From the University of Minnesota’s News and Events newsletter:
Research Brief: Tracking invasive plants from space
No, they mean using satellites to identify and track invasive species. This has nothing to do with The Day of the Triffids (1962).
I wonder if they wrote it that way on porpoise.
Last year’s tactics may be this year’s anchors. Here’s a quick summary by veteran war observer Mark Sumner of Daily Kos:
Drones are playing an ever greater part in [Putin’s] war, and the various roles and types of drones are undergoing a fast evolution. It’s a very safe bet that the results in Ukraine are being carefully examined by every military in the world. From observation drones directing precision munitions, to large drones launching missiles at targets dozens or hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines, to loitering munitions with varying levels of AI, to drones like the “revolver” that can drop explosives straight down on enemy troops and vehicles, the battlefield is becoming ever more dangerous. How all this stuff works is changing in real-time, and the winner of this war may well be the side that is nimble enough to incorporate these technologies in the best way.
It comes down to technology, or the capabilities of your drones, and logistics, as in can you build and ship them to critical territories in sufficient numbers?
A lot like all those other wars, really. The trick is recognizing what’s revolutionary and what’s not. I recall reading somewhere that a couple of World War II American admirals, tasked with stopping a small Japanese convoy carrying an invasion force, and being unfamiliar with the radar systems installed on their cruisers and therefore didn’t use them, did in fact stop the convoy, but at a very dear cost.
If they had utilized the radar? Who knows, but the outcome might have been less painful.
But charlatans also flock to sell their crap to the military. An incredulous military is important, as the charlatans’ crap can get your people killed. The Brits are well-known for being taken in by a magical bomb detector during the Afghan conflict, losing a few service members to sheer and utter garbage. I think someone was arrested for that particular fraud, but I don’t recall enough of the details to look that one up. Oh, wait, here it is. Deeply shameful.
Impugn:
to cause people to doubt someone’s character, qualities, or reputation by criticizing them:
Are you impugning my competence as a professional designer? [Cambridge Dictionary]
Noted in “Trump has never been in so much peril. Nor has the GOP.” Jennifer Rubin, WaPo:
Trump’s lame overtures to Attorney General Merrick Garland to “reduce the heat” of the political fallout from the Mar-a-Lago search — while simultaneously insinuating that violence might occur if the Justice Department keeps pursuing him — is as disingenuous as it is utterly irrelevant to Garland. The Justice Department’s prosecutors and investigators certainly don’t care if Republicans are still enthralled with Trump. They will go after anyone who engages in acts of violence, as Garland made clear in his remarks last week in which he demanded that people stop impugning and threatening the FBI.
Kinda odd I’ve made it this far through life without actually ever having checked into the meaning of impugn.
In an AL-Monitor Pro report (partial paywall), Ali Metwally has little but ill to speak of the future:
A global food crisis is well underway and, according to World Food Program chief David Beasley, it will be “beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetime.” The situation is all the more alarming for countries that have traditionally depended on imports of key staple foods to meet their needs. This goes for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where food accounts for 13% of the region’s total imports, compared to 9% in the European Union (EU), 8% in Latin America and 7% in North America.
Long in the making, the situation has more recently been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted global supply chains and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war that began earlier this year and which has further polarized and politicized the matter. Combined, these countries make up around a third of global wheat exports — a key food staple in most MENA countries — and are responsible for 32% of MENA’s wheat imports.
With food export bans now in place in many countries, rising shipping costs and a widening supply-demand gap, the crisis, if not adequately and urgently addressed, could see shortages of essential food items grow to levels that lead to a notable increase in hunger and malnutrition rates across the world.
I’ve been wondering if the tendency of Western food exports to disturb the fundamental economies of their customers is a disaster waiting to happen. That is, cheap Western food puts local farmers out of business. Then food gets cutoff by an event such as the Covid crisis, or something worse. With the local farming economy in ruins, or worse – think the Aral Sea debacle – is it going to end in mass starvation?
Immense profits do not justify mass starvation, at least not in my book.
For the minute-by-minute prognosticators who live for Election Night, Ranked Choice Voting may be a nightmare. We have an example up in Alaska, where the seat of the late Rep Don Young (R) is up for grabs, and assumed to be going Republican again. With Sarah Palin (R), the former governor, in the mix, it was thought to be a fight between Palin, representing the religious far right extremists, and Nick Begich, who had worked for the late Rep Young’s campaign.
So who’s leading?
Mary Peltola (D).
With two-thirds of expected votes counted in the special election for the House seat of the late congressman Don Young (R-Alaska), former Alaska governor and GOP vice-presidential nominee Palin surprisingly trailed a Democrat, Mary Peltola, 38 percent to 32 percent. The other front-running Republican, Nick Begich, was at 29 percent.
Where this goes from here, nobody knows. But Peltola far outperformed the primary results in June, in which she took just 10 percent of the vote. She appeared to benefit from the decision of independent/Democratic-aligned Al Gross to drop out of the race after the primary, making it a three-candidate contest with two Republicans and a Democrat. But even accounting for that, Peltola’s showing is strong. [WaPo]
And I agree with the article: who knows where this heads as RCV procedures are followed, along with the absentee ballots that haven’t been counted? The leader today may be middle of the pack tomorrow. Or worse.
And that’ll drive the prognosticators up the wall.
So be prepared. Popcorn, peanuts, that sort of thing. And I will only be surprised if the Democrat wins. If that happens then it suggests the Republicans are really being repudiated by the electorate. But I doubt that’ll happen. I think Begich wins, assuming he’s less extreme than Palin.
Good progress is being made in doing away with the experiment of privately run prisons, but it needs to move faster, as this story is outright horrifying and should result in the immediate outlawing of private prisons, nevermind the theoretical arguments advanced by myself and many others.
Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.”
In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care. [AP]
And so we see private justice institutions influencing justice, in an illicit manner, in order to elicit more profits. And never mind the damage to the children !!!
It’s appalling and potentially highly damaging to society.
I do hope this quashes any more pro- private prison arguments.
Something bothered me about this story portraying a pastor as a greedy bastard:
A pastor in Missouri rained down a fiery sermon upon his flock one Sunday this month, scolding parishioners for failing to follow God.
The Rev. Carlton Funderburke condemned his congregation not because they had sinned too much, loved God too little or done too few good deeds out in the world. Instead, Funderburke rebuked the “cheap sons and daughters” of the Church at the Well in Kansas City for not “honoring” him with a luxury gift.
“That’s how I know you still poor, broke, busted and disgusted, because of how you been honoring me,” Funderburke told his congregation, according to a video. “I’m not worth your McDonald’s money? I’m not worth your Red Lobster money? I ain’t worth your St. John Knit — y’all can’t afford it nohow. I ain’t worth y’all Louis Vuitton? I ain’t worth your Prada? I’m not worth your Gucci?” [WaPo]
And, of course, that may be an accurate portrayal, as there’s just not enough information in the story and I’m, uh, too lazy busy to dig out more. Nor do I live in Missouri.
But it is true that groups, especially those defined in traditional pecking order groupings such as racial or religious groups, compete to move up and the social power ladder. It’s an important behavior because a group that is important, such as Catholics in Ireland prior to the realization of the abuse of children by the ICC (Irish Catholic Church) by the public, doesn’t suffer abuse, while Catholics in Protestant Britain, on the other hand, can suffer a certain amount of disadvantage, even when putative public policy is to disregard membership in such groups.
And part of establishing one’s place in that societal pecking order is the display of wealth. Wealth informs those who might initiate violence that vengeance could be likely, official or not, and while common criminals might not consider that to be important, an organized group presents too many vulnerabilities.
So Funderburke may be wishing to signal that members of his congregation are rich enough to gift him with luxury items, and thus he, and they, may have influence with official law enforcement – or his congregation might be armed, although I doubt that’s information that he wants to signal.
In the end, it’s possible that he wants to signal that, hey, he leads a group of financially stable people, so leave them alone.
Or Not. He could be just a self-centered bastard.
Mere speculation and completely made up guesswork: That’s how Republicans appear to be defending the former President. But enough of the sideshow, let’s go see the Senators! Can you tell the Minnesota State Fair is imminent?
Senator Thune’s (R) On The Issues summation. Yep, he’s about to fall off the edge of the world there, isn’t he?
If I’m to believe this poll, South Dakota citizens mostly reject abortion extremists who try to outright ban abortion, although they may disapprove of abortion itself. It’s that nuance that makes me doubt this suggests this is trouble for incumbent Senator John Thune (R), regardless of the magnitude of his extremist measurement from On The Issues. Show me a couple polls with Thune trailing challenger Brian Bengs (D) and I’ll change my tune, although satisfying noted Thune-hater DJ Trump would be a bit galling.
“We saw this media frenzy about supposedly classified information — where was this same media frenzy when there was 33,000 classified emails on a server in a bathroom with Hillary Clinton?” Mullin asked, indignantly. “Why didn’t they raid that bathroom?” [TPM].
Since there were 133 classified emails and Secretary Clinton delivered the email server up on request, unlike the former President and his stolen documents, Mullin is now vulnerable to charges of lying by his challengers, primary runoff mate T. W. Shannon (R), and if he slips by Shannon, general election challenger Kendra Horn (D). As noted before, it’s worth keeping half an eye on this Oklahoma contest. I suppose a poll is unlikely until after the runoff. I’m such a member of the Instant Gratification Generation.
More flubs concerning Senate races are here.
Erick Erickson’s particularly perturbed today, resulting in this shocking quote:
Biden promised us a return to normalcy and instead he handed Afghanistan to the Taliban …
Yes, because Americans think being at war is normal.
Or how about this one:
Yes, because Americans should abrogate all international agreements to which it is a signatory, and Trump signed this one with the Taliban.
One of those blurry shots of Nessie the Divinity.
Reading Erickson’s post is really quite wearisome because virtually every claim is, at best, debatable, many are deceptive, some are outright ridiculous … and all I can figure is that his God is not a good God, or that Divinity has a real bad frownie face right now.
I think The Lincoln Project has it right with regard to Liz Cheney:
Tonight, the nation marks the end of the Republican Party. What remains shares the name and branding of the traditional GOP, but is in fact an authoritarian nationalist cult dedicated only to Donald Trump.
While the demise of those truly in control of the Republican Party may involve fundamental neglect of national priorities and, indeed, violence from those who’ve been taken in by these leaders, it’s my belief that these same leaders are, much like the Axis leaders of World War II, really a pack of fourth-raters when it comes to politics and government. They may cover it with violence, as did the Axis leaders, but desperate clinging to ideological and theological tenets, even in the face of realities that disprove those tenets, is absolutely incompatible with effective leadership.
This was recently proven in Kansas in the rejection of a proposed Kansas Constitutional Amendment to permit anti-abortion legislation, but has been proven over the last few years with the rejection of climate change denying candidates in what would otherwise be considered Republican districts, and were experiencing extreme weather events.
I fear this won’t go swiftly, and the repair of damage done by the extremist Republicans loathed by The Lincoln Project may take decades, but progress will continue. My hope is that single issue voting will become a rejected, even disgusting, option, and finer grain discussions of political candidates will once again become a characteristic of the American landscape.
I’m looking forward to color commentary concerning the game pitting the Cuneiforms vs the Ideographs.
Kerygmatic:
The systematic study of theological truths within a structure that can directly and immediately serve to prepare for and promote the preaching of the truths of revelation to the Christian people (A. de Villalmonte). The modern movement for a kerygmatic theology seeks to orientate scientific theology to Christian life and apostolate, and thereby to bring about an interaction of theology and apostolic action. [Encyclopedia.com]
Aaaaand … that was gibberish to me. Truly. Scientific theology? Noted in “Is Latin more effective in driving out demons? An exorcist responds,” David Ramos, Catholic News Agency:
In the exorcism ritual of 2000, “the threats to the devil, the insults to the devil, have been suppressed, for example, because there were ritual prayers from 1614 that were directly a torrent of insults against the devil.”
“That is, they wanted to remove that part, let’s say, more threatening to the devil, to accentuate the kerygmatic proclamation of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ,” [the unnamed consulting priest] said.
Uh huh. And finally:
Torres explained that “if an exorcist uses the ritual of 1614, he is acting correctly and it is effective, and if an exorcist uses the one from the year 2000, he is acting efficaciously and correctly, because the Church has pledged her prayer and her faith in those rituals.”
Which is to say, Let’s just dodge the question of whether or not Latin is more efficacious because I don’t want any bricks through my windows.
Power prancers to the left, power prancers to the right!
I say to Franken, Go on stage, play that clip, stare soberly out at your audience, and ask, “Is this the hysterical Senator you want representing you in Washington?” Do it at a debate if you can.
The nominees for the Hawaii’an Senate seat have been determined as of Aug 13th, and the top two are incumbent Senator Brian Schatz (D) and Republican and State Representative Bob McDermott. As can be seen to the right, McDermott appears to be a moderate Republican, but Schatz still appears likely to win the seat again. There are three other nominees making the ballot, representing the Aloha Aina Party, the Greens, and the Libertarians, but they seem unlikely to affect this contest.
Senator Portman’s On The Issues summation.
The 2022 election for U.S. Senate in Ohio calls the question on what kind of representatives we seek and nation we want to be. I have the privilege of knowing both candidates and am forming “Republicans for Tim Ryan.”
Senator Portman (R) is no moderate, so this is quite a statement by Bridgeland, who presumably shares most or all of his boss’ positions. Just how bad does Ryan’s opponent, J. D. Vance, have to be to elicit this shocking response from a right-winger?
Previous absurd gestures concerning the Senate campaign are here.
An opening sample of political advertising this season, thanks to Dr. Oz’s campaign team.
This new, desperate, bizarre ad from Dr. Oz shows a bong popping out of John Fetterman’s head. pic.twitter.com/sAEUNvfWoP
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) August 15, 2022
Will it work? Beats me. But it feels like something out of the 1960s.
One of our clematises has been inspired by the honeysuckle:
I see that Erick Erickson is on the edge of terror, although even he may think he’s frightened of societal disturbance, and not what should really disturb him. Regardless, he’s busy saying silly things:
I have to agree with George Will and his magnificent column the other day.
Regarding this week’s events in Palm Beach, Fla., of course the rule of law is important. So, however, are other things, including social comity and — check the Constitution’s preamble — domestic tranquility. No value ever eclipses all others. Fiat justitia, ruat caelum — let justice be done, though the heavens fall? Let’s not.
The left is hell-bent on finding some reason to throw Donald Trump in prison. They impeached him twice. Now the Attorney General, who’d be on the Supreme Court but for Trump, has joined the fun to throw him in prison.
If you really do want to tear the country up, you’d do exactly that.
Otherwise, you’d ignore him.
An incredibly short-sighted remark in view of the potential damage the former President might do, depending on the contents of those documents, and his intentions thereupon.
But let’s skip that; it’s too obvious.
Erickson speaks of trust:
Merrick Garland and the Democrats are doing everything they can to get the man re-elected in their never-ending quest to find some way to throw the man in jail.
Let him go. Move on. Ignore him. You are right now finding some reason why you cannot in the name of justice, defending democracy, and the rule of law.
With each excuse, you are undermining all of the above.
This nation is running low on an indispensable ingredient of a successful society: trust, in institutions and one another. This week was another subtraction. Garland has said about the Justice Department, “We will and we must speak through our work.” Actually, his political duty is to explain and justify his work more thoroughly than he did in his minimalist statement Thursday afternoon. [George Will, I’m sure, but uncredited.]
Yes, this is about trust. Will and Erickson need to understand that trust comes with underpinnings. That a breach of trust must come with consequences.
Without those consequences, public and, yes, humiliating for both perpetrators and their allies, our society will die from lack of trust. This is why grifters are considered to be evil. This is why Erickson and Will are wrong.
But Erickson is terrified that the ideology around which he’s built his life, the Conservative Movement as some proponents call it, is about to burn to the ground. While I’m sure some will attempt to characterize Trump as an interloper, an aberration, and Erickson will be among them, the truth of the matter is that he was enthusiastically accepted by much of the base of the Republicans and the conservatives, and those that did leave were swiftly replaced by extremists holding dubious beliefs, or, worse, only the belief that they wanted and deserved power.
Trump is the toxic product of a broken ideology, an ideology that holds precepts foreign to American sensibilities, and Erickson has based his life on this ideology.
It’s not surprising that he’s dismayed, that he’s defending a possible traitor to the nation.
But he speaks of trust, so let’s speak of trust.
The peaceful transfer of power, one of the most important foundations of American government and society, is built on trust. We trust each other to transfer power peacefully, we trust the courts to fairly and lawfully arbitrate electoral disputes, we trust that our political opponents have our best interests at heart, and the dispute is over methods, not goals.
We trust each other not to instigate anti-government riots based on fits of pique at having lost.
So now we’re faced with a political movement – that’s yours, Erickson – that has produced a leader that has breached norms and laws, been credibly impeached, has a host of other negative, but irrelevant here, attributes, and has lost the trust of much of the American electorate, an electorate that seems to believe that crimes were, indeed, committed. An anti-government riot was instigated, and not only are there still high Republican officials bloviating their “doubts” about the 2020 election, but now Republican candidates who have lost in the primaries – let me repeat that, in the primaries – are shrieking that they were robbed.
Robbed by their own clubmates, as it were.
To speak so reverently of trust when you’re part of a Conservative Movement that will have none of it is really a bit of a sanctimonious joke.
And the worst part? Erickson’s right, and yet he’s not willing to back it up. Trust is the bedrock of this nation, and yet he continues to defend, and be part of, the untrustworthy Conservative Movement, an ideology that is based on an all-consuming selfishness, an arrogant adherence to religious kant over rationality and debate that renders opponents into creatures allied to the Devil.
Hard to trust those who you’ve consigned to the care of satanic forces.
Erickson calls for trust of the untrustable. His own broken argument destroys his desired conclusion, that his Conservative Movement escape close scrutiny.
And, under such scrutiny, the Movement turns out to be packed with fourth-raters and those who’ve forsaken reason for religious kant dispensed by grifters and power-seekers, who deny reason and reality itself in preference to those things that bring them power, wealth, and even just reassurance.
It’s an ugly, ugly disaster, a toxic pit of hellish personal characteristics.
Garland screwed up? PLEASE. He did the right thing, and the United States will be better for it.
Ooops, forgot: And that post title? Here’s Erickson, one more time:
And the fact that some of you will scream about this and insist it was all legitimate and I’m a partisan for saying otherwise actually makes my point for me. You’re too broken to be rationale on this. Your hatred has made you what you hate. You need to let it go, forgive, and move on.
Yeah, he actually went there. Arrogance supreme. Which may be America’s greatest curse these days.
Bupkis:
Bupkis is a Yiddish word, which is literally translated as “beans” and is derived from a Slavic word for “goat droppings.” Apparently goat droppings look like beans, although I’ve never actually seen any goat droppings.
However just to make things confusing, it’s not used as a reference to something edible (beans), or something inedible (goat droppings), but as something worthless (a bean isn’t worth much, and goat droppings even less) [Bupkis.org]
Noted in “My Latest Theory About The SCOTUS Leaker,” David Lat, Original Jurisdiction:
Who knows? Not me. Like my prior post, What The SCOTUS Leaker Might Say For Themselves, this post is completely speculative and based on no inside information. You could torture me if you wanted, and you’d get bupkis. And yes, this post is also somewhat embellished, maybe even over-the-top—but remember that I’m also a fiction writer, and I’m working on a novel based on the events of this Term.
In Wisconsin, Republican Speaker of the House in Madison Robin Vos has fired a former member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who had been hired to investigate the 2020 Election – and made his task into a public display of utter incompetence:
“After having many members of our caucus reach out to me over the past several days, it is beyond clear to me that we only have one choice in this matter, and that’s to close the Office of Special Counsel,” Vos said in a written statement. [WaPo]
If it’s true that multiple members of the Republican caucus have indicated dismay at Gableman’s antics to Vos, this may show that the Wisconsin GOP has at least a few moderate members who understand that competency and fair play is far more important to the voters than pre-determined investigation results and general clowning around.
Gableman took months to set up his office and spent the early stage of his review performing online research from a public library in suburban Milwaukee. He toured the site of a frequently criticized GOP-led ballot review in Arizona and attended a seminar in South Dakota hosted by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who has spouted false claims about the 2020 election.
So maybe the Wisconsin GOP still has some respectable members.
But it does leave open the question: How the hell did Gableman ever get himself elected to Wisconsin’s SCOTUS? I mean, really? Unless he’s into early-stage dementia, he should have never been allowed anywhere near a judge’s chamber, except as a defendant.
Such are the results of straight ticket voting.
Why, yes, Senator Scott (R-FL), this is 3rd World country stuff:
The @FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago is incredibly concerning, especially given the Biden admin’s history of going after parents & other political opponents. This is 3rd World country stuff.
We need answers NOW. The FBI must explain what they were doing today & why.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) August 9, 2022
A former President taking various papers, with neither the right nor the permission, home with him after being kicked out of office, and perhaps selling them off to the highest bidder, does sound like something the corrupt leader of a Third World country would do.
Thanks for the reminder. I’m sure your colleagues will thank you as well.
A CME, or Coronal Mass Ejection, occurs when part of the Sun’s corona, a plasma atmosphere of a star that happens to be very, very hot, which is required for a plasma, is blown off and outwards, usually by the magnetic forces of the star.
So what’s a Surface Mass Ejection (SME)?
NASA astronomers believe that in 2019 a colossal piece of Betelgeuse’s surface blew off [the red supergiant Betelgeuse]. The mass of the SME was 400 billion times greater than a CME or several times the mass of Earth’s Moon. Data from multiple telescopes, especially Hubble, suggest that a convective plume more than a million miles across bubbled up from deep inside the star, producing shocks and pulsations that blasted a chunk off the surface.
“We’ve never before seen such a huge mass ejection from the surface of a star,” says Andrea Dupree of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is leading the study. “Something is going on that we don’t completely understand.”
After it left the star, the SME cooled, forming a dark cloud that famously dimmed Betelgeuse in 2019 and 2020. Even casual sky watchers could look up and see the change. Some astronomers worried that the dimming foreshadowed a supernova explosion. The realization that an SME is responsible has at least temporarily calmed those fears. [Spaceweather.com]
Betelgeuse isn’t the biggest star around, but it might be in the top ten, with a diameter so huge that it’s literally greater than the diameter of a Jovian orbit.
Something that size blowing pieces off isn’t even terrifying. If our star did that, we’d probably never even know. We’d just be blotted out, as if the Divine had decided it’d made a mistake with us and was starting over.
It’s maybe 500 light years away, ± some odd numbers that appear to be in dispute, which, for my purposes, means we’re about 4 rows back in the audience if something serious happens to Betelgeuse.
Despite deepening doubts concerning cryptocurrency in the West, the Middle East is buying in:
The Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced today that it has received regulatory approval to operate in Dubai [United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital]. FTX’s Middle East subsidiary FTX Exchange FZE, can now conduct virtual asset exchange services in Dubai’s program under the United Arab Emirates’ Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, FTX said in a press release. [AL-Monitor]
While my wildest concerns with regard to cryptocurrency, that it’s a way to strip money from users who necessarily invest in it, seems to be unjustified paranoia, it’s hard not to read the above and nod. Why? These days it’s almost background noise, but the truth of the matter is that there’s a great deal of wealth in the Middle East, ranging from the fluid of wealth – no, not oil, but paper, gold, credit, and increasingly digital assets – to the engine of wealth – minerals and other tangible sources of wealth, such as, yes, oil.
And hyenas run to the source of sustenance.
So in UAE we see a country increasingly opening up to an unregulated currency that they also do not control. Maybe nothing will go wrong.
Or maybe the hyenas are circling and waiting for an opening. Hyenas are known to take down lions. And UAE is known to be a rich lion.
Sexagesimal:
Sexagesimal is a numbering system whose base is sixty. It originated in the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC and was passed down to the ancient Babylonians and other nations. It is still partially used for measuring time and angles. The numeral system we now usually use is the decimal (10-base) system and the number 123 is equivalent to 1×102+2×101+3×100, while 1 hour, 2 minutes and 3 seconds is equivalent to 1×602+2×601+3×600=3723 (seconds). [NagaiToshiya.com]
Noted in “How the secrets of ancient cuneiform texts are being revealed by AI,” Alison George, NewScientist (6 August 2022, paywall):
It took a long time for cuneiform to shift from record-keeping to a tool for linguistic expression. The first royal inscriptions appeared around 2700 BC, and the earliest literary texts a hundred or so years later. One of the first known authors was Enheduanna, a princess, priestess and poet who lived around 4300 years ago. She wrote many hymns and the myth of Inanna and Ebih, which recounts a conflict between a goddess and a mountain. The most famous text of all is the Epic of Gilgamesh, about a king’s quest for eternal life, and includes a section that appears to be a precursor to the biblical story of the flood.
The impact of Sumerian culture still ripples through our lives today, not only through our biblical stories, but in our clocks. Their sexagesimal counting system, with a base of 60, is the reason why we have 60 seconds in a minute and 360 degrees in a circle.
I keep reading bits and pieces of the right, principally wannabe Limbaugh replacement Erick Erickson, and I stop as soon as I spot a mistake, a false assumption, that sort of thing.
And I don’t bother to write about it. No time.
But today I have off. So here’s what I found with Erickson’s analysis of the Mar-a-Lago raid, which borrows from National Review’s Andy McCarthy, and so I presume the entire right is consumed with this silly theory:
Look, the left is, at this point, epistemically convinced Donald Trump plotted, planned, and organized the riot on January 6th. They truly believe there was a master plan to overthrow the government. They truly believe Trump is a threat to democracy.
When you believe all these things, you’re going to try to find that one smoking gun to stop Trump from running for office again.
They tried. They seemingly did not find it. They’ve had to fall back on their excuse about classified documents knowing a very compliant press won’t ask too many questions.
Here’s the thing: former Judge and current US AG Merrick Garland isn’t “of the left,” as they say. When President Barack Obama received a recommendation that Garland replace the recently-deceased Scalia on SCOTUS, it was from both sides of the aisle. He’s considered a centrist, not someone out on the left.
And that’s why I don’t bother with the rest of Erickson’s post. Simple matters of false fact invalidate the thrust of his post. OK, so I read it, but very quickly, as it’s demonstrative of Erickson’s own position of peril, left trying to justify fourth-raters like Trump, Hawley, Cruz, Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, and many other “officials” who should never have been permitted the honor of holding such offices. Their embarrassing lusts, lack of ethics, and credulousness (you can include Erickson’s own religious beliefs under that heading, I shan’t object) have proven the point.
Erickson’s trying to build a story that’ll hold the conservatives’ Doubting Thomases together. Sadly, it seems that every day brings a fresh blow against the integrity of his story. Maybe he should give up?
Well, that would move him from direct opposition to the “baby killers.” Such are the wages of bad logic.
Senator Cruz (R-TX).
When it comes to the former President, Senator Cruz (R-TX) is soon to find himself in quite a quandary. For those who don’t recall, Cruz first despised Trump upon his entry into the GOP Presidential primary in 2016, calling him a coward and pathological liar. Trump, however, returned fire, and when it became apparent that Trump would win the GOP nomination, he changed his tune, despite Trump’s frenzied attacks on Cruz’s wife and father.
He was gentled by Trump.
Since then, if he’s criticized Trump, it’s not been to any great extent. Rather, he’s considered an ally, with a TrumpScore of 92%.
The weasel smile.
Leaping forward to, oh, today, Cruz finds himself allies with a man who is alleged to have broken the law, as well as the public’s trust, over the matter of nuclear weapons. If such documents were found, and we may find that out later today, Cruz may gain a reputation as having been gentled by a criminal. We may find out, at a later date, that Trump was trying to sell nuclear secrets, much like the Rosenbergs – who were executed for their crimes. Such is his known passion for wealth.
And Cruz has his own known passion for power. He’s reportedly despised, in some cases even hated, by a bipartisan majority of the Senate.
We may be in the middle of a morality play, in which the value of putative social norms, such as temperance in connection to the pursuit of wealth and power, and a conscious and sober regard for the well-being of society, will get a well-needed boost. Not that those who need to learn those lessons the most will pay it more than lip-service, if that, but there’s value in the vast bulk of the population getting a good, swift kick upside the head as more than one of the elite conservatives take the long, agonizing fall into ignominy and social loathing. It may turn into a question of how many comrades will accompany Cruz into Hell.
At least, that’s where this is going. Next time Cruz runs for anything, he’ll be facing deep and searching questions concerning his relationship with the former President.
