Monthly Archives: December 2019

WaPo has a fascinating article on technology intersecting with college campus life:

Foreshortening. Nyah, that candy cane isn’t nearly that big.
It’s bigger -!

Kicking off the Christmas movie marathon (isn’t that everyone’s task for today) is Anna and the Apocalypse (2018), which we fully expected we wouldn’t finish.

We were wrong. In fact, we watched all the way through the credits, hoping for an Easter egg – no spoiler alert, you’ll have to watch for yourselves.

Part way through, my Arts Editor turned to me and said, I’m surprised. This doesn’t suck. It gets off to a slow start, feeling like a teenage angst movie, with rebellion against parents and all that sort of thing. But then it goes after the Glee^[1] vibe, intertwining juvenile lyrics with well-composed and performed music; my Arts Editor is a particular fan of the rap song.

As the story progresses, though, the students find that reality is destroying the semi-fantasy that is high school. Children are disappointments to their parents; parents are disappointments to their children. Boy toys disappoint the ladies, and the guys keep hoping to be noticed. How to progress beyond it is a puzzle that everyone must solve for themselves.

Music is its own little world.

And then things go boom, and it’s a race for their lives, watching friends & family die as the world crumbles around them, even as the songs continue to pop out, but ever more darker, and when the survivors win through, it’s not a Hollywood ending.

At least we can be thankful that the zombies never sang.

Well acted, well sung, with an enticing hint of madness in the air as our shared view of what is breaks up, revealing the chaotic swirl in which we may really live, we were very surprised at the quality of both the story and the production. Some of my enchantment is a reaction to how superior the movie was to expectation, so I won’t place it in the Recommended category, but if you do run across this, or are in the mood for a cross-genre story which felt quite organic, you only need to endure ten or so minutes of the opening before events take an interesting turn. Be warned, though, there is a touch of violence.

Merry Christmas!

¹ A successful TV show concerning a high school glee club, featuring a lot of singing, sort of a musical about growing up in television format, now terminated.

Rafter:

Say again?

Lashley points to two pieces of historic legislation that established the framework for turkey population rebound: The Lacey Act of 1900 that banned trafficking in illegal wildlife … [WaPo]

Excuse me, but what the hell is illegal wildlife? Is this wildlife required to have a license in order to exist? I’m seeing a pride of lions, each with their license hanging around their neck from a chain, tastefully framed and licked clean of their victim’s viscera, as they gallumph across the savanna.

If you need more reassurance that some Republicans remain sane, consider this story from The Transylvania Times of North Carolina:

Transylvania County Commissioners David Guice, Mike Hawkins and Page Lemel have left the Republican Party. …

“This is not an action we do happily, and it is not a choice we take lightly,” the announcement said. “It comes after much prayer, reflection and discussion among us and with our loved ones. In leaving, we are ending a long association that is deeply personal. Between us, we have won 20 different elections as Republicans in Transylvania County.”

The announcement noted three “broad areas” for their decision to leave the party: “First, we have clear notions of conservatism. To be conservative is to honor and preserve the fundamental institutions, processes, structures and rule of law, which have enabled the United States to be history’s greatest success story. To be conservative is to be financially prudent while also investing in common ground works that support individual success for all citizens. To be conservative is to be welcoming and inclusive, understanding that all of us share the same human aspirations; conservative tenets of self-determination cannot be exclusive. To be conservative is to have a strong moral compass and the willingness to challenge wrong regardless of its source. We believe all of these are not merely conservative principles but American principles.

“Next, we believe elected officials have a special duty to conduct themselves beyond reproach and make genuine efforts to represent all their constituents. Elected officials must strive to conduct all public and private actions with honor and integrity. Elected officials must value objective truth and, in turn, be truthful in their own statements and interactions. And elected officials must continually work to hear the voices of all while making hard decisions on behalf of their fellow citizens.

And the third had to do with the non-partisan character of local government. Their willingness to say No! to the nature of team politics, and the incompetent ideologists to which it leads, gives me heart. As leaders of distinction, their leave-taking will inevitably lead to discussion by those left behind in the Republican Party, and serve as exemplars of proper behavior when the actions of the leaders cause even the zealous follower anxiety.

In an interview also in the article, Lemel gives us a cogent and revealing remark:

I am grateful for the work of the party for supporting me in the past. I no longer want to ascribe to partisanship. We are rapidly entering one of the most rancorous and divisive elections our nation has ever seen. I am a local elected official. National and state politics do not enter into my service as a county commissioner. My service is to Transylvania County.

History has seen us in challenging times before, and I specifically reference U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith’s speech “Declaration of Conscience” from June 1, 1950. Her citation on the “Four Horsemen of Calumny (Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear)” and her discussion of “Irresponsible Sensationalism” truly resonated with my sense of integrity, honesty and morality. She called out both of our major parties for their role in confusing the citizens and threatening the security and stability of our country. I will not be a party to accusations, bitterness and selfishness on the part of our politicians and our political parties.

That she mentions bitterness and selfishness tells us something about Republican politics, and perhaps Democratic politics as well, but since she’s now a former Republican, one must assume her exposure would be greater to them.

It sounds like the Republican Party, at least in Transylvania, NC, is gradually burning up.

Reading this report from GL Reynolds, an environmental consulting firm, for a couple of environmental charities on the effects of a world-wide reduction of 20% in the speed of the shipping fleets reminds me that the climate is, at its most basic, the largest imaginable example of the tragedy of the commons. First, the potential benefits of fuel consumption and reduction in CO₂ production:

The reduction in fuel consumption of a ships’ main engine and the proportionate reduction in CO2 emissions within most speed ranges is well established. As a rule of thumb, a cubic relation between ship speed and main engine fuel consumption is assumed. When a ship reduces its speed by 10%, engine power is reduced by 27%, but since it takes longer to sail a given distance at a lower speed, the energy required for the voyage is reduced by 19%. Other factors will also influence the relationship between ship speed and engine power including weather conditions and, at a fleet level, the additional ships which may be required to provide the same transport work. As a consequence, the fuel and CO2 emission reductions associated with slower ship speeds are likely to be lower.

Recent work by Faber et al estimated the CO2 emission reduction potential for a 10, 20, and 30% speed reduction for the three major ship types for the period 2018-2030. Although the specific level of emission reduction was dependent upon ship type, overall the analysis indicated that the baseline CO2 emissions could be reduced by around 13% and 24%, if ships reduced their speed by 10% and 20% respectively.

Other forms of pollution, as well as effects on marine wildlife are covered as well – to summarize, they are positive to a greater amount than might be expected. The other good news, from the BBC, is that the shipping industry is in step with these recommendations:

While shipping wasn’t covered by the Paris climate agreement, last year the industry agreed to cut emissions by 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels.

Which all sounds fine and dandy, doesn’t it? But keep in mind that a general rule of business is that time is money, and the firm that can ship quicker has the potential to ship more in a calendar year – and make more money. Suppose a firm finds itself in a difficult situation, but if it can ship more product, it’ll survive – or make more profit.

Does it adhere to a 20% reduction in speed? Or does it figure that its tiny little contribution is immaterial? And then its competitors notice and they think …

It almost sounds hopeless, because the oceans are big and ships hard to track. But there’s an unless here: Unless you happen to have the United States on your side. With the American satellite network, and American high technology, it is possible to track any ship that can be detected from orbit, whether visually or via transponder. And then track its speed.

The sad part is that American leadership is completely lacking. For the current Administration, short-term profit symbolizes success; anything that may impinge on that profit is considered to be evil. And therefore, it seems unlikely that any American leadership will come forward before the end of the Trump Administration.

Repair:

repaired; repairing; repairs
intransitive verb

1. 1. : to betake oneself : GO
      repaired to the judge’s chambers
   2. : to come together : RALLY
2. obsolete : RETURN [Merriam-Webster]

English words belong to several categories, depending on the attribute of interest. In this case, I’m focusing on meaning or definition(s), and the categories available include single-meaning, disparate, and opposites; there are others, obviously, although, to digress a trifle, I’ve noticed that the public vernacular has begun blurring out the implication that includes means the following list is not complete. A pity, as it results in ambiguous communications and fairly gauche sentences.

I must admit to a certain interest in words which fall into the disparate category, and repair is one such. We all know its sometime synonym, fix or to fix^[1], but how often do we use repair in the above sense? That disparity in definitions intrigues me, as there may be a hidden connection between fixing and betaking oneself, and that connection might lead to insights into how people 500 years ago viewed the world. Words, after all, reflect our views of reality with an intensity rivaled only by art; and some compositions of words achieve the level of art.

Such are my preoccupations. Merry Christmas!

¹ Whichever is right; the finer points of transgressive verbs are lost on me, although a few years back I finally grokked that dangling participles are bad because they make the point of a sentence ambiguous, which may be useful in poetry but not most communications – and, yet, English speakers break that rule with vigor everyday, which leaves one to wonder if we’re all just broken or if we have an allergy to precision – or does that ambiguity have some sort of survival value?

If you’re a corporate board member and you’re kicking out the guy whose decisions have endangered the company, the last thing you want to do is hand him a substantial leave-taking check. CNN reporting:

Boeing’s ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg left behind a long list of problems at Boeing, but he’s walking away with a sizable golden parachute.

The exact amount of money that he will leave with isn’t yet clear. That will depend on his negotiations with Boeing (BA), including how the company labels his departure — for example, was it a retirement? A resignation? A layoff?

But public filings show Muilenburg could be entitled to a benefit plan worth more than $30 million and, potentially, a severance payment of about $7 million. Muilenburg also has another $20 million-plus worth of vested stock and a pension package totaling more than $11 million.

Muilenburg, 55, became CEO of Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, in 2015 after serving in several other executive roles, including chief operating officer and CEO of its defense space and security division, throughout his 34-year tenure at the company at Boeing.

For those who long to take on top-dog roles, it’s necessary that they be aware that failure to execute on basic responsibilities will be met with condemnation – object lessons, as we used to call it in an earlier generation. With Muilenburg, no such lesson is being delivered – his decisions to chase the money without respect to producing safe products will be rewarded with financial gifts beyond most folks’ dreams.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a failure to reach profit targets; I’m talking about basic errors made in the necessary safety culture. Make no mistake, the 737 MAX crashes, which appear to be traceable to a prioritization of profit over safety, endangers the very safety of Boeing. If the culture which engendered unsafe designs is not rebuilt to put safety first, Boeing could easily become a subsidiary of a better run company, or even an extinct failure^[1].

And while the next CEO may understand that intellectually, they also may not. For some folks, the money, prestige, and power blind them to their responsibilities – think of former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, or even more to the point, President Trump and his apparent violations of the Emoluments Clause. A visible lesson of the fruits of irresponsibility would be salutary, as they say.

Muilenburg should not have been rewarded with a ‘package.’ The board of directors of Boeing should be attempting to claw back all of his compensation, and his employment contract should have been worded to permit that. The Board of Director’s real-world actions are endangering their own company.

Combine this with the corruption under the Trump Administration, and extend that to another four year term. Can the FAA keep the skies safe? I’m not sure. Maybe I won’t fly so much, which would be good for our climate. Incidental positives are not a good pollution control strategy, unfortunately.

¹ The needs of the airline industry might require the government to step in and at least ensure continuing maintenance, but the days of a high-flying Boeing – forgive the pun! – would be over.

Too bad I missed this when it happened back in November, but it still makes me laugh in that morbidly queasy way we use when we shouldn’t be giggling:

Minutes after right-wing members of Venice’s Venito council rejected measures designed to combat climate change, the council chamber was flooded by historic high tides from the city’s Grand Canal. [Independent]

At this remove, it’s difficult to say if the right-wingers merely disagreed with the proposed tactics, or if they were simply in denial. The Environmental Committee chairperson, Andrea Zanoni, certainly has his opinion:

He added that the council was “proposing funding for renewable sources, for electric columns, for the replacement of diesel buses with others more efficient and less polluting for the scrapping of stoves, to finance the pacts of mayors for sustainable energy and climate change, and to reduce the impact of plastic, etc”.

And I wonder if the Mayor, despite recognizing the problem, realizes what the cost may be:

The historic floodwaters would leave “a permanent mark”, mayor Brugnaro tweeted. “Now the government must listen. These are the effects of climate change… the costs will be high.”

My feeling? Venice will be an early illustration of how a city is lost to the sea. Miami is reportedly not far behind. I expect we’ll see Venice slowly abandoned over the next 50 years, becoming a site visited by disaster tourists and underwater archaeologists.

Next comes Miami and its skyscrapers. That should make for an interesting scene, especially when the big buildings begin to collapse from corrosion.

Andrew Sullivan engages in a useful exercise that illustrates the danger Trump brings not only to the United States, but to his own supporters particular agenda:

There is merit, at times, to thinking about what might have been. Counterfactual history can help us see what our factual history has actually told us.

So reflect for a second on the campaign of 2016. One Republican candidate channeled the actual grievances and anxieties of many Americans, while the others kept up their zombie politics and economics. One candidate was prepared to say that the Iraq War was a catastrophe, that mass immigration needed to be controlled, that globalized free trade was devastating communities and industries, that we needed serious investment in infrastructure, that Reaganomics was way out of date, and that half the country was stagnating and in crisis.

That was Trump. In many ways, he deserves credit for this wake-up call. And if he had built on this platform and crafted a presidential agenda that might have expanded its appeal and broadened its base, he would be basking in high popularity and be a shoo-in for reelection. If, in a resilient period of growth, his first agenda item had been a major infrastructure bill and he’d combined it with tax relief for the middle and working classes, he could have crafted a new conservative coalition that might have endured. If he could have conceded for a millisecond that he was a newbie and that he would make mistakes, he would have been forgiven for much. A touch of magnanimity would have worked wonders. For that matter, if Trump were to concede, even now, that his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine went over the line and he now understands this, we would be in a different world.

But instead …

The two core lessons of the past few years are therefore: (1) Trumpism has a real base of support in the country with needs that must be addressed, and (2) Donald Trump is incapable of doing it and is such an unstable, malignant, destructive narcissist that he threatens our entire system of government.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s biggest mistake, in retrospect, wasn’t her failure to campaign in key states, but her use of the word deplorables. As the election proved, there’s a sizable minority of the population with concerns that were not being addressed until Trump came along; Clinton alienated them with that unfortunate word.

But through the election of a strong candidate for Worst President Ever, those voters, his constituents, his base, what I call his cult, have put at risk their entire set of concerns. While some of those concerns have had strong attention over the years, such as opposition to abortion, and were unlikely to be treated by those on the other side in a way satisfactory manner, other issues were unaddressed, such as small farmer concerns, other rural concerns, gay rights, local economic blight, and a general feeling of neglect as to their concerns, while federal actions – no matter how well meaning, how justified – were taken without their approval.

And now Trump, by being an incompetent and even malicious President, puts that set of concerns in peril. Those voters picked someone who lied and lied and lied, and when that got him into office, he just kept on going. For those opposed to Trump, liberal or independent, it’s become something of an obsession: lies, incompetency, corruption. Condemn, condemn, condemn. And it’s important and valid.

But behind that sodden paper-maché wall of oozing pus, there still lie those voters’ concerns. Trump’s successors may be those that successfully address those concerns, whether it be by demonstrating them to be false, or by bringing aid, policy changes, and comfort to those afflicted. All this while finding ways to defuse the political sepsis infused into their blood stream by the malicious emails that are designed to enrage them.

That’s one hell of a mountain to climb.

While the name Ultima Thule, referring to the space rock 2014 MU69 which was surveyed by the New Horizons space probe, had a lovely exotic taste to it, it also had an unfortunate referent to it:

Goodbye Ultima Thule, hello Arrokoth. The space rock that NASA’s New Horizons probe sped past earlier this year has been given a new name: Arrokoth, which means “sky” in the Powhatan and Algonquian languages.

The rock’s official designation is 2014 MU69, but the New Horizons team nicknamed it Ultima Thule, a mythological reference to a distant and mysterious land. The nickname faced a significant backlash after a reporter at Newsweek pointed out that the Nazi party used the phrase to refer to the mythical homeland of the Aryan people. [NewScientist]

While casting aspersions on the name Ultima Thule just because a bunch of barbarians used it to symbolize a mythical homeland seems a little short-sighted, I like Arrokoth, too. It’s properly inclusive, and has its own exotic mouth-feel, at least for me.

Although, if they had retained Ultima Thule and emphasized its barrenness, it would have brought to the fore the worthlessness of Nazi ideology.

So, onward to a picture of Arrokoth.

“This composite image of the primordial contact binary Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 (officially named Arrokoth) was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on Jan. 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures.”

[caption from NASA, etc]
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute//Roman Tkachenko

I’ve just finished reading a biography, The Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy, by Henry Hemming. It covers a rather fascinating figure from the First and Second World Wars, the Brit Geoffrey Pyke, who might be best described as an idea man.

In the WW I, his contributions consisted of smuggling himself into Germany as an American journalist in the opening days of the war, prior to America’s entry, where his attempts to send dispatches back to his British employer resulted in his incarceration in a prisoner camp that was supposedly inescapable.

So he escaped from it.

The camp, and perhaps his escape from it, damaged his health permanently, making him medically unfit to serve in the military. This didn’t didn’t stop him from his restless quest to solve problems, as he becomes a best-selling author, opens a school founded on revolutionary principles, makes and loses a fortune through investing, and enters into World War II with outré ideas to solve problems ranging from distracting the Germans to building indestructible aircraft carriers – from ice. These ideas get him into a British military command as a senior civilian advisor and consultant, driving some senior military officers up the wall, while others seized on his ideas as manna from heaven.

But, through it all, runs the question of whether he was truly a spy. Letters later found in East Germany archives seemed to indicate he was at least a fellow traveler with the Communists, although temperamentally unsuited for officially joining up. But how this affected his work is speculative.

Perhaps the most valuable portion of this book is the epilogue: How To Think Like A Genius. From questioning all received wisdom to fine tuning problem statements and exploring obviously wrong approaches, and looking for solutions, old or new, everywhere around him, an ambitious young reader might benefit enormously from reading the epilogue and taking it to heart.

But for a fuller treatment of Mr. Pyke’s approach to solving difficult problems, just read the whole thing. Told as a third-person narrative, it was fun!

If you need some reassurance that the United States isn’t melting into a puddle, an NBC News/WSJ poll concerning the impeachment proceedings might provide just a bit:

Forty-eight percent of Americans believe that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while an equal 48 percent say they disagree. …

Asked to explain their feelings over whether to impeach and remove Trump from office, 25 percent of all respondents (including 55 percent of Republicans) say the president has not done anything wrong.

An additional 22 percent (including 35 percent of Republicans) say that he may have done something wrong but that it doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.

That 35 percent of Republicans believing Trump did something wrong tells us that at least some Republicans recognize the error of Trump’s ways, and that means there’s something agreement over the obvious facts on the ground. That’s important. That they don’t agree that impeachment and conviction is called for isn’t a matter for condemnation, but for discussion.

It’s when obvious facts are denied out of hand that I despair. But once an admission of the facts is made, then you can ask your favorite Trump cultist (who may not be one if they admit to the facts), What do you mean? How far must a President, regardless of party, stoop before impeachment proceedings are allowable, in your judgment? And once the discussion begins, then you have a chance of persuading the obdurate Republican that allegiance to Party over Country is not permissible, and that spelling out how awful the conduct must be will then permit examination of Trump’s many flaws in comparison. And make them think a little harder about their allegiance.

Polygenic:

But many disorders are polygenic – that is, caused by variations in many different genes that each have a and less clear-cut effect. Geneticists attempt to work out the overall impact of thousands of gene variants by sequencing people’s DNA and calculating so-called polygenic risk scores, but there are big questions about how accurate or useful these are. [“Controversial DNA screening technique used for at least one pregnancy,” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (22 November 2019, from print-only version)]

I have a certain sympathy for this opinion issued by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) concerning the delay of the delivery of the Articles of Impeachment by Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) to the Senate for trial:

To put it politely, it’s not her job, according to the Constitution, to tell the Senate how to try an impeachment. The Constitution says that the House has the sole power of impeachment. We respect that. And the Constitution also says the Senate has the sole power of how to try an impeachment. [WaPo]

I think it’s technically correct and publicly acceptable, out of context.

So let’s add in the context, which is that of a Republican-controlled Senate in which Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) has basically said the trial will end in acquittal, and there will be no testimony from witnesses, and that McConnell will coordinate with White House lawyers to ensure that outcome, an exercise in dishonor which surely should leave McConnell ashamed. Given this context, Pelosi has a certain obligation to use any lever she has to assure a fair trial is possible, and since the Constitution makes no requirement as to the timing of the delivery of the articles, she’s more or less free to do what she wants.

So where might this go? At the moment, Speaker Pelosi has suggested she is merely in management mode, selecting Representatives to present the case while waiting for the Senate to go through the inevitable negotiations that will produce the structure of the trial. The latter reason is apparently upsetting some of the Republican Senators.

But what if she has more on her mind? We’re less than a year out on the next election cycles; less than 6 weeks out on the Iowa caucuses. If Speaker Pelosi believes an unresolved impeachment hanging over the head of President Trump and his allies serves the cause of the Democrats at either the Presidential or Congressional election levels, is it possible she’ll delay it for months?

Sure. Possibly as late as – say it with me – October.

This would give the Democrats time to educate the public on the alleged abuses promulgated by President Trump, and highlight the gross improprieties of the Republican Senators who have been so foolish as to comment on the upcoming trial, principally McConnell and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) (it’s necessary to note that many Republican Senators have observed proper behavior by not commenting on the upcoming trial). This pressure might actually serve to divide the Republican Senators and, just barely possibly, achieve a positive result, which would evict Trump from the Oval Office and ban him from ever running again for Federal office. Because his cult is so strong, it wouldn’t silence him – the squealings of unfairness would go on for years – but it’d diminish his plausibility among independents even more.

On the other hand, it also opens up the Democrats for more claims of partisanship, deepening the divide in the country, a division happily fanned by the Russians through divisive email campaigns and subtle social media manipulations, as well as by Fox News. (I commend conservative pundit Jennifer Rubin’s suggestion that Michael Bloomberg should not waste his time and money on a political run, but simply buy Fox News, fire its mendacious political commentators, and turn it into a real news operation.)

Then again, there’s always a chance that President Trump would blow a fuse in the interim.

On balance, I don’t think Pelosi will delay delivery for months, because, while it might appeal to her strategic instincts, it also requires a flare for the dramatic, and I’m not sure she’s that much of a drama queen. Still, it’s a potential maneuver which would hang over the heads of Republican Senators running for reelection, and might even function as a useful hammer for Democrats fighting off Republican rivals, simply by asking them if they would, or would not, vote to convict in the trial.

I expect to see Pelosi to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate in the next few weeks, but I stand ready for a longer delay, lots of screaming, and a heck of a dramatic pause.

Fascinating as it is, I regret that I lack a friend, or even an acquaintance, of South Korean origin, for after viewing Parasite (2019) I have a lot of questions that need answering, including such big ones as What did I miss here?

The poverty-stricken Kim family, living in the slums in the depths of Seoul, may be lacking in money and even food, but lacking in wit and the grasping of opportunity they are not, so when a chance to tutor a child of a nouveau-rich family leads to another opportunity within the same family, they move on it and capture the job – and then see more jobs within their grasp, if only they are a trifle clever about it.

Once the entire family abruptly finds itself working for a living, a little celebration breaks out when the employing family leaves for a holiday. Only then do they discover that parasites can have … competition. But when torrential rains move in, a family, now abruptly beset by an unexpected challenge, finds their own home has been destroyed in a most distressing fashion, leaving them with a question: what to do next?

Moving from farce to mystery to a disturbing look at the pressures of social conformance, the movie makes each major character count, even the child who cannot quite parse Morse code sufficiently to understand that sometimes parasites can be in distress. But some of the symbolism, rooted in modern South Korean culture, escapes me. I mean, the toilet squirting out the contents of the sanitary sewers was awesome, but does it mean the same thing to me as it might to a South Korean? And are we looking at circular parasitism?

My Arts Editor proclaimed herself fascinated and bewildered as to where the movie was headed at any particular moment, and, technically speaking, I felt it was spot-on – even the captioning was excellent. If you have an interest in genre-crossing movies, you should go see this one.

Recommended.

The late Mischief and her brother, the still-with-us Mayhem, peaking out from under the pool table.

I’ve occasionally wondered, over my decades of cleaning cat boxes, just where this stuff piles up and how we deal with it. Here’s a slightly different angle from Graham Lawton in NewScientist (7 December 2019, paywall):

Pet ownership also imposes wider environmental costs. Added together, all the cats and dogs in the US consume the same amount of energy as 60 million people, effectively increasing the population by a fifth.

Ingredients in pet food are often leftovers from the human food chain, but this isn’t always the case. Even if they are, they still have to be processed, packaged and transported. What comes out the other end is an even stinkier problem, equivalent to the faeces of 90 million people, generating 64 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Being an animal lover and caring about the environment often go hand in hand. But they aren’t compatible. I hate to say it, but pet ownership is another unsustainable aspect of modern consumer lifestyles that we are going to have to confront. It isn’t the biggest, but it isn’t negligible. Like almost every other environmental vice, the problem is getting worse as pet ownership rises around the world.

Cross-species love is not necessarily an environmentally friendly activity.

If you’ve been wondering just how productive the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has been – or your spouse says you’ve been chanting Do-Nothing Democrats! in your sleep – here’s a data point for you, midway through the 116th Congress (which are two year terms, anchored to the House elections), courtesy House Majority Leader Rep Steny Hoyer (D-MD):

The Democratic-led House has passed more than 400 bills. Over 275 bipartisan bills remain stuck on Senator Mitch McConnell’s desk, awaiting action by the Senate, which has refused to do its job.

In the same spirit of critique as when I criticized former Speaker Ryan (R-WI) for proclaiming the House under his leadership had been the most productive ever, I note that a mere count does not give us information on the significance or quality of the bills passed, and I have little to go on when it comes to his definition of bipartisan. Is just one Republican vote sufficient? Or most of the Republicans? I’d hope the latter.

Fortunately, Rep Hoyer does provide information on some significant bills:

H.R. 1: … is landmark legislation which would, among other things, enact comprehensive national redistricting reform, reduce the corrupting influence of money in our politics, and set higher standards of ethics and behavior for those entrusted with high office.

Protected Wilderness: … that designated more than a million acres of protected wilderness, expanded the footprint of national parks, and permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Disaster aid: … we provided additional supplemental aid to areas affected by natural disasters. Our legislation also amended the Stafford Act to ensure that those rebuilding in the aftermath of a disaster can do so more resiliently and prevent future damage.

9/11: We reauthorized the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund in July to help first responders and others suffering from the health consequences of their heroism on September 11, 2001.

Retirement: … SECURE Act to help more workers save for a secure retirement and fix a provision included in the Republican tax scam that excessively taxes Gold Star families who lost loved ones in war. The SECURE Act had previously passed the House with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 417-3, only to languish in the Senate for months without action.

NAFTA 2.0 aka USMCA: … the House approved legislation to implement a new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that includes Democratic provisions to protect workers’ rights, promote American exports, and attract job-creating investment to our country, which the Senate is expected to take up next year.

China: … the House recently joined the Senate in sanctioning China for its human rights violations in Hong Kong and effort to suppress dissent through violence.

Robocalls: … House Democrats passed bipartisan legislation to crack down on bothersome and intrusive robocalls, which passed the Senate yesterday.

Health Care: Earlier in 2019, House Democrats passed ten major bills to protect and expand access to affordable health care and to lower prescription drug costs. This includes H.R. 3.

Women’s pay: … the House passed H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which builds on the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

And it goes on and on, actually. H.R. bills 4, 6, 8, 9 are also mentioned as being passed, which is significant as the first 10 H.R. bill numbers are reserved for those issues considered to be high priority by the majority party in the House. They should be considered significant. And, rather to my surprise, a bill that was not mentioned is the FAIR Act, which would begin to outlaw forced arbitration clauses, or, as I think of them, private justice. This is highly significant as injustice is one of the most dangerously corrosive attacks on a democracy, and these forced arbitration clauses, which foreclose any appeals to the public justice system, you know, with professional and accountable judges, as a definite step down the rabbit hole to angry citizen hell.

So if you think the Democrats have been sitting on their hands doing nothing, think again. A political slogan isn’t reality. In fact, a political slogan from either side of the spectrum should be treated to skepticism until proven true.

There’s been quite a hubbub over the editorial in Christianity Today, founded by the late and widely respected evangelist Billy Graham, Jr., which calls for the removal of President Trump in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial. (In fact, at the moment I cannot even connect to the CT website, although I do not know whether that’s because it’s overwhelmed with legitimate traffic generated by the editorial, or under a Denial of Service attack connected to same.) Later: Here we go:

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character. …

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

Connecting his removal to God’s will is logical if iffy, since the big guy’s failed to come down to register an opinion.

But it’s too bad CT’s indulged in a common misconception:

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

Ummmmm, no, just no. President Trump was offered the opportunity to participate in the public hearings, and declined. Nor does it matter – the Senate is the proper place for a defense to be presented; the impeachment itself is about investigation and determination of the facts, and evaluation of whether the alleged offenses rise to the level required for an impeachment and conviction. The Senate is where the trial actually occurs. This is all spelled out in the Constitution, and it’s to CT’s discredit that they’d make that remark about the impeachment hearings.

More generally, this morality-free paragraph ignores the rampant mendacity, incompetency, and corruption which set in from day one of the Trump Administration – and even before. Documented and unambiguous. So strong that the Republicans, not the Democrats, on damn near day 1 set in motion an investigation of President Trump, an investigation led by a Republican, Robert Mueller, and which resulted in multiple indictments, convictions, and charges of obstruction of justice. So if the Democrats had it in from day one, they were justified. The craven, immoral actions of the Republican majority of the first half of his term enabled a President intent on corrupting multiple government agencies, as evidenced by the nominations and confirmations of Cabinet members Pruitt, Price, Ross, and a number of others, not to mention advisors of dubious competency or character, such as Bannon and Miller. For those who are starting to shake their heads and claim these happen in all administrations, I say this: When it takes four hands to enumerate all the investigations going on for ONLY EPA head Pruitt, this is a sign of gross, and even record-setting, corruption. Please, reader, stop enabling corruption by excusing it; step up and condemn it. CT should recognize that where there’s smoke, there may be a fire, and Trump began smokin’ during the campaign days. Remember his lies about our “historical peak” in crime rates? Yeah, we were actually deep in a trough.

Still, CT gets back on track with a reprimanding paragraph echoing my own thoughts on implicit Evangelical praise of corruption:

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

If Trump is the best the Evangelical community can do, why should anyone deal with them with respect to their honor and their honesty? When you suckle Satan at your breast, you are allied with him, and Satan is the Father of Lies, boys and girls. CT has it right.

Graham’s son, Franklin, is annoyed, according to WaPo:

Graham’s son, the Rev. Franklin Graham, has been a highly vocal supporter of Trump and prayed at his inauguration. In an interview, Franklin Graham, who is not involved with Christianity Today, said his father would have been disappointed by the magazine’s stance. He said his father liked Trump and they were friends.

Without independent evidence, it’s difficult to accept such a statement concerning his father at face value. Furthermore, as one of those who actually participated in Trump’s inauguration and has backed him on numerous occasions, he has a vested interest in Trump’s surviving the trial. He can put “Rev” in front of his name and strut about concerning President Trump and his lies, sexual deceits, and terrible treatment of anyone who displeases him, but it doesn’t appear he’s measuring up to his father.

My Arts Editor grew up in the Evangelical community and says this is a big deal; I suppose Franklin Graham’s riposte is evidence of the alarm the leaders of the community who are benefiting from Trump’s position of power must be feeling. Time will tell.

Readers may remember that my Arts Editor and I attended the Shen Yun show last February, and Deb was interviewed at intermission by a reporter from The Epoch Times, a Chinese-oriented media outlet which appeared to be affiliated with Shen Yun. Deb did some gushing over the costumes, and as Deb admitted to being a designer, the reporter seemed interested. I kept an eye on the site for a couple of weeks to see if Deb had her 15 seconds of fame, but apparently the gushing wasn’t good enough. In fact, all those quoted had to virtually admit to having a most singularly positive experience, as well as considering converting their political positions to those resonant with traditional Chinese culture.

I exaggerate only a little.

I also surveyed their site very briefly; it was painfully pro-Trump. I read a couple of columns, which were written in what has become the traditional and magisterial conservative style, Don’t bother me with the facts, I’m handing down wisdom from on high. I had no patience for that.

Well, today I’ve learned that the parent of The Epoch Times, Epoch Media Group, has been banned from Facebook.

We also removed 610 accounts, 89 Facebook Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts that originated in Vietnam and the US and focused primarily on the US and and some on Vietnam, Spanish and Chinese-speaking audiences globally. This activity primarily focused on The BL, a US-based media company, and its Pages, which were operated by individuals in the US and Vietnam. The people behind this activity made widespread use of fake accounts — many of which had been automatically removed by our systems — to manage Pages and Groups, automate posting at very high frequencies and direct traffic to off-platform sites. Some of these accounts used profile photos generated by artificial intelligence and masqueraded as Americans to join Groups and post the BL content. To evade our enforcement, they used a combination of fake and authentic accounts of local individuals in the US to manage Pages and Groups. The Page admins and account owners typically posted memes and other content about US political news and issues including impeachment, conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, trade, family values and freedom of religion.

Although the people behind this network attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation linked this activity to Epoch Media Group, a US-based media organization, and individuals in Vietnam working on its behalf. The BL-focused network repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation, to name just a few. The BL is now banned from Facebook. We are continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior.

The Epoch Times U.S. Publisher Stephen Gregory disputes the charge, claiming Epoch Times Vietnam, publisher of The BL, has no connection to Epoch Media Group. I’m sure the outraged howling will go on for quite a while, even if evidence of valid connections is given.

Such are the ways of the Trump cultists. When good is on your side, you’re allowed to indulge in any tactics you wish.

Sometimes the received wisdom can raise red flags for me, and this analysis of the final question of the Thursday night Democratic debate got them waving for me:

WaPo has a report on what appears to be dubious behavior by a religious school:

… Kristen Biel sued St. James School in Torrance [St. James Catholic School v. Biel]. She said her contract was not renewed in 2014 after she told school officials that she was being treated for breast cancer. Biel sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act, and her suit is being pursued by her husband.

If this is, indeed, how it played out, I think Biel, now passed away, and her husband should have passed the word through the community of the school and the entire parental group should have come down hard on the school admin.

As in, We’re walkin’ if you did this unless you clean up your act now.

The other suit mentioned in the article, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, probably merits a similar response.

In general, in religious schools which may be exempt from government regulations which generally apply to schools, I think parents, who ultimately control the fate of such services, need to step up and install mechanisms which permit proper ethical regulation of these institution. As an example related to these cases, each dismissal or failure to renew a contract must have an explicit reason for that renewal.

I know that some hierarchies will resist, but it’s the parents who hold the hammer – if they will only realize it.

I’ve been too distracted by a fight to the death with a Windows problem. Having little success in the Win7 arena, I shifted to Win10 even as the computer gods conspired against me, and while I haven’t quite resolved the problem, at this point I think I’m waiting on my employer’s Operations crew to provide that last fix.

Between that and the normal holiday vacation activities, the blog was ignored, but then again the news, which is mostly impeachment, wasn’t all that inspirational anyways. So I’m not dead, just emotionally incapacitated. Nearly 40 years of these damn contraptions and I still hates them, hates them I do.

And I must say that Windows appears to be a swirling tornado of irrationality in an universe of otherwise sane and causal events. Just so long as you avoid quantum mechanics. Ooooh, that spawns a bad thought … is Windows the long-sought link between quantum mechanics and gravity? Given the results of this study, maybe I can draw a link.

The latest USA Today / Suffolk University Poll shows Trump winning in 2020:

President Donald Trump, the first modern president to face impeachment during his first term in the White House, now leads his top Democratic rivals in his bid for a second, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.

The national survey, taken as the House of Representatives planned an impeachment vote and the Senate a trial, showed Trump defeating former Vice President Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 5 points, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8 points.

In hypothetical head-to-head contests, Trump also led South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg by 10 points and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.

Seems unlikely? Sure is.

An unnamed third-party candidate received between 11% and 15% in the head-to-head contests – a factor that could determine who wins the White House.

“We know third-party candidates have minimal chance to win a presidential election but a high probability to make a difference in a state’s outcome,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center. “Every ballot has third-party candidates who receive critical votes. When you give voters more than two options for president, you see how it impacts the major two parties.”

How often do we see that sort of support for third party candidates, even in the aggregate?

In 1992, nearly 20% of the vote went to third party candidates, principally corporate magnate H. Ross Perot. It’s conceivable that this helped defeat fellow corporate magnate George H. W. Bush. In 1968, George Wallace polled in excess of 13% of the total turnout. After those two, though, pickings get slim. Those 11-15% that the poll is claiming are looking at third party candidates? Unless a person with some notoriety to their name jumps into the race, I doubt we’re going to see much of in terms of third party support, and I suspect that those who are thinking about it won’t turn to Trump. Unless you’re a cultist or a Republican who’s not paying attention – and there’s plenty of people who have a nominal political loyalty but don’t want to pay attention to actual politics – you’re probably looking at Trump and finding his behavior to be disturbing. I would expect most of these alleged “third party supporters” to break towards the Democrat.

Now, if we were using ranked choice voting (RCV) rather than single choice voting, then I’d expect a relatively big turnout for the third party candidates – and then probably a victory for the Democrat as RCV eliminated the failed third party candidates.