Author Archives: Hue White

Accession:

noun

1. the act of coming into the possession of a right, title, office, etc.:
   accession to the throne.
2. an increase by something added:
   an accession of territory.

verb (used with object)

1. to make a record of (a book, painting, etc.) in the order of acquisition.
2. to acquire (a book, painting, etc.), especially for a permanent collection. [Dictionary.com]

My idea of its meaning was vague, and a little precision is precious in today’s age of people deserving this ‘n that for no particularly good reason – except that it benefits those making the assertion, perhaps, if the assertion is accepted. Noted in, both title and text, “EU leaders approve Ukraine accession talks, bypassing Orbán,” Nicolas Camut, Barbara Moens, Jacopo Barigazzi and Aitor Hernández-Morales, Politico:

While accession [into NATO membership] talks are likely to continue on for many years, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the news was “a victory of Ukraine … a victory that motivates, inspires and strengthens.” This was a historic moment for Ukraine, which has made its aspirations to join the EU known for many years.

Professor Richardson pronounced this to be devastating. I think a bit more polishing might have helped.

Still, it makes its point.

He’s nothing like a saint, but he’s trying to profit on the same, ah, outputs:

looking for a last minute holiday gift? Trump has you covered pic.twitter.com/CQb5CKt7V9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 12, 2023

Yep, along with worthless NFTs, which are certifications of ownership, in this case of digital art, which have proven to be worthless, he’ll sell you – the real standout attraction of the offer – a piece of the suit he allegedly wore to his mugshot.

How will he prove its provenance? He doesn’t appear to say. A fish-in-a-barrel prediction is that enough cloth will be issued for this offer to construct 10, or maybe 100, suits.

Depending on the number of suckers out there.

But notice how Trump capitalizes on the religious fervor of many of his supporters, and, much like John Brinkley of Kansas, he’s harvesting the wealth of people too given to believing in, well, anything without real evidence. A bunch of NFTs and a shred of cloth? Together, worth less than a penny to me. Someone else might shell out big bucks.

In some cases, to show their loyalty.

Welcome to the social prestige ladder. It doesn’t matter which – there are dozens, not all mutually exclusive – and this is just one way to assert your position.

Vatic:

vatic (comparative more vatic, superlative most vatic)

1. Pertaining to a prophet; prophetic, oracular. [Wiktionary]

I’ve not heard that one before. Noted in “This once-in-a-generation Rothko exhibition is spellbinding,” Sebastian Smee, WaPo:

Ol’ Vinnie always brings a frisson of gravitas to his work. The raven, whose name I misplace, was unfortunately a joker who enjoyed penguin jokes.

The Raven (1963) is a rather limp use of the famous Poe poem, and an excuse for V Price and P Lorre to work with B Karloff in a story of magic, betrayal, magnificent sets, a bit of convolution, and broken hearts that made us laugh more than bite our lips. It’s not not really funny, nor really dramatic, only High Camp.

Avoid, unless you’re a completist for any of the above, or J Nicholson or H Court.

Yesterday’s big news was Special Counsel Jack Smith’s highly unusual attempt to skip an appeal to a Federal appeals court and go directly to SCOTUS when it comes to former President Trump’s all-encompassing immunity claims:

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday asked the Supreme Court to decide whether Donald Trump has any immunity from criminal prosecution for alleged crimes he committed while in office – the first time that the high court will weigh in on the historic prosecution of the former president.

The extraordinary request is an attempt by Smith to keep the election subversion trial – currently scheduled for early March – on track. Smith is asking the Supreme Court to take the rare step of skipping a federal appeals court and quickly decide a fundamental issue of the case against Trump. [CNN/Politics]

My assumption is that the Special Counsel is attempting to get convictions prior to the election next year. The question is why?

Will being President, under the assumption that Trump wins next November, safeguard him from prosecutorial consequences? Only at the Federal level, although there may be soft considerations at the State level, where Fulton County AG Fani Willis may find herself hampered by Presidential claims of immunity or of harassment by herself.

On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps Smith is motivated by politics, a desire to “get” the former President, a corrupt motivation of classic lineage? And, it’s true, it’s not hard to see this as a plausible motivation on a battlefield littered with mendacity, such as Committee Chairman Comer’s (R-SC) statements concerning Democratic President Biden’s alleged corruption, which has drawn little more than laughter from independent, disinterested observers.

So it’s worth taking the next step beyond these negative approaches to the question, and ask the positive question: What positive, politics-neutral effect can come from pursuing this strategy?

And it’s this: Citizens should have all relevant information possible concerning a Presidential candidate.

What is a trial? It’s a presentation of legal facts and the story that can, or cannot, be credibly woven from them. Their contribution to revelations concerning a person running for office are important, even critical, because the motivations and character of a candidate is often, and moreover should be, key elements in the analysis that goes into selecting a candidate to receive, or not, your vote.

The crime, or crimes, that Trump may have committed have already occurred, and thus they are relevant to the election because, if they exist, they contribute key information to the independent, undecided voter; and if such crimes were not committed, at least in the opinion of a jury, that, too, is an important contribution to the thought process of the independent voter.

Putting that into the ol’ hopper, I am unperturbed by the Special Counsel’s maneuver on corruption grounds, because I see this as an effort to bring relevant facts into the awareness of voters next November, and that’s what democracy is all about.

And what has been the former President’s strategy?

Delay, delay, delay. Says something, doesn’t it?

The X-37B, one of those semi-secret government vehicles.

Image: Wikipedia.

Amazingly, it’s only 30 ft long, and unmanned. More info from WaPo here.

Never heard of Virtual Power Plants? Neither had I. Eduardo Garcia has the low-down:

A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) can be used to collectively manage these smart devices [EVs, rooftop solar, batteries, etc] ― also known as “Distributed Energy Resources” ― to boost the amount of renewable energy that enters the grid at times of peak production, and lower electricity demand when clean energy is scarce. Thus they can allow wind and solar to take center stage, regardless of whether the wind blows or the sun shines. [Distilled]

Notice how they mix sources, reserves, and consumers, while using a label implying only sources. It’s often said words are important, and they sure are. They shape discourse and even thinking, and while high level specialists learn to ignore blunder-words, increasingly the mid-level folks will try to use words, such as VPP, to think, and may shape a discourse that diverges from that of the specialist.

Or, in this case, maybe not. An advanced EV can function as both a consumer and as a reserve via the capability dispensing electricity back into the grid. But it’s worth keeping one’s antenna up for potential misnomers such as this one.

Evidently Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, having relished the publicity of being impeached, but not convicted, by his own party, is working to make more very silly publicity:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused drugmaker Pfizer of fear-mongering and lies about the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine, which the company insinuated would end the pandemic, according to a lawsuit Paxton announced Thursday.

“In a nutshell, Pfizer deceived the public,” reads the 54-page lawsuit, filed in a Lubbock state district court. …

Paxton’s arguments, many of them familiar tropes among the anti-vaccine and COVID-19 denial crowd, hinge on the fact that the pandemic did not end soon enough — even though Pfizer officials never promised an end date to the health threat.

The drugmaker, he argues, claimed its vaccine was 95% effective but did not manage to end the pandemic within a year after being introduced.

“Contrary to Pfizer’s public statements, however, the pandemic did not end; it got worse. More Americans died in 2021, with Pfizer’s vaccine available, than in 2020, the first year of the pandemic,” the lawsuit says. “This, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of Americans received a COVID-19 vaccine, with most taking Pfizer’s.”

And more Americans were infected after refusing the vaccine.

Look, the proper metrics are how many folks were exposed, how many were infected VU^[1], what’s the infection rate VU, what’s the death rate for the infected VU, percentage evading vaccination in low vs high areas.

Looking at total death rates conceals so many variables that it’s useless. And this is so obvious that I, an obsolete software engineer and not a professional biometrician, statistician, or other applicable profession, see it. Why doesn’t this blithering idiot?

The Texas House should impeach Paxton for abuse of position, and this time the Texas Senate, when Paxton arrogantly treats them as his little piglets by staying away from the hearings, should convict and toss his ass out.

¹ “VU” is an acronym I made up on the spot, standing for “vaccinated and unvaccinated”.

Researchers have found a vulnerability in your computer:

Hundreds of Windows and Linux computer models from virtually all hardware makers are vulnerable to a new attack that executes malicious firmware early in the boot-up sequence, a feat that allows infections that are nearly impossible to detect or remove using current defense mechanisms.

The attack—dubbed LogoFAIL by the researchers who devised it—is notable for the relative ease in carrying it out, the breadth of both consumer- and enterprise-grade models that are susceptible, and the high level of control it gains over them. In many cases, LogoFAIL can be remotely executed in post-exploit situations using techniques that can’t be spotted by traditional endpoint security products. And because exploits run during the earliest stages of the boot process, they are able to bypass a host of defenses, including the industry-wide Secure Boot, Intel’s Secure Boot, and similar protections from other companies that are devised to prevent so-called bootkit infections. …

As its name suggests, LogoFAIL involves logos, specifically those of the hardware seller that are displayed on the device screen early in the boot process, while the UEFI is still running. Image parsers in UEFIs from all three major IBVs are riddled with roughly a dozen critical vulnerabilities that have gone unnoticed until now. By replacing the legitimate logo images with identical-looking ones that have been specially crafted to exploit these bugs, LogoFAIL makes it possible to execute malicious code at the most sensitive stage of the boot process, which is known as DXE, short for Driver Execution Environment. [ars technica]

Sure sounds like a monoculture failure to me. Monoculture in agriculture refers to a total, or at least substantial, dependence on one crop or other product; if & when it becomes unproductive or otherwise unusable, the farm’s economic survival becomes questionable; if we replace farm with nation, the question becomes existential for the nation.

So the analogy is, perhaps, hyperbolic, but it serves to illustrate the danger to the computing industry of a monoculture approach to computer hardware and software.

Who the hell votes for this guy?

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is resigning from Congress and will leave at the end of this year, he announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday — a highly anticipated decision that comes two months after his unprecedented ouster from the speakership. …

McCarthy is leaving Congress having made a few enemies within the House GOP Conference. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz was quick to take a victory lap, posting “McLeavin” and promoting a previously released thirteen-minute video based on the ouster of McCarthy, which he led. [CNN/Politics]

I don’t mean McCarthy, who is reportedly quite the charmer, but this idiot Gaetz, who apparently never grew up beyond 8th grade.

I wonder if such behavior will cost him his seat next election. I suppose it’s up to the voters in his district as to whether they want to be represented by an adult, or a child.

Jennifer Rubin of WaPo is frustrated with tomorrow’s news reporting and has an alternate proposal:

A musical instrument I had not seen before.

And prosperity to you, Mr. Spock. Are you in the secret service as well?

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) is, as my Arts Editor observed, a cheeky little movie, but it’s not much more than that. A young man, Eggsy, caught in the swamp of a brutal family of the British underclass, is given an unique opportunity to join a spy service and get all the toys, and we get selected episodes from his training.

Meanwhile, an American scientist has come up with a way to solve a pressing international problem. It’s, ah, violent, if somewhat clever; but whether or not it should be accepted and supported, or rejected and fought against, by this secret service and, for that matter, Eggsy, is never up for debate. This plot failing really lessens the story, even if it’s intended as a comedy, because the character, in an important aspect relevant to the story, becomes a nothing, someone to whom we cannot connect because there’s nothing to which to connect.

And to call it a comedy is a bit of a stretch in itself. It’s certainly not a Python-esque farce, as one might expect for a film about the British, nor is a single theme ridden to death. The sex talk with the Swedish princess is a bit of a hoot, but it’s just a tangential throw-off; there’s an attempt to make violence a comedic metaphor, but why victimize American low-church traditions? Even for an agnostic or atheist, who may find their beliefs and activities silly and even foolish, it’smore puzzling and even offensive than anything else.

But for all these criticisms, I am weighing seeing its sequel. This was not an awful story, for all its flaws. Eggsy grows and changes throughout this story, and I’m curious as to where he’ll go next.

If anywhere at all.

In “Trump not immune from being sued for Jan. 6 riot, judges rule,” a WaPo article, there’s a sly logic problem that a Trump attorney attempts to get by the judges:

Trump attorney Jesse Binnall said at oral argument that it didn’t matter that Trump’s purpose was political. “You cannot separate the governance from reelection,” he said. “If the president wants reelection, it’s so he can continue to govern.”

Governing is what a political executive does, but it’s not necessarily why a politician seeks election or reelection. It might be, but it can, and more often is, a satisfaction of the ego needs of the politician, or a stepping stone to higher office, or a goal peculiar to the emotional or professional requirements of the politician. In Trump’s case, protection from prosecution seems obvious, while less obvious is to derive pecuniary benefit beyond the pale from his position.

Although speculating on the drives of a man who seems to be driven by equal parts religious mania and pathological narcissism is probably a mug’s game.

Through this assertion, Trump’s attorney hopes to immunize Trump from further investigation into his motives. It won’t work, I trust, as the judiciary is full of smart eggs who should see through this ploy.

At long last, Rep George Santos (R-NY) is now the former and disgraced Representative from New York:

• The House voted Friday to expel indicted New York GOP Rep. George Santos over ethics violations, making him only the sixth lawmaker ever to be ousted from the chamber. The resolution passed 311 to 114, with 105 Republicans voting in favor of expulsion. All four top House GOP leaders voted to keep Santos in Congress.
• The embattled former lawmaker survived previous attempts to remove him, but there was growing momentum for this effort in the wake of a scathing ethics report, which concluded he sought to exploit his House candidacy for personal profit. Santos announced he wouldn’t seek reelection after the report, but refused to resign. [CNN/Politics]

Notably, the expulsion is the work of fellow New York Republican Representatives, which they’ve pursued for some months. Much like a hypothetical Tuberville expulsion, Santos’ expulsion works in favor of the Republicans, even if it is a substantial hit to their majority in the House, because it’s a virtue signal: the Republicans, who’ve been acting like dirtbags for years now, do have limits.

That’ll reassure some independent and moderate Republican voters.

But will it be enough to tilt the power balance? I think the Santos/Trump association was, and is, inconsequential; Trump vs Biden result remains a matter between them, with Trump’s dementia and lean towards autocracy against the perception, false or not, that Biden is doddering and incompetent to manage the economy.

And retaining the House? I might have given them a chance to do so if the abortion issue didn’t exist, but it does, and I think that’s the primary issue of the next election. Santos’ seat probably flips to the Democrats, as do a bunch of swing districts plus a few “safe” districts sacrificed, much to the Republicans’ surprise, on the altar of anti-abortionism.

So it’s good to see the political world reject the crass mendacity of Santos, but I do not think it’s nearly enough for the Republicans to somehow make any gains at the Federal level.

I’m guessing that’ll be a movie title fifteen years from now. But the opportunity is not for him.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville reportedly told Republican Senators on Tuesday he will find a way out of the stalemate caused by his holds on military promotions and nominations.

Tuberville said he will do so before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) brings a resolution to the floor in coming weeks that would “swiftly confirm the hundreds of highly qualified and dedicated military leaders being held up by Senator Tuberville before the end of the year.”

That is according to posts on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, from reporter Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News.

“Listen, everyone. I got y’all into this mess. I’m gonna get you out,” Tuberville reportedly said during a closed door lunch. [AL.com]

I’ll not try to insert a tiny picture of the Senator into this tableau. Use your imagination.

The opportunity is for the Republican Senators. They’ve already partially grasped the nettle by forcing through a few of these promotion approvals at the highest of levels for which they are responsible, perhaps motivated by the heart attack of the commandant of the Marines, who was reportedly doing two high-stress jobs due to Tuberville’s antics.

But it’s dumb. Tuberville’s blocking of promotions in protest of Secretary of Defense Austin’s policy that military members in need of abortion care will receive free transport is wrong on a number of levels: abuse of his Senatorial privileges, attempted circumvention of proper democratic debate and voting, imposition of religious views in violation of the Establishment Clause, and, of course, all of his lying and mischaracterizations of the situation are deeply dishonorable.

Nevermind the repeated unanswerable rebuttals to the anti-abortion arguments.

So what’s the opportunity? With just a little support from the Democratic side of the aisle, the Republican Senators could easily arrange for the expulsion of Senator Tuberville.

Seems unlikely? Sure. But it carries a few positives for the Republicans.

1. For a lot of Democrats and independents, the allegiance of Republicans to the United States has become an open question. Tuberville, representing a crippling force to the American military, is the iconic example. By kicking him out, the Republicans will go a ways to repair that reputation.
2. Those Republican Senators who vote against expulsion self-identify for being extremists themselves, and become targets for being primaried – by moderates.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is a Republican, and I think she gets to appoint the replacement, so there’s no threat of the Republicans losing the seat immediately, and if the Alabama GOP can avoid nominating Judge Roy Moore again, they’ll retain it in the special election. And since the Republicans are currently in the minority in the Senate, it’s not of consequence if they go down a vote for the couple of days a replacement takes.

Right now, Tuberville is making the Republicans look terrible. If they were to recognize this opportunity for what it is, it’s a remarkably cost-free way to rebuild their tattered reputation, and to shore up a military that is apparently in some distress.

And be rid of an ignorant, incompetent ass.

I’ve read most of the Lawfare article explaining what’s going on here, but it still rings false to me:

In September, a Southern District of New York (SDNY) judge ordered Argentina to pay $16 billion in damages to two minority shareholders of YPF, a state-controlled Argentinian oil company. The judgment was the result of a breach of contract related to Argentina’s 2012 nationalization of a controlling stake in the firm, and it is the largest-ever judgment against a sovereign country in a U.S. court. For perspective, it dwarfs the $2.4 billion settlement that hedge fund Elliot Management won, also in SDNY, in its (in)famous attempt to collect on Argentina’s defaulted public debts.

It’s not just the size of the penalty, which seems out of scale, but the fact that a Federal court can order a sovereign state to pay a penalty.

I wonder if it’ll ever be paid:

I see the Republican Party continues to tear itself apart with the advent of what might be considered a traditional power play in a very non-traditional environment:

The influential network associated with billionaire Charles Koch will throw its money and influence behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary, the group announced Tuesday.

The decision could dramatically reshape the Republican field – roughly seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses – as Americans for Prosperity Action deploys its vast resources and standing army of conservative activists on behalf of the former South Carolina governor.

The endorsement marks the latest sign that powerful Republican donors are coalescing behind the candidacy of the former US ambassador to the United Nations. She has seen prominent figures join her campaign in recent weeks, particularly after South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott exited the race. [CNN/Politics]

The problem here is that the Republican Party, which had been based on a Party loyalty so strong that it rendered questions of experience and competency tragically meaningless, is grappling with the ultimate in selfishness and self-absorption, which is symbolized by former President Trump, and becoming more and more the norm as old members of the Party leave or die out, to be replaced by far right extremists.

I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth reiterating: the inability to compromise, the arrogance that drives these new members and faux-leaders, effectively makes the Party into a collection of mini-Parties, centered around principles of dubious worth, personalities, grudges, and other ephemera ill-suited to a mature approach to politics and, more importantly, governance. Bitter internecine primary fights result in partisan voters reluctant to vote for the Republican who opposed their Republican.

Into this pit of magma is driving the Koch Network, a traditional power house built on the riches of oil-drilling. While long-time political analysts apparently are seeing this as a potential game-changer, the real power in conservative circles has transitioned to the “base,” the collection of voters who prefer the former President and his brutal proposals to the more knowledgeable and nuanced ideas of his fellow Republican would-be candidates for the job of President, such as DeSantis, Haley, Hutchinson, Scott, and others. It’s worth mentioning that I may slightly overstate the case. Add in the unknown assistance rendered by foreign adversaries backing the most incompetent President in modern times, and the Koch Network faces a formidable mountain to climb.

In the base’s eyes the former President retains his magic, and so far there’s little to suggest a mass retreat in his support can be brought about by anything, although it’s hard to say how many voters, in dribs and drabs, have opened their eyes and seen; the blunders of the Democrats also complicates matters. Given Trump’s frantic protection of his taxes, it may be revelations concerning his alleged riches are his weak point, but that’s not entirely clear.

But I expect the Koch Network support of Not you, Trump! to be yet another big fizzle. It will enrage the former President even more, as his immaturity won’t permit him to graciously defeat and then use Koch’s powers to enhance his campaign; it’ll be necessary to destroy the Koch Network, and humiliate all the major players, thus neutering them not only for themselves, but as useful representatives of Trump himself. Voters won’t trust them. Worse yet, Charles Koch and his late brother are/were billionaires, a status that Trump deeply desires and has claimed without evidence. His antipathy towards Koch and those they back will be strong.

This feels like another part of the Big Rip afflicting the mislead GOP.

Photographic auroras:

Photographic auroras (visible to the camera, but not the eye) descended to mid-latitudes. “Today brought yet another photographic aurora here in the southeast of England at latitude +51N,” reports Jamie McBean of Herne Bay, Kent, UK. “This is my 14th aurora on camera this year, which I find incredible considering I had never believed I could get anything from here a mere year ago!” [Spaceweather.com]

Some fascinating pics, as usual.

It’s becoming all about the blowback, I think.

City Journal has a report on gender-affirming care and, in a twist I hadn’t thought of, illegal conversion therapy, as in, Are they the same?

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination.

And the sad thing is that if the transgender advocates had followed standard democratic practice by submitting the entire issue for public debate, extending over several years, suits like this could have been avoided, and appropriate administrative and psychological procedures could have been developed and implemented to manage the difficult question of transgender, juvenile members of society.

No guarantees, of course.

And along with the big ticket items, such respectable folk as Sir Richard Dawkins and J. K. Rowling could have been spared the mud-slinging by the gullible left and independents, too much in a hurry to “protect” the transgender that I think we’ll find needed more advice, less surgery, and more patience, outraged at the very thought of having an actual debate over the question.

Well, let the meat-grinder get to work, now.

Sheep are not harmless. Usually.

We like to sample foreign, unsung movies for our holiday movies. Sometimes, this leads to disaster, but sometimes, such as with the Finnish Rare Exports (2010), we have a rollicking good time.

Lamb (2021, Icelandic: Dýrið) falls midway between the two extremes.

Ingvar and Maria are a married couple, farming an isolated plot of land, whose children passed away, and their lack of offspring weighs on them.

Heavily.

So when a child appears in their sheep flock, they name her Ada and raise her as their own. Told in a spare, quiet style that I tend, accurately or not, to associate with European movies, it dances on the tightwire over the sea of vapidity, and mostly retains its balance; watchers will only scratch their heads two or three times as the pair, and a later addition of mysterious Pétur, brother to Ingvar, care for swiftly growing Ada.

And then, one day, Ada’s father shows up, and he has no patience for nonsense. He has such an abrupt manner that, oddly enough, when Maria discovers the results of the unnamed father’s return, I half expected her to dab blood under her eyes and assume the guise of Frigg, wife of Odin, before taking vengeance.

No such luck.

Not having any sort of Icelandic background, this was an interesting peek into the Icelandic psyche and mythic landscape, but it does take patience and curiosity. Good luck.

Perhaps the most extreme example of morbid humor I’ve ever seen. Don’t bail before 1:15.

It's an epitome
   of self-pity!

From CNN:

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said in a newly released interview he was “prejudiced against” for being a “rich, White billionaire” when he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in 2014.

Irsay pled guilty later that year to one misdemeanor count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated but, in an HBO interview that aired on Tuesday, the 64-year-old cited his wealth and status as the reason for the arrest.

“I am prejudiced against because I’m a rich, White billionaire,” Irsay said in an interview with Andrea Kremer on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

What? Isn’t entitlement and self-pity traditional American rights?

Well, they are, actually, although we do tend to call them Manifest Destiny, which is morbidly amusing seeing as most Americans are the cast-off detritus of Western Europe.

I wonder how else Irsay will humiliate himself.