Monthly Archives: November 2020

I can only say that, whatever the results, I’m deeply disappointed nearly half the country. They chose to vote for a President, and his enablers, who is, quite frankly, a chronic liar, cheat, and terrible human being. They did so in preference to a candidate who is widely acknowledged to be a deeply decent man, well-informed on matters relevant to the Executive, with an able backup in Harris.

I don’t say this as a partisan. Not only am I an independent, I have never felt this way before. Romney, McCain, Bush, Dole, Bush, Reagan … those were policy elections. I would certainly disagree over policy, but that’s expected, because governing is hard. If they won, they won, and I wished them well.

When it’s an election over morality, the decision should be easy. Every Trump voter, every voter who voted for a Republican who has supported Trump, failed the simple test of morality.

And it’s a damn shame. But, if Joe Biden is indeed elected, then he and Kamala Harris can spend two years demonstrating responsible governance. They and the House can formulate policies to benefit the American public, especially those who didn’t vote for them, and then dare the Senate to reject the.

And then comes – sigh – 2022.

They should have thought of that before they went there to do research:

When scientists discover a new species, they are allowed to make up its binomial (Latin) name. This results in interesting names, like Scaptia beyonceae, a horse fly that was named after Beyonce, or Laboulbenia quarantenae, which got its name because it was discovered during quarantine. Scientists from Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK, decided to keep it simple and name one of the species of myxobacteria after where they found it. The only problem: it was found in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, giving this species the name Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis. [Massive Science]

No offense to my Welsh readers, but I didn’t want to study that microbe anyways.

Long-time readers may remember my loathing for voting machines, and that I’d prefer to see a legion of volunteers doing the counting manually. This Politico report changes my opinion not a whit:

“We’re going to wind up with a thousand court cases that cannot just be resolved by just going into the software and checking to see what happened, because it’s proprietary,” said Ben Ptashnik, the co-founder of the National Election Defense Coalition, a bipartisan advocacy group that pushes Congress to reform election security.

In most elections, the intellectual-property laws that surround the machinery of America’s electoral system prove inconsequential in determining who won or lost a campaign, and software isn’t central to most contested-election scenarios, such as late-arriving ballots or issues with access to polling locations. But in instances where the vote tally itself is in question, analysts could need access to voting machines’ underlying code to determine if potential security flaws, errors or even purposeful tampering are behind the irregularities. And this year, with widespread fears of contested ballots, recounts and the potential for weeks of legal challenges that threaten to undermine public faith in the results, those IP laws could prove decisive.

“You know how Apple fights against law enforcement coming in and going into their iPhone software? Well, you’d be in the same position,” said Ptashnik. “You might have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get permission to get into proprietary software.”

Even if we had access to the hardware and software for full inspection, it’d not really be enough. Proving software is correct is a difficult proposition, and in all likelihood these companies aren’t using languages that lend themselves to automated proofs.

Hardware is it’s own ugly game.

As are backdoors in both realms.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: People are adders, computers are multipliers. Sure, people can be corrupted – but we know, or knew, how to keep a vote uncorrupted. A single counter can only affect a few votes, and a little redundancy will catch them at their game. At higher levels, it’s a matter of keeping an eye on management – and that’s what party lawyers can do.

But it’s a rare party lawyer who can say This machine is miscounting!

Pronk:

When fleeing from a predator, gazelles often perform a distinctive stiff-legged vertical leap known as “pronking” or “stotting.” This can seem strange, since these high bounces into the air make the gazelle more visible to predators, and also take up time and energy that could be dedicated to faster, more direct movement away from their pursuer. …

Scientists have considered several possible explanations for this, such as alerting other members of their herd to the danger or trying to avoid an ambush in tall grass. Research on Thomson’s gazelles, however, suggests pronking is a form of communication from gazelles to their predators. It may be a behavior known in evolutionary biology as an “honest signal,” in which a gazelle leaps to show off its own general fitness, potentially discouraging the predator by demonstrating how hard it will be to catch. [“8 Facts You Might Not Know About Gazelles,” Russell McLendon, Treehugger]

Ambitious Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) may have just thrown away his shot at the White House – or even keeping his Senator’s seat in purplish Florida:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at last night's rally on the Texas Trump caravan that menacingly surrounded Biden bus:

"We love what they did, but here's the thing they don't know: We do that in Florida every day. I love seeing the boat parades … We thank all the great patriots…" pic.twitter.com/kRaLcW60jn

— The Recount (@therecount) November 2, 2020

The danger of playing to your base is alienating all those other voters, and this is an alienating move.

2022 is not far enough away for voters, or opponents, to forget about this endorsement of an act of intimidation.

As anyone paying attention knows, there are concerns that Trump will attempt to delay or confuse the vote counting in various states, in a far-fetched attempt to steal the election. He’s also expressed disinterest in a peaceful transfer of power if he loses.

So let’s setup a scenario here.

As is probable, let’s assume Democrat Mark Kelly wins the special election in Arizona.

Fairly improbably, but possible, Democrat Rafael Warnock wins the special election in Georgia.

Special election winners are seated immediately. This brings the Senate to 51-49 before Jan 21 – probably well before it.

And then there’s a new corruption scandal on the horizon – which will be known as the influence peddling scheme concerning the Turkish bank Halkbank:

If the New York Times’s story about the Justice Department’s handling of the case of a Turkish bank—and President Trump’s interference in that case—had broken any other week, it would be a very big deal. A week before the election, with the country inured to the president’s propensity to abuse law enforcement power, it has barely merited a yawn.

The case is worth your time.

Recall that back in June, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, was dismissed abruptly under somewhat confusing circumstances. Attorney General William Barr announced that Berman had stepped down from his position—only for Berman himself to deny having resigned. Berman then refused to leave until President Trump himself issued a letter firing him, after which Berman announced that he would depart from his job with the expectation that his deputy would “continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence.” The strange chain of events, including why the attorney general was so eager to be rid of the U.S. attorney, has never been fully explained. [Lawfare]

Suppose, at 51-49, Trump is being recalcitrant and pulling his usual bully shit. Speaker Pelosi, with an even larger majority incoming (but not seated) than before, calls up Senator Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader (R-KY), who will probably survive reelection, and lays it out:

1. Trump is shredding our nation.
2. Trump is destroying the Republican Party.
3. Trump is selling influence (see Halkbank, above), which reflects poorly on the Republican Party as well, especially with 2022 already on the horizon.

What to do about it?

Lightning impeachment. Seventeen Republican Senators is a long ways to go, but it’s not as improbable as it seems.

Impeachment articles can be drawn up in a hurry, if Pelosi so wishes it. They can be delivered to the Senate within a day or two. SCOTUS cannot save President Trump, only the Senate GOP members can save him.

And many of them are not happy with him. They see fellow Party members voting against him. And against them.

And some of the incumbents, besides those already lost in Arizona and Georgia, will also have lost, such as Perdue (also of Georgia – it’s the two-fer state), Gardner (R-CO), Daines (R-MT), Ernst (R-IA), Robertson (R-KA – he’s retiring, actually, but having nothing to lose but his Party, he may still be interested), and Graham (R-SC), all looking for revenge on the failure in the White House. In the Senate until Jan 21, it’s entirely possible that they, and a few Senators who were not up for reelection, just might be willing to turn on the Curse of the Republican Party.

So perhaps McConnell twists some arms, collects some promises – and then he, House Minority Leader Senator Schumer (R-NY), and Pelosi, after some horse-trading, compose a letter telling Trump to peacefully cooperate or face immediate dismissal.

A long-shot? Sure! But speculating about the possible is part of what gets me through these tension-filled times. And it would be quite entertaining if it came down to actual impeachment.

The senior Republican Party attorney, Benjamin Ginsberg, remarking on frenzied claims of voting fraud:

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I’ve worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered.

The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn’t exist. [WaPo]

If anyone would know, he would. I always like retrograde opinions from knowledgeable people.

David French, a NeverTrumper, discovers the pleasures of being a political independent:

On the surface, this feels like a hard road to walk in a highly polarized time. And it can be. There’s an immense comfort in a sense of political belonging, especially if you live in a deep-blue or deep-red region. It can be personally difficult to chart a different path.

But there are deep rewards. First, it liberates you from uncomfortable and destructive associations and arguments. While the Bible promises Christians that they’ll face challenges and sometimes-fierce opposition in their lives, it is vastly better to face opposition for the things you actually believe and the values you actually hold rather than being forced to align with an ideological and political “package” you do not want to purchase.

Second, it opens up opportunities for unlikely friendships and unexpected relationships. It changes your posture towards the world to one that welcomes allies case-by-case. It cultivates a posture of openness and fellowship.

Simply by being an independent, one can influence friends, even strangers, who’ve retreated into Party membership and partisanship. But you must be prepared with sophisticated arguments, willingness to concede points, an open mind for new knowledge, and a thoughtful demeanor. But then, being an independent means building your own opinions and your own definitions of acceptance.

For the partisan who has been having doubts on either side of the line, being an independent is a viable course that lets you keep your intellectual integrity intact. It means that you and I don’t have to vote for someone whose competency is in doubt, just because they’ve been picked by the Party; it means I can consider the universe of choices and pick the one that I think will be best for their desired position for the term.

It’s good to see an influential former straight-line Republican voter evolve a more sophisticated approach to being a citizen – and implicitly reject team politics.

Some ornamental cabbage from a couple of weeks ago.

Probably gone now.

When you get that first uncomfortable feeling that you’ll soon need full access to the bathroom. Remember the lawyer dude in Jurassic Park?

Monster Island (2019) may not have had any real discernible theme, certainly no stars, and not even Godzilla, and yet this story of what a hard driving marine mining entrepreneur discovers on the floor of the ocean, amidst the manganese nodules he seeks, is unexpectedly charming.

And what does he find? A kaiju, a monstrously huge, tentacled, fiery creature that traps the mining CEO and the crew of their submersible craft when they investigate the sudden disappearance of their remotely controlled probe. As they ride out their situation, the Australian Coast Guard intervenes via ship and submarine, much to the woe of the Coast Guard, the kaiju – and its young.

But the miners are not without craft, seeking to find ways to destroy their foe. But when an attempt goes awry in unforeseen ways, a government inspector, along for the ride, who happens to be a geomythologist – a rather neat portmanteau – suggests bringing in an expert on kaiju myths, who directs them to Monster Island.

Because that’s where the kaiju killer … exists.

It all sounds silly, and some of it is. For quite a while, nary an Australian accent is to be heard. The physics and the biology beg for hoots of laughter. The reclusive expert on myths is given some bad dialogue. And, yet, it’s an earnest, almost charming, movie. Given a set of ridiculous assumptions about kaiju in the world, it quite calmly follows the logic, both physical and emotional, to its end point. It doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice a character to emphasize the serious situation in which they find themselves. The characters change in believable ways, and, even more importantly, they’re not cardboard cutouts. My personal favorite is the grizzled French captain of the rental boat used by the miners for transporting their, for he has a fine gift of subtle sarcasm.

The story comes to an abrupt end, in fact such an abrupt end that I wonder if they ran over-budget and had to prematurely terminate what could have been a truly messy kaiju fight. But if you’re in the mood for some big monsters trodding the boards, as it were, you may enjoy this uneven effort.

I know I’d watch a sequel.

In physics, a half-life is the time it takes half of a homogenuous group of unstable atoms to decay.. But in society? Take a guess as to how much longer the QAnon phenomenon to be, well, half way to disappearing.

Yeah, I don’t know, either. But if you guessed around maybe five more years – it first appeared in October 2017 – I think you’re way short of the mark, in light of this article by Amarnath Amarasingam and Marc-André Argentino on conspiracy theorists:

Rationalization is now seen by researchers as the most important factor in whether a group survives prophetic failure. Groups can do this in at least four ways:

1. Spiritualization: the group states that what was initially thought of as a visible, real-world occurrence did happen, but it was something that took place in the spiritual realm.
2. Test of Faith: the group states that the prophecy was never going to happen, but is in fact a test of faith: a way for the “divine” to weed out true believers from those unworthy.
3. Human Error: the group argues that it’s not the case that the prophecy was wrong, but that followers had read the signs incorrectly.
4. Blame others: the group argues that they themselves never stated that the prophecy was going to happen, but that this was how outsiders interpreted their statements.

The third strategy—reaffirmation—is also one used by several groups discussed in previous research. In this approach, the group brushes aside the failure of prophecy and reaffirms the value of the group, the benefits of membership, and doubles down on the importance of their journey on the path of truth. [Religion Dispatches]

As a big rationalizer myself – in common with most of humanity, I suspect – as well as an investor, this makes sense. Once that initial substantial investment is made, whether it’s a financial matter or a belief system, it’s hard, so hard to walk away. From social prestige within the group to the simple belief that you are privy to secret knowledge, QAnon has several features that attract and hold believers.

And will so continue, frantically rationalizing, no matter how many QAnon promises and prophecies fail. It’s much like the charismatic sect leader who proclaims the failure of his prophecy means his followers have prayed away disaster. It’s ridiculous, but nearly all of his, or her, sect members will buy it with hardly a blink. The alternative, of course, is to think themselves fools.

Based on this reading and experience with hard core believers of other conspiracy theories – and I include religious sects in that list for analytical reasons – I will guess QAnon will hang on for at least twenty years.

And possibly as many as fifty years.

For the next five years, they will be a potent force. We will soon have a QAnon believer in Congress, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple more are elected in 2022. After five years of lunacy, incompetency, and failed QAnon promises, though, I expect QAnon will start a long, long slide into oblivion. Hopefully, no one will be killed because of any associated ravings.

First and foremost for most Trump-gaggers has been then assault on American democracy by Trump and the merry band of gerrymanderers and voter suppression teams that preceded him. But there are other worries, such as the assault on the balance between religious “freedom” (is it a freedom to inflict one’s beliefs on another via the legal system?) and the secular system deriving from the Establishment Clause. Or the disregard of science when its conclusions were not politically convenient. Towards these two, the Center for Inquiry (CFI), a free-thinkers organization, has developed a handy timeline and published it for all. Naturally, CFI’s peculiar concerns play a part in such a timeline, but I tend to consider that all to the good. To the right, I present just a portion of the timeline, without working links. If you’re looking for a handy summation of just how much Trump was manipulated by the right – or, if you prefer, how much he championed their causes, earnestly or not – this is a good place to start.