Monthly Archives: August 2024

Is this the new version of a Jack In The Box?

The Big Empty (2003) is a movie about the collision of worlds. Or universes. Or thought paradigms.

John Person is a failing actor, trying for parts and failing, until one night he’s offered the chance to succeed as a courier: take the blue suitcase to a little town up near a dried up lake bed. On arrival, he discovers his contact, Cowboy, was at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and then left. The hotel night manager is a bit of a nut job. The bartender is aching to get out of town; her daughter is a maybe-nympho with a passing acquaintance with honesty and a murderous ex-boyfriend. Or is he?

And just what about Cowboy? Is he FBI? Or is the alleged FBI agent really an FBI agent? He seems … unreliable. How many days are we in the little town, trying to talk about masturbatory practices? I don’t want to know.

And then comes the big wrapup, twelve suitcases, twelve people, and a minibus, flashing lights and … well … where did everyone go? Who knows? Maybe not even the director.

My theory is that a universe separate from ours is brushing briefly against ours, and the inhabitants of the other universe are using our resources for their own purposes. All very mysterious. But you can make up your own.

Mind.

This sort of story is unsatisfying, as it’s not empathetic. We can’t put ourselves in the places of the characters and measure our reactions against there’s, because we don’t really gain an understanding of situation. It’s interesting, suggestive of realities in which we may be moral agents, but lack the knowledge that such agents require.

Be warned. And the special effect of the dry lake bed? My Arts Editor pronounced it a pebble ceiling, which made the body lying on it a bug stuck to the ceiling.

Perhaps not so good. Or perhaps very good.

Sprinkled with humor, horror, and mystery. Enjoy.

Yes, I know it’s been a week since the Fringe finished up, but, yes, I should mention the last two shows we saw.

A Horse Walks Out Onto the Stage and Dies: A show about a talking horse that has hurt its leg, it tries to use that bit of frippery to explore questions of life, death, the singularity of fame vs the common destiny of death, and allied themes. It’s not entirely successful, nor entirely a failure, and it has a certain small bit of charm, as well as the self-conscious flavor of the Fringe.

Daddy Issues: A one-person show featuring a pillar of a favorite company of ours, Allison Vincent of Trans-Atlantic Love Affair, this is an intensely personal meditation on the relationship between Vincent and her father, a man with a high level of training and accomplishment, who sank into a turbulent and wasteful physical and metaphysical swamp. Concentrating more on the reactions of Vincent rather than that of the father, I confess it stirs, at least for me, a fascination with what went wrong with him: an accomplished cardiologist, were there unmanageable costs in attaining that position? A loss of that necessary balance between understanding how to be part of a stable community, and that of personal accomplishment? A spiritual gap? I can only guess, and in that I’m somewhat hesitant, not wishing to sully her relationship with him, or anyone else’s, and yet the urge for analysis is undeniable, and it can be highly important.

Recommended, if she puts this on again.

Another ride on the giant catfish? How did that last one go?

What Should I Think of The Bullfinch Group?

Well, I don’t know. FiveThirtyEight doesn’t know about them, so they get no rating and presumably formed in the last couple of years. On the other hand, mastergardener2k on Daily Kos claims Nate Silver, who is no longer with FiveThirtyEight but has founded another blog, Silver Bulletin, is incorporating Bullfinch’s results into his meta-poll results. Silver Bulletin is a pay blog, and I respect that, but I’m not in the mood to open the wallet, so I’ll just relay the claim and let it lie there.

And What About BSG/GS Strategy Group?

Again, an unknown pollster. However, the sponsor of their polls is the venerable organization now known as The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Presumably, they will use a high quality pollster as a reputational necessity. And this might be them.

Run Down The Data On Your Bandersnatch! Wear Your Flashiest Spurs!

• In One Of The Silliest Polling Decisions Of The Season: Associated Industries of Florida sponsored a poll that found Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) with a 52%-42% lead over former Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL). The pollster is … McLaughlin & Associates, with a hefty, ahem, FiveThirtyEight rating of 0.5/3, putting them at the bottom of FiveThirtyEight ratings, position #277, only above those pollsters so horrific that FiveThirtyEight refuses to rate them any longer. The media cited by FiveThirtyEight is Florida’s Voice, and shame on the latter for not noting the exceptionally dubious rating of McLaughlin & Associates in their report.But wait long enough and another poll comes along. This one is from Florida Atlantic University PolCom Lab/Mainstreet Research (I have a note saying they have a rating of 2.0, but I’m not able to find them in FiveThirtyEight’s current ratings), and it gives Senator Scott a lead, but it’s only 47%-43%, which puts a different face on this race. It also measures Mr. Trump (R) leading Mz. Harris (D) in Florida at this time, but only 50%-47%. Florida Atlantic University notes that
  

  While a specific margin of error cannot be assigned due to the online component, a poll of this size typically has a margin of error of +/- 3% at the 95% confidence level, with higher margins for subsamples.

  It’s possible that Florida voters may be tiring of Mr. Trump’s antics, much like Great Britain tired of Mr. Johnson’s last year, and that may be bad news for Senator Scott, a close ally of Mr Trump. In fact, Newsday notes that Senator Scott, who, in a former life, was a rich businessman (who ran a corrupt business, but that’s for a different rant while claiming to be ignorant of what eventually got his company convicted in court), is filling his campaign’s coffers from his own checking account:

  Florida Senator Rick Scott speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Scott’s Democratic Senate challenger, has warned she is working to flip Florida to a blue state.

  Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman who is now running for Scott’s Senate seat, said that Florida turning blue is “happening” in response to apparent issues surrounding Scott’s reelection campaign.

  Mucarsel-Powell was responding to reports that Scott is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money on his reelection campaign. Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Scott recently “dumped” another $725,000 of his own money into his campaign account. “Two days ago he put $31,996.67. Aug. 6 he put in $850,000,” Sherman added.

  Are donations drying up? Or is this a bridge loan to the next group of donations? The latter suggests poor money management practices on Senator Scott’s part; the former, a much worse situation.

• Unknown and unrated pollster The Bullfinch Group is giving Michigan’s Rep Slotkin (D-MI) an almost shocking ten point lead over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), 48%-38%. Is this a liberal slanted pollster? I’d almost think so, but the same poll also gives Senators Baldwin (D-WI) and Casey (D-PA) large, but not out of line, margins; only the Michigan margin is out of line with current polls. But today’s out of line poll may be tomorrow’s in-line poll. We’ll have to see if this is a real outlier, or a leader.And now BSG/GS Strategy Group, working for The Cook Political Report, has a poll, although keep in mind that they are also an unrated pollster. What do they have? Slotkin leads 50%-42%. Not quite the lead in Bullfinch Group’s poll, but not far off.

  Then comes along the Frankenstein monster of Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/Impact Research (1.7) with another poll, a more reasonable 47%-44% lead for Slotkin. Is this coming down to Earth, or is Fabrizio/Impact behind the times – or even slanting towards Rogers? Their sponsor is the AARP, which doesn’t strike me as tilting one way or the other.

• In North Dakota, challenger Katrina Christiansen (D-ND) is, rather mysteriously, using Lake Research Partners (1.2) to discover Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) has a 51%-38% lead. It’s bad news from a questionable pollster. Why spend that money? Or is a 13 point margin not considered bad in North Dakota?
• Unknown and unrated pollster ActiVote gives Ohio’s Senator Brown (D-OH) an entirely reasonable lead of 53%-48% over challenger and Trump endorsee Bernie Moreno (R-OH). The trick here? A margin of error of 4.9 points, no doubt due to using a small (n=400) voter sample.
• Montana gets another poll that’s hard to evaluate: American Pulse Research & Polling, yet another unknown pollster, gives challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT?) a 51%-45% lead over Senator Tester (D-MT).And, at the last moment, there’s another poll, this one from RMG Research (holder of a respectable 2.3 rating), this one giving Senator Tester a lead, 49% 44%, that is also close to the magical 50%. I do not recognize the sponsor of this poll, Napolitan Institute, but judging from one of their projects’ tag lines, I think they’re Democrat-aligned:
  

  Expose the Elite 1%

  Whether their partisanship affects their pollster, RMG, remains to be seen. But these numbers do align with that of respectable pollsters, while Sheehy’s lead is the opinion of unknown pollsters.

• 

  On The Issues: Rep Gallego (D-AZ).

  Two pollsters chart the fight over the soon-to-be vacant US Senate seat from Arizona, a contest between Rep Gallego (D-AZ) and former newscaster and election-denier Kari Lake (R-AZ). As neither pollster is known, I’m wondering if I should even bother, but I’ve come this far into the dead-end canyon, I might as well see the size of the beast making all that racket what’s there. Peak Insights (not rated), sponsored by the NRSC, a Republican organization, finds the race to be even. Given the partisan and nebulous nature of the polling, I think this is most likely delusional, although notably the NRSC references our second poll. The second pollster is BSG/GS Strategy Group, working for The Cook Political Report, and they have issued a more believable 51%-42% lead for Gallego. The truth may lie somewhere in the middle, but, to be observant, Gallego offers experience and a reality-based view of the world, if with a tilt to the liberal side, while Lake has no experience, a conspiracy-based mindset, a tendency to go for the throat which is incompatible in a democracy in a very complex world, and a thoroughly repugnant allegiance to Mr Trump. This should be an easy promotion for Gallego to the Senate. Just sayin’, Arizonans.

• In the Minnesota primary, Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) easily won her primary, while former NBA player Royce White (R-MN) (no relation) won the Republican nomination in a badly fractured race – he only collected 36+% of the Republican ballots. Klobuchar’s ballot count is more than quadruple that of White’s. This is a heckuva of a mountain for White to climb. Royce, that is.
• To the surprise of no one, Senator Baldwin (D-WI) and Eric Hovde (R-WI?) won their respective primaries in Wisconsin. Baldwin was unchallenged, and Hovde dominated his primary with 86+% of the Republican ballots. However, Baldwin remains the leader in the polls, and that may get worse rather than better, given the clownish behavior of the Wisconsin Republican Party. Independents who want a better alternative to the Wisconsin Democrats may have to kick the Republicans in the teeth to get their attention – or join the Party while refusing to accept the current nominees. That’s the traditional approach, anyways, and, given the out of bounds behavior of the Republicans, physically wrestling officials out of the Party may be the only alternative.

  Since I’m here, the above-mentioned BSG/GS Strategy Group, working for The Cook Political Report, has Baldwin leading, 50%-43%. This is closer than some recent polling. TIPP Insights (1.8), sponsored by American Greatness, gives Baldwin a 50%-43% lead as well. As the latter is almost certainly Republican-aligned, the admission of Baldwin’s commanding position is notable.

• Senator Hirono (D-HI) easily won her primary in her reelection effort in Hawaii, and her opponent from the Republicans will be Bob McDermott (R-HI), a former State Senator and former Marine. I fear this will not be close.
• This has to be causing shock waves in Nevada … except it’d have to come from a highly rated pollster, and not unknown (see above) BSG/GS Strategy Group, working for The Cook Political Report. They claim that Senator Rosen (D-NV) is leading challenger Sam Brown (R-NV) by an astounding 54%-36%. This is the kind of numbers that make me wonder if I should just ignore them … or consider them prescient. I figure Mr Brown is doomed, due to his position on abortion if nothing else, but not that doomed.
• In Texas, challenger Rep Allred (D-TX) is facing an unexpected hurdle to leap – his own Party:
  

  Three and a half years into an unprecedented border crisis impacting Texans in border communities and the state’s largest cities, high-profile Democrats are openly endorsing a Republican candidate for Senate who they never endorsed before: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. [Washington Examiner]

  Nothing like having an anchor in a 400m sprint. Then again, this is Texas, the home of money and its acquisition.

• In Vermont, Senator Sanders (I-VT) won the Democratic primary and Gerald Malloy (R-VT) won his primary. In terms of ballot numbers, it’s Sanders 2-1, roughly, and that will probably translate to the general election. I doubt any pollsters will bother with this race.
• And finally … Mississippi challenger Ty Pinkins (D-MS) is having a meet & greet in a couple of towns where my maternal grandparents and uncles once resided. Well, I think it was yesterday, actually:
  

  PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (WLOX) – On the ballot in the Magnolia State, Democrat Ty Pinkins is running against Republican incumbent Roger Wicker for his U.S. Senate seat. …

  The event is happening at the Randolph Center (315 Clark Avenue) from 6 until 8 p.m. [Biloxi-Gulfport WLOX]

  And that’s all, really. I’ve not been there in 50+ years, and I don’t remember much more than bees in the walls of my grandparents’ house, nasty nasty heat & humidity, and going fishing once in the Gulf of Mexico. The relatives are all gone, as far as I know, with the only cousin moving away to the Eastern Seaboard, unless the uncles had some productive flings which they kept secret from the rest of us. Or even grandpa. Just a sentimental memory now. Mr Pinkins? I have no idea if he’s making headway against Senator Wicker (R-MS). No polls, no nothing.

Reminders And Analysis

I’m ignoring Pennsylvania and Wisconsin poll reports, as I suspect these former hot races are more or less decided, but I will note that quality pollster Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research (2.4) has Casey up by twelve points, although not over 50%, yet. As ever, most of my hard data comes from FiveThirtyEight – my thanks to them for making this data public!

Insofar as seriously contested races go, the Democrats are defending well, with the understandable exception of West Virginia, and possibly Montana. Possible Republican losses are very limited, although Florida and Texas remain possibilities. Note that polling in Republican states is also somewhat limited.

In general, it seems the numbers have solidified for Democrats since President Biden retired from the race in favor of the Harris/Walz ticket. And if the Nevada result of Rosen leading by 18 points turns out to be mildly accurate, there may be Republican seats, even in this season of Republicans defending only ten or so seats, in danger of being flipped.

And it seems to be raining polls, now. A turbulent Presidential campaign has riled up the pollsters!

(Published Aug 16, 2024. Don’t mind me, just tracking a possible problem with the blogging software.)

Brat:

Charli told the BBC’s Sidetracked podcast that brat is a concept that represents a person who might have “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”.

It has been deemed by some pop critics as a rejection of the “clean girl” aesthetic popularised on TikTok, which spurned a groomed ideal of femininity, and instead embraces more hedonistic and rebellious attitudes.

“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things some times,” Charli explained on social media.

“Who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.” [BBC]

Noted in “MAGA media panics over Trump’s increasingly insane campaign,” TheCriticalMind, Daily Kos:

Then President Biden bowed out and handed the baton to his VP, Kamala Harris.

The MAGA media was disappointed, but unperturbed. They believed the Democrats would turn the search for Biden’s successor into a circular firing squad. And should Harris prevail, she would be fatally wounded by the process. Besides, she had dropped out of the 2020 campaign without winning a single delegate. They reassured themselves that she was a lightweight campaigner soon to be nicknamed into oblivion.

But Kamala proved to be brat. Her campaign caught fire. Her selection of Tim Walz as running mate paid off in spades. Her run became a supernova of buzz, excitement, and energy. Thousands volunteered. Millions poured in. Double-haters became single-haters, and cast their lot with Harris. And suddenly Trump was the old man in the race. His act was shopworn, trite, and tired.

Professor Richardson provides the text, as I don’t have a Twitter/X account:

Tonight, X owner Elon Musk planned to “interview” Trump, although it seemed pretty clear the event was intended simply to be a long advertisement for him. European Union commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton wrote an open letter to Musk warning about E.U. laws against amplifying harmful content “that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.” Breton warned that his team “will be extremely vigilant” about protecting “E.U. citizens from serious harm.” Musk responded with a meme that said: “TAKE A BIG STEP BACK AND LITERALLY, F*CK YOUR OWN FACE!”

My, oh, my. Has anyone informed Mr. Musk that children behaving badly usually have their toys removed?

He should think about that.

Right wing pundit Erick Erickson dips a toe in the water:

For these same Republicans who want to be as mean and nasty as the Democrats, the question must be asked: Is it time to ditch Donald Trump for a candidate who can win? The short answer to the question is no because Trump deserves a reset. But if the GOP does not get it right, I suspect after a loss some of his supporters will wonder about the ruthlessness.

The Republicans want to see Biden’s stepping back from the 2024 Presidential Democratic nomination as being a same-party coup, and that’s not entirely a fantasy. It’s not clear that Biden would have stepped back on his own, even after he contracted Covid and almost certainly could not fulfill his Presidential duties and campaign effectively simultaneously. Yes, even though he’d effectively defeated Mr Trump in their one debate, he presented as low energy and confused, despite the fact he eventually did reach the right answer on most or all the debate questions. I do the same when afflicted with a head cold, and I recover – but Biden’s age is a concerning factor, as I’ve said a few times.

So, by ruthlessness, Erickson means Republicans abandoning their disastrous allegiance to Mr Trump and replacing him as the Republican nominee for President. If they can.

Now, I’ve recently mentioned that his replacement presents a conundrum of its own, as no prominent member of the Republicans seems to have the gravitas to lead an Administration. Even Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and former US Ambassador to the United Nations, who won Vermont and the District of Columbia during the primary season against Trump, was obviously unconvincing to the bulk of Republican primary voters.

This campaign has been a course of campaign events punctuated by rarities: The two oldest candidates ever, an assassination attempt, a withdrawal by a sitting President, a SCOTUS which most knowledgeable folks are scorning for decisions such as Dobbs, more lies than you can shake a stick at, and VP picks that have drawn unusual attention. Each of these punctuations has caused momentum changes, and the selection of Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) by Mz Harris to run as her Vice President candidate has been an exclamation point to the momentum change that began with President Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement of Mz Harris for the nomination.

The Republicans surely have seen that. Indeed, in their eyes their imminent victory is slipping away, even if that imminent victory still had to survive 100+ days of campaigning and revelations, not to mention that it was the product of a chronic Republican overconfidence that they explain away as a consequence of electoral cheating, rather than the honest, if humiliating, evaluation of themselves as a bunch of arrogant twerps and grifters who are desperately out of touch with the majority of the American electorate.

I’ve been hearing a little about the possible sacking of Mr Trump, but it involved personalities such as Nick Fuentes, a far-right extremist far better suited to digging holes in the ground than working in politics. But if a radio host, a social influencer such as Erick Erickson, is beginning to make noises about the futility, even dementia, of Mr. Trump, we may indeed be seeing the exit of Mr. Trump in the not-too-distant future.

Or the immolation of a Republican Party wedded to Gingrichian precepts, Christian arrogance, and being sucked dry by charismatic – if you say so – cheats.

I’m not going to expect, precisely, the sudden retirement of Mr. Trump, as its impact on his ego might be too catastrophic for him to endure, but it may occur. And it would contribute to the most dramatic Presidential contest in living memory, a point that might appeal to Mr. Trump’s diminished intellect.

ADDENDUM

I just saw this in another post from Erickson, published earlier today. He’s just finished up his annual (?) political meeting called The Gathering, and I suspect it’s not hard to guess Mr. Trump’s sacking may have been a part of the agenda:

Forgive me. I am exhausted. Instead of writing on the subject, please just listen to this from yesterday’s show. I’m in the post-Gathering phase of exhaustion, and there’s no rest for the weary. [Follow the above link if you wish to listen to what he has to say — HAW]

The bottom line, however, is this — voting for Kamala Harris to stop Trump or save conservativism only tells Democrats that they need to do nothing to earn your vote. They do not have to moderate their position because no matter how extreme they are, you’ll vote for them if you have allowed Trump to radicalize you against him.

The better option for evangelicals and conservatives is to show up and vote and leave that line blank. That registers your disgust and makes you a meaningful demographic that both parties will want in order to win. That will force change. Voting for a pro-abortion candidate who will advance far-left positions just because you think the other side is bad will only ensure the side you vote for keeps moving left. They’ll treat your vote not as a vote against Trump but as an endorsement. You’ll be their cheap date.

Erickson is being squeezed by zealots on both sides, and he’s liable to explode. Or drop out. Or even go independent. But it’s clear that Mr. Trump is becoming unacceptable to large numbers of Republican voters, if I’m to read Erickson’s plea between the lines, and he’s saying, Please vote for Republican candidates except Mr. Trump, if you must.

Unfortunately for him, while most of those candidates lack the public profile of Mr Trump, they are, in their ways, just as bad and disconnected from the American public. The suppression of those who refused to back Mr Trump has purified the Republicans, but the purity is of their poison, not their goodness.

My goodness, this November may see a blow out of the Party who thought victory was imminent.

Speaking truth to power:

Mesa, AZ Republican Mayor John Giles: I do not recognize my party. I have something to say to those of us who are in the middle: You don’t owe a damn thing to that party. You don’t owe anything to a party that is out of touch and hell-bent on taking us backward. And by all means, you owe no loyalty to a candidate who is morally and ethically bankrupt. In the spirit of the great Senator John McCain, please join me in putting country over party and stopping Donald Trump.

Taking the Republican Party back from the extremists spawned by Gingrich’s Precepts will take more than Mr Giles, but he’s an important step. Mr Giles is a mooring post, ignoring the flood that pushes the fish about.

Over the left field wall:

Scarper:

to leave very quickly, often to avoid getting into trouble:
The police are coming! We’d better scarper. [Cambridge Dictionary]

Ah. I’d seen the word before, but never acquired the precise definition. I wonder as to etymology. Noted in “August 8, 2024,” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American:

The plumbers burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in California, hoping to find something to discredit him, then moved on to bigger targets. Together with the Committee to Re-elect the President (fittingly dubbed CREEP as its activities became known), they planted fake letters in newspapers declaring support for Nixon and hatred for his opponents, spied on Democrats, and hired vendors for Democratic rallies and then scarpered on the bills. Finally, they set out to wiretap the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the fashionable Watergate office complex.

CREEP member Roger Stone memorably described himself, in connection with this work, as a ratfucker.

People will do anything to move up the prestige ladder. Skeptic Benjamin Radford catches Tik Tok influencers in the act:

Bogus health fads come fast and furious, and one of the latest is something called “oil pulling,” an ancient Indian practice in which people cleanse their mouths (and bodies) of toxins by swishing a vegetable oil (such as olive, coconut, or sunflower) in the mouth for twenty minutes and then spitting it out. Wildly popular TikTok videos extol the virtues of this allegedly ancient practice.

It’s ridiculously simple, and, it is claimed, amazingly effective. According to a blog for the Skeptoid podcast, “Oil pulling is said to treat chronic pain, insomnia, cavities, allergies, thrombosis, diabetes, asthma, bad breath, gingivitis, digestive issues, meningitis, low energy, heart disease, kidney disease, ‘toxic bodily waste,’ PMS, leukemia and even AIDS. Oil pulling, it would seem, is truly a life-changing medical miracle.”

If you catch yourself saying, Well, I saw this video on Tik Tok … with no attempts at confirmation from more respectable sources, perhaps you need to reconsider how you’re running your life. Maybe try independent thinking:

The fact that oil pulling has been used for thousand of years (if indeed it has) is asserted as proof of its efficacy but in fact means nothing. This is an example of a logical fallacy called the “appeal to tradition.” Just because a practice has endured for hundreds or thousands of years does not mean it is valid.

Given the widespread scourge of disease we endured until the science of medicine came along, an independent thinker might conclude that oil pulling is invalid. Of course, this, too, would be an invalid conclusion, since we lack any idea of the prevalence of general disease in a population lacking an oil pulling tradition.

Independent thinking is a lot harder than it looks.

But relying on Tik Tok for your knowledge is simply another way to give people all your money.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that influencers get prestige and money from being influencers. What have they really done to earn such a position?

A bumbler working over the echinacea. I think.

Yeah, I can see this popping up on a card in a future edition of Trivial Pursuit under Who Said This?

These are the ravings of a madman. We are here now everyone. Trump is gone. It's a serious matter and we cannot look away anymore.

After his disastrous week last week, where he repeatedly embarrassed himself, his campaign has taken him off the trail. His campaign knows. pic.twitter.com/kK88A8DfcZ

— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) August 6, 2024

“What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kambla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!!” — Donald J. Trump

Wow. Why does anyone even associate with him anymore? Oh, yeah, that’s right.

Bricolage:

Bricolage is a term that originated from the French word “bricoler,” which means to tinker or to make do with whatever materials are at hand. It refers to the practice of creating something new by using a diverse range of materials or objects that may not typically be associated with each other. Bricolage is often characterized by its use of found objects, recycled materials, and unconventional techniques.

Bricolage is a form of artistic expression that emphasizes creativity, resourcefulness, and improvisation. It allows artists to break free from traditional constraints and explore new possibilities by combining disparate elements in unexpected ways. Bricolage is often associated with the concept of bricolage, which is the idea that meaning is constructed through the interaction of different elements. [Learn Everything About Art & Art History]

Noted in “Borderlands review — how can Cate Blanchett be so flailingly inept?” Kevin Maher, The Times:

This film, instead, is lazy bricolage, cobbled together by so-called creatives who appear not to care and by some who should clearly know better.

Steve Benen’s ongoing puzzlement over Trump voters proceeds:

As we discussed last year, members of a White House cabinet have a unique perspective on an American presidency. After a president chooses them for their powerful positions, these cabinet officials routinely work closely with the person behind the desk in the Oval Office, learning first-hand how a president thinks, works, prioritizes, processes information, and leads.

I’ve long wondered what might persuade voters inclined to support Trump to change their minds. Who, if anyone, will they listen to?

Clearly, these voters will not be persuaded by pundits. Or lawmakers. Or historians. Or prosecutors. Or committee reports. Or special counsel investigations.

But perhaps they’ll consider listening to those who worked closely with Trump, and who are now keeping their distance as he tries to regain power.

No, just about none of them will pay attention.

The bulk consider themselves to be at the bottom of the social ladder, lacking in influence and respect due to atavistic^[1] views on social issues, with other influences being rejection of rapid changes and other inclinations which causes them to lose social status. Mr Trump represents an alternative social matrix, one that is nation-wide, into which they fit both more comfortably and have more relative influence because their views of subjects mesh far better with this group. The fact that Mr. Trump has the resources of a national party, from which he has ejected, or at least suppressed, members who disagree with his views, view him as incompetent, and are concerned about his dementia, adds to his allure. That he might win the Presidential run closes the deal, because such a victory would validate their views and elevate the social standing of his followers – if only in their own minds.

The continuing blunders of the left when it comes to proper management of transgender issues certainly helps to stabilize the Trump movement, discouraging members from leaving due to the discomfort of being excluded from an issue into which they had the right to have input, as well as the exceptionally difficult issue of the Gaza War. For some members, they stand to profit greatly from a Trump victory, primarily financially.

They’re already at the bottom of the heap, so why not take a chance on Trump? The alternative is a world which ranges from uncomfortable to blasphemous. Issues of competence and truth? Not all that important, since that path leads to negative results, in their view.

At this juncture, Trump’s voters are his base and independents who believe that both sides are equally corrupt and prefer Trump over Harris for any of a number of reasons. That means Harris must convince them that she is not as corrupt as Trump, and has far more reasonable views. That includes the Biden / Harris economic record, border record, and other positive results from the previous four years – and the Trump behavior over the last eight.

¹ At least within their social matrix. That I use the word atavistic implies no malice on their part, merely an inclination that is both old-fashioned and at odds with those in a social group which they generally must interact.

I must confess I’m sort of waiting to see if Erickson can, indeed, put his trust in a God that may not have a lot of sympathy for him, or if the pressure will just cause his assorted limbs to pop off and bounce around the room like balloons. Remember, Erickson, from evidence on the ground, has been tasked with keeping the herd from running away from a Republican Party that seems to have gone mad, led by a pathological narcissist who appears to have either suffered unrevealed strokes, or has dementia.

And those very attributes are driving Erickson himself around the bend.

This is Donald Trump’s race to lose and there are times I wonder if he wants to. This weekend was one of those times. He spent more time attacking Brian Kemp and Georgia Republicans than he did Kamala Harris.

If Donald Trump loses in November and your first thought is that it was stolen, ask yourself why it was a good idea to re-nominate a man who had it stolen from him even while he was the sitting President in charge of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and FBI with Republican Governors in Arizona and Georgia. Now, in 2024, Joe Biden is in charge at the federal level, Democrats control Arizona, and Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger are still in charge in Georgia. Really, a genius plan.

Poor guy. He’s tied in knots over poor logic OR his faith, so he can’t switch parties or even drop out. But there’s a hidden hand grenade here:

The whispers are already there, folks. Some Republicans see this behavior and think the party would be better off with Trump losing and pushing out those tied to him because of the loss. It’s foolish thinking, but it is growing. People are tired of being bullied with all the demands for unity and loyalty flowing in one direction — that’s more bowel movement than political movement. And it’s not just Trump, but his diehard supporters who wear people out who are willing to vote for Trump, but don’t want to hump his leg.

The grenade is that the Republicans don’t really have anyone, anyone at all that exudes that gravitas suggesting they are both destined and worthy of the Oval Office. No one. Closest might be Kemp, who worked well under pressure during the 2020 election, refusing to be pushed into committing illegalities that might tarnish his reputation further, showed an admirable independence, and never collapsed. Other candidates such as Haley and DeSantis were inferior in this respect.

But I’m unconvinced that any of them would work well as President. They might exceed Trump, it’s true, as Trump mostly coasted on the momentum he received from President Obama, and when faced with difficult governing challenges he did poorly. But that is not equivalent to being an adequate President.

Therefore, when Erickson claims it’s foolish to keep Trump out of office, he’s very short-sighted. Do we really need to go through all of Trump’s debacles, from dropping taxes without adjustments to spending to a high likelihood that Trump kept all those papers at Mar-a-Lago for reasons having little to do with the government’s interests, and all about his.

And the odd thing is that Erickson just about agrees.

Part of his problem is that he surrounds himself with the trolls of social media who, like Laura Loomer, whisper crazy in his ears and he regurgitates it after it has festered in his brain. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bill White chatted with Trump before his tirade. White, a New York transplant to Georgia and friend of Trump, had a falling out with the Republican leaders in Georgia over his plans to make the northern part of Atlanta its own City of Buckhead. White got so angry, he packed up and moved to Palm Beach (and joined Mar-a-Lago), but probably whispered his vinegar in Trump’s ears before the Atlanta rally. White blames Kemp and has kept an “enemies list” with Kemp at the top. Here is White’s statement attacking Kemp over the Atlanta rally and his anger that Kemp did not show up at the rally. Note, again, Kemp was not invited to the rally. Last night, White came after me on social media and attacked Kemp’s wife.

These are many of the people who are in charge of Republican affairs. They are the leadership. And it’s foolish not to put them in charge of the nation?

It’s screwed up thinking like this, along with the mistake of thinking propaganda is somehow truth …

And, today, between the markets, a looming recession, and a war spreading in the Middle East while we have a dementia addled patient in charge, Trump needs to remind people he can lead, not just complain about the past. Otherwise, the Democrats will cast Kamala Harris in the role of leader and work overtime to make her look calm as Trump, yet again, relitigates 2020.

… no, there’s no sign of recession, and markets, which had gotten ahead of themselves, as they so often do, are simply correcting. War? Could be. Would have come faster with Trump in charge. Biden keeps on being successful, and Erickson shamefully charges him with dementia. All without addressing Trump’s own addlepated behavior as disqualifying.

The madness is Trump’s. Biden’s just tired but wanted to finish the job. And then the idea that this was Trump’s race to lose … no. Republicans, over the last couple of decades or so, have suffered from chronic overconfidence. You’d think they would have learned from 2018, 2020, and 2022, but I suspect they haven’t.

Cathectic:

Of or pertaining to a connection that is charged with emotional energy. [YourDictionary.com]

Noted in “A Nobel Prize winner’s brilliant tirade against mortality,” Becca Rothfeld, WaPo:

[Elias] Canetti is a peculiar writer, difficult to categorize or even characterize. His sole novel, “Auto-da-Fé” (1935), is a nightmarish fable about a cathectic bibliophile. It is a brutal and disorienting book, reminiscent of the writings of Franz Kafka (whom Canetti admired) and Samuel Beckett (toward whom he was more ambivalent). But his most famous achievement, the monumental “Crowds and Power” (1960), is an idiosyncratic work of poetic anthropology unlike anything else in world literature. Canetti cites legends and rituals from an astonishing range of cultures as he seeks to demonstrate that crowds are the antidote to humanity’s primordial fear of touch. Many of his conclusions are dubious. Is it really true that crowds are equalizing forces that raze all hierarchy, or that they grow practically of their own accord, or that those who outlive others relish the victory over the dead implicit in their very survival? Yet the literal truth or falsity of the pronouncements in “Crowds and Power” is beside the point: Regardless of its plausibility, it has the stern and enthralling authority of a myth or a religious text. Canetti’s memoirs are something else again. In his sparkling recollections of a bygone Europe, he invented a lighter genre for himself.

Sounds rather fascinating.

It’s been a while since I checked in on Mauna Loa:

And not obviously better. What triggered me to think of this? This CNN/Weather report:

The flood threat for Florida will only diminish slightly Tuesday and remain quite concerning.

“Due to the likely hard hit nature of this area by Tuesday, even smaller amounts of rain are likely to result in outsized impacts,” the WPC [Weather Prediction Center] warned.

Flood threats could become even more dire for parts of Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday once the area becomes very water-logged.

“By this point, the multi-day storm accumulation will likely be in the double digits with maxes in the 20 to 30 inch range near the Savannah metro and all along the Carolina Coastal Plain,” the WPC continued.

This is not an isolated event, either. Following three years of drought, northern Minnesota saw heavy flooding earlier this summer, which caused the Blue Earth River to effectively go around the Rapidan Dam. We have wildfires in California and Canada, a heat wave of memorable proportions on the East Coast, and we can certainly point at anthropomorphic climate change. Hurricane Beryl with more to come…

And a stubborn CO₂ density curve.

Our second visit to this year’s edition of the Minnesota Fringe Festival yielded these two shows:

• Juliet & Juliet: Improvised Shakespeare is a delightfully goofy improv show. The two leads take contributed themes and ideas and try, more or less successfully, to weave them into a mini-play set in Shakespeare’s time and language. Nothing serious here, but certainly fun.
• The Untold Myth of Medusa, The Musical; Part 1 retells the story of Medusa before she was saddled with that mess of snakes, coming up with the abuse of a brave woman. Painfully preachy in parts, badly sung in others, it appeared to me to be more of a graphic lesson of the dramatic disasters that occur when attempting to integrate the logic of humanity with the logic of the gods; or, a lesson in never interacting with the oversexed, under-challenged gods.

As uneven as a Fringe experience should be.

Reading Erick Erickson’s occasional missive on how “God has this, don’t worry,” and then to read the following ca sometimes jar one’s teeth in one’s head:

2024 began as a referendum between two deeply disliked men, one of whom is an incumbent with a bad economy and his predecessor who had a great economy until a global pandemic undid it. 2024 is ending with everyone remembering they hate Trump and not knowing who Kamala Harris is. Trump can still win it, but he seems intent on reminding people they do not like him while ignoring Harris’s record. His latest comment won’t cost him the election. They will just keep him from gaining ground and rebuilding momentum less than 100 days before the election.

It’s a stampede of six-legged horses, isn’t it?

• Polls show Biden is not disliked, but instead old enough that people began to worry that he couldn’t do the job. It’s an illustration of the tragedy of growing old.
• OK, he may have Trump right as being disliked, but the MAGA base might argue it. Or they might not.
• The fantasy that we exist in a bad economy that, until this last month, had a record setting low unemployment rate continues; meanwhile, third party evaluators see the United States as having a world-leading economy.
• Trump didn’t rescue the economy from disaster in 2017, but rather rode a roaring economy, inherited from Obama, while boasting he’d created it. Obama, cleaning up after the Republicans as usual, gave him a lovely gift.
• Erickson skips the question of Federal debt, which jumped under Trump and his 2017 “tax reforms”:

  What’s that you say, Biden’s debt went up, too? Yes, that’s right! Cleaning up after the Republicans’ clownish behavior, aka Gingrich’s Don’t let them have a victory!, of the previous four years is an expensive business, not in the least helped with “holding the line on taxes.”

• Trump can still win it, really? We’re not talking about a judicious, mature man. We’re talking about a demented narcissist, with acting skills, intent on preparing himself for becoming God’s favorite. while grooving on the adoration of crowds who mistake his actions as that of a successful businessman … which he isn’t. Meanwhile, the general electorate becomes more and more uneasy about him, the disaffected young voters have become fascinated with Harris, the VP selection process of the Democrats heightens the anticipation, while the Republicans have lost that focus, and Republican donors are supposedly yammering for a do-over on the pick, Senator J. D. Vance, whose views on various issues appear to be calibrated for winning nominations from the weirdo-right, not independents.
• And, finally, Trump has assumed the mantle of yesterday. He talks about migrants taking Black jobs, not understanding the segregational aspect’s assumptions are outdated and racist. He still whines about his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, still trying to convince anyone that Biden cheated. He projects his own inclinations on Harris, such as outright cheating and stopping at nothing – see Jan 6, 2021 – to win, rather than letting voters decide who’s better. He lacks a fundamental understanding of why things work the way they work. There’s a reason why his mentor, Roy Cohn, is despised rather than worshiped, and it has nothing to do with Cohn’s supposed sexuality. Some Americans believe Trump is the right way to go, and some of that is due to blunders by the Left.Meanwhile, Harris has sought, and perhaps successfully assumed, the mantle of a bright future. From the economy to justice, she represents what appears to be a way forward that seems, especially to the younger voters who, despite their inexperience, think they see the injustices of today mirrored in the eyes of Mr. Trump and his supporters. There is something to be said for the judgement of those lacking investments in the current societal order.

I do feel sorry for Erickson, because his own misjudgment towards abortion makes the idea of compromise, of even switching sides, completely repugnant. Does he fail to see the utter lack of virtue in Mr Trump and his allies? I would certainly hope so.

But he doesn’t seem to get it. Once in a while he expresses disgust, but that’s about it.

Is this Whack-A-Mole?

The Most Dangerous Game (1932) is a familiar story: nasty bit of work likes to hunt The most dangerous animal!, and that leads to a horrific conclusion …. for someone. In this version, a number of victims have been killed and then deprived of their skins by Zaroff, and when big-game hunter Bob Rainsford lugs himself onto Zaroff’s beach, he finds Zaroff, Eve Trowbridge and her brother, Martin the Alcoholic with the Annoying Voice.

So one loses their skin and another picks up the title Official Victim, but he’s slippery and daring.

But there’s little to really rouse our sympathies. Oh, it’s not like Al Capone is being hunted, but the good guys are really too good. Rather than the Victims becoming victims and maybe losing a few of them because of character traits, it’s really more of someone having the idea of the Big Hunt and forgot to develop it further.

But the dogs are really, really cool. And I enjoyed some of the cinematography more than I should have. So that was a nice positive.

I forgot to mention the Minnesota Fringe Festival started today. We saw two shows at Open Eye Theatre:

• Secrets Under the Christmas Tree: A Deedee Wallaby Mystery by Deft Pictures concerns machinations in a family, of smart strong women and their cloddish, needy husbands. I felt the script needed several rewrites, and more rehearsals, but my Arts Editor thought it clever and it made her laugh.
• 5 x 5 by Transatlantic Love Affair, a sellout, is a collection of five stories told tréteau style by a theatre company with an excellent representation, and even if this felt like it was slapped together at the last moment, it still connects to the audience early and often. We hadn’t seen them in a decade, and they are still excellent. Pay attention to the Fringe rules on sellouts and order your tickets to this one online to be sure you are allowed in.

A bridal dress show, punctuated by my Arts Editor’s exclamations of Oh, exquisite! and Western bridal dresses have nothing on this! She is a former master tailor who ran a bridal shop, so I pay attention.

The Internet and its spawn, the Web, are, in a sense, an irresistible honeypot^[1]. While we fall down “rabbit holes,” numerous firms are collecting out information: credit cards, addresses, purchase information, all used to build personal profiles to sell to those wishing to target you for goals licit and illicit, legal profit to theft.

WaPo’s Michelle Singletary demonstrates general consumer ignorance on the matter:

Whenever possible, push back when companies ask for information they don’t actually need.

Once, as I was picking up some furniture, the clerk wanted to take my driver’s license and scan a copy into the retailer’s computer system.

“No, sir,” I said.

He insisted the information was needed to keep a record of the items that were picked up by customers. Nonsense. I had a receipt. But I was okay with him verifying my identity by eyeballing my license.

There was a long line of customers behind me, visibly annoyed — blowing their breath, rolling their eyes. I told the employee, loudly enough for them to hear, that the store’s policy was unnecessary and that it could expose me to identity theft should their system be hacked. Every piece of information that is compromised helps criminals improve their tactics in targeting victims.

And we see the hacking every day, with notices from vendors announcing the access of information describing you with mind-numbing regularity. Sometimes we receive mail from vendors we’ve never heard of announcing a victorious hack of them, and now our credit card information is floating about in the dark version of the Internet, available for a small fee, and because it’s digital, it can be copied and sold an infinite number of times. The lower prices made possible by the indiscriminate copying entices more and more criminals, like a hive of vicious wasps presented with a ham sandwich.

So where is this going to end? Are there penalties for the security-deficient firms, legal or market, that motivates improved security behavior? Is the problem too difficult to solve?

Or, someday, will we see firms begin to flee the Internet? Will we see a great rush among the non-Amazons to announce that they no longer use the Internet for customer-facing applications, for their financial facets, for even supplier interactions?

Will there ever be a first? Or will the lure of bigger profits continue to keep every firm in line?

¹ Honeypot is a cybersecurity term for one or more systems on the Internet that appear to be loaded with valuable information. They distract a criminal (let’s not glorify them with “cybercriminal”, they’re simply destructive parasites) with faux-information while those hosting the honeypot collect information from the criminal.