Monthly Archives: December 2021

In response to a retirement interview with Dr. Francis Collins as head of the National Institutes of Health, Steve Benen soberly assesses failures in philosophy:

Senator Grassley (R-IA) had best stick to his assertions of being good physical shape, because his moral shape is, well, rather bent:

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans aren’t shy about laying out how they’d handle a nomination from Biden if they take the majority [in 2022]: They wouldn’t.

“You know what the rule is on that,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “You go back to 1886 and ever since then, when the Senate’s been of one party and the president’s been of another party, you didn’t confirm.”

There is no such rule.

Senate Republicans have invoked a number of what they call “rules” in recent years to explain, for example, refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, the now-attorney general who was Obama’s choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, or their rushing to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s choice to replace Ginsburg.

But the then-Democratic majority Senate voted to confirm President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Anthony Kennedy in 1988 and President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of David Souter in 1990 and Clarence Thomas in 1991, all while Grassley was in the Senate. Back then, the Judiciary Committee chairman was a senator from Delaware named Joe Biden.[CNN/Politics]

Senator Grassley, aged 83, is up for reelection in 2022 for another six year term. This out and out lie represents an opportunity for Democrat and Republican alike, if the latter assess that they dare, to take chunks out of the Senator’s campaign. Independent voters don’t like liars.

There’s little to stop whoever wins the Democratic nomination for the seat to use this as a weapon.

For the Republicans, this is a little more complex. If Grassley is endorsed by President Trump, and it would not be surprising if this happens, seeing that Grassley has been firmly wrapped around the former President’s knees in his sad-faced supplication to the head of the GOP, then the would-be nominee would be risking the wrath of Trump and the MAGA cult.

But the power & prestige of being a Senator might outweigh the risk, no?

And Grassley’s defense? No, it’s true, it’s true! is refuted by simple facts on the ground, as CNN provides a few. A complete statistical analysis would simply complete the unstoppable attack on him.

And I forgot and I was confused simply suggest either imminent dementia, intolerable in a Senator, or self-serving mendacity, similarly distasteful.

While the Republican candidates may be hesitant to use this spear on the old liar, I suspect the Democrats are busy, even now, planning the campaign messaging. Whether the Republican base will pay attention, I don’t know, but if Grassley survives the primary, then he should face an irate Independent segment of voters. It’s just part of the messaging.

A hoot:

Especially in view of this research finding from NewScientist (4 December 2021, paywall):

As many as seven in 10 cryptocurrency trades on the world’s most popular but unregulated exchanges may be people buying from themselves to artificially inflate prices, according to a new analysis.

A study of 29 cryptocurrency exchanges, where people buy and sell the virtual currencies, undertaken between July and November 2019 has found significant volumes of “wash trading” within cryptocurrencies. Wash trading is where an investor sells and buys the same asset to create artificial interest in an investment, often distorting the price.

The analysis looked at how four of the most popular cryptocurrencies – bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple – were traded on the exchanges. On the exchanges that are regulated, the researchers found little evidence of wash trading. However, on those that were unregulated, they found that wash trading is likely to be widespread.

That distortion makes forecasts of future value of these forms of cryptocurrencies more or less impossible in my book. It also suggests the unscrupulous are attracted to the unregulated nature of cryptocurrencies, the lack of governmental overview that appears to be a design characteristic of these digital artifacts.

Buyer beware.

Eyes up, dude. That volcano’s face isn’t down there!

Woman In The Woods (2020) is a PSA: It serves to remind us that when the gods engage in love, hatred, and whatever other emotions are peculiar to the divine class of beings, they act as grinding stones to the mere mortals that roam the world. Jason, whose father was Filipino and has recently passed away, decides to travel to The Philippines in search of that which haunted his father, who was forever regretful at leaving his homeland. A bit of a whiner, and with his father’s voice echoing – literally – in his head, Jason tentatively invades the forest, hoping to get its essence and, uh, get out.

But, instead, he encounters a woman. Clad in animal skins, an unfamiliar language, and an impenetrable attitude, an attitude not even pierced by the arrow hanging out of her hip, Jason is bewildered and, perhaps, a little frightened by her. But when she collapses, he scoops her up and hauls her off to the local witch doctor, or at least someone who knows how to pull out an arrow and see the impossible, whose name I forget. She tells him a tale of a local volcano god, at fierce odds with another god who killed her lover, and, maybe he should take this woman to the volcano.

Across the forbidding strait, of course. But we’re off on the adventure, from railcar to foot to boat, dodging gods and minions and the love-smitten. Will Jason get her up the volcano’s lip? Is that even his goal?

The whining bothered me, because whining bothers me. But the storytellers are admirable in the paucity of information they dispense, and the pace at which they do. The acting and story both feel organic, and at least one monster was both sublime, in the Burkean sense, and creepy creepy creepy.

I won’t quite recommend it, but it’s interesting and very good. If you’re in the mood for something a bit off-kilter, this is worth a go.

And remind me not to fall in love with any goddesses.

It’s rather like having a thief steal years off your life.

On December 9th, an acute remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability was reported in the Apache logging package Log4j 2 versions 2.14.1 and below (CVE-2021-44228).

Apache Log4j is the most popular java logging library with over 400,000 downloads from its GitHub project. It used by a vast number of companies worldwide, enabling logging in a wide set of popular applications.

Exploiting this vulnerability is simple and allows threat actors to control java-based web servers and launch remote code execution attacks.

The Log4j library is embedded in almost every Internet service or application we are familiar with, including Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, Minecraft and more.

At present most of the attacks focus on the use of a cryptocurrency mining at the expense of the victims, however under the auspices of the noise more advanced attackers may act aggressively against quality targets. [Check Point Blog]

[Bold mine]

Stealing CPU cycles to mine for the tokens specific to crypto – it reflects the greed associated with currency, at least to my mind.

Affinity maturation:

In immunology, affinity maturation is the process by which T_FH cell-activated B cells produce antibodies with increased affinity for antigen during the course of an immune response. With repeated exposures to the same antigen, a host will produce antibodies of successively greater affinities. A secondary response can elicit antibodies with several fold greater affinity than in a primary response. Affinity maturation primarily occurs on surface immunoglobulin of germinal center B cells and as a direct result of somatic hypermutation (SHM) and selection by T_FH cells. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Covid booster shots are pushing protection to unexpected heights,” Clare Wilson, NewScientist (4 December 2021):

Several other vaccines require three doses, such as the one against the liver infection hepatitis B. Giving sequential doses takes advantage of the fact that when we repeatedly encounter a pathogen or vaccine, our antibody-making cells undergo a process called “affinity maturation”.

Our antibodies are made by immune cells called B-cells, and during affinity maturation, these multiply within the body’s lymph nodes while undergoing mutations. Only the B-cells that make the best antibodies survive and replicate, so as a result, their progeny make ever-stronger antibodies. “With other infections, the third booster protects you for longer and also gives you antibodies that have higher affinity,” says [Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia, UK]

The outrage over Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) rejection of the Build Back Better legislation, President Biden’s (D) signature infrastructure proposal, has caused palpable outrage in the political world, not only for the rejection, but for his style of rejection.

After Democrats worked with Manchin in good faith for several months, he didn’t just kneecap them yesterday, he did so without class. Instead of picking up the phone and letting Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer know about his decision, Manchin waited until yesterday morning — less than an hour before his on-air appearance — to have an aide let party leaders know.

He then announced his opposition to the bill on Fox News — a network closely affiliated with Republican politics — after reportedly turning down a phone call from the White House. [Maddowblog]

In politics, style can be as important as substance – and nearly as meaningful. That Manchin rejected the latest may sound final, but it doesn’t have to be. It can simply be a message, to everyone, that the proposal isn’t acceptable. That message goes to the negotiating partner, to his constituents, to the Republicans, and it can be highly nuanced, depending on the politician. Manchin is not inexperienced, and one of his icons is reportedly the late Senator Byrd (D-WV), a well known veteran of the political scene, who had a reputation for bringing Federal money to West Virginia.

But the style of delivery of the message, on Fox News, is problematic. The right wing news outlet, well known for its support of President Trump and his lies, is an appalling outlet to use. Preferring it over a phone call from the White House, if true, is … insulting.

But does Manchin understand the fallout that may come of this maneuver? It was long understood before 2020 that Manchin had the potential to hold the balance of power in the Senate, so it’s no surprise that he’s the one with the hammer, but if he’s showing his true colors at this moment, he may find his influence in the Senate sharply limited after this incident. After all, who on the Democratic side of the aisle wants to work with a Democratic colleague who led the President on and on – and then announced his rejection of a signature chunk of legislation via a news outlet of problematic legitimacy? If Manchin has pet projects – and Senators often do – he may find himself stymied in his own ambitions.

A vengeful Senator might even find some manner, unknown to me, for putting a metaphorical knife into Manchin’s back.

Erick Erickson, as I’ve noticed is his habit of late, wants to read the total destruction of the Democrats into this incident:

The problem is people like Joe Manchin do not live in perpetual 2020 outrage. He lives in West Virginia and Build Back Better is not popular there. The Democrats tried to construct a package that could be passed by fifty senators and a tie breaking vote from the most unpopular Vice President in decades. They simple assumed a congressional majority meant they could do as they pleased, but congress is made up of individuals and individuals have individual agendas. The Democrats have gotten so used to mob politics, they forgot individuals and their agendas matter in Congress.

It was all terrible politics. One man did not stop the Biden agenda. Fifty-one individual senators did. The Democrats believed their press, believed in the righteousness of their cause, and believed they could ram through a social revolution without ever having to entertain the opinions of fifty senators with an “R” next to their names.

This was never going to work out well for them. That they staked all of Biden’s presidency to it was and is political malpractice. The Democrats have gotten really bad at politics. I can only conclude it is because they truly have forgotten they’re playing politics and really think they are trying to save a nation, as their press fans say. That may sound high minded. But a party the voters actually mostly rejected in 2020 can’t be the one to save the nation. And also, the nation doesn’t think it needs saving. It thinks it needs cheaper gas, cheaper groceries, and a return to normalcy.

While the popularity of the legislation in West Virginia is debatable – I’ve seen numbers as high as 60% in favor and as low as 38%, but nothing particularly recent – Erickson’s completely confused about who stopped the legislation. It was one Party plus one Senator. The words of Senator McConnell, wherein any victory for Democrats must be denied, regardless of the cost, seals the deal.

Kevin Drum is puzzled:

Manchin wanted a “clean” bill. That is, a bill that included a smaller number of program but funded them permanently. The irony is that this is literally what every single liberal analyst wanted too. Lefties and centrists all agreed that this would be best, since permanent programs can be designed better and are much harder for Republicans to cancel down the line.

And yet that was apparently never on the table. Why? Because analysts may have loved the idea but politicians hated it. It would have meant killing all but two or three programs, and it was impossible to get agreement within the Democratic caucus about which ones to keep. Everyone had their own pet program.

So there you have it. If we had done it Manchin’s way, we would have kept his vote and we probably would have gotten a better bill out of it. I wonder why this was so impossible?

Because getting everyone back on board takes time and resources. Something was hacked together that got approval from most Senators and House members – you don’t throw away that effort because of one Senator.

Except maybe they should have.

Politico reports a counter-offer from Manchin:

Joe Manchin has some advice for fellow Democrats: rebuild Build Back Better and you might still get my vote.

One day after sinking President Joe Biden’s signature social and climate spending legislation, Manchin (D-W.Va.) laid out a path forward that could take months and still fail. He wants the legislation to go through Senate committees and focus on rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts. He also wants Democrats to stop trying to force him into compliance.

“I knew what they could and could not do. They just never realized it, because they figure surely to God we can move one person. Surely, we can badger and beat one person up,” Manchin said on West Virginia MetroNews, his first response to the blowback he’s taken from the White House and Democrats for tanking Biden’s signature legislation.

My guess is that something will get passed in late January, or nothing will. Much later than that and Senators will be tied up in the politics and schedules of re-election campaigns, and while any given Senator running for re-election is unlikely to be unseated, in view of the advantage of incumbency, they do have to make the effort or risk an upset.

So this legislation will simply melt away if we get into February or March. If that happens, Manchin’s reputation with his fellow Democrats may also swirl down the drain – thus making his influence nearly zero within his own Party.

Here’s the barely-not-zero percent wildcard possibility: Support for Build Back Better from a Republican Senator.

Suppose a Republican Senator looking at re-election chances that are trending poorly decides they need a boost. While it’s easy enough to attempt to horn in on claiming the benefits of a bill that they didn’t actually vote for, which has been documented by House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and others, actually voting for a bill that brings benefits to one’s state will greatly solidify those claims – not to mention solidify the reputation with voters for being sensible.

I don’t expect this to happen, as most GOP Senators are too limited to think of such a possibility, but it’s not completely outside of the realm of possibility. That is, it has one toe still in the circle, but only one.

But if that Senator bore a grudge against Senator Manchin, too ….

“The mushrooms are so dirty it’ll require a colonoscopy to clean them.”
– The Arts Editor

Fun with mud:

Mario Cucinella Architects and Wasp, Italy’s leading 3D printing company, have completed the first house to be 3D-printed from raw earth. The process coined Tecla (standing for technology and clay) is eco-sustainable and environmentally friendly due to the production being zero waste and needing no materials to be transported to the site as it uses local soil. It took just 200 hours for multiple printers to construct the 60-square-metre prototype in Ravenna, Italy. [It’s Nice That]

While there’s a lot made of how this uses purely local materials, I suspect there are cases where local material topology should not be disturbed; but, of course, then why build there at all?

“That tail I’ve been dragging to all the restaurants? It, ah, doesn’t come off.”

In Night Tide (1961) sailor Johnny Drake, on weekend leave, and wandering in search for what all sailors wander and search for, finds himself in a bar in Santa Monica, wherein he finds the attractive lady Mora listening to flautist (and apparent nominative determinism flouter!) Paul Horn and his band roil up the joint. He attempts the standard maneuvers, and when she’s expelled from the establishment by a cranky old hag, he leaves with her and continues his aggressive courtship, at length extracting a promise of a date, and her occupation: a side show attraction, as a mermaid.

He arrives at the appointed hour, morning, to share breakfast with her, but on the way in he encounters other members of the entertainment community, the proprietors and operators of the carousel, who evidence some discomfort at the mention of Mora.

After breakfast, he is introduced not only to the side show attraction, but its manager and barker, Capt. Samuel Murdock, late of the Royal Navy, who invites Drake to visit him at his home someday. Mora identifies him as her godfather.

Romantic encounters ensue between Drake and Mora: the beach, dinners, a visit to Mora during her work as a mermaid. Meanwhile, the carousel operators eventually warn Drake that the previous two boyfriends of Mora ended up drowned. Confronted, if quite delicately, with the accusation, Mora suggests she may be a Siren, luring men to their deaths, which Drake politely declines to believe.

But when the old hag of the bar puts in an appearance, he follows her, believing she may be harassing Mora, for the expulsion at the bar seemed motiveless – and their dialog was in Greek, not English. She’s a speedy devil, managing to outwit the far younger Drake without apparent effort, but a stymied Drake sees a door open and there’s Captain Murdock. Invited within, Murdock plies Drake with liquor and reveals that he found Mora as an orphan on a small, Greek island, in a blurry speech of ambiguities, hinting at supernatural entities.

And the next time Drake sees Mora, they go scuba diving, during which Mora cuts his air hose with a knife. Drake’s escape to the surface is harrowing; Mora swims off. Surely this ends the relationship?

Alas, we’re to never see Mora alive again, despite Drake’s determination to forgive and forget. When Drake visits her at her attraction, Murdock is languidly barking, as barkers don’t do, but Drake finds Mora dead in her display. Murdock, well-soused, appears with a gun, but is ineffectual. Later, at the police station, Murdock confesses to all the crimes involving the boyfriends, claiming he can’t bear the thought of losing Mora to another man. But what of the old hag, not to mention Mora’s apparent ease with long times spent underwater? Does this invalidate Murdock’s claim?

Drake, meanwhile, finds one of the carousel operators has become romantically interested in him. Carry on, Drake.

This comes on as a creepy flick, as Dennis Hopper, playing Drake, is quite a bit off the average American sailor. Add to that the fact that this print – and perhaps it was meant this way – of the movie is subtly discolored, leading to the observation that sometimes the faces of the characters were green, or pink, or other colors, which made for an unsettling ambiance that lead us on in wonderment.

But the ending comes across as a cheat, as if the storytellers drew back from where their logic had taken them; a disappointment, I fear. Are we seeing honest action-reaction, or is this all just a bit artificial?

If you’re a Paul Horn fan or a Dennis Hopper completist, this may be for you. Otherwise, if you like creepy avant-garde, it might appeal. But for us, it was a bit laborious getting to the end.

Daylighting:

Daylighting can be defined as “opening up buried watercourses and restoring them to more natural conditions”. An alternative definition refers to “the practice of removing streams from buried conditions and exposing them to the Earth’s surface in order to directly or indirectly enhance the ecological, economic and/or socio-cultural well-being of a region and its inhabitants”. The term is used to refer to the restoration of an originally open-air watercourse, which had at some point been diverted below ground, back into an above-ground channel. Typically, the rationale behind returning the riparian environment of a stream, wash, or river to a more natural state is to reduce runoff, create habitat for species in need of it, or improve an area’s aesthetics. In the UK, the practice is also known as deculverting. [Wikipedia]

Among other definitions. Noted in “Rivers of Change,” Natasha Khullar Relph, Discover (November/December, 2021), somewhere in this link.

Try this Turkish tales on for size:

The soaring prices owe not only to the nosediving lira but also the exorbitant taxes that Ankara levies on automobiles — a 18% value-added tax (VAT) and a special consumption tax (SCT) that varies according to the vehicle’s base price and engine size. The total of taxes often exceeds the base price of the vehicle.

Under the most recent tax amendments in August, the lowest levies — a VAT of 18% plus a SCT of 45% — apply to cars with a base price of less than 92,000 liras and an engine cylinder volume smaller than 1600cc. In the upper tiers, the SCT rates range from 50% to 220%. A car with an engine in the 1600cc-2000cc range and a base price of 221,000 liras would end up with a price tag of nearly 600,000 liras, including a SCT of 287,000 liras and a VAT of 91,000 liras. For millions of consumers, such prices preclude car ownership or limit it drastically. [AL-Monitor]

[Bold mine.]

American taxes are best thought of as investments, investments in national defense, education, and many other services which enable the American way of life. We may squabble which are necessary and which are frivolous, but at least we can hope that they’re wisely spent.

Those Turkish taxes, meanwhile, feel more confiscatory, a way to cover the foolishness of the people who’ve clambered to the top of the political pyramid, and exhibit incompetence and power-lust as their primary motivations.

This seemed striking.

Roger Stone becomes another witness who doesn’t seem to quite understand the Fifth Amendment, which reads, in part:

… nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

His plea?

“I did invoke my Fifth Amendment rights to every question not because I have done anything wrong, but because I am fully aware of the House Democrats’ long history of fabricating perjury charges on the basis of comments that are innocuous, material or irrelevant,” Stone told reporters as he was leaving.

I’m no lawyer, and I don’t plan to consult a lawyer on the point. Speaking as just a guy reading the text closely, this is what pops out at me:

• This is not a criminal case. Words matter in the law, and while there may be precedent that covers a situation like this, to me it just looks like someone’s hoping the committee isn’t noticing a minor detail like this isn’t a trial. Really, this is at a point where you testify for the good of the nation, and if you end up in prison, perhaps you need to consider your life’s choices.
• It is one thing to bear witness against oneself, but the claim that one’s testimony will be misinterpreted is not sufficient to justify declining to testify. You have control of the testimony; it must be intelligible and honest, but presentation is everything, and within those parameters, presenting apparently incriminating testimony suggests either incompetence or … guilt.

The Fifth Amendment does not and cannot apply in view of both points. Dump Stone and the rest of these fourth-rate boobs into prison; their clutch after power does nothing to justify their stand now.

Or send them to Belarus to pursue power.

Ever hear of court stripping? I hadn’t until today, although I think, looking back, I’d heard small hints about it. Thom Hartmann suggests the Democrats may need to use it to defy SCOTUS – legally:

Democrats in Congress need to reverse that bizarre and nation-destroying decision with a new law declaring the end to this American political crime spree, and re-criminalize bribery of elected officials. 

And they need to do it in a way that defies the Court’s declaration that money is “free speech” and corporations are “persons.”

That defiance requires something called “court stripping.“

Republicans understand exactly what I’m talking about: they tried to do the same thing most recently in 2005 with the Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives on July 22, 2004.

That law, designed to override Supreme Court protections of LGBTQ people, contained the following court stripping paragraph:

“No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C or this section.”

In other words, Congress wrote that this law is consistent with the constitution, and that they are deciding that…and the Supreme Court, with regard to the Marriage Protection Act, has no say in the matter.

This assertion that each of the three branches should have its own opinions about a law’s constitutionality, is consistent with a view of the Supreme Court expressed at various times by both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, among numerous others of the Founders.

There is literally nothing in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the exclusive right to decide what the Constitution says: that is a power the Supreme Court took onto itself in 1803 in a decision, Marbury v Madison, that drove then-President Jefferson nuts. [The Hartmann Report]

It’s a weird and interesting thought that I somehow haven’t stumbled across. I think the American public is mostly accustomed to the idea that SCOTUS has the right to decide on the Constitutionality of any law; the idea that this can be shielded via simple provision seems outrageous.

But it may be true.

Which leaves the voters, more than ever, the final arbiters of a law. I’m not sure what to think of that. Give the article a read. Hartmann appears to have bulging eyes syndrome, but that doesn’t make him wrong.

Had me laughing:

There will be a very disrespectful and totally non-denominational memorial on May 10, 2022, most likely at a bowling alley in Fayetteville, NC. The family requests absolutely zero privacy or propriety, none what so ever, and in fact encourages you to spend some government money today on a 1-armed bandit, at the blackjack table or on a cheap cruise to find our inheritance. She spent it all, folks. She left me nothing but these lousy memories. Which I, and my family of 5 brothers and my sister-in-laws, nephews, friends, nieces, neighbors, ex-boyfriends, Larry King’s children, who I guess I might be one of, the total strangers who all, to a person, loved and will cherish her. Forever. Please think of the brightly-frocked, frivolous, funny and smart Jewish redhead who is about to grift you, tell you a filthy joke, and for Larry King’s sake: LAUGH. Bye, Mommy. We loved you to bits.

All of it here.

I see NFTs (non-fungible tokens, or “ownership” of, mostly, digital constructs) remain inexplicably popular:

Mediaite catches Minnesota gubernatorial candidates in the act of a very difficult dance:

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt kicked off a Republican gubernatorial debate by asking all five candidates if President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and got a torrent of word salad in response.

Hewitt was among the moderators Wednesday night for the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial debate between candidates Dr. Scott Jensen, State Senator Paul Gazelka, State Senator Michelle Benson, Dr. Neil Shah, and Mayor Mike Murphy.

In what could become a defining characteristic of GOP debates going forward, Hewitt’s first question sent each of the candidates into what can only be described as a game of verbal Twister.

“In your opinion, did President Biden win a constitutional majority of the Electoral College? If yes, how definitive is your conclusion, and if no, could you please explain which states you think are in dispute,” Hewitt asked Jensen (apparently speaking from a part of Minnesota that has not yet been reached by the invention of the microphone).

“I don’t know. I don’t know. And I think that you have to take that attitude towards 2020,” Jensen replied, then launched into a lengthy response in which he promoted several types of voting restrictions.

It’s not surprising, of course, but you hope for better from the local crop of politicos. But, no, being a leader sometimes means being alone, and the herd, in the Republican case, is far more important to these candidates than getting the issue right.

Getting it right means either presenting convincing evidence of electoral malfeasance, or accepting the result unambiguously and with a good attitude. Muttering darkly about unsupported conspiracies or Divine promises or some other garbage is so thoroughly unconvincing that it should – but won’t – terminally damage their reputations with every independent voter in Minnesota.

Paul Fidalgo at The Morning Heresy, a freethinkers roundup site, has a plaint to utter concerning, well, what the competition is forcing him to do:

Bob Smietana at Religion News Service reports that Christian finance guru and COVID-denier David Ramsey is being sued—again!—for religious discrimination. The complaint says that Ramsey calls people who want to avoid getting or spreading COVID a “wuss” and anyone who disagrees with him on this point is a “moron.” In a novel twist, the plaintiff, Brad Amos, is suing on the basis of his own religious beliefs, with faith in science being a core tenet of said beliefs. I don’t claim to know how sincere Amos is about his belief being “religious,” but either way, it’s sad that in order to defend our right to stay alive and abide by facts, more and more it seems we have to act like those are religious convictions.

Here’s the thing: regardless of Fidalgo’s theatrical concerns, it’s not wrong to think of science as simply another approach to living. While a lot of different things can be said about religion, and for that matter very systems of philosophy, right at their foundation is their function as a way to understand, and react to, reality. Reality is a collection of events, some causally connected, some not, with many imperceptibilities (false negatives) and illusions (false positives) generated by our limited perceptual apparatus. How we interpret this collection is defined by our major belief system, which can be a member of the religious category, or scientific rationalism, or quite the number of less easily categorizable systems.

Nor is simultaneous use of several such systems excluded.

Scientific rationalists believe the direct study of what we hope is reality, and rigorous exclusion of claims that are unsupported by objective evidence, or violate the derived rules of reality, leads to an approach to life that results in continued survival and prosperity.

The religious, in following their theologies, hope for the same, in the main, if a point may be stretched in allowing the pleasing of supernatural creatures will also result in survival and prosperity.

In the end, like any system of logic, the foundations are always unprovable assumptions. That’s just how sufficiently powerful logical systems work. The fact that medicine and technology, building blocks of survival and prosperity, are primarily the result of scientific rationalism, does suggest that scientific rationalism has a better grip on how to reach the common goal.

But it’s important to recognize that all of these systems for comprehending reality are in the same category. Calling them belief systems or reality-comprehension systems is more accurate than religious views, as the latter refers to a sub-category, but in the end we can only hope that the evidence so observed supports our predilection in belief systems.

Fidalgo may need to get out the face paint.

Jennifer Rubin thinks former President Trump’s standing with the GOP membership should be sliding, in the face of the news coming out of the House Select Committee:

… one would think that sentient Republicans would understand what is coming and start inching away from Trump. It won’t be one witness they have to smear or write off, but rather a mound of evidence including documents.

Here’s the problem: for the base, it’s all Fake News. Their leader is under attack and he cries out about persecution and, hey, Send me some money to defend myself while you’re at it! Most of the base will even survive a hypothetical arrest. He’s their people.

What may hurt Trump are revelations from his tax returns showing he’s not nearly as rich as claimed. He’s a third-rater with lots of money, that’s what makes him great. If he’s lying about the money, then his attraction suddenly lessens.

And among elected officials, it’s becoming painfully clear that at both State and Federal levels, names such as Stefanik, Boebert, Gaetz, McCarthy, Gosar, Greene, Risch, Gohmert, Nunes, Cawthorn, and many, many others are, at best, third raters; some are far worse. They know that Trump provides the environment in which they can win, but if someone else takes over the GOP, they may find their ass is out.

Trump, and his predecessors, constructed a party based on loyalty and discipline: you vote for Republican nominees or you’re a bad Republican, soon to be followed by an ex-Republican. Saying something bad about a leader can lead to calamitous consequences, too, although that’s not guaranteed, if you’re reading the currents properly and that leader is outbound: think Ryan, or even McConnell today.

But far too many owe their positions to Trump, and if they reject him, the base may reject those officials and wannabes. And, as politicos, they’re basically people who’ve learned the anti-abortion jig and the gun rights waltz and have no real applicable qualifications.

We’ll not be seeing a flood of betrayals of Trump as Rubin might expect. A few officials, yes, will feel their consciences prick, or foresee disaster if Trump’s not prosecuted nor barred from office, and either testify or at least officially reject him. But most will simply quiver their third-rate asses in their elective seats and quietly hope they can retain their prestigious position at the next election. Not based on any great skills, but because they’ve clung to Trump’s knees and learned a couple of dances that the base has been trained to acclaim.

Bedight:

(archaic) To equip or bedeck. [Wiktionary]

Noted in the “Victorian Mincemeat With Actual Meat” episode of Tasting History with Max Miller:

Yeah, he does chew the scenery a bit in this one.

Nothing lifts the spirits quite like the throaty and raucous laugh of one’s mate at the idea of Max Miller clutching his pearls:

Oh, go ahead – watch the whole thing. You know you want to.

Just declare the entire system corrupt:

As abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love and align ourselves with our community. Because we got us. So let’s be clear: we love everybody in our community. It’s not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade, it’s about how we treat our community when corrupt systems are working to devalue their lives. In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place, and our communities would not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth. Instead, we find ourselves, once again, being forced to put our lives and our value in the hands of judges and juries operating in a system that is designed to oppress us, while continuing to face a corrupt and violent police department, which has proven time and again to have no respect for our lives.

In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom. While policing at-large is an irredeemable institution, CPD is notorious for its long and deep history of corruption, racism, and brutality. From the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, to the Burge tortures, to the murder of Laquan McDonald and subsequent cover-up, to the hundreds of others killed by Chicago police over the years and the thousands who survived abuse, Chicago police consistently demonstrate that they are among the worst of the worst. Police lie and Chicago police lie especially. – Dr. Melina Abdullah, Director of BLM Grassroots

And would this same statement have been issued if Mr. Smollett’s trial had not shown indications of ending in his conviction? That’s the key question, isn’t it – can the cryer apply the intellectual consistency of thrusting away a victory because of a distrust, a certainty that the system is corrupt?

I don’t know if Abdullah would have had the courage to disown a victory. But, if not, then Abdullah would be guilty of a painful hypocrisy, the dishonesty of desiring a system wherein it’s Tails you lose, heads I win.

And, if Abdullah was intellectually honest, then they are left with the problematic statement, In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place … I say it’s problematic because it accepts, without question nor punishment for dishonesty, the statement of Mr. Smollett to the police, that he was assaulted by white supremacists. The assumption of the steadfastness of his claim and character, without investigation and testing, flies in the face of the entire history of humanity.

Without offering an alternative system of justice that has some odor of plausibility, the “abolitionists,” of police departments, I presume, seems less like weak tea and more like warm, bacteria-laden water. The defund the police movement, in the face of a tragic crime wave, did not do well in the latest elections, nor in public polls; it suggests that the very people who might be thought to benefit from the removal of police forces have little confidence in such an approach.

Police forces are, ideally, part of the broader search for truth about incidents which are thought to be injurious to justice and society. We all like to think that knowing what happened is simple, but we all should know that such is only rarely true.

So, for me, that statement isn’t so much a remark upon justice, but a bit of calculated propaganda, designed to retain position of those already emplaced on the ladder of power, and not an attempt to advance the cause of justice.