Author Archives: Hue White

Today’s high winds and heat made everything seem a little brighter and shinier, so I took a couple of far away shots, just for fun.

Previously on this thread, we saw Martyn Williams discussing the computer tablet in North Korea, including its abilities and government-imposed security limitations. Now Nat Kretchun, also on 38 North, continues the discussion and how this information restriction strategy may be continued on desktops and other devices – and how its efficacy may be limited:

Network Expansion: Will This New Security Strategy Move Beyond Mobile Phones?

It is likely that the North Korean authorities view the introduction of mobile phones as largely successful, given the security features they have been able to include. Analysis of other devices and software such as tablet and desktop operating systems indicate that many of the defining security features of the domestic phones are also present for devices that are not connected the cellular network. This seems to suggest that authorities may be preparing for expansion of other digital networks such as the domestic intranet. This would allow the government to pursue a similar security strategy for a whole range of devices beyond mobile phones with the goal of moving citizens away from un-networked devices that authorities cannot track or control to those on government networks.

Person-to-Person Connection: A Silver Lining?

The North Korean government has been able to allow the introduction of legal mobile phones, while still maintaining some level of control of their usage. The rollout of new sophisticated censorship and surveillance tools are likely to severely limit the spread of unsanctioned media through mobile devices and open up some forms of communication to surveillance. Yet, it is also important to keep in mind what authorities are ceding. Given the availability and legality of mobile phones, North Koreans will undoubtedly experiment with the bounds of acceptable use—many already report routinely conducting quasi-legal business dealings via their mobiles.

However, mobile phones in the North still provide the potential for much greater horizontal interpersonal connection between North Koreans. The wide proliferation of legal mobile phones effectively signals the end of the regime’s former strategy of control by individual isolation. As connections between individuals continue to broaden and strengthen, aided by mobile communications, informal issue constituencies will undoubtedly form and share information—farmers will connect and talk to each other about what’s important for farmers, computer programmers will discuss computer programming and so forth. It is through those connections and the start of informal, non-state directed social organization that North Korean citizens may begin to constitute more than a collection of isolated individuals and more credibly engage in some forms of state-society negotiation. As North Korea’s society and economy continues to evolve, connection among ordinary citizens provides a way to potentially coordinate efforts to influence the direction of those changes, which could prove as transformative as the influx of foreign media the authorities are going to such great lengths to block.

I am reminded of the now-dated catchphrase, Information wants to be free!, and I wonder if this will constitute a laboratory experiment measuring the truthfulness of a phrase I’ve always considered to be somewhat disingenuous, even a bit of a cart before the horse. People want information to be free, because, at least for many, they are more efficient when they have more, and accurate, information. As North Korean authorities limit the information and connectivity of citizens, will this make them more or less productive and happy? If they can improve the average accuracy of information, then the artificial limitations may be worth it, although I have to believe that the limitations on creativity implicit in such a security system may leave them continually stealing our commercial secrets in order to keep up.

On the other hand, even in the West is the sky the limit, as we say, or are the advantages gained from connectivity and high information exchange more like an ore deposit – the top layers easily worked, but as time passes and the deposit is worked, it becomes less and less productive, requiring more and more effort? Based on my informal and anecdotal observations, I’d say yes, it’s more like an ore deposit. If so, then the limitations the North Koreans impose on their citizenry may not be so important.

Heard that some are saying that the President cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice by definition? Professor Rick Pildes disagrees, based on a SCOTUS decision, on Lawfare:

The Ethics in Government Act was created out of the recognition that the President should be taken out of the process of controlling investigations and prosecutions that involved potential crimes by himself or high-ranking government officials—i.e., close aides of the President. As the Supreme Court thought was obvious, “Congress, of course, was concerned when it created the office of independent counsel with the conflicts of interest that could arise in situations when the Executive Branch is called upon to investigate its own high-ranking officers.”

The Act created a process that could lead to the appointment of an Independent Counsel for this role, and the entire point of the Act was to insulate the Independent Counsel—and hence the investigation and prosecution of crimes involving the President and his or her top aides—from the President’s complete control. The Act essentially put the powers of the Department of Justice in the hands of the Independent Counsel: it vested him or her with the “full power and independent authority to exercise all investigative and prosecutorial functions and powers of the Department of Justice [and] the Attorney General.”

Then, to even further ensure that the President not have unfettered control when potential crimes involving himself and his top aides were at stake, the Independent Counsel, once appointed, was wrapped in several layers of additional insulation from presidential control. Thus, the only person who could remove the counsel from office was the Attorney General—and, very importantly, the Attorney General could only do that for limited and specific reasons (“good cause”), such as misconduct in office or inability to perform the counsel’s duties.* If the Attorney General did remove a counsel, the AG had to file a report with Congress and the courts stating the factual basis for this removal. And as yet further protection of the Independent Counsel, the federal courts—which were given the power to reinstate an Independent Counsel who had been illegally removed—would be the ultimate adjudicator of whether any removal was in fact for good cause.

There’s plenty more good detail, but it basically boils down to SCOTUS, back in 1988, deciding that permitting the President unfettered control of federal prosecutions, when those prosecutions involved himself and his aides, was a gaping wound, ready for infestation by the worst sorts of bacteria, once a President of poor character had assumed control; the challenged law, the Ethics in Government Act, was thus permitted to stand.

To my mind, there’s a further problem with assuming the President is immune, and that is to presume the President is ruler supreme. He’s not; he’s the Executive in charge of implementing the laws put forth by Congress, as modulated by the judiciary; to equate him to a monarch is not only repugnant, but a profound misunderstanding of our system of government. He is an elected officer of the government, much as is the Vice President. He nominates various persons for the roles we’ve developed for the government, and gives them direction to implement policy.

Just as it is important that his decisions be challenged in court, so, too, must be his conduct. Granted, nuisance suits are a danger to the country, but investigation by specially appointed counsel in extraordinary circumstance is not only necessary, it should be obvious. This appears to be something overlooked by the Founding Fathers; fortunately, SCOTUS backed up the new law when challenged in 1988.

But I am not Jason Robards!

Jason Robards takes a star turn in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971), a rather limp rendition of the Edgar Allan Poe classic. Not having read the original story myself, I am uncertain as to the fidelity of the movie to the original story; a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry suggests the fidelity may not be high. In any case, I prefer to judge a story on its own presentation terms.

And this one lacks tension. Part of this may be attributed to the characters, who fail to engage our sympathies. Between theater director Charron (Robards) who seems queerly unaffected as members and former members of his troupe begin to die in various & gory manners, and his wife, Madeleine (Christine Kaufmann), who appears to have nightmares at the drop of a hat, but has no will of her own, it was hard to feel sympathy for the leading characters. Meanwhile, other characters who are, at best, barely sketched in, die of slit throats, so messily done, or acid thrown on them, or they simply fade away. Basically, if they survive most or all of the movie, you don’t really believe they’re human, at least not one you’d wish to know, and if they die early, the sympathy is pro forma, as we haven’t a clue as to their wives, children, political aspirations, or even their favorite rock.

Another part of the problem is the style in which the story is told. A number of times we are presented with realistic action, only to discover it was really part of Madeleine’s recurring nightmare. Now, this is perfect permissible once, perhaps even twice, but this limit is far exceeded in this movie. A famous writer^[1] may have once said, “If you’re going to break the rules, do it big, make it a virtue,” but in this case, it was not made a virtue^[2]. It was merely confusing.

Finally, the resilience of the antagonist in the face of multiple physical attacks is truly remarkable, while the stage combat instances were more or less laughable. And if an attempt is made to attribute his fortitude to sheer will and love, it didn’t click for me. Perhaps it’s a temperament thing.

All that said, the basic technical features of the film, excepting the stage combat, were competent, as was the acting. But in the end, it felt like a waste of time, for the audience, the actor, even the director.

¹Roger Zelazny, if memory serves, but I cannot find a quote online, so perhaps I misremember.

²A memorable case of such virtue would be Inception (2010).

As in In-di-go …

Depose:

to remove from a throne or other high position plotting to depose the kinga deposed military leader [Merriam-Webster]

to ask questions of a witness or a party to a lawsuit at a deposition (testimony outside of the courtroom before trial). [The Free Dictionary / Legal]

Given these two definitions of depose, there’s a certain delicious double meaning to this remark by Senator Jack Reed. From Talking Points Memo:

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked if Reed was saying Trump should make a statement under oath.

“I think that’s ultimately what will happen,” Reed said. “I would expect at some point, not right away, but at some point that Mr. Mueller will would feel he has to depose the President.”

And you’ll need $65,000 that isn’t doing you any good.

And you probably need to live in Britain.

But if you have those, then you need this:

Made by legendary car maker Morgan, it’s electric and has its limitations – but is outright gorgeous. My Arts Editor is drooling. CNN/Money got a test drive:

The topless sports car is remarkably loud for an electric vehicle and produces a satisfying “vroom” that’s sure to thrill attention-seeking drivers. (Bystanders were suitably agog during CNNMoney’s test drive.)

The UK1909 is not the most powerful car, with just 70 horsepower. And its range (150 miles per charge) is limited by its smaller frame and battery storage capacity.

They are available via department store Selfridges, and only 19 will be made. That’s one of the smaller production runs in the car world.

I’ve discussed the war I think we’re fighting with the Russians before, specifically here, although we could simply term it a fierce rivalry, at least for those who like to keep their terminology clean. It started, more or less, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia; our riposte was the drop in oil prices; and the return Russian thrust is their interference in our elections.

We do need to realize that we’re in a coldly serious competition with Russia. This is not a military conflict, and need not be, but here’s the problem: we’re trying to run our side of the conflict with one foot in concrete. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages, ranging from various natural resources to societal cultures to political systems, and we could spend days writing about them. But Russia is deadly serious about their ambitions, and we need to not make unforced errors.

And our side is doing that.

I’m not talking about the election of Donald Trump – that was a forced error. We were manipulated into that mistake, and it’s indisputable that we were manipulated into it.

But now we have an Administration which is actively trying to cripple the American Government, one of the most potent weapons in this war. Notwithstanding President Trump’s attempts to blame the Democrats, he is far, far behind in nominating the leaders of the government, as TIME reports:

“Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors,” the President tweeted. “They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.”

Setting aside the fact that his fellow Republicans control the Senate, there remains a very large problem here: the White House has not nominated anyone for the job in London. Trump announced during a gala luncheon on Jan. 19 that New York Jets owners Woody Johnson would be his pick, but the White House has not referred the nomination to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It’s tough for anyone—Republicans or Democrats—to confirm a nominee who hasn’t been nominated. An ambassador-in-theory at the Court of Saint James does the United States no good.

Among these personnel are some of the most important in service, those of the State Department. They handle the diplomatic duties, and this is where wars start – or are successfully aborted. Many news outlets have reported on Secretary of Defense (read: War) Mattis’ comments on the situation, so at random, here’s Business Insider:

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately,” Mattis said, before members of Congress at a National Security Advisory Council meeting, the US Global Leadership Coalition notes.

“So I think it’s a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene,” Mattis continued.

It’s become increasingly apparent that the GOP has become the party of the amateurs. Honestly, there is no serving GOP member of Congress who stands out as a leading expert on any aspect of foreign relations. In the past, the GOP had a reputation for integrity in this area, with leading names such as Senator Lugar of Indiana rightly well known and respected.

Nowadays? Maybe the best known is Senator McCain, who, based on his rambling contribution to the James Comey hearing yesterday, has entered his dotage and might be best served by retiring. After that?

But I’ll skip busting the chops of various GOP members – no matter how they need to be highlighted – in order to move on to the GOP itself. I and many others have noted before how it disdains experts and expertise in preference to pretending that all is how it prefers it to be – yet you can be sure that when their trucks breakdown, they don’t take them to the kid who’s ten years old but assures you he knows how to fix your pickup.

No, they take them to the trained mechanics. Why they think that doesn’t apply to national policy in a dozen different areas, I don’t know. But this attitude, borne, in many cases, from lust for power allied with a profound ignorance outside of any fields of expertise they may have, does not serve the nation well. We need that to stop.

And I’m using that mysterious pronoun again, We. I’d like to address it and then them. By We I mean the electorate, and to youse guys, it’s time to stop fooling around and electing half-baked amateurs. I don’t care if they tell you all is well (it’s not), that they’ll take you back to the halcyon days of the 50s (they won’t and they weren’t) (OK, some of the cars had great styling), or even if they know how to pray really well. I don’t care if they’re Democrats or GOP, but they must be competent – because I’m confident a competent Republican will understand there’s a difference between government and business, that both are necessary – and an active government is not necessarily a bad thing.

It all doesn’t help when you have an ambitious rival who’s getting ready to eat your lunch because you elected amateurs. In some cases, acknowledged amateurs. Via The Hill:

“Of course, there needs to be a degree of independence between [the Department of Justice], FBI and the White House, and a line of communication’s established,” Ryan told reporters.

“The president’s new at this. He’s new to government. So he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, the FBI and White Houses. He’s just new to this.”

Another reporter later pressed Ryan on why inexperience is an “acceptable excuse” for Trump’s behavior.

“I’m not saying it’s an acceptable excuse. It’s just my observation,” Ryan replied. “He’s new at government and so, therefore, I think that he’s learning as he goes.”

Problem is, we don’t have time for this. He selected a slug in Secretary of State Tillerson, and someone uninterested in increasing the performance of the education system in DeVos – two important pillars of a free society.

This is about far more than Trump. It’s about the sickness of the GOP; the ignorance of the electorate – and how that endangers the safety of the United States. We need long term solutions, not just chants about electing progressives or Democrats. We need improvement in the standards of voters, in understanding the important role of government, and how electing the incompetent only inflicts more damage on ourselves.

Kevin Drum finds a new study concerning his favorite hobbyhorse that happens to be covered in lead paint. The key to this study are the two very similar study groups, one of which had an intervention to lower lead levels in the blood, the other not:

Source: Mother Jones

Violent crime arrests go up along with blood lead levels, which should be no surprise at this point. But the final two bars in the chart are the most dramatic. The control and intervention groups, which were very similar to begin with, diverged substantially. The intervention group, even though it probably started out with slightly higher lead levels, was far, far less likely to be arrested for a violent crime in their teenage years compared to the control group. The statistical significance of the drop is extremely strong.

Because the two groups of kids were so similar, there was barely any need for controls. The authors did them anyway (gender, mother’s education, birth weight, etc.), and they had little effect on the final results.

This continues to intrigue. Perhaps George “Machine Gun” Kelly’s nickname should have been Lead Belly.

But, frankly, close up they’re a little creepy. First, the sleepy view.

And now for a closer view of their genitalia:

Sorry about that last one getting a little blurry.

And a final glory shot.

As Turkey slides into the grasp of the autocrat, we’ll see how good his grasp is when it comes to the fine points of managing his country. For example, the economy nearly crashed near the end of 2016, and now that the referendum passed, giving President Erdogan far more power, he has that sitting in his lap. Mustafa Sonmez reports in AL Monitor:

Yet there is also the other side of the growth-glowing coin, where new fragilities are emerging on top of existing ones. The unemployment rate, for instance, reached 12.6% in February. Inflation hit 11.7% in consumer prices and 15.3% in producer prices in May, emerging as one of the most serious problems in the short run. Tourism revenues, meanwhile, signal a decline even in comparison with 2016, which was already a crisis year.

The government’s lavish spending and various incentives to avert the crisis, including corporate tax discounts, premium supports and reduced VAT rates, will all mean budgetary strains in the long run that would upset public finances. Ultimately, the lower classes will end up paying the price.

There is also the question of what will happen at the Credit Guarantee Fund, which has sponsored the issuance of Treasury-guaranteed loans totaling some 180 billion liras, with maturity terms extending to 10 years and often including grace periods of up to three years. The volume of the fund itself was raised to 250 billion liras in March, which led public banks in particular to lend lavishly in the run-up to the referendum. This may result in clamors when reimbursement time arrives.

The banking sector’s loan volume has expanded by 160 billion liras this year, but lira deposits have increased only by 33 billion liras — even though banks have raised yields to up to 15% per year. This means a significant shortage of resources in the sector, and the Central Bank is being used to overcome the problem. The inevitable outcome, many fear, will be more inflation, more bad debts and more burden on the public budget.

And if all that comes to pass, what will the Turks do? Trust in their leader? Will he redirect their anger at some minority group? Blame the Greeks?

Blame Trump? (Maybe not.)

Turkey’s not small beans, so if they get in trouble, that could have impact in both Europe and the Mideast.

Skeuomorph:

A skeuomorph (/ˈskjuːəˌmɔːrf, ˈskjuːoʊ–/^[1][2]) is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues from structures that are inherent to the original. [Wikipedia]

Seen in “The retro-styled Munro Motor 2.0 blurs the line between e-bike & motorcycle,” Derek Markham, Treehugger.com:

The North Carolina legislature occasionally shows some sense, mostly in reaction to corporate interests. Sami Grover on Treehugger.com is shocked to discover a bill is in process to boost the solar power industry:

In terms of overall impact, the bill does appear to be pretty wide ranging. It covers everything from permitting solar leases (as long as the lease is not directly tied to how much energy is generated) to allowing, for the first time, participation in “community solar” schemes. And while it reduces the amount that Duke Energy is expected to pay for power to solar farms, it also requires Duke to accept bids from solar farms and offer longer contracts—a move which many solar developers apparently see as a worthy tradeoff.

It’s really quite an encouraging sign, and perhaps not as surprising as it may first seem. North Carolina has actually seen huge growth in the utility-scale solar sector of late, spurred in part by the presence of giant tech companies like Apple (the photo above is of their solar farm in Charlotte [omitted]). Residential solar, however, has lagged somewhat behind, so an overhaul of the state’s legislation may well unlock some pent up demand.

Or it may reflect a dawning realization that the electorate is not so happy with conservative-corporate politics; an upgrade to their reputation as the continuing gerrymandering case goes against them. I suspect competing on a level playing field will turn North Carolina blue, inside and out.

Kansas has finally tossed out the Brownback plan for doom, over his torrid objections. Turns out the GOP – at least in Kansas – has its limits when disaster looms. The Wichita Eagle reports:

Lawmakers rolled back Gov. Sam Brownback’s signature tax policy over his objections Tuesday night, forcing into law tax increases to fix a budget shortfall and provide more money for schools.

The legislation ends the “march to zero” income tax cuts that Brownback heralded for much of his time as governor. …

The override represents a blow to the legacy of one of the most unpopular governors in America, amid speculation that he may not serve out his remaining time in office but instead take a federal position.

Brownback did not respond immediately to the override votes. The night before, he had said he would veto and issued a statement: “Senate Bill 30 is a $1.2 billion tax hike, making it the largest in state history. This is bad for Kansas and bad for the many Kansans who would have more of their hard-earned money taken from them.”

Lawmakers who supported the bill and the override said the 2012 policy was a mistake that had drained the state of revenue, leading to rounds of budget cuts and harming investments in roads and other priorities.

“It’s hard to celebrate because Kansas is in such shambles. The magnitude of the problems that we have to correct is so great,” Rep. Melissa Rooker, R-Fairway, said.

Given the recent fall in general conserviative leaning folks in the country, I’m guessing the Kansas GOP, liking neither the rock nor the hard place, chose higher taxes and moved to accord with reality, rather than hanging on to an ideology that had proven false.

It’ll be important to keep an eye on Kansas to assess whether they begin to prosper again – and why – or if this is insufficient.

Or if the state is permanently wrecked.

As you can see, the lupine and columbine are not adverse to late night parties. I think the baptisia in the background may be the overly protective parent, though.

Run, columbine, run – he’s got a paddle!

Sorry, not embeddable.

www.facebook.com/Cats.Are.Amazing/videos/759282670801415/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

Elections have consequences, but sometimes they apply to those who really wish the election hadn’t happened. Remember how many prominent and mid-level Republicans protested the nomination of Donald Trump for the Presidency? It was really unprecedented, from Republicans who were willing to vote for anyone else, to now-former Republicans abandoning the Party.

But Trump, by a quirk of quantum mechanics, managed to win anyways, and riding his shirt tails was a rag-tag band of Republicans who managed to retain control of Congress, albeit by slimmer margins than the prior Congress.

Since then, as long time readers know, in my view it’s been chaos in both of those branches of Congress. And now another consequence must be alarming the Republican leadership. From Gallup:

These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking throughout May. Overall, 45% of U.S. adults self-identify as Democrats or say they are independents who lean Democratic, while 38% identify as Republicans or lean Republican.

It’s interesting, and perhaps depressing, for Democratic leaders that there is no increase in their percentage. I would have thought the increased political consciousness inspired by the clownish atmosphere in the current national leadership would have pushed a lot of independent voters into the liberal camp. Perhaps the Fox News effect is stronger than I’d like to think, or maybe liberals just come across poorly in the media. Certainly, their failure to vigorously defend the ACA is a blot on their reputation.

But as much as Trump is a national eyesore, the GOP leadership in Congress has had its share of unforced (and unadmitted to) errors, from the House passing of the AHCA to the Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions confirmations. Equal parts extremism and incompetence, this downtrend may signal that we’ve seen the top of this latest cycle of populism, and people may begin to appreciate that experts are valuable – and work in hard areas and sometimes make mistakes. I can hope.

So what happens on June 20th, when the last two open seats in the House of Representatives are filled through special elections? Beats me – deep red seats that are unexpectedly competitive. More importantly, what happens on the next election cycle? In the unlikely event that Trump remains President then, this drop off in conservative sympathies may indicate he’ll be facing a deeply hostile Congress.

But that only assumes these results hold up – or even worsen for the Republicans. Stay tuned and know hope.

Ages ago I critiqued a proposal (it’s a bit down in that post) for reforming the Pennsylvania judicial selection system. It called for a bipartisan commission to select judges; I suggested that this would simply transfer the partisan facet of the election to the effort to get on the bipartisan commission – and then nothing would get done, as the most unreasonable partisans of both sides would not agree.

Now I see four former governors of Pennsylvania have endorsed the idea, using the prevalent euphemism merit selection for a bipartisan selection body. Philly.com has their proposal:

Merit selection is not a panacea. We are hardly naïve about today’s political realities. Nonetheless, having in place a system by which any qualified candidate can apply for an open seat on the appellate bench and be considered by a bipartisan, diverse group of citizens from across the commonwealth — a group tasked with evaluating the strength of that candidate’s professional and personal qualifications to serve — is a far better system than one in which random ballot position, fund-raising, and campaigning are determining factors.

It seems like there will be improvement in terms of the uproar of the elections being reduced – the vicious fighting for positions on the commission will occur during its formation, and, depending on that selection process, may or may not involve vast sums of money, petty bickering, and all the paraphernalia used by partisans of both sides.

But the judges won’t have elections any longer, will they?

They’ll be faced with the temptation of pandering to the commission, instead. No offense to the judiciary, as I’m sure many will simply go about their jobs and then hope their job performance is sufficient to retain their jobs every few years.

But that’s hardly a secure job position. It doesn’t necessarily induce top performance.

And then for those judges – or candidates – who are deficient, the temptations will be strong. Bribes may be rare, but favoritism in rulings? That I could see.

Look, selecting judges is not an easy process. In an inherently political system, judges need to be neutral politically, with a bias to interpreting the law for each case. And then know what to do when the law doesn’t appear to directly address a situation. The point of the selection process should be to remove negative pressures (political as well as corruptive) from their jobs.

However, the former governors appear to be distracted by a need to involve the citizenry in the process. Here’s their reply to critiques:

And yes, there are those who say that substituting merit selection of these judges and justices for elections is denying voters’ right to elect all of the judiciary. To them we say, Pennsylvania voters will still get three bites at the electoral apple. First, they would continue to elect their local magisterial district judges and judges on the courts of common pleas. These candidates are generally better known to the voters than candidates for statewide judicial positions.

Second, Pennsylvanians would decide for themselves whether they prefer elections or merit selection. The adoption of merit selection for statewide positions would require amending the state constitution, beginning with passage of a bill in two consecutive sessions of the Legislature — itself no small feat — and then go to the voters for final approval.

 Finally, judges and justices who are nominated and approved for the appellate courts would have to face the voters in nonpartisan, retention elections after serving on the bench for four years. At that time, voters would have a body of information about how these individuals perform on the bench to use when deciding whether or not to retain them.

And how many non-aligned voters pay any attention at all to the body of work of appellate judges?

I wish the governors had met the populist outcry against appointed judges head-on, instead. This is an opportunity to put forth the reasoning of the Founding Fathers on the judiciary, that it should be independent to the greatest extent possible from the winds of professional politicians, using appointments with such lengths as to outlast the appointer, and to insulate them from popular, but often wrong, opinion. Certainly, they should be removable, but not easily, as judges are human and can be corrupted or even just be wrong, wrong, wrong.

But I fear this bipartisan commission approach mistakes partisanship for wisdom.

And then I wondered if irises changed their underwear at midnight …

Actually, I caught them sneaking up on me.

In “The Universe According to Emmy Noether” (Steve Nadis, Discover Magazine, June 2017, paywall) I learn something new – and suffer a visual of dubious import:

Noether’s theorem, however, is crucial to more than just the search for new particles; it extends to all branches of physics. Harvard physicist Andrew Strominger, for example, has identified an infinite number of symmetries related to soft particles, which are particles that have no energy. These particles come in two varieties: soft photons (particles that transmit the electromagnetic force) and soft gravitons (particles that transmit the gravitational force). Recent papers by Strominger and his colleagues, Stephen Hawking and Malcolm Perry of Cambridge University, suggest that material falling into a black hole adds soft particles to the black hole’s boundary, or event horizon. These particles would in effect serve as recording devices that store information, providing clues about the original material that went into the black hole.

Conceptual view of an event horizon
Feryal Ozel/University of Arizona

Terribly sorry, I’m sure this is totally inappropriate – but when the black hole evaporates, as Hawking’s work supposedly shows (I am not expressing doubt, but merely my wholly inadequate mathematical preparation), does this “skin” of information get sloughed off? Do myriad skins of already evaporated black holes wander the Universe, metaphorically awaiting a creature capable of understanding and enjoying the information encoded in the slough, much like a snake leaves its skin behind?

Last January Backchannel published an article relevant to this thread, concerning the establishment of an AI (Artificial Intelligence) ethics board by Google. One of the leadoff paragraphs contains links to a number of associated organizations:

Earlier this month, the MIT Media Lab joined with the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society to anchor a $27 million Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence initiative. The fund joins a growing array of AI ethics initiatives crisscrossing the corporate world and academia. In July 2016, leading AI researchers discussed the technologies’ social and economic implications at the AI Now symposium in New York City. And in September, a group of academic and industry researchers organized under the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence — an ongoing project hosted by Stanford University — released its first report describing how AI technologies could impact life in a North American city by the year 2030.

And I’ll get back to this. The Backchannel article covers the Google organization:

Perhaps the most significant new project, however, is a Silicon Valley coalition that also launched in September. Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft jointly announced they were forming the Partnership on AI: a nonprofit organization dedicated to matters such as the trustworthiness and reliability of AI technologies. Today, the Partnership announced that Apple is joining the coalition, and that its first official board meeting will be held on February 3, in San Francisco.

Think of this group as a United Nations-like forum for companies developing AI — a place for self-interested parties to seek common ground on issues that could do great good or great harm to all of humanity. …

The real issue — though it doesn’t have the same ring as “killer robots” — is the question of corporate transparency. When the bottom line beckons, who will lobby on behalf of the human good?

That should be the responsibility of the governments in question. After all, corporations are ill-equipped for such concerns; even the good corporations have a preoccupation with corporate survival, not societal survival, which is the explicit concern of government. Of course, given the clownish attributes of the current government, I’m not certain I want them holding those reins.

There’s not a great deal more relevant facts about the Google effort, as it seems to be a secret undertaking (or was in January).

One of the links referenced above is to an effort by venerable MIT to explore the topic.

The Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society will leverage a network of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates who will collaborate on unbiased, sustained, evidenced-based, solution-oriented work that cuts across disciplines and sectors. This research will include questions that address society’s ethical expectations of AI, using machine learning to learn ethical and legal norms from data, and using data-driven techniques to quantify the potential impact of AI, for example, on the labor market. …

“Artificial Intelligence provides the potential for deeply personalized learning experiences for people of all ages and stages,” says [Cynthia] Breazeal, who emphasizes the need for AI to reach people in developing nations and underserved populations. But she adds that it is also “a kind of double-edged sword. What should it be learning and adapting to benefit you? And what should it do to protect your privacy and your security?”

It’s an introductory document, not really meant for analysis. However, why let that stop me? There appears to be an assumption that the Artificial Intelligences of the future will be of what I’ll call the non-autonomous variety, by which I mean they will not be making decisions about their own tasks, futures, desires, and fates, but rather be exceptionally advanced hammers in our hands. And it’s a worthy limitation; but it sort of avoids the ultimate suite of questions, doesn’t it? That being, if we’re in the position to give birth to an entirely different sentient species, then do we have responsibilities associated with that event and what comes afterward, or are they more like a brand new batch of … slaves?

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com reports on the latest development in tall wood buildings:

When it is completed, Terrace House will be the tallest wood building in the world, inching out (metering out?) Brock Commons, also in Vancouver, by 18 meters to its pointy top. But according to Matt Robinson in the Vancouver Sun, The developer Tobi Reyes said building a taller wood structure than anyone else had before “wasn’t by design.” And if you believe that….

TerraceHouse via PortLiving

Engineer Hermann Blumer is on the job; he worked with Shigeru Ban on Centre Pompidou-Metz, also a remarkable wood structure. …

The building apparently has development approval and is in for permit, and being wood construction, will probably be up before you know it. Wood construction is faster, quieter and cleaner than concrete, is great in earthquake conditions and wood sequesters CO2 for the life of the building.

So long as they remain safe, they’ll remain attractive as the primary alternative to concrete buildings. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly it does go up, and its occupancy percentage.

Superhero stories can be a tough tale to tell effectively because of the lack of a common thread of humanity. After all, the superhero possesses powers not attainable by the common person; and defeating your everyday thug can only take you so far before the audience becomes bored and wanders off, meaning the story-teller must come up with more extravagant antagonists, and the slender rope the story-crafter is trying to dance upon is becomes thinner and thinner.

There are a couple of approaches to this problem. For example, the superhero may also be burdened with some physical disability, which emboldens the common crook. Marvel’s Daredevil is blind, but in a clever twist, he attributes his superpowers to that blindness, his remaining senses sharpening to cover for his nearly useless eyes. Still, the basic disability remains.

Another approach is that taken by the subject of today’s review, Wonder Woman (2017). This is an interesting melding of the Goddess Diana, from old Greek Mythology, with the years of World War I, aka the War to End All Wars. Marvel Studios has chosen to start her off by putting her up against another God, Ares, the God of War (and where will they go from here?). The key is they’ve chosen to humanize a Goddess by recognizing that the traditional divine beings hardly ever change and grow, as this is often taken by devotees as denials of their God’s divine and all-knowing status, and this static condition is death for a story.

So we get to see Diana grow from a child to a woman. And then we get to see her not only be fallible, but to see her change and mature emotionally and mentally in response to the consequences of her actions. This transforms her from an unknowable divine being to someone very much akin to us.

And this, in turn, permits us to share in her story, to understand her mistakes, and, with her, to learn from those mistakes. As my Arts Editor points out, this is the traditional voyage of discovery, complete with mistakes made, consequences sustained, and lessons made apparent.

This artistic decision is one of the strongest components of this movie, but the story itself is well drawn, balancing horror with humor, laughter with anticipation, a plot twist here, a plot twist there. While the title character herself is a good looking lady, she is not a statue depending on her looks, but a good actor in her own right; more gratifyingly, she’s not completely surrounded by more good lookers, but some folks who just look normal – even Chris Pine, who has played Captain Kirk in several block-busters from the Star Trek franchise, is not a pretty face in this movie. In fact, he improved his standing in my estimation, showing more acting chops here than in any of his Trek movies (I skipped the last one, but not because of Pine).

The special effects met the current bar for success, although sometimes it seemed there might be too many. Still, it’s a movie that wants to cover a lot of ground, so that may have been justified. Characters are well drawn, even the Amazons who ran the risk of being too similar. And, being a product of Disney’s Marvel, it has a certain technical sophistication that you just come to expect.

So, go. Have fun. Recommended, if you enjoy superhero movies. It’s a half-step above most of the superhero films in my experience.

Professor Adrian Vermeule speculates on Lawfare on the results of Trump appointing large numbers of judges, who are approved by a Senate that may no longer take notice of blue slips. His first point:

At the level of large constitutional abstractions, courts will point to the Preamble to the Constitution, observing that it is enacted by and in the name of “the People of the United States,” not anywhere else, and that it aims to promote the “general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” This will be taken to provide background principles that inform the reading of all other constitutional and statutory texts, and that shape and constrain legislative and executive authority in an indefinite range of areas.

In other words, legal provincialism. While it’s easy to build a visceral case for such readings of the law, these ignore a basic fact of today’s existence – even if maps show us as nearly alone on a very large island, it doesn’t matter anymore – we interact on a moment-to-moment basis with other nations, and we inevitably interface our legal systems with others, sometimes on a friendly basis, sometimes on a hostile basis. Even more importantly, our actions are so magnified by our technology that it is wholly appropriate to ask if our actions in, say, Gary, Indiana, are injuring the inhabitants of Bangladesh – and, if so, require compensation as appropriate. It is not, of course, just to injure a foreign national and then not compensate; down that path lies bitter conflict, even wars, if not necessarily declared.

It’s better to admit the reality on the ground and modify the legal system and realities simply as good policy. To that extent, those new judges of Trump’s selection who disagree with this philosophy may be condemning the United States to armed conflicts of various sorts, assuming they achieve a legal ascendancy – and refuse to learn, change, and grow in their new jobs. That capacity to learn, etc, may be our best hope.

BTW, Adrian, I think, is torn between withering sarcasm and startling fear.