of anecdotes, followed by generalizations of those anecdotes, often accompanied by references to similar incidents in other cultural contexts.

The Introduction sets the problem of adequately and precisely describing how empires form, rule, and crumble, using as a reference the classic science fiction series Foundation by Asimov. In the series, these questions are precisely described by mathematics, and while Turchin doesn’t pretend to the precision suggested in the fictional series, he does wish to take the next step along that path.

Empire is defined as a “large, multiethnic territorial state with a complex power structure.” This does not preclude monarchies nor democracies, suggesting a wide applicability. Questions of how such entities, given traditional hostilities between human groups, bind together are brought up.

A fast overview of the proposed theoretical framework is given; how it is predicated on differentiated groups, rather than individuals; how groups are defined in terms of internal cooperation, rather than competition, which leads to asabiya, a critical concept and term from Ibn Khaldun, meaning the “capacity of a social group for concerted collective action.” Such questions as measurement, origin (external threats), and attenuation are noted, if not immediately answered. He declines to agree with dominant theories in social and biological sciences, as they are not congruent with this theory.

Once imperiogenesis is overviewed, it’s the turn of the destruction of empires: imperiopathosis. As external threats decline, how is asabiya, and thus internal peace and stability, affected? How does the rise in population first benefit, then damage, all classes of society, all handled under the rubric of The Matthew Principle; and how the behavior of the occupants of an empire seems, in my view, to emulate that of the terminally drunk man who eventually stumbles disastrously into the nearby river.

Chapter 1 gives us the example of a 1581 Cossack raid through the Urals, where a small band of men won against immense odds due, in part, to their superior sense of asabiya. The Cossacks were multiethnic, and had suffered from the raids of the Tatars for many years. This provided the forge on which a shared group identity was formed; the Tatars did not have that shared allegiance, and when faced with the Cossack resurgence, fell apart and were conquered.

A further example is the success of the Tatar’s ancestors, the Mongol Horde’s invasion of Russia. The transition from success to failure by the Tatars is contrasted with the transition from the failure of the Russians to the success of the Cossacks, and the ebb and flow of social cohesion suggested as the primary reason for these successes and failures.

Chapter 2 covers the Russian Empire up to the mid-1600s in greater detail, illuminating its early failures, the progression of its asabiya, and its later successes. Then it transitions to the United States, noting how the ferocity of the war between Europeans and Indians increased the asabiya between Europeans, regardless of national origin.

Chapter 3 is devoted to chronicling Rome during its secular cycles (see Secular Cycles for more on the terminology), and how its asabiya enabled it to defeat its various enemies, most importantly the Gauls, and how the Gauls strengthened the Romans’ asabiya.

Chapter 4 focuses on the contributions of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), an early Tunisian historiographer and demographer, whose concept of asabiya is central to Turchin’s work. From there it moves on to the rise of Islam and the part asabiya played in that rise, as did umma, the closely knit Islamic community. By definition, no one could be excluded from the umma due to origin or social status, and that contributed greatly to asabiya.

Chapter 5, “The Myth of Self-Interest, And The Science of Cooperation,” examines those subjects in the context of World War I, Machiavelli, etc, and critiques rational choice theory as it relates to cooperation, and it covers evolutionary biology aspects of cooperation. Based on studies, he divides people into knaves (aka rational theory agents), who I might characterize as parasites; the opposite of the knaves, the saints, who give to the community regardless of the actions of others; and the moralists, who’d like to be saints, but are so disgusted with the knaves that they withdraw cooperation; etc. This chapter, although abstract, is possibly the most interesting of all from a theoretical standpoint, and leaves me wondering how rational could have been part of the name of rational choice theory, when it should have been short-sighted choice theory, or worse. I am not particularly familiar with rational choice theory, but it appears to be little more than satisfying immediate desires in your choices, rather than considering how a different choice might contribute to the strength of a community which supports the chooser.

Chapter 6 returns for a closer look at Rome, the archetypal empire of the West, using stories to draw out general principles concerning the essence of Roman cooperation, or asabiya, and how it enabled empire.

Chapter 7 gives a light overview of Europe in the last 1500 years, beginning with an invasion of Berbers and Arabs in 711, Charlemagne, Iberia and the Castilians, the Franks (even further back than 711), Germany, etc. The themes should be familiar by now.

Chapter 8 begins the exploration of imperiopathosis, or the collapse of empires, a set of chapters which may make observant American readers uncomfortable. It explores the collapse of the French empire and, just as importantly, the behaviors of both upper and lower classes, which are morbidly fascinating as well as illuminating as to how individual behaviors come together to destroy social structures. Physical structures such as churches, lodges, clubs, and other such buildings will only exist and be symbolic of their creator organizations so long as the spirit of empire-wide cooperation exists; once that disappears due to divergent ideologies, the adoration of old grudges, or simple pursuit of self-importance, the buildings are only symbolic of a lost time. Similarly, the great empire becomes only a dusty name when the citizens pull themselves apart, whether losing their asabiya or due to an overpopulation that strains the resources people need to stay relatively equal – or even simply survive.

Chapter 9 continues the exploration of the dissolution of the French empire, and indulges in some comparisons with the English empire.

Chapter 10 switches gears to the abstract and mathematical, describing a simple model Turchin designed and implemented to explore how individual decisions, as well as events outside of anyone’s control, such as fertility or disease, can lead to the destruction or advancement of a single family line. He compares it to historical records for validation. He uses the model for Dumas’ character d’Artagnan to trace the doings of various elite families in England, and how their short-sighted, self-serving actions served to lead all England astray, and how the wiser members of the royalty dealt with those elite families which had the potential to become threats to the royals, whether through straight-forward murder, or the more charming approach of Queen Elizabeth I, who would simply move her entire court to the castle of a rival she deemed dangerous, and after a few weeks or months, the man would be financially ruined by this “opportunity”, unable to engage in rebellion.

Chapter 11 explores the long dissolution of the Roman Empire, arguably signaled by their own final defeat of the Gauls. Their ancient enemy finally ended, their asabiya slowly dissolved, as can be seen by the focus swinging from the health of the state to the overflowing coffers of its upper classes, while the lower classes became poorer and poorer. This is followed all the way to modern day Italy, in which the differences between the prosperous northern part is contrasted with the poverty-stricken southern part, and explained as a lack of social cohesion.

Chapter 12 signals the end of examples, and begins the exploration of cliodynamics, a view of history through the lens of mathematics, including asabiya. He turns to a colleague’s use of mathematics to quantify the efficacy of various military units during World War II.

Chapter 13 extends Chapter 12 out of the realm of military cliodynamics, and he returns to Italy and its history as a natural laboratory.

And Chapter 14 looks to the future, predicting which powers are ambitious to be empires, and pointing at Russia’s Chechen population as a signal to watch. Keep in mind this was almost certainly written pre-2006.

In general, this is an educational and, in parts, entertaining book concerning how human behaviors dictate demographics as we see throughout history. It disputes the previous theory of the Great Man defining history, and instead points to how the clashes at metaethnic frontiers can, over time, generate the social cohesion across ethnic groups necessary to build empires, and, conversely, when the enemy is vanquished, that cohesion can disappear. Interested younger readers, unfamiliar with the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States may wish to review that history; application of Turchin’s theory to the history of the United States since 1991 may find it enlightening. Also keep in mind that a theory is only valuable in that it generates predictions which can be checked, and if those predictions turn out to be true.

If you want to have a different view on history, its past, present, and future, this book may be for you. It lacks the charts and graphs which made Secular Cycles more enlightening, but has a few more stories and is built on the basis provided by Secular Cycles. Have at it!

¹ Secular is used by Turchin and his co-author Nefedov in the secondary sense of “greater than 100 years.”

Dyspeptic:

The definition of dyspeptic is a person with poor digestion, something that relates to poor digestion or a depressed person.

1. An example of dyspeptic is a person who doesn’t digest dairy well.
2. An example of dyspeptic is someone who’s sad all the time.
   [Your Dictionary]

Noted in “There’s at least one Republican who’s not afraid to stand up to Trump,” Max Boot, WaPo:

It is too bad that Weld is not getting more traction, because I am convinced he would be a better president not only than Trump (a very low standard) but also than any of the Democratic front-runners. A quintessential moderate — a fiscal conservative and social liberal — Weld is also, as he told me, “a proven reacher-across-the-aisle. . . . The atmosphere in Washington would change radically on Day One if I were to replace Mr. Trump.” He has the right temperament for the office: “I’ve always been very comfortable in my own skin, and I’m a calm and relaxed person.” The contrast with the dyspeptic incumbent is so obvious that he doesn’t even have to draw it.

The recent release of Hellboy (2019, aka Hellboy: Call of Darkness) is what Hollywood likes to call rebooting the franchise, but, in this case, it’s more along the lines of sinking the franchise. This origin story is divergent from the original movie, and not to its benefit. The original utilized a legendary ambiguity from history, the Russian religious man Rasputin, who survives his own death through the instrumentality of the Ogdru Jahad, a race of monstrous entities in another dimension, who seek to invade our dimension for purposes of, well, that’s not really stated, but what the hell. The creature who becomes known as Hellboy is sent through a portal Rasputin opens for the Nazis with a mission: to open a permanent portal for use by the Ogdru Jahad to destroy and invade.

But, in the original, Hellboy is converted to our side, using his immense powers to battle various paranormal monsters, until Rasputin returns for another bite of the pie.

In this Hellboy, the eponymous hero comes through a portal, but there’s little hint of how or why, only the question of why his adoptive father didn’t kill him immediately. The final response, delivered from beyond the grave, is unsatisfying.

Both movies try to examine the reaction of a semi-monster to a society not quite ready to accept him, but, in this version, his occasional appearance in public doesn’t seem to cause much more than curiosity. Is this alienating? When he’s dispatched to help a, well, club of monster hunters, it’s a lot of fun watching him take down both monsters and betrayers, but it does get repetitive, and the innovative end of the fight is impaired by that repetition; the choreography needed to be better.

It doesn’t help that Hellboy comes off as whiny and needy, and thus unlikeable, and that he also appears to be cross-eyed, which isn’t a dig at a harmless physical abnormality so much as wondering how one wins fights with seriously impaired vision.

In the end, both versions present Hellboy with a reason to change sides to be with the bad guys, but while in the original Hellboy is broken by the death of his beloved, in the new version he’s to be lured by the legendary witch Nimue, a brutal would-be ruler, and it’s unsurprising that Hellboy chooses to stick with the good guys.

It was a disappointing viewing.

Entrepôt:

port where goods for import or export can be stored without paying import duties:

Hong Kong is the most important entrepot for the Chinese mainland.
[Cambridge English Dictionary]

Noted in War and Peace and War, Peter Turchin, Chapter 2:

The Ukrainians referred to Caffa as “the vampire that drinks the blood of Russia because both under the Genoesee and after its conquest by the Turks this port city was the main entrepôt for the slave trade on the Black Sea.

When it comes to fallacious academic papers, they don’t come much more notorious than the Wakefield paper which claimed to find a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Consisting of twelve subjects, leading to inappropriate rejection of vaccines by members of a public which has, as a whole, accepted the importance of public health methodologies, it was damn near a crime that it was published at all, much less by a prestigious academic journal such as the Lancet.

It was retracted roughly 12 years later in 2010.

As it happens, one of the most important measures of the significance of academic papers is the number of citations it receives from other papers. Surely a paper that has been retracted on the grounds of fraud would not be considered significant, at least in the classic sense, no?

Sadly, no. Retraction Watch has published a short interview with a group of librarians that has studied those papers citing the Wakefield autism paper. Here’s a question and answer that I think illuminates how we humans tend to have poorly thought out plans for computers:

RW: What role do continued citations of this paper play in public perceptions of vaccine safety? Are they similar to the role that a 1980 paper in NEJM — and that earned an editor’s note decades later — that downplayed the risk of opioid addiction has played over the years?

[Corresponding author Elizabeth Suelzer]: My group read the letter by Leung et al with great interest, and we use it as an example when we teach evidence-based medicine. Our study was inspired by it.

We feel that the majority of researchers understand the importance of vaccines and can easily articulate why the Wakefield study was so flawed. But for those unfamiliar with the research such as students, those from other disciplines, and the public, the number of citations this retracted study receives can be misleading. There seems to be a disconnect between what occurs within the scientific community and how it is communicated and shared with the general public via social media. This is also evident in public perceptions of the threat of global warming and gun violence. Scientists and researchers need to do a better job of making their research findings easier to understand, emphasizing its relevance to the general public, and making it meme-worthy for social media.

While most of the references to the Wakefield article are negative, each new citation is noted in databases like Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus. As citation counts continue to play a role in determining the significance or importance of an article (for better or worse), even negative citations will ensure that an article gets a higher rank in databases when the results are sorted by citation count. We accept the irony of conducting a study on Wakefield’s paper and adding yet another count to its cited-by number.

The obvious next iteration in the evolution towards a proper design of the statistical analysis of citations would be to record the nature of the citation: negative, positive, or neutral. After that comes the question of citations from papers that are themselves retracted.

So if my reader ever runs across some individual who simply, and honestly, observes a high number of citations of some paper, and then claims that proves, well, something, it’s worth remembering that, at least currently, these tend to be dimensionless numbers that are, without further analysis, lacking in real meaning.

As the 2020 elections begin to grow larger on the horizon, it’ll be interesting to see how well the traditional Republican strategies are utilized. Recently, the Texas GOP accidentally sent a draft document on state-wide election strategies to its opponents, and they chose to share it with The Dallas Morning News. This particular bit shows something unshocking:

The plan also identifies the Republican-led elimination of straight ticket voting as “one of the biggest challenges ahead of the 2020 cycle.” To address that, the plan details an effort to convince Republican voters to vote for GOP candidates all the way down the ballot manually through a tagline. Some of the potential taglines include: “Vote Right All the Way Down!” “Vote Right To The Bottom!” and “Vote RIGHT Down the Ballot!”

The Texas GOP has a crucial problem – right at the top of the ticket is a candidate whose official behavior appears to be impeachable, whose personal behavior is reprehensible, and under his leadership our Executive has been so incompetent that what little legislation has come under his pen has been impotent enough that the country continues to coast under the admirable momentum imparted by the previous Administration – despite the general misgivings of a rural America increasingly battered by Big Ag on one hand, and the President’s tariff wars on the other.

And the voices of sanity within the conservatives are ringing louder and louder with uncomfortable facts, such as this guy, who expressly advocates that Republicans discard the team politics rule and let their minds and consciences dictate their vote.

While some voters, particularly Evangelicals, are indulging in magical thinking concerning President Trump and his achievements, those Republicans who are becoming more and more disenchanted with the President are seeing the lessons of team politics displayed in front of their noses.

And with the resurgence of the Texas Democrats, the Texas GOP has one big mountain to climb. It’s called Mount Trump, and it’s full of ice, crevasses, and hidden moral traps. They will be fortunate to surmount it. And with a number of Texas Congressional members calling it quits at the end of this session, their unnatural lack of incumbents makes their problem that much worse.

Mutatis mutandis:

1. : with the necessary changes having been made
2. : with the respective differences having been considered [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “It’s a new ballgame, with Buttigieg right out front,” Hugh Hewitt on behalf of The Ranking Committee, WaPo:

Back when this thing started, I expected Sen. Kamala D. Harris to be rising like a rocket at this point in the cycle. But it’s my job to call things like I see them, so since Latin phrases are so in vogue these days, I declare mutatis mutandis after Wednesday night’s debate and push Mayor Pete Buttigieg to the top of my leaderboard.

Recall how beloved was the moniker “no drama Obama”? Well, make room for “perfectly poised Pete.” The mayor is unflappable. This was supposed to be the debate in which everyone gang-tackled the upstart Rhodes scholar and military veteran, but the affable Buttigieg slipped through the net, untouched and smiling. He’s the candidate of generational change and a testament to the idea that intelligence and poise have a charisma all their own.

Personally, I have to wonder if Buttigieg has peaked a trifle too early.

I plan to write a review of Peter Turchin’s War And Peace And War when I finally finish it — soon! — but these two paragraphs, almost certainly written prior to 2006, stood out for the applicability to today’s political polarization, and what may be truly driving same. Turchin’s example scenario dates from Britain and France from the time of Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers. All typos mine.

When one aristocratic faction won, it attempted to completely exclude its rivals. One of the notorious examples of this was the situation in England between 1617 and 1628, when the faction led by George Villiers, the duke of Buckingham, managed to monopolize the court’s patronage. In his novel, Dumas paints a fairly favorable portrait of Buckingham, but in real life this royal favorite was a pretty unsavory character who used his power to unscrupulously enrich himself and his cohorts. In the words of the historian David Loades, “The ascendancy of Buckingham transformed abuse into a scandal of systematic exploitation.”

We have already seen how declining economic fortunes of aristocrats create the climate conducive to interpersonal and interfactional conflict. It is important to stress that the purely materialistic calculation — “I lack sufficient funds to support the life style to which I am entitled by birth, and I will obtain this money by fore if necessary” — is just one possible motive driving violence, and not necessarily the most powerful. … [War and Peace and War, Ch. 10: “The Matthew Principle”, Peter Turchin (p. 277)]

I cannot help but note how Trump and so many that have come to cluster around him – Pompeo, Ross, Pruitt, and Bannon are just a bare few of the names that come to mind – are frantically attempting to build fortunes, both monetary and in terms of prestige, in this time of Trump. They seem to be, in Turchin’s terms, to be of a class desperate to become aristocrats – or, worse, striving to remain the same. I suspect that’s Trump’s driving force, and, given that class membership is often based on perception, it may lend an additional reason to his frantic determination to not have his tax returns see the light of day. If he’s seen as broke, then he’s not an aristocrats, or what we call “upper-crust” these days. Indeed, given the head-start he was handed by his father, if he’s underwater, then for all of his big talk, he’s nothing but a loser.

That would explain a lot.

But the future, if historical events are rhymed^[1], is quite alarming. Turchin observes internecine combat in the form of duels, assassinations, murders, and wars, happening to the Romans, the French, the English, and the Russians, as overpopulation puts pressure at all levels of the citizenry.

The future may turn out to be only morbidly interesting. Let’s hope someone figures out a way to reach other worlds in a way that is not ruinously expensive.

¹ “History never repeats itself, but it rhymes.” Author uncertain.

David Brody notes one of those useless religious proclamations, this time from former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador for the current Administration, Nikki Haley:

JUST RELEASED: @NikkiHaley on whether God put @realDonaldTrump in place as president for such a time as this? She Says, "everything happens for a reason… I think God sometimes places people for lessons and sometimes places people for change." Her @700club story Tuesday! @POTUS pic.twitter.com/8woXuAfAh1

— David Brody (@DavidBrodyCBN) November 25, 2019

Ambassador Haley should perhaps think before she speaks – because all I can think is that, if this is true, some people just aren’t learning from the object lessons being displayed to them in that debacle in the White House. She, an experienced politician, should know better.

Meanwhile, former Press Secretary S H Sanders also sticks her foot in it^[1]:

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told a Christian television station Wednesday that God “wanted Donald Trump to become president” so he could support “a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.”

The early, abbreviated transcript provided by the conservative evangelical station CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, didn’t include specifics from Sanders. However, many in a devoted segment of Trump’s base have said they consider any drawbacks of his presidency worth it because the president regularly speaks about their priorities and picked two Supreme Court justices believed to oppose abortion. On Monday, Trump lauded proposed state-level legislation meant to bring more teaching of the Bible in public schools. [WaPo]

And so, tell me again, why do these issues, so supposedly of deep interest to God, require such a stunningly defective and ineffective man for delivery? Have you ever noticed that Sanders, her dad Mike Huckabee, Jerry Falwell, Jr. of Liberty University, etc, refuse to address such a question? Y’see, they’ve edged their way to the cliff’s edge in acknowledging that Trump is nothing more than a childish bully whose conception of ‘play fair’ consists of Donny Boy Gets Everything. He’s an incompetent and incurious man, incapable of effectively operating outside of his original domain of real estate – and even there he’s a dubious character.

But he’s given them what they think they want – favor for their religion and its proscriptions. That’s the important thing to them. In its way, it’s so very, very Boomerish.

But it’s also a sign for those who can read: that the ideology, or theology if that makes more sense, of Haley, Sanders, and their fellow travelers is so flawed, unappealing, irrational, and out ‘n out dangerous, that they must ride the gangrenous monster that is Trump in order to eke out their little gains.

More and more, we see the lies, self-delusions, bad behaviors, and terrible actors that surround and are drawn to Trump. These will cling not only to Trump, but to those who claimed to benefit from his presence in the Oval Office, even when they knew he was a desperately and deeply flawed character who has been doing substantial damage to the United States.

And their much bally-hooed gains during the Trump Administration may turn out to be little more than calorific sweets: doing nothing but satisfying that urge to win in the short run, while damaging their “brands,” that horrific term imported from the private sector as a cover for “reputation,” in the long term.

The Millenials are watching and learning about you, Haley and Sanders. Washing your feet in sad irrationality – of several kinds – will bring nothing but woe to your envisioned successors.

Later: I see Energy Secretary Rick Perry has expressed similarly idiotic sentiments. I do hope he can blame it on his meds, like he did last time.

¹ While “it” is usually understood to mean something along the lines dog poo, in this instance I suggest that the equivalent would be an entire lake of Cthulhu’s excrement. And, I lament, I’m not even hyperbolizing.

About a quarter of the way through Terror Beneath The Sea (1966), my Arts Editor declared, “It doesn’t suck as much as it could have.”

Sadly, that didn’t hold true. Shipshod plot, crappy monster costumes, ridiculous special effects, a bad guy with an evil laugh, good guys who can’t figure out how to act, gibberish orders on the submarine, it’s all there to laugh at.

If you insist on watching this one, make sure you drink heavily first.

I haven’t pursued overviews of the various Democratic candidates unless something interesting comes up because most of them just aren’t going to get very far. But Molly Roberts in WaPo brought up some interesting notes concerning candidate and the former Mayor of South Bend, Pete Buttigieg, so I thought I’d look at them in the context of Buttigieg being on top of the polls in Iowa these days.

A couple of years ago and more I spent some time dissecting the idea that absolute loyalty to Party, i.e., the concept of team politics, is actually one of the worst rules a party can have – at least for the nation in which it operates^[1]. This guy, Beau, understands this fundamental error in team politics, as he blames the Republican failure in Louisiana on what he calls loyal Republicans who still have morals:

Now, it’s true that Beau ignores factors such as Edwards being a very conservative Democrat, and that the Louisiana black community turnout has traditionally been heavier in runoffs than in the jungle primary.

But Beau is, in my opinion, incontrovertibly right in his analysis of how Trump affects, and should affect, “loyal Republicans.” If you haven’t clicked on that YouTube above – especially if you consider yourself a loyal Republicans – do yourself a favor and do so. It’s just shy of five minutes long, but Beau is well-spoken and speaks from the heart. Which is far more than Trump has done, ever.

Go, Beau!

¹ The first such post is here.

Presidential Candidate Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
Source: Wikipedia

I happened across a friend’s thread on the various Democratic candidates for President, including a test you can take to see which one is most congruent with your policy views. This got me to thinking: how much importance should be credited to that congruence?

I try to keep in mind that the President doesn’t make laws, the Legislature does. Sure, the President has influence and veto power over the lawmaking process – sometimes I wonder if veto power was a wise choice by the Founders – but in the end it’s about the 538 folks in Congress. And the President does make certain appointments of importance, such as those to the Fed.

So when evaluating the candidates for Executive, I tend to think about experience and apparent (alleged?) competency as a governmental executive (no, not corporate executive – different animal, wrong number of paws) in addition to policies – and discount by some percentage those Presidential candidates’ policies which requires a supportive Congress to enact. For example, paging through the web site of Senator Warren (D-MA), it appears from a partial accounting of her plans, roughly 50%^[1] will require legislative support. But how does one discount this? The veto power does give a certain potency to those plans; the Congressional ability to override the veto, on the other hand, limits the plans’ potency in a hostile legislative environment. Clearly, those plans which can be accomplished by the Executive should carry more weight with the electorate than those that require a cooperative legislature.

Representative Betsy McCollum (D-MN), lawmaker.
Source: Wikipedia

And, by the same coin, if a candidate’s plans are near and dear to their heart, but require legislative support, does it make sense that they run for the Presidency? Or should be seek or retain their legislative seat? Warren has already shown her abilities in Congress by getting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through the legislative process. Do we want that experience and drive to be lost by her moving to the Executive Branch?

I think the reason the question of Presidential policies has become so much more pointed than it was prior to, say, President Lincoln, is that, first, the world has become more complicated and dangerous, and, second, Congress has, infamously, ceded its powers to the Executive. There’s little to do about the former except find ways to wisely manage those problems, and elect wise people to the legislature, rather than the pack of second- and third-raters making up the GOP’s side of the legislature these days; not to suggest the Democrats are entirely top-line personnel, but the Republicans stand out like a supernova in the night sky for the basic intellectual and moral failings these days.

And as far as the latter goes, those cessions of Congressional purview should be retracted. Kill the National Emergency law that President Trump has dictatorially tried to use to fund a southern wall. Ask if we really need such a law. Examine the law books for other such examples.

By doing so, the diffusion of power back to the 538 members will make abuses a little less likely, albeit the determined abuser, such as Senator McCarthy (R-WI), can still cause trouble.

But through such retractions, the position of President will become less of a divisive, hot potato issue.

Getting back to my thoughts, it’s not necessarily the candidate who best agrees with you, but the one most likely to win independent support when faced with a national disaster such as Trump as an opponent.

¹ Working from plan titles, and keeping in mind I’m a software engineer, not a political science whiz, I see Senator Warren’s plans falling into these categories:

Requiring legislative support:
Clean Energy for 100% achievement
Farm Economy
Affordable Higher Education For All
Justice Reform
Debt Relief for Puerto Rico
Defend/Create American Jobs
Raising Wages
End Private Prisons (yay)
Ending the Opioid Crisis
Health Care Costs

More or less within the Executive’s domain or in the leadership domain:
Trade
Immigration
Public Schooling
Working Agenda for Black America
Maternal Mortality
Lobbying (?)
Accountable Capitalism

Beats me:

End Wall Street’s Stranglehold on Our Economy
End Washington Corruption

Aaaaaaand … I’ve run out of patience for this task. There’s just too many plans to evaluate in my limited time.

Over the American Thanksgiving holiday we’ll be busy with family stuff. Blogging may or may not be curtailed.

Yesterday evening my Arts Editor and I attended Theater In The Round’s production of a recently re-discovered play by Agatha Christie, Towards Zero. Per usual, this is a murder mystery involving British gentry, involving those with too much money, those with barely enough, and a few staring into the blackness of insanity. It was a little slow in the first half, as the conventions of 80 years ago are not those of today, but in the second half the pace of events picks up, the body is found, and we get a peek into the diseased intellect of a killer who thought themselves too cool to be caught. And as two lovers sail off to South America, it seems to be a commentary by Christie, or whoever is responsible for the leavetaking, on the subtle illnesses of English society.

Nicely produced in the circular space of TitR, we had a fun little evening, and if it wasn’t all that profound, that’s OK. Sometimes a bit of fluff is just what the doctor ordered.

From a New York Times story on the recent release of Donald Trump, Jr’s^[1] book Triggered, and its quick ascent to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List:

But a financial disclosure form filed to the Federal Election Commission showed that the R.N.C. paid $94,800 to the bookseller chain Books-A-Million on Oct. 29, a week before the book went on sale. Disclosures filed by the R.N.C. indicate that the payment was for “donor mementos.”

When asked about the disclosure on Thursday, [R.N.C. spokesman Mike Reed] confirmed that the money went toward “Triggered” orders, and added that the party committee made additional purchases in November. “The book has been hugely popular,” he said.

OK, Boomer.

¹ I wait with morbid fascination the gossip which will inevitably erupt from Donny, Jr.’s ghostwriter. And I can’t help but wonder what the median age of the lover of Triggered will be. 45? 55? 65? 75?

I’m going with 65, quite honestly. The middle of the boomer demographic and most solidly locked into a culture war without regard for the future of the United States – or humanity.

I wonder how much it would take to buy the top position of the Bestseller List for Secular Cycles. It has more relevance to the current political situation than anything else I can think of.

"Consumptuary," I said,
   Deliciously rolling the words
About My Mouth.

"Ossuary," came the reply,
   Each and every femur 
Bumping the metaphorical
   lid of the psyche.

"Not -"
   Appalled
Repelled
   At language's
Failure.

"No," with her smile,
   And a laugh,
And a pirouette,
   "Not at all,
But bones in a box."
   And with that, a precise little cough.

And now, in labor,
   Creating a box,
A cute little box,
   Lined in finest marble,
Long enough for tibias,
   And, with the finest of chisels,
"XDR" in the corner.

Let the archaeologists wonder.
   Perhaps they'll cough, too,
And have use of the box.

I see CNN is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has finally been charged with various crimes:

Charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust have been unveiled against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in three separate corruption cases, the Attorney General announced on Thursday evening, marking the first time in Israel’s history that a sitting PM faces indictment in criminal investigations.

During a final pre-indictment hearing last month, Netanyahu’s high-powered legal team tried to convince prosecutors to close the cases, including the most serious charge of bribery. But Avichai Mandelblit, a Netanyahu appointee who once served as his cabinet secretary, is moving forward.

Israel’s deadlocked parliament means that a formal indictment may still be months away. Nevertheless, the charges are a significant blow to Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, who has held office for a total of more than 13 years. He has proclaimed his innocence ever since the criminal investigations became public nearly three years ago.

AL Monitor’s Danny Zaken gives a succinct summation of the situation:

Why it matters:  Netanyahu’s investigations have trailed him throughout the 2019 electoral season and have dominated this year’s elections. His rivals blame him for holding his Likud Party — and the whole country — hostage to his criminal cases and preventing the formation of a unity government that could end Israel’s political paralysis.

Netanyahu has led the country for more than 10 years and his upcoming legal fight against the charges is expected to be deeply intertwined with Israeli politics. The impact on national security is also not to be discounted as Israel steps up its attacks against Gaza and Iranian targets in Syria.

This is an interesting parallel to the American situation: a populist politician who has used fear to manipulate and draw voters to him, who has displayed unlimited ambition and a certain arrogance which seems to attract a certain class of voter, whose actions in pursuit of power can be easily seen as dangerous to the very country which he purports to lead, and who now appears to have been caught indulging in crass actions which are designed to use the powers of the office to personally and illegally benefit himself.

Of course, when we’re talking about grasping, self-interested individuals – and entities – there are certain differences in behaviors from more admirable entities. Trump has proven to be less than a constant ally of Israel, a matter which has given the right-wing Israelis fits, and should give Trump’s religious allies some heartburn.

But I think – I hope – we’re seeing the mechanisms installed by the designers of these governments to guard against untrustworthy politicians and foolish electorates springing into action. The importance of independent agencies, a professional bureaucracy with strong whistleblower protections, co-equal and independent branches of government with oversight power – all of these and more stand as safeguards against the inevitable winds of corruption which will dog humanity for as long as it’s around.

Now it’s up to those taken in by Trump and like-minded would-be politicians to learn from their errors and select better leaders, despite the blandishments of these power-hungry men.

And will the Trump-admiring Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison end up in the metaphorical cell next to their’s? I have a morbid fascination on the matter. And what of the Poles, and the Hungarians? Are their institutions strong enough?

In case you’ve been listening to the right wing propaganda machine, here’s political Professor Keith Whittington to set you straight:

It’s not what you think.

When a bit of insanity has another bit of insanity added to it, sometimes the mix comes out quite odd. Blood and Donuts (1995) is the story of the awakening of Boya, a vampire dating back to the 1800s, and the reason he hides away periodically from the world:

He’s clinically depressed.

His friends grow old and die off, when he’s stressed he can turn into a monster, and while he’s as immune as any mythological vampire to the general weaponry of the age, he’s also just as vulnerable to the Sun. And he misses the old fireball in the sky.

Between the depression and the knowledge that his immense powers have made him not-human, an outsider looking into a condition that he loves but can only temporarily return to – I mean, damn, he keeps scrapbooks! – his future, so apparently bright to others, is deepest black to him.

Trying to staple a body to the hood of the car a la Mad Max.
We need bigger staples, he said.
She said, Shut up and drive!

Thrown back into life by a golf ball, life happens to him: a taxi driver and a donut shop clerk come to know him, and as they try to save each other from impetuous mobsters, each time Boya must make a move, things die. He hardly dares move for fear that he may kill those that he loves.

Humanity.

It helps that the supporting characters have their own lives they’re living, their own burdens to share, but this is about Boya and his life existence, and the importance of shared struggle in making life worth living.

It makes for a disquieting story with abrupt changes in rhythm, and Hollywood would never want to own up to this (no fears for Hollywood’s virtue, this is Canadian), but it feels organic, if not necessarily much fun.

SCOTUS has stepped up and accepted the Google appeal of Oracle’s victory in Federal Circuit Appeals Court concerning whether computer language API signatures are subject to copyrights, as Ars Technica reported a few days ago:

The Supreme Court has agreed to review one of the decade’s most significant software copyright decisions: last year’s ruling by an appeals court that Google infringed Oracle’s copyrights when Google created an independent implementation of the Java programming language.

I wonder if the industry has thought about readying itself for a rebuff from SCOTUS, leaving companies as possibly legally vulnerable. From the previous Ars Technica report on this subject:

If APIs can be restricted by copyright, then every significant computer program could have legal landmines lurking inside of it. Grimmelmann warns that API copyrights could easily give rise to API trolls: companies that acquire the copyright to old software, then sue companies that built their software using what they assumed were open standards. API copyrights could also hamper interoperability between software platforms, as companies are forced to build their software using deliberately incompatible standards to avoid legal headaches.

While I think it’s a misstatement to suggest that every significant computer program might be at risk, because they don’t usually indulge in this practice, those firms who are providing software libraries which replace others will be at risk.

What can be done? Sequestering the copyright interests in entities which refuse to pursue copyright infringement suits might be a first step. Industry giants who feel they are at risk might contribute to these entities, and acquisition of APIs which they may have innocent violated should zero out those risks.

Similarly, acquisition of those entities owning those rights would also safeguard those manufacturers. Those firms which have gone out of business would also confound the persistent copyright troll.

Another approach would be to lobby Congress into passing laws which either obviate the judiciary’s decisions, or limits the damage for those firms which trespassed before they knew the law was against them.

The industry had best get on the ball on this problem, because if they don’t, the damage won’t be limited to Court awards, but also the vitality this part of the industry contributes to the entire software project, warts and all.

The unyielding malice of people sometimes just leave me tired and defeated.

Attackers could reveal most of the genetic information for millions of people whose DNA is held on genetic genealogy databases by exploiting how the websites work. …

One attack involved uploading many real genetic data sets and monitoring for partial matches with short stretches of people’s genomes in the database.

A twist on that approach was uploading genetic data that is largely fake, apart from a genuine segment targeting a match for specific genetic variants linked to greater risk of certain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s.

A third way involved trying to trick algorithms by using completely faked data designed to match most people in the databases.

Tests returned more genetic data as the minimum matching segment length reduced. Using the first technique with the shortest segment length returned significant genetic data: about 60 per cent of an average person’s total alleles – their variants of a gene – could be recovered. “So we are in fact talking about most of the genetic information of most of the people in our database,” says Edge. [NewScientist, 2 November 2019]

It may just have been a result of how the article was written, or maybe I’m in a chronic bad mood, but that people will use sophisticated attack techniques simply to discover your genetic encoding just, augh. I hates it, I do, I hates it a lot, how about you?

Sorry.

Anyone got cheery thoughts?