Monthly Archives: September 2024

Seiche:

A seiche (/seɪʃ/ SAYSH) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves, and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water be at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “A landslide triggered a 650-foot mega-tsunami in Greenland. Then came something inexplicable,” Laura Paddison, CNN/Climate:

The subsequent mega-tsunami — one of the highest in recent history — set off a wave which became trapped in the bendy, narrow fjord for more than a week, sloshing back and forth every 90 seconds.

The phenomenon, called a “seiche,” refers to the rhythmic movement of a wave in an enclosed space, similar to water splashing backwards and forwards in a bathtub or cup. One of the scientists even tried (and failed) to recreate the impact in their own bathtub.

I wonder what that does to the fish!

We have a door to the computer room we rehabbed by scraping off the paint and restaining it. Unfortunately, this scraped up the little windows in it, so Deb found a solution which occasionally gives us quite a colorful display.

Oh, and here’s one now:

Add creepy music and stir.

Steve Benen summarizes the nightmare of a debate for Mr Trump:

A few weeks ago, Kamala Harris delivered an acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention and told an obvious truth: Donald Trump, the vice president reminded voters, is “easy to manipulate.” In context, she was referring to foreign powers, but the simple observation also proved to be the basis for Harris’ strategy for her first debate against the former president.

Headed into the event, the Democrat’s strategy was hardly a secret. I lost count of how many published reports I saw exploring Harris’ plan to bait the Republican with traps she hoped he’d fall into. Hillary Clinton told The New York Times last week that she’d spoken to her party’s candidate about the debate, and the former secretary of state said her advice was straightforward: “She should bait him. He can be rattled.”

In theory, Trump and his team should’ve seen all of this and prepared accordingly. After all, Democrats spent weeks effectively broadcasting their playbook, telling the whole world exactly what Harris intended to do. It was like watching the run-up to a Super Bowl, in which one team’s coaches speak publicly about which plays they are eager to call.

But in practice, the GOP nominee simply couldn’t help himself.

It’s been a long summer, and the succulents seem to love it.

And Mr Trump has long been rumored to be both a misogynist and a bigot. I can’t really speak to those points, although circumstantial evidence does support the contention – including this one.

A bigot, and a misogynist is a bigot as it applies to women, isn’t just a hater. A bigot has a certain set of beliefs concerning a group of people that is at variance with reality. For example, the Southern racists believed their slaves were, truly, subhuman, and when freed slaves formed military units and marched against the Confederates, sometimes successfully, it was a shock for the Confederates. Welcome to reality, boys, and hell is your first stop after you’re dead.

Thus, the reports that Trump hardly prepared, if at all, make sense: he believes himself innately superior to his opponent, a woman, and thus didn’t prepare. He discovers, too late, the discordancy of his beliefs with reality, and loses so badly he feels it necessary to run back out and “report” snap polls made him the victor.

And it doesn’t help that he’s aged and mentally deficient, untrained in governance, and generally a failure in his one term.

This is why true bigots continually fail, with only occasional success when their opponents are also unprepared: they don’t apprehend reality properly. That’s what appeared to happen with Mr Trump.

Results are delivered via rake… previous results were delivered via coffee filter….

Hey, About Morning Consult

Morning Consult (1.8) released a number of polls overnight, and I noticed they use a larger sample size than most pollsters. It guarantees nothing, but it does make it more likely they’ll get accurate results.

Chances are. That 1.8 rating still doesn’t look good.

Most Obvious Right-Wing Grifter Pollster

Obviously, this is all speculation, since there are no objective baselines from which to measure; other sensibilities must be used to make the call. For me, claiming Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has a mere six point lead, 42%-36% over challenger Royce White (R-MN), when that gap should be in the upper teens, is a big red flag, and we can see that in previous, far more authoritative polls. A supporting flag is the insistence of the pollster that Minnesota is, somehow, a swing State! No, we learned our lesson from former Senator Coleman (R-MN) and former Governor Pawlenty (R-MN), and the Minnesota Republicans. Some folks were fine with them, but most of us didn’t enjoy the experience.

So, step on forward, Redfield & Wilton Strategies (unknown to FiveThirtyEight, no surprise there!), and receive your prize, a good, old-fashioned clout^[1] upside the head. Not all of their polls seem fraudulent, but that Minnesota poll makes me wonder who else they’re misleading, and whether they’re being paid gobs of money to do so.

That Presidential Debate Means Nothing To The Senate Races, Right?

And I saw this! Yes, that big collapse in price is this morning, the morning following the debate.

No, I didn’t watch the debate. My appetite for political events and analysis is actually quite limited. However, I’ve seen bits and pieces, along with other analyses, enough to convince me that Mr Trump’s string may have run out last night.

And, if this is so, the various GOP Senate candidates who are in tight races may have cause to bitterly blame Mr Trump come November, as independents and moderate Republicans who might’ve been inclined to vote for Mr Trump and his allies scurry hurriedly away, convinced that the GOP has become peopled by the terminally crazed and their parasites.

And will Mr Trump abandon the ticket? While I don’t want to be another But he’s a racist! parrot, he’s more or less a misogynist, and so being chased from the race by Mz Harris may be a bit too much for him to swallow.

I think it’s entirely possible that two or three Republican Senate candidates who are thought to at least have a chance, such as Scott and Cruz, may suddenly be viewed as being in the same room as Trump, and voters will walk swiftly away.

Finally, I believe all the polls cited in this message date from before this debate.

The Rake’s Leavings

• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Arizona gives Rep Gallego (D-AZ) an eight point lead over Republican candidate and election denier Kari Lake (R-AZ), 49%-41%. That’s a trifle on the short side of other, more reputable pollsters, with the noteworthy exception of Emerson College. Meanwhile, Redfield & Wilton Strategies is giving Rep Gallego a six point lead of 48%-42%. Go figger.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Florida gives Senator Scott (R-FL) a five point lead over former Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), 47%-42%. And then, in a puzzling move, Redfield & Wilton Strategies is giving Senator Scott a smaller lead of three points, 44%-41%. Is this pollster trying to zig enough to make them seem trustworthy? Or does their “true” reading of the race have Mucarsel-Powell actually leading? It’s even puzzling that they would list Florida as a swing state. That is the fervid hope of Democrats, but right now both Senators and most of the Representatives are Republican, as is the State Legislature. Maybe poll sponsor The Telegraph, a UK news site, wants to fill more inches?
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Maryland gives Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) a five point lead over Republican candidate and former Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD), 48%-43%. This must be giving Democrats little nightmares. On the other hand, they may plan to ask Hogan to switch parties if Alsobrooks fails. It’s not like the national Republican Party is a warm & comforting home to a politician of Hogan’s middle-of-the-road stripes.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Michigan gives Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a nine point lead over Republican candidate and former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), 49%-40%, while YouGov (2.9) is giving Rep Slotkin a seven point lead, 48%-41%. Redfield & Wilton Strategies is giving Rep Slotkin a five point lead, 44%-39%. And co/efficient (1.1, which is nearly the bottom of the heap), possibly competing with Redfield & Wilton Strategies for top douchebag pollster, has Rep Slotkin’s lead at one, 39%-38%. Yep, that’s four polls in Michigan on this report, affirming the quality of Michigan restaurants.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Ohio gives Senator Brown (D-OH) a nine three point lead over Republican candidate Bernie Moreno (R-OH), 46%-43%.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Pennsylvania gives Senator Casey (D-PA) a nine point lead over Republican candidate David McCormick (R-PA?), 49%-40%, while YouGov is giving Senator Casey a seven point lead, 48%-41%. Redfield & Wilton Strategies is giving Senator Casey a lead of eight points, 44%-36%, and that 36% share suggests Mr McCormick is simply not that popular with voters, if you take this pollster seriously. co/efficient (1.1) is giving Senator Casey a 45%-36% lead. which is healthy enough, although a 1.1 rating is hardly inspiring of any confidence in their accuracy.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Texas gives Senator Cruz (R-TX) a five point lead over Democratic candidate Rep Colin Allred (D-TX), 47%-42%.
• Morning Consult’s (1.8) latest poll in Wisconsin gives Senator Baldwin (D-WI) a seven point lead over Republican candidate Eric Hovde (R-WI?), 49%-42%., while YouGov (2.9) is giving Senator Baldwin a nine point lead, 51%-43%, Marquette University Law School (3.0) gives Senator Baldwin a six point lead, 51%-45%, and BK Strategies (1.3 – why do I even bother?) gives Senator Baldwin a slimmer lead of 49%-44%, a five point lead.
• In Missouri, a circuit court disqualified from this November’s ballot the Abortion Amendment to the State’s Constitution that I mentioned earlier, and then, a couple of days later, as if to illustrate the fragility of citizens’ rights, the Supreme Court of Missouri hurriedly reversed that ruling, putting the amendment back on the ballot. If that doesn’t shake up voters, I’m not sure what will. This particular version permits abortions up until fetal viability, so it sounds like a nightmare for physicians, but at least it’s progress for patients. But will it affect the Hawley (R-MO) – Kunce (D-MO) contest? It may make Hawley’s margin smaller, but so far there’s no indications of an upset in the making.
• Rhode Island has finally held its primaries, as Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) wins nomination for reelection, and his challenger will be state Rep. Patricia Morgan (R-RI). On The Issues has little information on Patricia Morgan. Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republican primary voters more than 2 to 1.

And Now For A Commercial-Free Break

• Remember, you pay for cable so that you never have to watch a commercial again. That, folks, is what they were telling us on Showtime 50 years ago. Welcome to the insatiable financial maw of companies, eh? That’s not irrelevant to the question of Senate campaigns.
• For those who are interested in trivia, the rake picked up polls from Nevada, Virginia, New Mexico, and Missouri, with the expected results. That’s why they’re stuck in the rake.

No more room for substantive content, I’ve run out of bits.

¹ Clout has a delightful set of meanings that lend themselves to mildly disgusting visuals. Keep in mind that the piece of cloth version often refers specifically to the small piece of cloth concealing one’s genitals.

There’s a difference, of course, between promises and ability, as Transport Topics notes:

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said that if elected he would declare a national energy emergency to “achieve a massive increase in domestic energy supply” to bring gasoline below $2 a gallon. He would also reduce electricity prices, he said.

A goal of sub-$2 gasoline, last seen during the pandemic shutdown that caused demand to collapse, would be difficult to achieve, since presidents have little control over pump prices.

In an address to the Economic Club of New York on Sept. 5, Trump also pledged to rescind unspent funding from Democrats’ signature climate law in the most definitive remarks yet on his intentions for the Inflation Reduction Act.

That’s one way to alienate fossil fuel company executives. They must be feeling a bit lonely these days, what with Mr Trump offering to betray them on one side, and Democrats discouraging demand for their products on the other, and many of their children suggesting their own parents are dooming their future.

But, if you’re angry about energy prices, along with the above, remember this: Mr Trump is a mildly successful actor. He’s quite capable of being convincing on a subject over which he’d actually have little or no influence.

And that’s today’s PSA.

Potassium permanganate:

Potassium permanganate is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula KMnO₄. It is a purplish-black crystalline salt, that dissolves in water as K⁺ and MnO⁻₄, an intensely pink to purple solution.

Potassium permanganate is widely used in the chemical industry and laboratories as a strong oxidizing agent, and also as a medication for dermatitis, for cleaning wounds, and general disinfection. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. In 2000, worldwide production was estimated at 30,000 tons. [Wikipedia]

Seems a bit out of my usual run of words, but just hold on here. From “Why is water in this Iowa town turning pink? Don’t drink it, officials warn,” Mike Stunson, Kansas City Star:

“Every time you flush toilet, you turn the water on — pink,” Kara Robinson, who lives in Shelby, Iowa, told KETV.

Robinson is one of many Shelby residents encountering the issue that city officials said began overnight Sept. 8 when two of the town’s four wells did not properly reset.

It caused an excess of potassium permanganate to penetrate the system, turning the water pink.

I didn’t watch the debate last night. I do enough reading of political stuff. I did catch Colbert’s monologue from last night, today, so I do get the impression that Trump didn’t do as well as he could have wished.

But this may be more indicative:

Yes, his stock’s market cap declined by 10+%.

What does it mean? It means investors, the hard-headed sort, watched the debate or the summaries and came to the conclusion that Mr Trump is unlikely to win the general election.

There is an element of the investing community who is there to share in the dreams of Mr. Trump, but they, it turns out, are unable – or even unwilling – to buy in sufficient numbers to prop up what I perceive to be a trash stock. A stock with no interesting technology, small revenues with little prospect of increasing them, and a star attraction who appears to be losing his facilities, it’s not obvious what makes this an attractive buy.

What happens from here? There will be ups and downs, but I suspect that we may be seeing the stock cut in half while we’re still in Trump’s lock-up period (i.e., can’t sell his 60% holdings). After that, Mr Trump may walk away, leaving his investors holding quite a holey bag.

But I do not recommend going short. Stocks that are targets of manipulation, and this is one of them, do tend to bob up and down in the most alarming way.

It’s been forty years since I came out of college, harried and undistinguished. A number of Cs – yay, Calculus! – and maybe even by the skin of my teeth.

But, according to Yascha Mounk, maybe it’s different now, if you avoid STEM, and this is problematic if you ask him:

Now that the most common grade at most four-year colleges is an A, the stakes for each individual course are much higher. Since there is no way for students to distinguish themselves by doing exceptional work, a single negative outlier takes on outsized weight. To get a stellar GPA, a student doesn’t have to be exceptionally good at any one thing; they have to manage risk in every single course they take over the course of four years.4 As a result, today’s grading system has come to express a perverse set of institutional values: “We care much more about your ability to jump through any hoop we put in your path than about your ability to excel in your strongest subject or about your intellectual curiosity for challenging fields outside your main focus.”

I suspect very little effort would lead to the idea that education is a private sector endeavour, and how this has bled, if inadvertently, into even public universities as the source of these problems, as I’ve outlined elsewhere. It’ll be vital to return education to a place in society where it is responsible for teaching, with its own metrics, and not for selling education.

Incidentally, for the last twenty years I’ve detested grading on a curve, particularly those curves derived from those being tested. As an engineer, I want to see standards that don’t just float relative, relative to what is not apparent, but are anchored in reality. If everyone gets a 95% on a test and the bar for an A is 90%, then everyone gets an A. It should indicate mastery of the material, and if everyone getting an A raises suspicions, fine. Adjust the test material.

But grading on a curve is precisely Mounk’s solution. I personally don’t agree, but the recognition of a problem doesn’t mean the answer is obvious. Sometimes more subtlety is necessary.

This appears to be a reproach of the increasing radicalizaton of SCOTUS. From Wolford v. Lopez:

Having concluded the historical analysis required by Bruen and the Supreme Court’s other Second Amendment cases, we close with a few general observations. First, taking a step back from the historical analysis, the lists of places where a State likely may ban, or may not ban, the carry of firearms appear arbitrary. A State likely may ban firearms in museums but not churches; in restaurants but not hospitals; in libraries but not banks. The deep historical analysis required by the Supreme Court provides the missing link, but the lack of an apparent logical connection among the sensitive places is hard to explain in ordinary terms. In addition, the seemingly arbitrary nature of Second Amendment rulings undoubtedly will inspire further litigation as state and local jurisdictions attempt to legislate within constitutional bounds.

Bold mine. The author, a Judge Graber, just politely suggested that one of the more logical and prestigious groups has been issuing arbitrary opinions. The implication is that they decide on their preferred conclusion, and then, not even bothering to work backwards to the premises, which is awkward and not encouraged, instead simply said, “This is how it’s going to be.”

Which is just how certain anti-gun control decisions have recently seemed.

We must warn Judge Graber not to hit SCOTUS on the nose too hard with that rolled up newspaper.

Daniel Drezner is professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, so he has deep cred when it comes to foreign policy. He gives a light going-over of Mz Harris foreign policy accomplishments here, resulting in this:

This is a pretty substantive record for a vice president! It’s not, as [former foreign policy aide John] Hannah claimed, “a relatively limited foreign policy resume.” Furthermore, Harris’ two key foreign policy advisors, Phil Gordon and Rebecca Lissner, are also seasoned professionals. A Harris administration would likely be better prepared to conduct foreign policy on day one than former president Trump.

To sum up: Kamala Harris possesses far more foreign policy experience than most other post-Cold War presidents. Her track record in her foreign policy forays is pretty impressive. And her foreign policy team is better prepared to take over on January 20th than Trump’s D-listers. And the media coverage of this particular angle of the 2024 campaign remains… odd.

As ever, vice presidents hardly ever get proper coverage, leading everyone astray. It makes me wonder if Mike Pence had hidden accomplishments, or Dick Cheney, or Dan Quayle.

It’s reassuring that we’re not thrusting a naif out onto the international stage. The only thing worse would be … a self-dealing twerp who doesn’t understand the importance of international relations.

What might this be?

The mental incompetence of Mr Trump described by Professor Richardson in her September 7, 2024 post …

Then, tonight, Trump posted on his social media site a rant asserting that he will win the 2024 election but that he expects Democrats to cheat, and “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Is it the Justice Department indictments that showed Russia is working to get him reelected? Is it the rising popularity of Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Is it fury at the new grand jury’s indicting him for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and install himself in power? Is it fear of Tuesday’s debate with Harris? Is it a declining ability to grapple with reality?

Whatever has caused it, Trump seems utterly off his pins, embracing wild conspiracy theories and, as his hopes of winning the election appear to be crumbling, threatening vengeance with a dogged fury that he used to be able to hide.

… leaves me with one simple question: When will the GOP replace Mr Trump with former Ambassador Nikki Haley? While the latter has some serious problems of her own, mental stability is not in the list.

And she’s probably the only chance for the GOP, and even that is small. But Haley is comparatively young and would attract the spotlight back to the GOP.

Uh, do bees snuffle?

He’s an agnostic bee.

Maybe not so wrong there.

Out with the old, in with the new….

Will The Apalachee High School Tragedy Affect Senate Races?

It can, but it must handled with delicacy by those candidates willing to take the risks. Republicans, in general, take the position that nothing can prevent these tragedies, and thus the only appropriate response is “thoughts and prayers.” Any sort of gun control measure is verboten.

But tragic events, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the killing of union members by union-busters, are important signals that something in society is structured improperly. The chaos of never knowing if the next person through the door will be shooting a gun is deleterious to everyone in society, and deputizing part of society just to function as a patch, a bandage, on a bad policy decision – a public security force, if you will – is inefficient. Costly, if you prefer.

And don’t get me going on the hoary old arguments about self-defense and that rot. I used to argue for them on social media myself, thirty years ago, but not anymore.

The basic question: Is it better to be dodging bullets or giving up your guns? And then it comes down to policy: all guns? All but hunting guns? That’s local politics.

Bitterness Is Part Of Republican MAGA DNA

This WaPo article concerning the fall of Congressional Freedom Caucus founder Rep Bob Good (R-VA) in a bitter primary fight illustrates one of the prime features of an extremist voter, regardless of left or right: A pig-headed certainty that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and No, We Won’t Close Ranks!

To be clear, the last clause, above, isn’t entirely bad. A truly unacceptable candidate who, somehow, manages to gain the nomination to the general election should be shunned – and, as the Republican population of the House demonstrates, unacceptable successful candidates are shockingly rife. At least such shunning is a message that this candidate is seriously flawed; at best, it may help eliminate them from an important position, and if that’s a hit to the Party, once again, it’s a message.

However, the expressed bitterness is an important indication that norms of behavior and politics, that exist for very good reasons, are really going to pieces in the Republican Party, and if it continues then the Democrats, with all their positives and negatives, will end up in control of the Legislative and Executive Branches. Given the reprehensible behavior of the Republicans ever since Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was Speaker, it’s hard to be against such an outcome, but it’s certainly a situation that merits pause and, hopefully, a replacement Republican Party that does not accept such folks as Greene, Gaetz, Gosar, McConnell, and, for that matter, Good, into its ranks.

What’s This About Pollster CNN/SSRS?

I’m not sure about this pollster name. No pollsters are listed by FiveThirtyEight in their pollster rankings as CNN/SSRS; however, there is an SSRS listed, with a rating of 2.0, sort of middle of the road. Since CNN is a news source, I would not expect them to also be a pollster, although, of course, there’s the famous The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) pairing, so it’s not out of the question.

For the nonce, I’ll consider this a mistake by FiveThirtyEight: the pollster is, I’m thinking, SSRS, and the sponsor is CNN.

And their polling seems more conservative than other polling: for example, in Arizona they give Rep Gallego (D-AZ) a 47%-44% lead over Republican Kari Lake (R-AZ), while highly respected pollsters place his lead in the double digits.

Good, Bad, And The Indifferent

• And That’s A Damp Squib, Isn’t It? Unknown pollster ActiVote may or may not be conservatively aligned, but I don’t doubt that Senator Blackburn (R-TN) has a commanding lead in Tennessee over “Tennessee Three” member and State Rep Gloria Johnson (D-TN), 60%-40%. I’ll desist from future reports unless a black swan starts circling.
• If unknown pollster SoCal Strategies, working for right-wing Red Eagle Politics, is giving Senator Brown (D-OH) of Ohio a five point lead, 50%-45%, over challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH), then Brown’s lead may be greater than that. On the other hand, formidable Emerson College (2.9) is giving Senator Brown a one point lead, 46%-44% (rounding) , well within the margin of error. He could be behind. It’s sort of like your cat sleeping in that closed box, isn’t it? Dead? Alive? Superposition? Yes, a super position for pouncing as you walk by. Oh, sorry, a quantum mechanics joke. Yes, it’s an early morning.
• Senator Rosen’s (D-NV) challenger in the Nevada race, Sam Brown, is a member of the Paul Brown clan, who own the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals.
• Following up on the dubious pollster result of only a seven point lead for Minnesota Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) over challenger Royce White by Redfield & Wilton (unknown pollster), SurveyUSA (with a hefty 2.8 rating) gives Senator Klobuchar a fourteen point lead, 50%-36%. That’s still short of my prediction of twenty, but a heckuva lot better and more accurate, at least in my opinion.
• SSRS (2.0) is calling it dead even in Pennsylvania, Senator Casey (D-PA) and David McCormick (R-PA?) tied at 48%. This is at considerable variance to other pollsters, who have given Senator Casey a lead as big as twelve. I don’t see anything in the news that would spell disaster for the Senator.
• In Wisconsin, which last saw Senator Baldwin (D-WI) clinging to a one point lead in Emerson College’s (2.9) eyes, SSRS (2.0) gives the Senator a six point lead over Eric Hovde (R-WI?), 51%-45%.
• Michigan must have a warm and comforting restaurant scene, because they have three pollsters covering their Senate race this time ’round, along with having been popular all along. SSRS (2.0), again working for CNN, gives Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a 47%-41% lead over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), Glengariff Group (1.5), new to me and not having a great rating, inflates the lead by another three points, 44%-35%, and what appears to be right-wing leaning ActiVote (unknown) drags the lead back down to six, 53%-47%, but allows that Slotkin is in the 50+% land. The last pollster has an “average expected error” of 4.9%, which is not a familiar term to me – am I behind the times in polling, or is this a bunch of amateurs? It’s probably me, I was never an enthusiast of statistics and probability, at least not in college. I did start to implement … sorry, that’s an unneeded tangent. Talking about myself, I mean. Back on point, ActiVote is only working with 400 voters, but the other two are working with 50% more voters, so that could also explain ActiVote’s variance from Glengariff.
• Maryland is lightly polled, perhaps too lightly polled, and the polling I don’t like. Not the results, but the historical quality: Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies (1.2, yes, 1.2) finds Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) leading popular former governor Larry Hogan (R-MD), 46%-41%. But a result from a 1.2 rated pollster really has no assurances.
• What to make of Fabrizio Ward/David Binder Research? The bad news is there’s no such combo-pollster listed; the good news is that there is a David Binder Research listed, although the rating is only 1.7. And Fabrizio Ward? No listing. There is a Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, but again a rating of 1.7. So I suppose we just list them as unknown, and then look at their polling of Montana’s Senate race, which comes in at an unlikely 49%-41% favoring Republican challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) over Senator Tester (D-MT). That’s a roughly 14 point difference from the last poll by RMG Research (2.3) that gave Senator Tester a six point lead. The Republican supposition prior to election season was that Senator Tester was the most likely Democratic incumbent to be flipped, and it looks like they’re trying hard to make it happen, but this and wishing may not be enough. Waiting on the next reputable pollster. I wonder if Erick Erickson’s comments about grifters in the conservative leadership extends to the right-wing pollsters; heck, in this poll, while the bottom-line numbers lead to a supposed eight point lead for Sheehy, the headline on the press release is much more brazen: Sheehy Leads Tester by 16 Points in Montana Senate Race. Read the article and you discover that the alleged 16 point lead is among older voters only, but come on! This is straight-up misleading. I wonder how the sponsor, the AARP, will react if Senator Tester emerges victorious? Sue the pollster for malpractice?
• Emerson College (2.9) reduces their estimate of Florida’s Senator Scott’s (R-FL) lead to one point over former Rep Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), 46%-45%, which is definitely within the margin of error. With November 5 coming up fast and Mucarsel-Powell with the momentum, Scott may be in deep trouble. Harris still trails Trump by five points in Florida, according to the pollster. And if Emerson College is running a trifle conservative, as I’ve been suspecting, the Democratic candidate may already have a lead in reality.
• Emerson College (2.9) gives Texas Senator Cruz (R-TX) a four point lead, 48%-44%, over Rep Allred (D-TX), while YouGov (2.9) doubles that lead to eight, 44%-36%. It’s interesting that two top pollsters diverge this much, but there’s time to go.
• The Massachusetts primaries took place on September 3rd. Senator Warren (D-MA) was unopposed and no ballot count is given; her Republican-backed challenger is John Deaton (R-MA), who won in excess of 64% of the Republican ballots. If you look at the On The Issues website, their data on Mr Deaton is thin, so his summary as very moderate is suspect. That said, the summaries I’ve seen of the Republican candidates suggested two of the three of them were moderate, while the third was MAGA. However, both moderates are heavily connected to the cryptocurrency … industry. Scam, if you prefer, as I see the industry as a home of scam artists and folks who don’t understand currency. In the end, I suspect Mr Deaton won’t have much of a challenge in uniting Republican votes behind his candidacy, and it won’t be enough, despite his claim that “… [she’s] losing support every day because of her hyper-partisan politics and her loyalty to just a particular agenda.” A quick glance at reporting suggests he’s using the apocalyptic style of campaigning, and I’m not sure that’ll work with Massachusetts moderate Democrats and independents, two groups he’ll have to attract.
• And in Nebraska, the distraction of a third-party candidate in the tight Senator Fischer (R-NE) and Dan Osborn (I-NE) race has disappeared as candidate Kerry Eddy (Legal Marijuana NOW Party-NE) has withdrawn from the race. She has endorsed Mr Osborn. Additionally:
  

  [Eddy] also acknowledged that part of her decision was calculated to give Osborn a better chance. Political observers said clearing the ballot of other names helps avoid splitting the opposition vote. [Nebraska Examiner]

  How many votes will transfer to Mr Osborn is unclear to me, as the polls have not, to the best of my knowledge, mentioned Mz Eddy.

What Comes Next?

Next week is the Rhode Island primary, the last Senate primary of the season. A reminder that Delaware canceled their primaries for the open Senate seat.

At this juncture, it’s not news that evangelical voters form the core of the Trump base. But what if they begin to fragment? The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention), the primary association of evangelical voters, has been steadily shrinking over the last few years, no doubt due to repulsive behavior such as that of Pastor Robert Morris:

Robert Morris, who founded and led Gateway Church for nearly 25 years in the affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Texas, resigned after the scandal [of child sexual abuse] came to light in June. His exit sent thousands of evangelicals into a season of struggle that has lasted months. [CNN]

And what has that meant for Gateway?

The church has seen a decrease of 17% to 19% in weekend services attendance, a church spokesperson told CNN.

Thousands of probably conservative members, walking away in disgust at the behavior of the leaders of their church, realizing that they are the marks in a giant game where figures of authority abuse their positions, and therefore them.

Over and over and over again.

This despicable behavior, which is not within Mr Trump’s ability to control, may cripple his reelection run. How can he claim that he has enough votes when his very foundation cracks, even if it’s not guaranteed that their disgust extends to him, when the evangelicals continue to shrink?

He can’t.

This may explain Trump’s turn to religion of late.

Trump [asserts he] is destined for success, unless the Democrats “cheat.” And in an interview with television’s Dr. Phil that aired on Tuesday, Trump added another validator to that point: God wants him to win.

Speaking to Trump at the former president’s Las Vegas hotel, Phil McGraw asked the former president to weigh in on last month’s assassination attempt. Had it inspired self-reflection, McGraw wondered, a reconsideration of “why am I here”?

Before answering that question, Trump outlined the ways in which his survival was a function of chance. That, just as the bullet was fired, he turned toward a (misleading) graph on immigration being displayed on a large screen at the Butler, Pa., rally. That, because he turned when he did, the bullet clipped his ear instead of doing far worse damage. [WaPo]

Everyone was surprised when God turned out to be a patch of scruffy sunflowers behind a garage.

Speaking as an agnostic, the problematic part of God is that the Divine can be interpreted in so many ways, and, to someone like me, they all seem equally valid. Trump, if we’re to believe him, along with a bunch of his base, thinks God favors him.

To me, though, this is self-contradictory. God is God, after all, and God could have simply materialized on the roof top, wrung the neck of the shooter, and disappeared. The shooter was due to die anyways, and the other victims of the tragedy, well, their wounds would never have occurred.

Instead, the better interpretation is that the attempted shooting was a warning to Trump: Stop your foolish shenanigans, desist from your evil ways, and repent. That is a very traditional Christian interpretation. The shooter, who was looking to do evil, pays for it, and Trump, spared for many years, gets a warning. The accompanying tragedies are still unacceptable and horrific.

Mr Trump doesn’t appear to be bright enough to come to this conclusion, or at least not admit to it.

Will his invocation of the Divine work? I doubt it, as the organized Protestant sects that are, de facto, supporting him are shrinking quickly:

And I expect they're becoming more savvy about grifters and other abusers.

So, I'm sure his making a claim of being favored by God will be accepted by a few, saving him those votes, but I also suspect this election is already decided as Harris and Walz are being successful at lifting the mood of the nation.

Lest anyone think I hate or despise Mr Erickson, no, I don’t. I, in fact, appreciate his willingness to criticize his own side, because self-critics are often more honest than adversarial critics. Far more honest, far more insightful.

In his post referenced below, I have not listened to the radio show he attaches, but the text gives a flavor and the post title kinda says it all:

The Grifters On The Right

I have to wonder how long before he realizes all the honest folks have left leadership, either discouraged about the abrupt moral degradation of their fellow leaders and followers brought on by Mr Trump, or chased out by mostly the aforementioned, and grifters and allied criminals are now ascendant.

Even as a kid I remember the moaning about how the generation of the time didn’t measure up to the standards of the World War II generation, aka The Greatest Generation, and it looks like they may have gotten it right.

It’s apparent that Erick Erickson doesn’t really understand high level international maneuvering, as he tries to justify backing Mr Trump:

The truth is that Russia was not advancing in Ukraine when Trump was President — pausing their Obama-era gains in that country until Trump left. And Hamas was not killing Americans under the streets of Gaza when Trump was President.

It is precisely why I can support the man even as I am clear-eyed about him. The press and Democrats lack clear eyes to see that our dementia patient-in-chief cannot do his job.

This is a shallow analysis of the situation, akin to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, although I might prefer to call it overly-simplistic analysis. As I see a proper analysis, we need to take into account the fact that we’re a republic/democracy that suffers the usual range of defects inherent in such a governmental form, along with being a capitalist country with a moral foundation that has been crumbling for a good fifty years, at least. The Republicans are a bunch of fourth-rater mixture of hacks, religious zealots, and grifters who can often be bought, mislead, or otherwise manipulated, while the Democrats are second- and third-raters who have a tendency to forget about the basics of the country’s governance, but they are more aware of the international adversaries we face than are the Republicans, and less isolationist – the same isolationism that got us into World War II late.

So, if you’re an adversary, what to do? Evaluation: Put the weakest Party in charge of your adversary. Not an easy thing to do, but when a Party leader as weak and malleable as Mr Trump appears, it’s a Godsend. The game plan:

1. Engage in violence when the Democrats are in charge in order to stamp them with the appearance of weakness.
2. Get Mr Trump and his Party into power (note how Russian government officials applauded his election), even engaging in electoral interference, which, despite Mr Trump’s denials, seems to have occurred according to Mr. Mueller’s report.
3. Make Mr Trump look better by desisting from aggression while he’s in office. This isn’t wasting time, since President Putin had invaded and taken control of Crimea, and that consumed resources that needed to be replaced. Such replacement, especially in a weak economy like Russia’s, takes time, and, with President Obama’s undeclared war on Russia’s oil exports, even more time.
4. Make kissy-face with Mr Trump while he’s the President, as if the guy has any influence over President Putin. Note that the independent analyses I read indicated Mr Trump showed all the flags of a very weak negotiator, keeping all information, that should have been shared, private, and making ridiculous statements as a distraction.
5. Once Mr Trump is out of power, engage in some easy aggression again in order to make the Democrats look weak.

Of course, Americans do tend to be short-sighted – it’s the economy, stupid! being the best example, and that makes Russia’s plans actually harder to implement. Mr Trump’s glaring inadequacies can be difficult to overlook when they’re on blatant display, and I suspect Mr Trump, a man-child, takes poorly to direction from President Putin. That, however, is only speculation.

President Biden also didn’t put troops in Ukraine. Instead, he sent arms, many of which were scheduled for replacement, to Ukraine, and, much to Putin’s horror, the Ukrainians have used them to devastating effect. The “easy victory” may, instead, be President Putin’s epitaph. President Biden has taken a great deal of criticism from all sides, from faux-peaceniks like Rep Greene (R-GA) to more war-like members of the Democrats, who generally seem to forget that the Russians are nuclear-armed and must be handled with care. I think that President Biden isn’t some dementia-riddled body, but a tired, but still effective, political strategist and tactician.

So, in effect, I’m rather horrified that Erickson will use that sort of shallow reasoning to justify backing his own demented candidate for Christmas, just because, as a political convenience, Mr Trump is against abortion. Sort of. Maybe. If it suits his political position.

And Democrats back abortion as a principled right.

Madam has all of her help dress like this.

Blithe Spirit (1945) is a comparative rarity: a production with sophisticated dialog that works, disturbingly, on several levels, pushing such buttons as bullying, sarcasm, and alcoholism through British high society’s precocious predilection for stereotypical phrases that can be snapped off at a moment’s notice: Do you think so? Quite.

In this story of a novelist’s late wife coming back for a good haunting, the fun with language really takes off when, on her return, only he can see her; the current wife is the victim of thinking much of the dialog is directed at her and not the unseen first wife. This exposes the deadly content that is ordinarily insulated by expectation, the expectation that exaggeration is part of regular conversation, but when misdirected it can leave its unintended targets in tatters.

A marvelously gusto-filled medium who steals all of her scenes, a mousy maid, and every character quite filled with life (or something like it), if not quite believable, this is a fun little flick, excepting a final scene that was not part of the stage play on which the movie was based, but outside of that I thoroughly enjoyed it as a bit of light entertainment as I recover from a default-diagnosis of food poisoning.

The detective and his favorite tree. He later married it, and then, in a ghastly fit of madness, chopped it down and made it into a dining room table. Their children were horrified.

Marlowe (2022) I watched, oh, one or two years ago, made a note of it in my usual way for review … and promptly forgot about it. A few months ago I noticed it, looked it up, said, Oh, that, and have been ignoring it ever since.

Which may tell you all you really need to know.

But to finish up, it’s not based on any of Chandler’s original Marlowe stories, but rather a derivative from 2014 which I never read. It’s also derivative, at least in my limited experience, of the retro movement of today, a fascination by Gen Xers and others of that age with previous American generations. You probably have heard, but it seems to involve fine arts, such as music and the hardware used to reproduce, especially phonographs and vinyl records; for those of my age, I have yet to hear of 8-track tapes making a comeback.

And that’s how this sort of felt. Liam Neeson in old detective clothes – yet, maybe, not really living in them.

There’s a coherent, even potentially interesting mystery that he’s investigating, but why he doesn’t end up dead is a bit of a mystery in itself. And the rest of it?

Forgotten.

If you like old mystery movies starring the likes of Bogie, you may want to give this a look, just out of comparative interest. Figuring out why the old ones were better than this is an interesting academic exercise.

Circumnutation:

Nutation refers to the bending movements of stems, roots, leaves and other plant organs caused by differences in growth in different parts of the organ. Circumnutation refers specifically to the circular movements often exhibited by the tips of growing plant stems, caused by repeating cycles of differences in growth around the sides of the elongating stem. Nutational movements are usually distinguished from ‘variational’ movements caused by temporary differences in the water pressure inside plant cells (turgor). [Wikipedia]

That’s a new one on me. Noted in “The surprising way sunflowers work together to get enough light,” Leah Crane, NewScientist (24 August 2024, paywall):

Sunflowers move in a way that helps their neighbours. The seemingly random motion of the plants’ roots and shoots actually minimises shade cover in crowded environments, ensuring that all of them get enough light to grow.

Scientists have known about this plant motion, known as circumnutation, for centuries, but its purpose has always been elusive. “In climbing plants, it’s clear that it’s a search process, searching for a new stick to twine on. But in other plants, it’s not clear if it’s a bug or a feature,” says Yasmine Meroz at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

From the Minnesota State Fair, first Friday:

And what does the squall of polls mean? Maybe we can hope for one in Mississippi? Or am I getting my hopes up?

You Can Here Hear Their Engines Overloading

This seems to be the week for frantic tilting by suspected conservative pollsters, such as Redfield & Wilton Strategies and InsiderAdvantage. We saw this sort of thing in 2022, as I’ve mentioned before, but it’s not clear to me that it does anything more than ruin the reputations of the pollsters. Maybe it forestalls failures in House and downballot races by misleading voters about just how badly the campaigns are going?

And Here We Are, At Niagara Falls

• Ballot Splitting, Anyone? According to SurveyUSA (2.8/3 at FiveThirtyEight), Nebraska may favor Mr Trump, 54%-37%, over Mz Harris, but when it comes to the regularly scheduled Senate seat race, it’s no romp: Senator Fischer (R-NE) leads by only one over challenger Dan Osborn (I-NE, Democrat-endorsed), 39%-38%, certainly within the ±3.5% margin of error. Poll sponsor Split Ticket’s analysis includes this:
  

  This is almost entirely due to Osborn running as an Independent. His overperformance doesn’t seem like it is due to his own favorability rating (which stands at 34% favorable and 24% unfavorable), as 42% of voters simply haven’t heard anything about him. It also doesn’t seem like it is wholly attributable to Deb Fischer’s ratings — at 42% favorable and 41% unfavorable, her rating is still net positive, and it’s actually better than Pete Ricketts’ 44% favorable and 45% unfavorable image. But Ricketts leads by 17, while Fischer leads by just 1, with the only real difference between their races being their opponents’ party identification.

  So it appears that in Nebraska the Democrats are to be loathed brain-washing has been at least partially successful. Split Ticket’s conclusion?

  We’d still think Fischer is extremely likely to win, given the time left in this race, the number of undecideds, and the mystery box that Osborn is to many voters at the moment. In fact, we think she’ll gain significantly as the election nears. But that hasn’t happened yet, and at the moment, our poll finds something very similar to what Osborn’s released internals are yielding: a very unexpectedly competitive race. We’ll see if that holds.

  Seems reasonable enough. Two months to go.

• 

  On The Issues: Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE).

  The same pairing of SurveyUSA and Split Ticket doesn’t find comparable drama in the other Nebraska Senate race to that of Senator Fischer’s race, as Senator Ricketts (R-NE) leads challenger Preston Love, Jr. (D-NE) 50%-33%. That’s a pity, given Rickett’s adamantly hard-line conservatism is inappropriate in an institution that should be built on compromise and humility.

• Commenting on the Arizona Senate race no longer seems worth the time, even if Republican candidate and election-denier Kari Lake’s authoritative commentary on a previously reported poll is this:
  

  Lake on Thursday called the [Fox News] poll [showing Lake to be down by 15 points] “absolute garbage.”

  “Nobody wins by 15 points,” she told KTAR’s Mike Broomhead. [azcentral]

  So I shan’t, unless Gallego falls off a cliff. But since I’m here, Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) is giving Gallego a mere five point lead, 42%-37%, which I’m choosing to consider a piece of evidence that Redfield & Wilton Strategies leans heavily conservative. Another suspect, InsiderAdvantage (2.0), is also giving Gallego a five point lead at 49%-45% (a bit of rounding, no doubt), proving, perhaps, to be another friend of Mz Lake. With friends like these, the humiliation of losing by twenty points, which is not out of the question, just becomes more intense.

• Florida has acquired its own abortion Amendment to the State Constitution, known as Amendment 4, to be approved by the electorate. I understand it to be a compromise, as its language (from Ballotpedia) is, in part:
  

  … no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.

  … before viability … makes it a compromise, of course. Indeed, some might call it a faux-compromise, as many obstetrician-gynecologists would find themselves in the uncomfortable situation of having to interpret an amendment of dubious composition, often under a time pressure. But it does function as a defense of some abortion rights, which explains the pro-life movement’s hostility towards it.

  Mr. Trump, as a Florida resident, can vote on the Amendment if he so wishes, and when he did not express complete and total opposition to it in response to an interview question, Erick Erickson and other right-wing extremists had a panic attack:

  Now, [pro-lifers] are losing with Donald Trump, who yesterday, when everyone on the right had the opportunity to rally behind him and enjoy watching Kamala Harris beclown herself, had to interrupt the news cycle to announce he did not like a six-week fetal heartbeat ban in Florida — existing law that had broad appeal among conservatives.

  Pro-lifers interpreted that as Trump endorsing the public abortion referendum on the ballot in Florida. His campaign tried to spin it, but the damage was done.

  NBC: “So you’ll vote in favor of the amendment?”

  Trump: “I am gonna be voting that we need more than six weeks.”

  There is the six-week existing law, or there is the pro-abortion amendment. The amendment, to be voted on by voters on election day, would legalize all abortions until the moment the last toe of the child has left the birth canal.

  Of course, Erickson misstates the Amendment, but let’s ignore that. If the pro-life movement walks away from Mr. Trump, he is finished, in Erickson’s opinion. I agree. Mr Trump then issued a retraction, again according to Erick Erickson:

  Yesterday, on my show and here, I said Donald Trump needed to come out and say he opposed Florida’s Amendment 4. More specifically, on my show, I said he needed to do it before pro-life Christians got in church on Sunday and started talking to each other.

  I’m under no illusion that I had anything to do with Mr. Trump’s clarification, but I am glad he did it before the sun set on Friday.

  Not only should that help kill Amendment 4 in Florida, but it should help Mr. Trump with pro-life voters.

  Mr Trump may have saved the allegiance of the core of his base, the pro-lifers. But that does not doom Florida’s Amendment 4; Erickson remains blinded by his flawed stance against abortion, and his belief that he somehow has the right to inflict his flawed reasoning on everyone else, even those whose lives are endangered by it. Mr. Trump understands, in a way Erickson does not, that women resent Erickson’s belief system that results in their ephemerality.

  That means voters opposed to the loss of abortion rights will still show up at the polls, probably vote against Mr Trump, and certainly for this flawed Amendment – and, for the purposes of this post – against Senator Scott (R-FL) and for former Rep Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL). If the latter wins, she can send a Thank you! note to the Amendment 4 organizers, and then to Mr Trump.

  In other news, Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) gives Senator Scott a lead of only three points, 43%-40%. over former Rep Mucarsel-Powell. If Redfield & Wilton Strategies does lean conservative, Mucarsel-Powell may actually be ahead. But that’s only speculation.

• West Virginia’s Senate race has a poll, but FiveThirtyEight does not recognize the pollster, Research America, and the sponsor is West Virginia MetroNews, which doesn’t scream a bias. Justice is given a huge lead of 62%-28%, but since the credibility of the pollster is impossible to assess, I can’t take this seriously, yet. Mr Justice losing this race is nearly inconceivable, but I’ve been more impressed by the paucity of polls of West Virginia voters.
• In Michigan, Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) gives Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a lead of 42%-35% over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI) for the open Michigan Senate seat, which may be conservatively slanted. EPIC-MRA (2.0) has Slotkin ahead by a smaller margin, 46%-42%. WoodTV.com, reporting on the EPIC-MRA poll, notes and compares to a recent Emerson College poll, which is nice, although they don’t note Emerson College’s rating of 2.9, easily exceeding these two polls. On the other hand, I’m a little suspicious of Emerson College myself, but they may end up making a monkey out of me.
• My suspicions of Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) are crystallized in their report on Minnesota Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) vs challenger Royce White (R-MN) in which they accord the Senator a mere seven point lead at 41%-34%. If that lead is not tweny-plus points, it’s not, in my opinion, accurate. And why in the world would they think Minnesota is a swing state? They also think Senator Rosen’s (D-NV) lead over challenger Sam Brown (R-NV) is only four, 43%-39%, in Nevada. Recent polling has suggested a ten-plus point lead.
• In Texas unknown pollster Quantus Polls and News gives Senator Cruz (R-TX) an almost plausible lead of 50%-43% over Rep Allred (D-TX). But why should I take this seriously? Ah, well, new pollsters are required to start out under the proper cloud of skepticism. Let’s hope none of those Texas hailstorms are embedded in that skepticism.

Fin.

[Sep 1 2024]