Monthly Archives: February 2020

I was a consummate bookworm when I was a kid, became an addict to social media when it started in the early 1980s^[1], and have never stopped reading, although I’ve shifted from fiction to non-fiction, from books to magazines and online. Through this practice, I’ve become increasingly sensitive to how writing styles can correlate to the purpose, often hidden, of the author. To use a gross sample, if I see a lot of hysterical adjectives, if I see a lot of exclamation points, both of which are designed to activate our emotional response systems, I become immediately suspicious of whatever it is I’m reading. In a nutshell, I automatically suspect the argument being advanced, whether it be intellectual or commercial (i.e., BUY THIS PRODUCT, IT’LL CURE ALL YOUR ILLS!), is less than compelling, perhaps even fraudulent^[2].

A more nuanced collection of examples, and therefore difficult to detect and positively correlate, is the august tone I find in National Review articles. They have a ponderousness to them that projects an authority that precludes a need to rely on facts or right reasoning to make their point. (I should note that contributor David French is less willing to use that form that most other NR contributors.) Add in their flight from an initial NeverTrump stance to a YesTrump position and its concomitant moral and ethical problems, and I find them so irritating I resist visiting the NR website. They start with the assumption that their ideology is correct, push through or simply ignore the oppositional facts and arguments like a bulldozer through a china shop trying to buy a single teacup, and end with a righteousness unearned.

This habit of mine may also explain why I read The Persuaders with such interest, although its topic is a bit of a sibling to my sensitivities on the matter of communications. This tome investigates how various entities attempt to persuade us to take political positions and buy commercial products, not through rational expostulation, but through sleight-of-hand and knowledge of how minds work.

So, several months ago when Eve Fairbanks published a meditation on how her communications with conservatives, family or otherwise, raised the hair on the back of her neck (my description), I was fascinated:

I grew up in a conservative family. The people I talk to most frequently, the people I call when I need help, are conservative. I’m not inclined to paint conservatives as thoughtless bigots. But a few years ago, listening to the voices and arguments of commentators like [Ben] Shapiro, I began to feel a very specific deja vu I couldn’t initially identify. It felt as if the arguments I was reading were eerily familiar. I found myself Googling lines from articles, especially when I read the rhetoric of a group of people we could call the “reasonable right.” …

When I read [Bari] Weiss, when I listened to Shapiro, when I watched [Jordan] Peterson or read the supposedly heterodox online magazine Quillette, what was I reminded of?

My childhood home is just a half-hour drive from the Manassas battlefield in Virginia, and I grew up intensely fascinated by the Civil War. I loved perusing soldiers’ diaries. During my senior year in college, I studied almost nothing but Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. As I wrote my thesis on a key Lincoln address, Civil War rhetoric was almost all I read: not just that of the 16th president but also that of his adversaries.

Thinking back on those debates, I finally figured it out. The reasonable right’s rhetoric is exactly the same as the antebellum rhetoric I’d read so much of. The same exact words. The same exact arguments. Rhetoric, to be precise, in support of the slave-owning South. [WaPo]

Is it OK to condemn or agree based on rhetorical style. No.

Is it OK to research based on rhetorical style? Yes.

Returning to my initial point, this is why the style of communication is as important as the subject and argument itself. A style that seeks to obscure, which attempts to ally itself with some moral goodness using vacuous or theological arguments, I’ll tell you there’s a dozen more strategies available to those who would rather twist words and appeal to invisible beings than admit they are in the wrong. That’s part of my analytical approach to reading any piece, fiction or not (although purposes are rarely shared between the two categories).

Moving on and breaking the thundering tone of my moral outrage (see, I can do it, too!), I now suspect I understand what a professor of Rhetoric does. From the same article:

Proslavery rhetoricians talked little of slavery itself. Instead, they anointed themselves the defenders of “reason,” free speech and “civility.” The prevalent line of argument in the antebellum South rested on the supposition that Southerners were simultaneously the keepers of an ancient faith and renegades — made martyrs by their dedication to facts, reason and civil discourse.

It might sound strange that America’s proslavery faction styled itself the guardian of freedom and minority rights. And yet it did. In a deep study of antebellum Southern rhetoric, Patricia Roberts-Miller, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Texas at Austin, characterizes the story that proslavery writers “wanted to tell” between the 1830s and 1860s as not one of “demanding more power, but of David resisting Goliath.”

Perhaps I’ve developed an informal sense of rhetoric. Rhetoric would have been an interesting subject to study in college, if only I had known it even existed. After all, it appears to study, at least as one subject, how those employ rhetoric to obscure repulsive practices and thoughts, clothing, in this case, the pus-filled body of slavery in the finery of freedom, minority rights, and even, in the case of the Fire-Eaters, the Word of God. I get a lot of pleasure in taking apart missives which I consider misleading, exposing the methods of the charlatans to the world. Bringing light to darkness makes me feel like I’ve done a bit to make the world a better place, transient as it may be.

Fascinating article, good read.

¹ “Social media” of the era were Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes), of which I ran one of a type known to encourage enthusiastic communication (rather than the other major purpose for which BBSes existed, which was file-sharing) for 20 years, and spent inordinate amounts of time programming, using, and indulging in activities affiliated with them.

² Such suspicion does not preclude admiration for the communication, however. Both my Arts Editor and myself found the commercials for Enzyte, a supplement for “natural male enhancement,” quite charming, if that’s the word for it. The CEO of the manufacturing company of Enzyte, Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, ended up in the pokey, along with his mother (!), and the company went bankrupt, thus suggesting art and ethics are tenuously connected, at best.

Part of an occasional series examining President Trump’s progress against Candidate Trump’s promises.

The promise: One of the most critical promises then-candidate Donald Trump made was to drain the swamp. NBC News has conveniently made available a collage of videos of Trump’s promise here, but what it comes down to is the removal of corruption from government. Because public perception, valid or not, is that corruption is rampant in Washington, D.C., this promise became one of the linchpins to his victory in the 2016 Presidential election.

Results So Far: The answer to the question of whether or not the swamp is being drained appears, on its face, to be easy: Failure. There are several categories to be considered: those in which lobbyists are nominated to positions of influence over the agencies which they were lobbying; those officials who refuse to cooperate with what appear to be appropriate requests for information, including subpoenas, from Congress; and those in which officials of agencies are forced to leave due to a scandal which can be classified as swampy. Sometimes the former category can be difficult to define for positions such as the Secretary of the Treasury, as the position requires specialized knowledge that can be acquired only by working in the industry; and, of course, I am not familiar with all officials and their, ah, peccadilloes. Nor do I keep up with all the news, all the time.

I will present my observations as a series of categories. Feel free to notify me of corrections using the mail link to the upper right.

Not a swamp creature to my knowledge: Sessions (Attorney General; recused himself from Russia investigation when ethically required to do so, much to the horror of President Trump); Tillerson (State; no known swamp scandals, although Trump supporters might argue that calling his President a ‘moron’ was scandalous, and his activities at State were more likely incompetent in damaging State’s capabilities); Mattis (Defense); Esper (Defense); Perdue (Ag); Azar (HHS – although his political contributions might be considered swampy by some); Carson (HUD); Chao (Transportation); Brouillette (Energy); DeVos (Education – although one is tempted to accuse her of incompetence); Wilkie (Veterans); Kelly (Homeland); Nielsen (Homeland – the family separation policy may be shameful, but it is not swampy); Lighthizer (Trade Rep); Coats (DNI – but Trump ended up dismissing him); Haley (UN Ambassador); Nauert (UN Ambassador – withdrawn); Craft (UN Ambassador); McMahon (SBA); Carranza (SBA).

Lobbyist for industry or similarly disqualified: Shanahan (Defense; lobbyist for Boeing, no known expertise – nomination withdrawn); Bernhardt (Interior – lobbyist for firms in the energy industry); Pruitt (EPA – energy industry lobbyist); Wheeler (EPA – energy industry lobbyist, although he had also worked in the EPA prior to being a lobbyist – perhaps that deserves an AND, instead); Scalia (Labor – lobbyist for Chamber of Commerce)

Appointed because they were thought to be highly compliant with President Trump’s wishes over the legal requirements of their positions: Pompeo (State; alleged to be part of the Ukraine scandal; also headed CIA, where leaks indicated he ran it as a political, rather than professional, operation); Barr (AG; displayed dubious behavior in response to the Mueller Report)

Sordid history in position: Zinke (Interior – accepted trips on private jets from entities his agency regulated; general budgetary excesses; subject of internal investigations concerning various matters, including interference with casinos); Ross (Commerce – reported to sleep through meetings); Price (HHS – resigned after criticism for using charters and military aircraft for travel); Perry (reported involvement in the Ukraine scandal; distinctively unknowledgeable and unprepared for the position); Shulkin (Veterans – dismissed for apparently lying to ethics investigators); Mulvaney (Management & Budget – reported to direct resources away from tasks he doesn’t like, admitted to quid pro quo and tried to walk it back in the Ukraine scandal); Pruitt (EPA – subject of 15+ (!) investigations for general incompetency in the position).

Just a dubious history: Puzder (Labor – nomination withdrawn; former CEO of CKE; involved in some allegedly unethical practices; on the positive side won some industry awards); Ross (Commerce – reported to have lied about his net worth prior to joining the Trump Admin); Acosta (Labor – led the infamous Jeffery Epstein Florida plea deal); Jackson (Veterans – allegations of substance abuse, proclaimed Trump having the best of health when report showed otherwise, unprepared – nomination withdrawn); Ratcliffe (DNI – found to have misrepresented his expertise – nomination withdrawn); Haspel (CIA – involved in the torture ops during the Iraq War); Mulvaney (Management & Budget – admitted he wouldn’t meet with a corporate lobbyist if they didn’t have a big check in hand)

Refused to cooperate with Congress: Mnuchin (Treasury – Trump tax returns).

The swamp is partially about influence, and President Trump’s hotel holdings are well-known to those who wish to buy his attention and compliance. Open Secrets has documented quite a lot of this, such as Saudi Arabia:

Saudi foreign agents and lobbyists came under fire for spending more than $270,000 to put up a group of veterans at Trump International Hotel. The vets were lobbying for changes to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — legislation that enabled 9/11 lawsuits against the government of Saudi Arabia — after those veterans claimed they did not know their trip had been organized and financed by the Government of Saudi Arabia.

The Bigger Picture: This, of course, lacks context. None of Trump’s officials have actually been convicted of a federal crime, but then his term, whether 4 or 8 years, has not yet come to an end, making comparisons dubious. It’s worth noting that in the Obama Administration, only General Petraeus, then serving as Director of the CIA, was convicted of a crime; the Bush II Administration saw eight of its members convicted of crimes, including Chief of Staff to the VP Scooter Libby; two in the Clinton Administration (one being child pornography, which is not swampy); the Bush I administration saw one in its 4 years of existence; and then we get to the Reagan years, which appear to be positively rife with scandal – I’m not even going to bother to count. Carter’s four years had none; Ford saw one on tax evasion; Nixon eleven, with nine for various corrupt practices related to Watergate, and including the shocking conviction of VP Agnew on tax evasion.

Related scandals not resulting in convictions? I’ll grant my memory prior to Obama is spotty, and I don’t have time to chase all of that down. But with Obama, there was very little out and out scandal beyond Petraeus that I recall. When the tragic Benghazi Incident occurred, the Republicans beat the drums concerning Secretary of State Clinton, but despite multiple hostile investigations, nothing was ever found; the only reasonable conclusion isn’t that she’s smarter than the Republicans, but that there was nothing to be found. I also recall the Fast and Furious scandal, involving AG Holder, but, again, nothing seems to have come of it.

Again, this is apples to oranges, and inferences as to how Trump compares to his Democratic and Republican predecessors is at least somewhat in the eye of the beholder.

SO … this beholder says he’s never seen so much scandal & squalor in any White House Administration, but then I’m a trifle too young to remember the Nixon Administration. That judgment began as an impression, but research for this post suggests that the swamp, if anything, has become deeper; and that campaign promise, as it progressively became more and more broken, has inspired raucous mockery among the political opposition.

For those who care about easily-kept campaign promises being, well, kept, Trump has apparently failed, and failed badly, on this one.

And, for those intent on using the easily swayed Trump for their own purposes, such as the Evangelicals and the >ahem< lobbyists, they won’t care. They’re getting what they wanted and corruption is a non-starter for them.

Sluice:

A sluice (/slus/ SLOOS; from the Dutch sluis) is a water channel controlled at its head by a gate. A mill race, leet, flume, penstock or lade is a sluice channelling water toward a water mill. The terms sluice, sluice gate, knife gate, and slide gate are used interchangeably in the water and wastewater control industry.

A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway. Sluice gates commonly control water levels and flow rates in rivers and canals. They are also used in wastewater treatment plants and to recover minerals in mining operations, and in watermills. [Wikipedia]

“I’ve said before that I’m a citizen journalist. What kind of journalist am I if I don’t rush to the front line when there is a disaster? I will use my camera to witness and document what is really happening under Wuhan’s efforts to contain the outbreak. And I’m willing to help spread the voice of Wuhan people to the outside world. While I’m here, I promise I won’t start or spread rumors. I won’t create fear or panic, nor would I cover up the truth.” – Chen Qiushi, Chinese journalist [via CNN]

Idealists envision a world better than the current world, and heap blame on the powers that be. That’s why they are often excoriated and condemned – who wants to lose their place on the ladder of power?

Last month I noted that some observers wondered if the Chinese Communist Party would be able to use their response to this epidemic to boost the Communist Party brand. Part of WaPo’s latest report suggests the answer may be inclining towards no:

The death of a healthy young doctor who tried to sound the alarm has led to an explosion of anger across China at the way its leadership responded to the outbreak, an anger that many political observers are saying represents one of the biggest challenges to the Communist Party in years.

With the party struggling to manage public reaction, a Beijing-based company, Womin Technology, quickly compiled a “public sentiment” report drawing on posts from more than 100 social media sources and submitted it, along with their recommendations, to the central leadership.

The seven-page document, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, analyzed the intensity of public outrage over Li’s death. It recommended that the party leadership “affirm” the doctor’s contributions while stepping up efforts to block harmful speech and “divert” the public’s attention with positive news.

“Hope the government can treat Chen Qiushi in a fair and just way,” one user wrote on Sunday morning. “We can no longer afford a second Li Wenliang!” …

Will this stir up anger? CNN uses suspect adjectivals:

Amid deep and boiling anger, China announced on Friday that the National Supervisory Commission — the Communist Party’s much-feared disciplinary watchdog which operates in secrecy — is dispatching a team to Wuhan to conduct a “full investigation” into [late medical doctor] Li’s case. [Li had been silenced as a rumormonger in the early days, caught the virus from one of his patients in hospital, and passed away recently.]

Deep and boiling anger is a subjective, and suspect, phrase. It may be accurate, but to me this stands out as a red flag in CNN’s report. Until China is actually caught up in revolution, and the Communists are collapsing, I wouldn’t take those adjectives too seriously.

But, while on the same page, for those folks who want strong leaders, go back and read that bit about China’s National Supervisory Commission – while “much-feared” is also subjectively adjectival, this has an air of plausibility, since even the FBI was once much-feared, when under the control of Director Hoover. There’s a good reason FBI Directors are term-limited. In the autocracy towards which President Trump leans, this is what happens, and all the guns you can put in your basement won’t help if it’s accepted that his much-feared disciplinary organization is permitted to engage in such nonsense. President Xi has known autocracy all of is life, and consequently those are the tools to which he’ll first turn.

Meanwhile, the data coming from the graphic monitoring tool from Johns Hopkins University, as of last night, now has deaths over 800 (814, as of the last refresh, and I’m not going to redo the screen capture, etc) and infections over 37,000 – if you trust the data. I don’t have an opinion on that issue, nor am I trying to spread a rumor; as a software engineer who has studied data collection issues from time to time, suspicion about data is simply a professional tool. As someone who is aware of some of the methods of autocracies, I have a persistent voice asking Why should we trust data from China? There’s already been questions raised about their economic growth numbers. Not to make my readers paranoid or anything …

While the deaths are tragic, the numbers of deaths doesn’t appear to be exploding in the way I would expect if this was an existential threat to humanity. Not that I know anything about such topics, nor do I happen to know any epidemiologists – but I would be expecting an exponential increase in the early stages, and that phenomenon doesn’t appear to be there.

Still, keep an eye on things.

One of you must be Boris Karloff! The producer promised I’d be working with him!

If you can get past Boris Karloff, noted English actor, playing a Chinese detective, then the confusing named, at least in this print, Mystery at Wentworth Castle (1940, aka the equally perplexing Doomed to Die) might be a pleasant way to pass an hour. This is not a whodunit, but rather a thriller, in which the head of a shipping company, Cyrus Wentworth, already reeling from the sudden burning and sinking of one of the line’s ships, the Wentworth Castle, with high loss of life, is shot to death virtually in front of his primary rival, Paul Fleming, as well as the rival’s son, Dick.

Dick was in the office to ask for Wentworth’s daughter in marriage, and is in the final stages of a row, being shown the door, when a gun goes off and Wentworth dies. Dick is the presumed murderer, but he’s disappeared, much to the frustration of everyone: police captain Street, who wants this case closed, reporter Roberta Logan, who wants an exclusive story, and Wentworth’s daughter, Cynthia, who cannot believe her fiancee would have shot her father. Cynthia is the one who calls in Jimmy Wong, Chinese detective, to investigate.

From here we get a tangled web: Chinese smugglers, shots fired in the dark, high technology to recover handwriting from ashes, cooking the books, lies to the police, all leading to a denouement and a killer that no one would have foreseen – because it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, and the killer’s motivations are never explored.

It’s a trifle disjointed, and the byplay between Street and Logan is forced and annoying. Definitely a mediocre effort, which is unfortunately also mildly racist with Karloff playing the Chinese detective.

But at least it was pleasant and a trifle convoluted.

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL), former Senator and former Attorney General, on the state of his political opponents:

He reminded the audience of his battles against “amnesty” and globalism; of how, despite having supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he agrees with Trump that foreign entanglements must be more carefully scrutinized; and of his prowess as a culture warrior: “Y’all know one of the biggest things in America today is whether or not that people actually believe there is a truth and a right and wrong. This crowd, this left-wing group, are socialist, they’re secularist, they believe in their revolution, and they don’t believe in tradition and order and law and the Constitution. It’s a big deal. I feel strongly about it, and if we do this thing right, the American people agree with us. Don’t you think?” Yes! came the reply from the audience. [WaPo Magazine]

Running for his old Senate seat in Alabama, he released this ad to kick off the campaign:

Out of the 100 United State Senators, I was the very first one to stand with @realDonaldTrump and I will keep fighting for him and his agenda. pic.twitter.com/Cf0tN8nzGl

— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) November 14, 2019

Jeff, you’re endorsing the viewpoint and man who doesn’t respect you, the Constitution, or truth – as demonstrated in the admission of many Republican Senators’ admission that he was, indeed, guilty as charged by the House Democrats; the point of disagreement was whether or not the crime was a high crime or not.

JBS III, I should be amazed that your head doesn’t explode from the obvious cognitive dissonance, but I’m not. The moral decay of the Republicans just makes me tired and sad. But, in all fairness, I must say that you made the proper decision when it came to recusing yourself from the Russia investigation, and for that, I thank you.

Not as much thanks as I feel is proper for Romney, Amash, and Walsh, but a small bit. Would you do it again?

I was reading about former New York City and candidate for the Democratic nod in the Presidential contest, Michael Bloomberg, in WaPo:

This is the last of my pictures from the St. Paul Winter Carnival snow sculptures. In case the pictures are not entirely clear, it’s a couple of bears fighting over a salmon:

I wish I’d seen them before they started melting. I think it was the cleverest idea presented.

I was inspired to suggest to my Arts Editor that she should enter this display (is it a competition?) next year, to which she hissed and said she loathes cold hands.

Pity.

I was trying to come up with some ideas of my own, such as a sculpture of someone working on a sculpture, or a sculpture of the Gates of Hell. Any other ideas out there?

There is certainly a class of people who, having an excess of wealth, use it to buy themselves positions within government. Oh, not directly, but through generous contributions. Many such contributions earn the contributor a small, unimportant ambassadorship. It’s almost a medal.

The now-fired Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, for example, made a $1 million contribution to the Trump Inauguration – and was sneaky about it:

Prominent Portland hotelier Gordon Sondland donated $1 million to the inauguration of President Donald Trump, records show, but didn’t use his own name. [OregonLive/The Oregonian]

Maybe that sneakiness was a plus in the eyes of Trump, or the Trump-minion that selected Sondland for the job of ambassador.

I think it’s unusual for one of the members of this class of people to get caught up in a governmental scandal, but Sondland, who appears to have little experience beyond founding and running a hotel chain, found himself in a bathtub full of scandal, as President Trump was alleged to pressure the Ukrainian President to announce an investigation of rival Presidential candidate Joe Biden in exchange for releasing military aid assigned by Congress to Ukraine. Perhaps I shouldn’t say alleged, because President Trump’s pet Republican Senators, to a large degree, admitted the facts proved the theory.

Sondland testified, first to say there was nothing there, and then, when other figures, such as Kurt Volker, testified that, no, something irregular and even illegal might have happened, he, uh, “corrected” his testimony, and let loose a flood of incriminating information.

Now that the President has been found to have not done anything so serious as to require his removal, at least according to a bunch of dependent^[1] sheep masquerading as Senators, Trump is now bent on revenge, and Sondland is among his first victims, having been fired. In typical sycophantic fashion, for it seems this is the way of this class of people, he issued a statement, part of the above CNN story, which incidentally is strongly reminiscent of Jeff Sessions’ campaign to regain his old Senatorial seat:

“I was advised today that the President intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Sondland said. “I am grateful to President Trump for having given me the opportunity to serve, to Secretary Pompeo for his consistent support, and to the exceptional and dedicated professionals at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. I am proud of our accomplishments. Our work here has been the highlight of my career.”

It’s not really an aside to observe it would appear it’s another Republican without a lick of self-respect, someone who defines themselves in terms of what their perceived superiors think of them – and here he is, being a lickspittle.

He should have enough pride to kick Trump in the teeth in his statement. It’s not like this hotelier is going to end up under a highway overpass. But this unfortunate mindset may apply to most members of the class of people of which I speak – but I don’t know any of them personally.

Getting back on track, here’s the thing: there are dueling lessons. The obvious one is that if you cross President Trump, if you violate the fealty he believes you owe him for giving you a job, you’ll pay through the nose. In fact, I liked the statement of David Pressman, the lawyer for Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who also testified in the impeachment trials as a witness to the fateful phone call, also from the CNN story:

“There is no question in the mind of any American why this man’s job is over, why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the White House,” Pressman said. “LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth. His honor, his commitment to right, frightened the powerful.”

And that lets me transition to the competing lesson, and that’s this: if you’re going to compete for some coveted government position with campaign contributions in this Administration, you should just throw away any respect you have for truth. Fealty comes before truth. Can you handle that? Are you ready to be Trump’s parrot?

And, if so, perhaps you should talk with your faith … oh, wait. Many of them are in the same class as you. Hmmmm. Well, go read some history, it’s full of examples of both those who swear total fealty, and how badly they come out, and those who prefer truth and justice.

Which doesn’t always end well for them, either, if I’m being honest. Consider what happened to that guy named Jesus.

¹ In a few cases, such as Senator Graham (R-SC), either “fearing unemployment” or “bamboozled” may also apply. But, generally, the toxic term of team politics is best.

Source: GeorgiaBeforePeople

I admit, I’m being a little hard on archaeologists in my reaction to a recent article in NewScientist (25 January 2020, paywall), “The epic ocean journey that took Stone Age people to Australia,” by Graham Lawton, concerning questions of how humans migrated 65,000 year ago from East Asia to Sahul, a prehistoric continent composed of Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania, and what is now seabed. A difficult crossing, particularly if there was little reason to think there was anything to find on the other end, …

That goes a long way to explaining why, until recently, the prevailing view was that the sea crossings between Asia and Sahul presented such an obstacle that deliberate migration was unthinkable. People must have arrived on the currents after being washed into the sea by a tsunami or flood, perhaps clinging to a mat of floating vegetation or a raft of pumice.

The striking part for me is the tendency of the scientists to assume either random chance, as above, or peaceful, cooperative ventures:

The other new line of evidence supporting a planned migration comes from Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and his colleagues. They modelled the demographics of colonisation, taking account of typical hunter-gatherer fertility rates and longevity and the ecological conditions they would have encountered after landing in Sahul. The calculations revealed that the minimum founding population was 1300 people, perhaps all at once or in smaller groups over many years, which all but rules out accidental colonisation.

The peopling of Sahul was “probably planned”, Bradshaw concludes. Bird agrees. “It is not feasible that people randomly got there,” he says. “They had to think about it and they came in large numbers.” Why they came is a different question. But the chances are they were driven by dwindling resources, or simply the lure of the unknown, says Bird.

But what is so difficult about imagining a falling out? To me, while I do not have access to the knowledge of the scientists, it’s a little hard to believe the resources of a continent were being exhausted by a comparatively light sprinkling of human bands, unless the climate, being in an ice age at the time, had put the squeeze on both meat and non-meat resources.

But conflict, aye, that’s immune to resource depletion, isn’t it? One group, a fracturing of the group over some slight that swiftly grows to existential proportions; an arbitrary and capricious religious tenet or ruling, forcing one group to submit and even face death, or escape; a disgust with the current ruling class, and rather than eliminate them, leave.

Or even an oversupply of testosterone. The explorer who finds an unknown land may have attracted mates that were scarce.

Without a written history, much less artifacts, proving these sorts of hypotheses is, of course, nearly impossible. But the things that drive humanity are not limited to resources or even mates; the madness of religion has motivated various sects of humanity to do amazing, wonderful, grotesque, and even impenetrable things.

And, reading the above article, I felt that such a possibility was being completely ignored.

Former Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL), the Republican candidate for President who opened his campaign by apologizing to the former President Obama for some of his comments during his time in the House, has closed up his campaign.

This is unsurprising, of course. Rarely does a sitting incumbent lose the primary, although some outstanding examples, such as that of Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) do come to mind – or, for that matter, Representative Joe Crowley (D-NY), upset by current Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

But Walsh’s comments are interesting in that they help confirm the pathology of the Republican Party. This comes from Walsh’s Op-Ed in WaPo, so, for my conservative readers ready to pull the liberal media lever at a moment’s notice, I’m afraid that Walsh, himself known as a far-right conservative, will not permit that interpretation.

It’s a fascinating – if morbidly so – guided tour by a conservative into what the conservative movement has become, and because of Walsh’s conservatism – naive it may be – his report has an air of authority that a journalist may not achieve, at least in the eyes of the suspicious reader.

Benjamin Wittes produces an analysis of the reasoning capabilities of the Republicans which is hardly complimentary, starting with Senator Murkowski (R-AK):

The answer is quite nonsensical. Here’s how Sen. Lisa Murkowski put it in her statement explaining her opposition to witnesses:

The House chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed. I carefully considered the need for additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings of its process, but ultimately decided that I will vote against considering motions to subpoena.

Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.

Pause a moment over the senator’s logic. She seems to be saying that because the House’s product was hasty and deficient and partisan, the Senate should punish the body by proceeding in a fashion that is hastier, more deficient, and every bit as partisan. She will vote to prevent the Senate from hearing evidence, to blind herself to information relevant to her own obligation to decide the president’s case, she says, because “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything.” It won’t change anything, that is, except whether she and her colleagues have access to more, rather than less, probative evidence on the question before them. If the House decision was hasty and partisan and left a record that is incomplete, that would seem to argue for the Senate proceeding in a fashion that was careful and deliberative, and it would seem to argue for senators to behave in a nonpartisan fashion. [Lawfare]

Or Senator Portman (R-OR):

Sen. Rob Portman was a trifle more coherent in his explanation of this point. He offered that “it sets a dangerous precedent—all but guaranteeing a proliferation of highly partisan, poorly investigated impeachments in the future—if we allow the House of Representatives to force the Senate to compel witness testimony that they never secured for themselves.”

Portman did not, unfortunately, reflect on what precedent it sets for the Senate to impose a no-new-evidence rule on the House, disabling the House from presenting at trial any evidence it did not acquire itself before impeachment. This will of course incentivize presidents (and judges) to withhold material as long as possible during impeachment investigations, thus either delaying impeachment or creating an argument for the evidence’s inadmissibility if impeachment proceeds without it.

Since the Senate did not hear testimony from any of the witnesses who did testify before the House investigation, the rule Portman endorses is really a no-witnesses-at-all rule. If a witness has testified before the House, after all, her testimony is not needed in the Senate. If not, Portman would preclude it because the House did not secure it earlier. Portman’s rule would turn the Senate into an appellate body. The Constitution, by contrast, gives the Senate the role of trying impeachments.

The icing on this ridiculous cake is the notion that hearing witnesses would take too long.

Wittes’ conclusion is their fear to tread on their “leader”:

Yes, inside the herd, life is abusive. But outside, it is very very cold and one is very exposed.

Especially when the wolves howling at the edges of the herd are under the control of the herd leader, isn’t it?

It’s hard to call just about anyone outside of Trump himself a leader in the Republican Party, and he’s so erratic and mendacious that it’s difficult to have any respect for him; consequently, the only reason the Republican Party hasn’t burned to the ground is the support of the Evangelicals, Trump’s hard core base of cultists (more in another post), and the understandable distaste of many voters to examine the political scene these days; it’s easier, and oh-so-convenient for a number of parties, foreign and domestic, for the voters, especially the independents, to just not vote.

That’s why there was some dismay within the Democratic Party at the failure of the Iowa Caucuses to attract a high turnout. A disengaged voter is more likely to vote Republican, at least in the current calculus. And what we need today is a competent Republican Party – not one that turns itself inside out trying to justify voting in accordance with Trump’s wishes.

The remains of a snow sculpture of a mouse outwitting a mouse trap at the Winter Carnival:

Rectitude:

honesty and correct moral behaviour:
An austere man of unquestioned moral rectitude, Nava inspired deep devotion in those who worked for him. [Cambridge Dictionary]

I used it in this post here. Cheeky, I know.

These are very silly, yet there’s something authentic in their movements.

Another important retort comes to mind. If you are accosted by a Trump supporter who points at their sudden economic prosperity as the reason they support President Trump, the proper response is this:

I’m sorry, but you’re using the wrong metric.

Eh? What?

The President, the head of the Executive Branch, does not bear sole responsibility for the economic prosperity of this country. In fact, the President, through the various agencies of the Executive Branch, bears the responsibility of properly implementing the laws passed by Congress, and, by his own behavior, modeling proper behavior for the citizenry: ethical, moral, compassionate, war-leader, as the need may arise.

Oh, bullshit!

No, please read the Constitution, that’s what it says. I’d say, in fact, that you, sir, are a victim of sleight-of-hand. He’s distracted you with the shiny lights of a happy bank account, taking your attention away from the long-term, but far more important, questions of whether we’re a nation of Laws, or a nation of dictators. If the latter, your bank account will not matter, unless you’re willing to snuffle up to his posterior every time he presents it, along with all his minions’ posteriors, who are quite the grisly and mendacious lot.

But, but, but ..

Which metric should be used? Sir, I think we can derive that from the office of the Executive Branch, as described in the Constitution. Are laws enforced as dictated by the Constitution? Is the military deployed and managed wisely? Are regulations chosen or discarded based on how well they serve to protect the interests of the citizenry, not the bottom lines of corporations? Is the government properly and promptly staffed? Does the President, conscious of his role, conduct himself with rectitude, displaying at all times a respect for the law, a consequently courteous engagement with Congress, and a concern for future threats to the security of the Nation, displaying leadership at all times in assessing and selecting strategies for dealing with those threats? I’m sure there are other factors, but these are substantially the core; it should be clear that the state of one’s prosperity is, at best, a minor factor in the evaluation, as the prosperity of one member of the Republic has little relation to the implementation of Justice, which is the heart of the President’s duty, so has history taught us.

Liberal!

As liberal as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other beloved figures out of history. If you believe in this Country, sir, you’ll read the Constitution, concentrating on how your bank account’s contents are the responsibility of the President, and when you realize his responsibilities are far afield from your local prosperity, then we can concentrate on evaluating how well he fulfills his true responsibilities. Thank you for clarifying my thinking on this matter, sir.

Yeah, perhaps rectitude is a bit old-fashioned.

If you’re confronted by someone yammering about how the people should be allowed to vote Trump out of office, or that impeachment is electoral theft, here’s how I hope to use my wits at that time:

Sir, let me introduce you to Ted Bundy. Are you aware of who he is? [If not, a simple explanation that he is one of the most damaging and notorious serial killers to have ever lived.]

Now, sir, it is my contention that the United States committed a grievous offense against God and Country when it executed Mr. Bundy on January 24, 1989. [The response may be variable: outrage at the implied comparison with President Trump through cool contempt at your perceived softness on crime; I think it best to dismiss their response with a simple You are wrong, sir, in your assumptions!]

For it is God’s decision, and His decision alone, when to take a human life, is it not, for he created us, and has the exclusive right when to take us from this life! [At this point, there may be sputtering, or perhaps a cool disagreement. This is good. And, yes, an agnostic, I’m mildly amused at the thought of myself in this role.]

You disagree, sir? Then explain to me, sir, in societal terms, why you believe it was right to imprison and even execute Mr. Bundy?

[At this juncture, some response along the lines of killing is bad will come out; it’ll be your duty to steer and generalize it into terms of societal damage.]

The game is up for your interlocutor.

Then, sir, if you insist I accept your reasoning for the extreme punishment of Mr. Bundy, then I shall employ it to point out that those who voted for the impeachment, conviction, and permanent removal of President Trump from all public offices have the exact same concerns – damage to our society, to our country, and, beyond Bundy, to our country’s reputation, and, in fact, to democracy itself. Law is not a game, as you have taught me here; it is, at its best, a tool for furthering our prosperity, by removing those elements who work against our stability and prosperity. The Constitution gives Congress the explicit right to make their case; to rail against them for trying to ‘steal’ an election is to deny that they have very real concerns about the country in which they live, which is to say, to deny their very Americanism. The Republicans who failed their duty, in my opinion, have openly admitted President Trump’s guilt; their fear guided them, whether of personal retribution, or failure of reelection. I thank you for teaching me this lesson.

The snark may be a bit much. Customize to fit.

Zack Beauchamp expresses understandable alarm at the failure to convict President Trump on Vox:

Donald Trump’s impeachment acquittal is a warning sign that something has gone deeply wrong in our political system. It shows a kind of subtle corruption of the law that has, in other countries, led to the decline and fall of their democratic systems in their entirety.

Senate Republicans didn’t violate the Constitution’s rules for holding an impeachment trial. They adhered fairly reasonably to the letter of the law and can credibly claim they did all that was legally required of them. But this was a sham trial, one whose outcome was never seriously in doubt. By following the formal rules, Senate Republicans gave this fiction a veneer of formal legitimacy. All of them, with the brave exception of Mitt Romney, weaponized the letter of the law against its spirit.

This kind of corrupt legalism is a common practice among ruling parties in democracies that have fallen into autocracy. That these regimes contain the most direct parallels to what’s just happened in America makes clear the precise way in which our democracy is under attack. We should not fear a coup or seizure of authoritarian emergency powers, but a slow hollowing-out of our legal system to the point where the people no longer have meaningful control over their leaders.

First, let’s acknowledge that Zack and Vox are over on the left side of political spectrum; I doubt that any publications over on the right side, unless they of the NeverTrumper variety, would express similar sentiments.

But after that, let’s talk about political systems and what makes them likely to succeed or fail. It’s popular to talk about the structure of political systems, especially the American system, how the various parts balance and monitor each other, etc etc. Designing a stable political system is a fascinating theoretical exercise for a certain class of people. I’ve never really indulged, but I can feel the pull.

But often omitted from this discussion is people, the meat of the system, if you’ll permit a slightly disturbing expression. In my experience, a political system functions best when the vast majority of the citizenry believes both the letter and the spirit of the political system is best for them and gives them the best opportunity for prosperity.

But just as importantly, the deviance of those on the political ladder correlates with the malfunctioning of the political system in direct correlation with their height up that ladder. That is, the more important the political leader – say, Senator Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) – who views the current political system with little or no reverence, to borrow a term, the more that political system is likely to malfunction.

So I think Beauchamp is guilty of a slight error when he faults the political system. Honestly, and much to the dismay of a number of observers, theoreticians, and not a few software engineers, the system doesn’t matter if the people, up and down the ladder of power, are not behind it^[1].

And the evidence that an important class of political leaders, namely nearly the entire Republican Senate, as well as the Republican House membership, has lost their reverence for the political system, as set forth in the Constitution, is clear and apparent to the observer willing to put aside their prejudices. Only Representative Amash, who resigned from the GOP, and Senator Romney of Utah voted for impeachment and conviction, respectively, and made clear statements of how the actions of President Trump were wrong on a tremendous scale.

Their Party colleagues, when push came to shove, even admitted Trump’s activities were criminal, but with little to no explanation claimed they didn’t meet the bar of high crimes. They’ve lost their reverence for the political system they are sworn to uphold.

There is no legal punishment for this sort of mass failure of a political party; they can only be voted out of power by an outraged citizenry. We can only hope the Democrats are capable of ably communicating this meltdown in the Republicans to a citizenry that is very busy and highly distractable. We’ll find out in November. And if they’re not, then the citizenry will be getting what it deserves. Maybe a little more prosperity, but at the cost of their political freedom and a future of leading the world. The United States will become another failed experiment in the difficult art of governance.

¹ Which, not incidentally, is why nation-building doesn’t depend on the competency of the first nation in the process of “gifting” the second nation with democracy, but on the willingness of the populace of the second nation to espouse democracy.

I see that Mitt Romney is the only Republican Senator to vote for conviction today in the finale of President Trump’s impeachment trial. I heard part of his statement on the radio on the way home from work, and I thought it was honest and accurate – and should put the balance of the Republican Senators to shame.

And, yes, I’m disappointed that a few more of those Republican Senators, particularly Collins and Murkowski, didn’t join Romney in seeing the case and the evidence as being strong enough to vote for conviction. After all, the defensive wall of the Republicans has now become, Yes, he did bad things, but they’re not bad enough. From No he didn’t to I don’t care! is a long way to fall, isn’t it?

Yes, I know that I’ve said I think this is part of Pelosi’s November strategy, and that she will encourage the Democrats to wield this as a club against every Republican incumbent up for reelection next November – and every Republican challenger who clings to Trump like a lamprey to a fish. But it’s not as if Pelosi tricked the Republicans into this dishonorable position. Trump was neither forced nor enticed, but instead took positive steps into the land of political corruption. Pelosi, after due consideration, brought the inquiry, had her committees conduct them, and then had the articles passed.

The evidence was clear, even without the witnesses. The Republican Senators, as did the Republican Representatives before them, had every opportunity to behave with honor, to take governance seriously. They didn’t.

And that’s why I’m feeling down. It’s not that the conviction effort failed; I’ve known it would. It’s the failure of virtually all Republicans to clear the high bar of behavior that was thrown up to challenge them. Indeed, just about all of them seem to have stooped to make sure they didn’t touch the bar as they slipped under. That sad commentary on a once legitimate political party – which still enjoys an unwarranted amount of support in the citizenry – is what depresses me.

Romney, today, joins Amash as men who, while I may disagree with them on governmental matters, have my esteem for evaluating the President and his actions, finding them desperately wanting, and taking the strongest possible action to stem it. My hat is off to those two men.

Sheesh. This is just plain silly, and an indictment of the Republicans all on its lonesome:

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is running for reelection in Kentucky. So why is he running TV ads in Florida?

Like most everything in Republican politics, the answer has to do with one person: President Donald Trump.

With Trump planning to go to his Mar-a-Lago club for Super Bowl weekend, Massie, a four-term Kentucky congressman, is purchasing TV advertising time in South Florida on the president’s favorite channel, Fox News. Massie’s goal: Communicate to the president that his Republican primary challenger, attorney Todd McMurtry, is a “Trump hater.”

The libertarian-minded Massie has broken with Trump on an array of key issues, which McMurtry has highlighted repeatedly since launching his campaign earlier this month. But Massie’s new commercial aims to turn the tables on McMurtry, who is branding himself as a staunch Trump ally in lockstep with the president ahead of the May 19 primary. [Politico]

Well, how bad is it?

Telling the truth is dangerous to one’s career, apparently. If you’re Republican.

But it really goes further. An elided point is that we’re now substituting fealty to Trump, as Politico puts it, for positions and competency. Just about any voter knows that candidates have positions, while long-time readers know that, in my view, competency in office is an important part of any candidate’s resume, a facet that is in danger of extinction within the toxic team politics of the Republican Party.

In other words, it hardly matters how much you’ve fouled up your life prior to your run for office. Swear fealty to Trump in sufficiently towering terms and that’s apparently good enough to get you into office, at least for the Republican Party base, just so long as you haven’t spat on Trump – or are really willing to, uh, abase yourself. Even if you’ve advocated for abortion rights, don’t despair: Trump was once in favor of abortion rights, and probably still is, if truth were to be told.

But truth hardly ever passes his lips, does it?

Over the last few days, the rate at which deaths are occurring as the Wuhan coronavirus spreads has increased, but not by a great deal, with 426 dead as of this writing, but an infection count of 20,500+ – the vast majority in China. We’re also not seeing reports of young, fundamentally healthy people dying, so that’s another red flag that remains conspicuous by its absence.

However, this WaPo report is interesting:

The new cornovirus outbreak appears to be growing exponentially at its epicenter in Wuhan, China, according to scientists, who cautioned that only limited modeling is possible with current data.

This doesn’t mean an increase in deaths and death rates is in our future, though, as the article points out. It’s possible that it’ll only kill the vulnerable, and just be another infection for the rest of us.

I wonder how this decision will go over with the Pakistanis:

Pakistan announced Sunday that it will not evacuate hundreds of Pakistani students from Wuhan, China, despite desperate appeals to bring them home.

Pakistan’s ambassador to China, Naghmana Hashmi, told local television outlet Geo News that the decision was made because Pakistan lacks the medical facilities needed to treat anyone who contracts the virus and, ultimately, to contain its spread.

About 800 Pakistani students in Wuhan are registered with the embassy, and four are confirmed to have the virus, Hashmi said.

Hannah Ritchie of Our World In Data has published a chart illustrating where carbon costs of food production are highest, based on food type:

As it says in small print on the right side, just above the Beef line, “Transport emissions are very small for most food products.” In fact, once the food is off the farm, carbon costs drop:

I see the GOP is gnashing its teeth for revenge:

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst warned Sunday that Republicans could immediately push to impeach Joe Biden over his work in Ukraine as vice president if he wins the White House.

“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” Ernst said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him.’” [Bloomberg]

Skipping over all the GOP arguments about impeachment being weaponized, hypocrisy, etc., if the scenario comes up, I suggest that Speaker Pelosi, assuming the Democrats retain the House, grant them their request – give them their impeachment inquiry.

See, the Republicans have clearly lost their way. They’re desperate to be seen as legit, and that’s by making the Democrats seem just as dirty and incompetent as themselves.

And if the Democrats stomp them without an inquiry on the question of whether or not Biden should be impeached, then they can squeal about how they never got a chance to prove their case.

If the Democrats sweetly smile and give them an impeachment inquiry, then we can all be sure that Biden was not acting on his son’s behalf, but rather on the behalf of the Western nations and their drive to rid Ukraine of corruption.

An inquiry stains nothing. Secretary of State Clinton has been investigated enough times that we can feel fairly confident she’s free of any scandals, no matter how much Trump howls about her. She beat him and he knows it – he won by a quirk of electoral politics.

And we can watch the Republican third-raters twist in the wind some more if they want to start digging around on Biden.