Monthly Archives: December 2019

This made me laugh. Yes, it’s quite old.

Now I’m visualizing Arnie in Sleeper makeup.

Horses reigned supreme among Stone Age artists

Title of an article found in the print version of NewScientist (23 November 2019). I eagerly await my Arts Editor’s rendering of the concept of a horse with opposable thumbs. This isn’t it:

Source: www.bradshawfoundation.com via the Rock Art Blog, Peter Faris.

When the article hit the NewScientist website, it had been retitled, which they often do:

Stone Age artists were obsessed with horses and we don’t know why

Which isn’t nearly as much fun. I think.

biovermiculation:

A biovermiculation, frequently called bioverm,is a microbial community exhibiting a patterned growth within an extreme environment. Bioverms are of interest in overlapping natural-science disciplines such as geomicrobiology, speleology and astrobiology. [Quotes & Notes]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

The [cavern] adjoins a grey-black pool of water and the walls are covered with slimy, worm-like patterns called biovermiculations, created by slow-growing microbes.

Remembering the Wizard of Oz, where the Cowardly Lion flew into a windmill and was shredded by a chicken. He tasted so good!

We saw a TV version of Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973) the other night, and maybe they cut out the parts that would have made me sit up and take notice, but honestly it felt like nothing more than a framework for Allen to tell some dated jokes, make fun of some of the personalities of the day, and not really say much at all about the human condition.

Unless it has to do with sex and the inclination to take the fun out of life, then perhaps.

The eponymous character, Miles Monroe, was cryogenically preserved in 1970 after a simple operation goes tragically wrong, and is awakened hundreds of years in the future as a possible aid in the battle against the authoritarian government which substitutes hedonism for freedom. Monroe escapes when the safe house is raided by those government forces, more or less due to the farcical incompetency of the police forces, and from here he’s on a whirlwind tour of society as he masquerades as a robot, discovering veganism is no longer in vogue, sex happens via machine, and, well, it just sort of goes on and on.

It was only mildly interesting, but maybe it’ll appeal more to you.

As a software engineer, I occasionally get the uncomfortable task of investigating and remedying a corner case: a scenario unforeseen by the original designers, not easily remediable with a simple bug fix, sometimes requiring a complete redesign, sometimes fixable with a disreputable hack. Usually, it means the problem was not completely analyzed.

So I was fascinated by this WaPo article on the legal question of whether an American civil officer, moments before conviction occurs, can actually resign and evade all punishemtn, and the allied question: can a former American “civil officer,” such as the President, can be impeached?

Oh, what fun^[1]! They queried a collection of legal scholars and received a real mix of responses, from NO NO NO! to ummmm, yeah, maybe. Gotta love it. And while it seems a little mad to consider this possibility, I have to admit to being outraged at the Marc Rich pardon by Clinton; Bill himself later admitted to being mistaken. He really needed his hand slapped for that blunder.

Putting aside the insipidly foolish rants of Rep Gaetz^[2], we should expand our intellectual horizons and go a little further with this. My new concept is pre-impeachment. Analogous to the Gaetz suggestion, I suggest we also recognize the possibility that before someone attains status as a civil officer^[3], Congress should be able to preempt the campaigns of truly hated or feared rivals before they can even get started.

Recognize someone as a threat to the Nation? Or at least one helluva lot smarter than you? Then pre-impeach them! I detect a thriving new legal specialty in the making!

Or, we can just ignore Gaetz and the whole idea, and instead fix the Constitution. I suggest the following Amendment:

Upon the institution of the proceedings of Impeachment, the civil officer who is subject of the proceedings is deprived of the right of resignation; they may step away from their responsibilities, turning them over to the duly considered successor, at their option; but for purposes of punishment if a conviction is obtained, a resignation by the civil officer is not permitted.

See? Problem solved.

Quite honestly, pre- and post- impeachment seem quite Roman, and not in a good way.

¹ No, really, I’m not kidding. Exploring the weird outer reaches of a designed system teaches us more about the essential stability and correctness of a design than does the everyday boring stuff. Even if the latter is more important.

² He who suggests that President Obama should be impeached shouldn’t be throwing stones at glass figurines when your favored leader happens to a bloated, cannibalistic, unmoving toad who appears to more than deserve it. Reminding everyone that they can still impeach Trump even if he resigns is … really dumb.

³ A civil officer appears to be President, VP, but not a Senator, according to the Free Dictionary’s legal section on civil officers.

From a parking lot:

… and Stacey Newman is pointing and shouting:

Top Missouri GOP strategist Gregg Keller tweeted last month that he and former Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones “will not stop until Missouri is literally the Handmaids Tale.” Yes, that was a positive reference to the fictional series where women are enslaved, ceremonially raped and treated as breeding vessels. In real life, the GOP is attempting to reduce women to faceless handmaids without bodily autonomy.

[Missouri state health director Randall] Williams and the entire GOP entourage seem to have gone mad. [Kansas City Star]

And, as Newman points out, this is in the wake of …

In short order, Williams mandated that abortion patients have two medically unnecessary vaginal exams. A national public outcry, led by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, erupted. Abortion providers stopped performing the invasive exams, citing their oath to do no harm. Then Williams walked back his order to insist on one single vaginal exam, still cruel and invasive.

So a bunch of gibbering right wing freaks^[1] have climbed to the top of the Missouri GOP pyramid and are indulging in some mad fantasies. Welcome to the error of team politics, but fortunately that is a stricture which the GOP member may, as they mature from cultist to responsible member of the electorate, cast off at a time of their choosing.

That’s what Newman’s calling for, for the women of her party to quit following along in the steps of whoever’s on top, to evaluate, shake their heads, and say NO! Will this bit of bizarre ugliness awaken them? I hope so. Newman is doing the necessary work of revealing the freaks for what they are, and it’s up to the voters of Missouri to recognize that the madness must end at some point.

¹ I hasten to add that there are certain left-wingers engendering a similar response on my part, but it’s the GOP which has control of most of the State legislatures, and also seems to have the lead in spewing misogynistic, well, gibberish.

Abseil:

British
the practice of descending a steep slope by a rope secured from above and coiled around one’s body
The first time I went abseiling it was a weird feeling. [Collins Dictionary]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

Thanks to the rope-rigging skills of two Italian cavers, we abseil down, slippery with mud, into a long cavern.

In the era of digital communications, pointing at a pile of dusty law books when it comes to the law really isn’t enough, so when Georgia put its law books behind a paywall, that caused a bit of an uproar as non-profit Public.Resource.Org (PRO) paid to fetch it from LexisNexis, a for-profit company, and re-published it for free and without seeking permission to do so.

Georgia screamed foul and won the initial skirmish, but PRO won the appeal. Now it’s at SCOTUS, argued yesterday. Ars Technica picks up on the story:

You might think that PRO could just publish the un-annotated version of Georgia’s code. The problem, as PRO’s Supreme Court brief pointed out, is that Georgia doesn’t publish an un-annotated version. The annotated version is the only official version.

An obvious solution would be for Georgia and LexisNexis to separate the two works. Georgia could publish an official, un-annotated version of the state code that would be in the public domain. LexisNexis could independently produce and publish an annotated guide to the state code, keep the copyright, and charge customers for it. Indeed, Westlaw produces its own copyrighted annotation of the Georgia state code.

But the state of Georgia argues that the intermingling of statute and annotations is necessary to finance the creation of the annotations in the first place. LexisNexis covers the costs of producing the annotated code, then it recoups its investments by charging for copies of it. If the Supreme Court holds that the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is in the public domain, this business model wouldn’t work any more.

But intermingling copyrighted and public domain works creates headaches for third parties wanting to make use of the code.

Georgia’s position is that only the legally binding portions of the state code are public domain. But legal documents almost always contain a mix of binding and non-binding elements. If the Supreme Court buys Georgia’s argument, it will create a legal minefield for organizations like PRO, since the line between copyrightable and non-copyrightable content will get fuzzier. Anyone wanting to republish an official legal document will have to hire legal experts to go through the documents with a fine-tooth comb trying to determine which portions of the documents are in the public domain and which ones might not be.

PRO argues that the court should sidestep this whole thicket by declaring that state-published legal documents are always in the public domain, whether or not they’re legally binding.

The biggest obstacle to victory for PRO is a pair of 19th-century precedents that opened the door to copyright protections for some legal documents. In an 1834 ruling, the high court allowed a court reporter—a court employee who compiled judicial opinions and added his own annotations—to retain copyright protections for his contributions. The Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in an 1888 case.

The real hinge on this case, to my mind? The Georgia defense:

But the state of Georgia argues that the intermingling of statute and annotations is necessary to finance the creation of the annotations in the first place.

That’s a load of rot. That’s someone saying, Oh, no, in order to provide acceptable services, we’ll have to raise taxes! Wait, I have a better idea …

And now the citizens end up paying for it anyways, but in an unequal manner. Hell, I wonder if the State itself ends up paying for access to its own laws … !

This is what comes from an allergy to paying, upfront, for what the State needs to provide to its citizens, just because of an unhealthy fear of taxation.

It seems to me that, in order to accommodate the reasonable expectations of copyrights on the annotations, SCOTUS should order Georgia to quit being a pack of cheap bastards and publish the laws, sans annotations, for free on a website, and as a book at perhaps a nominal charge. In this case, keeping taxes low is nothing more than a political position, not a principled stand.

Primarily I like the visual contrast between the music and the costumes.

But honestly, I’m not much into the music. Repetitive, needs more creativity.

(From a friend’s FB posting.)

comproportionation:

A reaction in which an element in a higher oxidation state reacts with the same element in a lower oxidation state to give the element in an intermediate oxidation state. For example Ag²⁺(aq)+Ag(s) → 2Ag⁺(aq) It is the reverse of disproportionation.

Ag²⁺(aq)+Ag(s) → 2Ag⁺(aq)
[Oxford Reference]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

Just as photosynthesis in effect reverses the chemistry of aerobic respiration, does anything make a living by turning hydrogen sulphide and sulphate back into pure sulphur? No such organisms, known as sulphur comproportionators, have ever been found. But in theory, at least, the answer is yes. “It’s likely that in 3 billion plus years of evolution and the right pressures, some species have developed the ability to do this,” says [Pennsylvania State University astrobiologist Jennifer] Macalady.

I’ve been listening, off and on, to the Judiciary Committee testimony today. It features four professors, three brought in by the Democrats and one by the Republicans, George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley. Skipping the whining from the Republicans, I couldn’t help but notice that Professor Turley raised two objections to the impeachment process so far, neither of which I found credible.

First, he says this is the fastest impeachment process on record. Unfortunately for him, some processes move slowly and some move quickly, like most such things, and one has to be the fastest. Without a credible reason for not moving quickly, the movement should be at the discretion of those who believe impeachment is appropriate. That it be quick is preferable because, if you believe impeachment is called for, in most cases, and certainly in this case, you also believe the President is doing continual and lasting damage to the country. I have no insight into the Professor’s mind, but it sounds like he sees this as a standard criminal proceeding in which the alleged criminal is now in custody and no longer engaged in the alleged criminal activity. That is not true in this case.

Second, he spent some time elaborating on the dangers of removing a President who is seen as incompetent only by one Party, which is my phraseology, not his; I suspect he’d prefer “narrow partisan basis“. He felt that if this was a go-forward basis for impeachment, then we’re headed for chaos when the President is a Democrat, as the Republicans will raise impeachment charges when they can. But this suffers from a fatal flaw: the voters hold the final power. If they perceive the impeachment was nothing more than a political lynching, then those who are not Party cultists will dump the party who perpetrated such an action on their heads.

The Republicans have been an extremist organization for more than the last three years, yet did they impeach and convict President Obama? They didn’t even try. Why? Because the independent voter who holds the balance of power in their collective hands would have seen it as nothing more than dirty politics, found those involved to be unworthy of their seats, and voted en masse against them. No doubt the Republicans realized that.

So I’m not taking Professor Turley too seriously. His objections and complaints are too easy to rebut in my mind.

Back in August, I suggested in a footnote in a post that something called Precision Messaging, involving the tailoring of political messages to recipients, should be outlawed:

Keeping up with Republican Representatives of dubious ethics, Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has changed his plea from not guilty to guilty in the matter of misuse of campaign funds, joining former Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) in the club of admitted felons. The San Diego Union-Tribune has the story:

After years of denials and claims he was the target of a political witch hunt, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday morning to plead guilty in a sweeping campaign finance investigation.

The announcement was posted on the U.S. District Court docket Monday morning, then KUSI aired an interview with Hunter in which he said he will plead guilty to one of the 60 criminal charges against him. He suggested that he is likely to spend time in custody.

“The plea I accepted is misuse of my own campaign funds, of which I pled guilty to only one count,” Hunter told the station. “I think it’s important that people know that I did make mistakes. I did not properly monitor or account for my campaign money. I justify my plea with the understanding that I am responsible for my own campaign and my own campaign money.”

And he suggests he’ll be resigning or not running for re-election. It’s important to note that the other 59 charges to which he didn’t plead guilty don’t become automatically moot, although he may have plea-bargained them away. The article goes on to chronicle his various alleged misdeeds, including extra-marital affairs funded with campaign funds.

It’d be interesting to see him run again, just to see if his constituents would continue to vote for him. He’s from a political family, so maybe they would. They have low standards, if true.

Wrapping up, the original three Representatives were the aforementioned Collins and Hunter, who ended up pleading guilty, and Rep Rod Blum (R-IA), who admitted to nothing but ignorance in a House Ethics investigation, and claimed he was the victim of a “crusade” by the left. Victimhood didn’t work for him as he lost his re-election bid in 2018, suggesting his constituents were fed up with him. He lost to Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) by 4 points; in his 2016 race he won by 8 points, suggesting a 12 point swing in support, fairly large for conservative Iowa.

So all three are, or will be soon, out of elective office.

The FBI is finally getting around to telling us:

Today: building a digital defense with your TV.

Yes, I said your TV. Specifically your smart TV…the one that is sitting in your living room right now. Or, the one that you plan to buy on super sale on Black Friday.

Smart TVs are called that because they connect to the Internet. They allow you to use popular streaming services and apps. Many also have microphones for those of us who are too lazy to actually to pick up the remote. Just shout at your set that you want to change the channel or turn up the volume and you are good to go.

A number of the newer TV’s also have built-in cameras. In some cases, the cameras are used for facial recognition so the TV knows who is watching and can suggest programming appropriately. There are also devices coming to market that allow you to video chat with grandma in 42” glory.

Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router.

Hackers can also take control of your unsecured TV. At the low end of the risk spectrum, they can change channels, play with the volume, and show your kids inappropriate videos. In a worst-case scenario, they can turn on your bedroom TV’s camera and microphone and silently cyberstalk you. [FBI/Portland]

We’ve been looking at getting an LG OLED television, but have been put off by the price, which we expect to come down, and the fact that it now has a microphone so that Alexa, the personal assistant from Amazon, can listen in on you.

And I’m feeling fairly sure that snipping the wires from the microphone to the main processor would be a messy, warranty-voiding task.

So, unless LG acknowledges that some folks just don’t want Alexa, an OLED TV from LG may not be in our future, despite its superior (last I checked) energy consumption and display characteristics. Trading our security for additional features which, frankly, we’re not interested in just isn’t a favorable trade.

In general, a microphone and speakers are a communications medium, not only for you to use, but sometimes even computers. Yep, I’ve read about it: Years ago, a computer that was completely off the Internet was nevertheless hacked by someone – and the owner of the computer believes it was via the microphone in the victim and the speakers of a computer in the same room that was connected to the Internet.

I never heard if he figured out the technical details or not. I mean, the one off the internet had to have a vulnerability already … yeah, easier not to have Alexa and her damn microphone.

Make that one of your rules of digital ruling: if there’s a microphone on some computing device, be suspicious that someone is monitoring you, even if it appears to be off. Even of your phone.

Bromide:

Bromide in literary usage means a phrase, cliché, or platitude that is trite or unoriginal. It can be intended to soothe or placate; it can suggest insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker. When hypostatized and embodied, in which the concept becomes a person, bromide can mean a commonplace or tiresome person, a bore. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Belligerents in the Persian Gulf are trying something new: diplomacy,” David Ignatius, WaPo:

It’s our best Kool-Aid substitute!

Incoherence, scenery chewing, wretched dialog, sketchy plot, crappy special effects. Only watch Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972) if you have a monstrous headache, or if this is the night when you’re finally giving into your self-hatred and this is your punishment.

I can’t imagine why my Arts Editor wanted to watch this one.

On WaPo Mitch Daniels goes over the particulars of Income Share Agreements:

In an ISA, a student borrows nothing but rather has his or her education supported by an investor, in return for a contract to pay a specified percentage of income for a fixed number of years after graduation. Rates and time vary with the discipline of the degree achieved and the amount of tuition assistance the student obtained.

An ISA is dramatically more student-friendly than a loan. All the risk shifts from the student to the investing entity; if a career starts slowly, or not at all, the student’s obligation drops or goes to zero. Think of an ISA as equity instead of debt, or as working one’s way through college — after college.

I could see this for a trade school or technical college, but for the general college student I have to wonder, because buried in this is the assumption that it’s all about the income the student will earn afterwards. Is this a good way to look at advancing one’s education?

It reminds me of an assertion I made a couple of years ago, which now I cannot find, justifying, on a libertarian basis, the liberal funding of public universities via taxation, the rationale being that those who benefit most should pay the most, and those who benefit the most from education aren’t the students, but society itself. It’s not an obvious conclusion, but it becomes more and more clear as we consider how important it is to have educated, knowledgeable citizens. Forcing a penniless student to pay for the privilege of becoming an important part of society, today and tomorrow, seems like madness, once the proper description of the critical role education, and educated people, fill in society is formulated.

An ISA, in this view, becomes simply a nail in the coffin of the responsible view enunciated above, doesn’t it? It sounds innovative to the person who has already bought into the notion that the student should pay for their education, underscoring the mistaken notion that education is simply another product. To me, questions concerning how investors evaluate students, how much an MD vs and English major is worth, potential litigation involving students who don’t use their degree (I know a few) and yet make a good living, insurance against your student dying, the entire thing sounds less like a business undertaking and more like a fiasco.

Sure, these are just surface thoughts, but I’m not feeling the love for a proposal which runs on false notions of the nature of education.

FishOutofWater on The Daily Kos reports and comments on a convenient bit of insanity:

An abortion ban bill introduced into the Ohio state legislature requires surgeons treating women for potentially fatal pregnancies located outside of the uterus to “reimplant” the pregnancy into the uterus or face “abortion murder” charges. However, there is no such thing as reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy. It is impossible because the fetal blood supply grows over time and grows into the tube or other site it is attached to. Moreover, a pregnancy will not attach to the uterus at this point in gestation because the uterus does not develop the vasculature to maintain a pregnancy when the egg implants ectopically. In fact, a growing tubal pregnancy will rupture the Fallopian tube if it is not treated medically or surgically. Tubal rupture is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester of pregnancy.

This proposed legislation would criminalize a medical procedure necessary to save a woman’s life under the pretense of saving a clump of cells that has zero chance of survival.

Practicing Obstetrician/Gynecologists (note my wife is an Ob hospitalist now) told Ohio legislators that “reimplanting” ectopic pregnancies is impossible the first time they introduced a similar bill. Again, Ob/Gyns are telling Ohio legislators that there is no such thing as reimplanting an ectopic.

I found the bill here, and the single mention of an ectopic pregnancy is in the context of abortion:

A physician who does all of the following is not subject to criminal prosecution, damages in any civil action, or professional disciplinary action, for a violation of this chapter:

(A) Using reasonable medical judgment, believes it is highly probable that the pregnant woman will die from a certain fatal condition before her unborn child is viable;

(B) Performs a surgery, before the unborn child is viable, for the sole purpose of treating the pregnant woman’s fatal condition;

(C) Takes all possible steps to preserve the life of the unborn child, while preserving the life of the woman. Such steps include, if applicable, attempting to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman’s uterus.

This ugly bit of right wing rhetoric is an example of following the logic of ill-founded assumptions to its bloody end, isn’t it? Imputing personhood to a fertilized egg on theological grounds is the bad assumption; it leads to all sorts of odd-ball assumptions which roil society in the service of some religious leader’s dubious agenda. I suppose the author would argue that the language merely readies the law for the day that the medical procedure becomes available, but it’s still ridiculous.

But let’s keep filling in the logic, shall we? We’ve already seen miscarriages being used to bring manslaugter charges against mothers who lose their fetus, another bit of madness which essentially condemns the founding assumption^[0]. We can say that any miscarriage is thus manslaughter, and the entity responsible should be held liable. I’ve seen estimates of the percentage of pregnancies ending in miscarriage ranging from a quarter to a half of all pregnancies, so we’re not talking small potatoes here.

Since we’re currently in the domain of someone who believes their theology should be law, that lets us place God at the scene of the crime.

Yep, that’s right. If you have God, then God must have planned the whole thing, right? So the old saying goes, at least: God has a plan for everything. God Is Responsible, since miscarriages are, by definition, not induced by humans.

I’m a reasonable person, or at least that’s part of my personal set of delusions, and so I realize that imprisoning a divine, all-powerful being could only occur if he, A) permits it, and B) can be found.

Neither condition seems likely to be fulfilled.

Similar arguments apply to the imposition of fines on the divine being.

Therefore, in order to discourage God from committing crimes in the State of Ohio, I recommend finding his or her or its ordained representatives and imposing appropriate penalties on them. Now, I recognize that, because there are multiple sects involved in the worship of said creature, it’s actually difficult to ascertain which one, if any, is the duly authorized and recognized (by it) representative, in the body of the leader of the sect, and which are merely well-meaning but deluded, psychopaths with agendas, or indolent parasites, nor is it the role of a secular state to make that determination.

But I will not throw my hands up in the air at this conundrum! Instead, let me supply a convenient answer which side-steps the intellectually obstinate theological questions^[1] raised above, and that is this:

Let the author of this delusionary segment of the bill be identified; from there, their sect & church may be further identified; and let the fines for the involuntary miscarriages be levied against that sect and its adherents, no matter how large or how small. Let’s be generous to God and impose no more nor less than $5000 per miscarriage. Furthermore, if that sect should disband for any reason, then the section on ectopic pregnancy shall be null and void.

Does this sound like madness? I am a practicing software engineer, logic is my everyday business. I’m simply practicing a bit of logic here. So, if this sounds like madness, perhaps we should go back to the assumption that a fertilized egg is somehow a person, and re-think what I consider to be a specious, and even malignant, assumption.

⁰ I bring up miscarriage as an ectopic pregnancy is little different from a miscarriage: something has gone wrong with the pregnancy and it must be terminated. In ectopic pregnancy, we must perform the abortion or the expectant woman is at substantial risk of death. The fetus is doomed in either case, for reasons out of our control.

¹ While intellectually difficult, or even impossible, to answer, history supplies sufficient and even overwhelming evidence that these questions concerning the propriety of various faiths are easily validated through the use of physical violence. Let not mere questions of actual existence stop us from assaulting our fellow man, eh?

While on our recent vacation trip to Traverse City, Michigan, we stopped in at Lobdell’s: A Teaching Restaurant, which is, in turn, attached to Northern Michigan College’s Great Lakes Maritime Academy, and I took a moment to snap some picturesque shots. Nothing earth-shattering, but I like them.

Seeing that it was Thanksgiving week, the Academy was empty of all but the people at the desk, who quite nicely let us in when we tired of dockside and knocked at locked back doors. Speaking of the restaurant, here’s a couple of outside views, which were surprisingly compelling.

Fun, and the food was good, too.

Bloomberg reports on the latest proposal from Senator Warren (D-MA):

Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday unveiled details of a tax on lobbying that would cost some of the biggest U.S. corporations hundreds of millions of dollars.

Under her proposal, companies that spend between $500,000 and $1 million a year on lobbying would pay a 35% tax on their expenditures. The rate would increase to 60% for spending of more than $1 million, and to 75% above $5 million. …

“My new lobbying tax will make hiring armies of lobbyists significantly more expensive for the largest corporate influencers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Boeing, and Comcast,” Warren wrote. “Sure, this may mean that some corporations and industry groups will choose to reduce their lobbying expenditures, raising less tax revenue down the road – but in that case, all the better.”

Her campaign said that if her tax had been in effect over the last 10 years, more than 1,600 corporations and lobbying groups would have had to pay about $10 billion in taxes.

It would certainly make “capturing” the agency regulating you a bit more expensive; however, your customers may end up paying for it, so I have to wonder if this proposal would be all that efficacious. And, one must wonder, would the corporations, by paying the tax, feel that they should gain something, since they’ve already “paid for it”?

However, for the Senator, and I do emphasize her position, if she does not win the Presidency in the next election, she retains her Senate seat and therefore could propose this tax, probably in concert with a Representative (since taxes must be initiated in the House, as I recall – although I’m having trouble verifying that).

And I have a morbid curiosity about how the companies would get around it.

[This post accidentally was made into a menu page a while back, and I just noticed now. -Hue]

I suppose the presenter is the big clue.

Somehow I missed this lovely hoax; my source, a comment on The Daily Kos, suggests it dates from 2008.

As an example of the confusion over society sector morality, we have this particular defense of a Michigan law concerning the leftover money, if any, after a tax foreclosure sale to pay back taxes. Crain’s Detroit Business sets out the case:

• In tax foreclosure sales, state law allows governments to keep money left over after overdue property taxes are paid
• Issue is whether it’s illegal under takings clause in U.S., state constitutions
• Attorney for former Oakland County property owners calls it “stealing”

A lawyer on Thursday warned the Michigan Supreme Court that local governments could face a financial calamity if forced to repay surplus cash from the sale of tax-foreclosed properties.

There is no dispute that state law allows county treasurers to keep money left over after overdue property taxes finally are paid from a sale. The issue for the court is whether the practice is illegal under the takings clause in the U.S. and Michigan constitutions.

“This is unjust and it is unconstitutional. … The government can take the property and sell it, but it can only keep what it’s rightfully entitled to,” said Christina Martin, an attorney for former property owners in Oakland County.

She called it “stealing.” …

John Bursch, arguing on behalf of Oakland County, told the Supreme Court that property owners have more than two years to avoid foreclosure because of unpaid taxes. But after foreclosure, he added, property rights are extinguished along with any other claims.

“This is not unjust enrichment” by local governments, Bursch said. “When you’re on notice and you fail to do something, you lose your rights.”

He urged the justices to rely on the Legislature to change the law if the public thinks it’s unfair. Bursch said more than $2 billion is at stake if the court declares the law unconstitutional.

“A ruling for the plaintiffs will ruin local governments,” Bursch said. “There are currently class actions pending in all 83 county circuit courts and in our federal courts. … That will come right out of schools, roads police, firefighters and other basic services.”

It’s Mr. Bursch’s final argument which bothers me. It’s basically a distraction for the justices to consider the alleged hypothetical financial plight of the local governments over the settled financial plight of the citizens who feel they’ve been victimized by this law.

Is it the business of local government to turn a profit? No.

Is it the business of local government to manage the affairs of the citizens in a wise and just manner? Yes.

Government entities have several options for raising required funds, primarily taxes. I know there’s been a decades-long push on to lower taxes as if they’re the devil’s plaything, but in this case we’re seeing the unfortunate results of pushing that understandable goal too far: injustice visited upon those least capable of bearing it. The devil is not in the chasing of lowering taxes, but in forcing the funding of government services through alternative means: keeping foreclosure profits as if a government entity has somehow earned them, the insanity of funding law enforcement via civil asset forfeiture, and the moral bankruptcy of private prisons. Each seeks to use means which are not congruent with the goals of government, as they are borrowed from other sectors of society or even simply perversions of the usual methods of government. While they may appear to be an efficient means to those goals, they are also rife with opportunities for corruption. Is this better than taxation, where the numbers are available for all to see and evaluate, and the revenue is predictable, while these other means are neither public, reviewable, nor predictable?

Even suggesting that taxes might have to rise would be inappropriate. Justice isn’t about profits, in this case it’s about who rightfully owns what. Building government services on the backs of those who have trouble paying taxes, or, as the article makes clear, are the victims of clerical errors, is simple madness.

That’s enough venting for the morning.

Polynya:

A gigantic hole in Antarctica’s sea ice has perplexed scientists for decades.

Now, with the help of robots, satellites, and seals with sensors strapped to their heads, a team of researchers has discovered that climate, salt levels, and an underwater mountain all contribute to the weird recurring phenomenon, according to a study published Monday in Nature.

The massive “polynya,” which is the term for an area of open water surrounded by sea ice, occasionally appears in the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic northwest, seemingly at random. The size and frequency of the offshore polynya are not closely correlated with temperatures, suggesting a more complex mechanism drives its formation process. [“Mysterious Hole in Antarctic Sea Ice Explained by Robots and Seals,” Becky Ferreira, Vice]