Author Archives: Hue White

Well, this is an odd one. Remember, these nominations are for those folks whose allegiance to the former President has strayed into ludicrousness, much like former Rep Earl Landgrebe’s (R-IN) did for then-President Nixon (R). Here we are:

Trump is calling for subversion of the Constitution & either declaring him 2020 presidential winner or holding a “new election,” saying there should be “termination of all rules, regulations, & articles, even those found in the Constitution” to undo Biden’s right to presidency. pic.twitter.com/BIHfQsVpXv

— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) December 3, 2022

Trump is calling for subversion of the Constitution & either declaring him 2020 presidential winner or holding a “new election,” saying there should be “termination of all rules, regulations, & articles, even those found in the Constitution” to undo Biden’s right to presidency [in a Truth Social post].

Yes, the nomination goes to the former President himself, for his doubling down on his outlandish fraudulent election claims. His is a childish mentality.

A possible subsidiary nomination may go to the entirety of the Republican Party, as Professor Richardson notes this in regard to Trump’s demented call:

But Republicans, so far, are silent on Trump’s profound attack on the Constitution, the basis of our democratic government.

That is the story, and it is earth shattering.

Whether it’s earth shattering depends on the size of the Republican Party. The latest Gallup Party Affiliation poll does suggest some reason for concern, as Republicans are now at 33% of the population as of October 3rd, after being at only 24% in August. I wonder about bad polling, or outliers.

Congrats to the former President for the nomination.

I see some Indiana judges have decided to accept some important and apparently correct “sauce for the goose” logic when it comes to abortion:

A second Indiana judge on Friday blocked the state from enforcing its law banning most abortions after Jewish, Muslim and other non-Christian women challenged it in a lawsuit.

Marion County Superior Court Judge Heather Welch issued a preliminary injunction against the Republican-backed law, which prohibits abortions with limited exceptions for rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormalities or a serious health risk to the mother. The plaintiffs have argued that the measure infringes on religious freedom protected by another state law. …

Welch issued her injunction after a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice and five individual women challenged the abortion law under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU said the plaintiffs represented religions including Judaism and Islam as well as “independent spiritual belief systems.”

“The Court finds that S.E.A. 1 substantially burdens the religious exercise of the Plaintiffs,” Welch wrote, using the formal name of the law, in granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction while the challenge to its legality proceeds. [Reuters via WABX 107.5]

Both goose and gander have used the same substantive reason for their opposition and advocacy for abortion: the polyphony, if you will, of religion.

I’m not a lawyer and I haven’t read either of the decisions in this case, but it seems clear to me that this is a firm rejection of the notion, in the secular context, that the fetus is simply another human being. I’ve discussed this notion a bit in the negative, and I won’t reiterate it.

But it’s worth noting that we are a secular nation; the dangers of proclaiming we’re a nation of pick-your-sect has been noted, and condemned, here. That the Founding Fathers consigned the religious precept approach to law-making to the dustbin was a supremely practical and intellectual reaction to the madness of theologically oriented monarchs, and the violence that seemed inherent in their reigns; the notion that a peaceful society, undisturbed by the unsubstantiated religious tenets of various sects seems far preferable to the English example of burning at the stake, quite literally, those citizens whose religious practices were at variance with that of the monarch.

Ideally, that leaves rational, objective analysis, as difficult as that is, as the basis of real legislative actions. We’re not, being humans, particularly rational, and we’re not born with the tools of objective analysis ready to go, and our ability to teach it varies with teacher, local society, and opinions of both. This all means making laws is a messy business, of infinite frustration to those who believe there’s virtue in dispatch, regardless of their position on political spectrum. For some, it takes time to learn the error of the emotional response.

Skipping some thoughts and interlocutions, as my shoulder is giving me problems today, this leaves us with the classic approach of promulgate, evaluate, revise, repeat, also known, at least to my mind, as the approach of the humble. Our metrics during the revise step are key, and my proffered list is, naturally, incomplete:

1. Does the law have a rational basis?
2. Does the law infringe on the Bill of Rights?
3. Does the law promote or obstruct a peaceful society?
4. …

In any case, and to wrap things up, the anti-abortion forces have, in my opinion, failed on at least points 1 and 3; in their attempt to enforce their religious opinions on the population of Indiana, they have brought into play opposing religious forces, which have just as much right to their religious practices as do the anti-abortionists.

In an ideal country, these practices should cancel out, and, because abortion is never imposed, but merely available, I can see no need for anti-abortion laws.

Go, Indiana judges! They remind me of the Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled that gay marriage was legal, shocking the conservatives of Iowa and beyond. They, in turn, organized a drive to vote those justices out of their seats, in a move that proves my contention that judges should never be subject to votes of the electorate, but only of the relevant legislative body.

I have to wonder how long these judges will remain in their positions.

It’s Gogol Bordello!

OK, so the appeal is a bit odd.

Remember my suspicion that some Republicans would like to see the former President as Speaker of the House? I missed this, ummm, announcement from Rep Ralph Norman from Thursday:

Rep. Ralph Norman, who opposes McCarthy for Speaker, says the renegade Republicans have a secret candidate to run against him who is not a House member: “It will be apparent in the coming weeks who that person will be. I will tell you, it will be interesting.” pic.twitter.com/anD60jvNky

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) December 1, 2022

Rep. Ralph Norman, who opposes McCarthy for Speaker, says the renegade Republicans have a secret candidate to run against him who is not a House member: “It will be apparent in the coming weeks who that person will be. I will tell you, it will be interesting.”

Interesting? Only if it’s not Trump. Otherwise, drearily predictable and out of step with most of America, and he’d be terribly incompetent and unaware of it, unlike myself, who would be terribly incompetent and smart enough to not even consider accepting the position.

Suppose he is nominated for the position. Would moderate Republicans and Democrats vote for him? No. So he’d be left humiliated. Or so I think.

And, yes, the persistent stupidity of these folks does induce nausea in me.

Jansky:

The Jansky (Jy) is defined as:

1 ^. 10^-26 Watts / Hz ^. m²

[SETI League]

Incidentally, my first guess was that it is a synonym for jargon. Not. Even. Close. Noted in “Ronnametres and quettagrams have joined the ranks of SI units,” Alex Wilkins, NewScientist (26 November 2022):

[Richard Brown at the National Physical Laboratory] suggests that ronto and quecto could have uses in radio astronomy, such as for measuring the very weak strength of the cosmic microwave background, radiation left over from the big bang, but astronomers already frequently use the non-SI jansky for this, says [Mike Merrifield at the University of Nottingham].

Since the last update …

• Senator Murkowski (R) of Alaska has won her race over fellow Republican and Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka; Patricia Chesbro (D) was also part of the cheese grater action, which I characterize in this manner since, after all the conservative chatter about the Senator being on the edge of failure, she coasted to a 7+ point victory over Tshibaka. As I, and a host of pundits, expected, ranked choice voting vastly increases the chances for moderates even in highly polarized environments, as most independents would prefer a steady and predictable legislator like Murkowski over the product of a Party that seems controlled by radicals.
• The Georgia runoff is this Tuesday, which means the pollsters have had a bit of time to run polls. CNN sponsored a poll by C rated^[1] SSRS that shows Senator Warnock (R) leading challenger Herschel Walker (R) 52% to 48%, with a margin of error of ± 3 points. A rated SurveyUSA gives Warnock a 50% – 47% lead with no margin of error given. A- rated Emerson College Polling gives Warnock a 49% to 47% lead, with a ± 3.2 point margin of error. Place your bet and take your chances.

It’s encouraging to see no conservative pollsters in the mix here, because, while I have not systematically studied their results, my impression is that, as a group, they diverged from the less obviously linked pollsters near the middle of October onwards, and it was the conservative pollsters who seemed to perform worse. For example:

• In New Hampshire, some conservative pollsters gave challenger Don Bolduc (R) a small lead over Senator Hassan (D), while others called it a dead heat. Then pollster Lowell Center gave Hassan a ten point lead, pointedly out of step with everyone else. Hassan’s final margin of victory? 10 points. That’s more comfortable than Murkowski’s victory.
• Pennsylvania’s race between Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D) and Dr. Oz Mehmet (R) for an open seat was ultimately a 3+ point win for Fetterman, when various conservative pollsters suggested Oz was pulling ahead. However and notably, the last Fox News poll showed Fetterman up by 3 points.

But how did SurveyUSA do overall? Emerson College? I’m waiting for FiveThirtyEight’s analysis.

What’ll happen in Georgia on Tuesday? I cannot imagine a Senator speaking gibberish like Walker speaks it, so I can only hope Warnock manages to take the seat. I have far more confidence in his grasp of national and international issues than I do with Walker.

¹ All ratings continue to be from FiveThirtyEight’s ratings following the 2020 election, calculated in March of 2021.

This TRY Channel episode is one of my favorites, alongside their original durian fruit episode.

I’m torn between a joke about jumbo shrimp and noting that Titans don’t do well in most mythologies.

This is all about how some people think they should be lording it over everyone else, from Mark Sumner on Daily Kos:

Now, in what may be one of the most egregious case of someone using their power and wealth to bully both local residents and officials, drug company executive Fredric Eshelman—net worth $380 million—is trying to make the situation even worse. He’s trying to block off huge areas of land even when he doesn’t surround them, by pressing a case that would make it much easier to prevent the public from reaching public land.

In the process, Eshelman is trying to financially destroy four hunters for “trespassing,” even though they literally never set one foot on his property. The outcome of this case will affect not just hunters and fishermen, but hikers, bird watchers, artists, photographers, and anyone who simply wants to access land that belongs to all of us.

What? After the State lost a criminal case….

Eshelman piled on to the hunters with a civil suit “for causing millions of dollars in damage” which seeks not only compensation for this supposed damage, but for the hunters to pay all legal fees in both the criminal and civil cases. He is seeking an incredible $7 million in damages for disturbing a few inches of air over his land.

Unbelievable. Go read Sumner’s article, it’s a gob-smacker.

I know that, during the Eisenhower Administration, taxes on the high earners were, themselves, high, compared to today. I cannot help but wonder if those taxes helped suppress the self-regarding narcissists from running around like lunatics, which made for a calmer society.

Such taxation used to seem deeply unfair to me, but having a pack of Emperor Nero-wannabes running around like Eshelman seems a lot worse.

Femicide:

Femicide or feminicide is a hate crime which is broadly defined as “the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female,” but definitions of it vary depending on cultural context. In 1976, the feminist author Diana E. H. Russell first defined the term as “the killing of females by males because they are female.” Others broaden the meaning of the term by including the killing of females by females. In many Central American countries, where organized crime is a prevalent issue, the term femicide is used in reference to the violent killings of women and girls which are frequently perpetrated by gang members, a crime which is primarily committed in order to stoke fear and compliance among civilians. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Shanquella Robinson’s death is being investigated as a femicide. Here is what it means,” Nicole Chavez, CNN:

The killing of Shanquella Robinson is being investigated as a femicide, an unfamiliar term for many in the United States as this gender-motivated crime has not been defined by US legislation despite being a global issue.

The FTX collapse, featuring Sam Bankman-Fried, who apparently has achieved triple initial status, i.e., he’s now known as SBF, hasn’t happened in a vacuum. Another crypto company, BlockFi, a digital asset lender with “significant exposure” to FTX, is in bankruptcy.

The fascinating part?

BlockFi, the first direct casualty of crypto exchange FTX’s collapse, told a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday that the U.S. cryptocurrency lender was “the antithesis of FTX” and that it would seek to return customer funds as quickly as possible.

BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 protection on Monday, citing FTX’s collapse and volatility in the crypto markets. Earlier in November, BlockFi had paused withdrawals from its platform amid uncertainty about FTX’s stability.

BlockFi attorney Joshua Sussberg went to great lengths to distance BlockFi from FTX at the company’s first bankruptcy hearing in Trenton, New Jersey. While detailing the companies’ complex financial relationship, Sussberg emphasized BlockFi did not face the myriad issues plaguing FTX, which spectacularly imploded earlier this month, sparking fears of contagion across the industry. [Reuters, via MSN]

“No, we don’t look like this failure over here at all!” But, guys, you lent them enough currency that their failure withered your carcass as well. The magnitude of internal failure may not match the FTX blunders, but there’s still a rank odor of irresponsibility pervading you folks. Yep, without regulation the waves of putrid mismanagement will wash over everyone. And I say that after arguing that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Object lessons are useful things.

Back to FTX and SBF, here’s a revelation about him, who incidentally happens to be all of thirty years old and was, briefly, the CEO of a largish company:

Amid all the bombshell revelations about fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, a seemingly trivial bit of information might tell us everything we need to know: He doesn’t read books.

If you’re anticipating a caveat or qualifier, you’re as out of luck as the FTX investors whose money SBF allegedly lost. “I’m addicted to reading,” a journalist said to the erstwhile multibillionaire in a recently resurfaced interview. “Oh, yeah?” SBF replied. “I would never read a book.” …

Behold, then, SBF’s reason: “I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. … If you wrote a book, you f—ed up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.” [WaPo]

Oh me oh my. He’s beginning to sound like quite the shallow bounder, doesn’t he? I mean, how do you evaluate all the sides of an issue if you don’t know there are multiple sides?

And, by the way, what is the issue at hand?

All this stemmed not simply from an inclination toward reckless management, but from something more deeply rooted: philosophy. SBF is a believer in effective altruism. This school of thought seeks to, by its own definition, use “evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible.” More specifically, SBF had devoted his life toward “earning to give.” You pick a career not because you care about the career itself, or even think it’s good for the world on its own merits. You pick a career because it will make you a massive amount of money, and you can spend that money on something that is good. So SBF picked finance, and after that he picked crypto.

Ah, to be a bug on the wall. Whether ’tis more noble in one’s mind to … oh, just squish me now, eh?

I haven’t studied effective altruism, but it sounds a lot like longtermism, In fact, to prove I haven’t studied effective altruism, I just found out that longtermism is a component of effective altruism.

Hah!

The similarity, suggested in the WaPo article, to the old, old fallacy that the end justifies the means, makes me think it may be a deeply suspect philosophy. But I digress.

I wonder if this failure to indulge in long-form reading is just a symptom of deep narcissism in the MIT-trained Bankman-Fried, or if it’s a result of social media destroying the mental faculties of his generation, or if it’s yet something else.

A reader remarks in reaction to the quote concerning the fall of the crypto market worth:

But there was never that much real money, was there? I never understood crypto except with my marketing spidey-sense that said there’s no “there” there. An artist can claim their original art is worth millions, but unless someone pays them actual millions, is it really? I realize my opinions/arguments/reasonings are convoluted, but so is crypto, and while I’m certain that some people got very rich on it, the rest are stuck with the equivalent of a monetary timeshare.

All right, all right, I’ll see myself out.

No, it was all about potential, and to an even greater extent than “market cap” of a public company, the liquidation or conversion of a crypto’s tokens to another currency will result in a fall in the value. Humanity on the other side of these trades may understand just what’s wrong and demand a greater discount, or it may see a great deal of conversions going on and figure something is going on – and in order to take the perceived greater risk, a larger discount, i.e., more favorable conversion rate, will be necessary.

Right up until the tokens become worthless and the primary servers catch fire, fall over, and sink into the swamp.

I think the reader’s spidey-sense is right on, though: There’s no “there” there.

A couple of weeks ago, a moderate House Republican indicated that he and his ilk might be willing to work with House Democrats on the problem of the House Speaker:

Moderate GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told NBC News on Monday night that if the GOP Conference can’t agree on electing McCarthy or any other Republican as speaker on the House floor, then he would be willing to work with Democrats to elect a moderate Republican for the top post.

“I will support Kevin McCarthy, but if we do get to that point, I do want the country to work and we need to govern. We can’t sit neutral; we can’t have total gridlock for two years,” Bacon said in an interview just off the House floor.

Pressed again that he would team up with Democrats, Bacon replied: “Yes, but that’s assuming we can’t get to 218 beforehand.” However, he added that a Speaker Liz Cheney “will never happen.” [NBC News]

And the chatter continues.

Yes, it’s a turkey of a thought.

The mention of Cheney is important, not for it being Cheney, but for an implication of Bacon’s statement: the Speaker of the House need not be a member of the House.

If my reader was unaware, then I wonder if their mind went where my mind has gone, to an unsettling, even vertiginous thought.

Of.

Speaker of the House Donald Trump.

There. I said it. Properly horrified? Keep in mind that if President Biden dies, VP Kamala Harris moves up to his slot and nominates a replacement for herself. But if Harris is disabled or dead when Biden became disabled or dead, then we have a situation right out of Bananas-land:

A President Trump. Again.

That’s right, the Speaker is next in line after the Vice-President. I leave the political machinations necessary for this to occur to my readers’ fevered imagination.

And the thought that Senator McConnell (R-KY) could have easily lead the Senate GOP to convict the former President of multiple transgressions, and would thus be kicking himself for allowing the politician he hates the most to become President again, would be hollow consolation indeed.

I can only hope there’s enough brave GOPers to disconfirm such a nomination, if it were to occur.

When it comes to nuclear arms, they’re just not that different from, say, artillery shells or 500 pound bombs: they have to be delivered to be effective. So this poster, reputedly from the British Ministry of Defense, is fascinating:

I’m sure analysts far brighter than I are chewing on these implications, but my mind is flooded regardless. Such things as these come to mind:

• Are we seeing the Russian nuclear strike force degrading with each hour? A nuclear missile sitting in a closet while its delivery system is used to disrupt and kill a few Ukrainians in Kyiv looks an awful lot like a lump of metal. Or does Russia have a vast oversupply of nuclear missile delivery systems?
• Was this a desperation move by officers tasked with the Ukraine mission?
• Or does President Putin know his nuclear force is diminishing?
• Does this say anything new about the Russian Army, or is there nothing left to say that’s new?
• While Putin qualifies as Russia’s super patriot in the minds of many, there are always citizens who are more patriotic than thou. How will they feel about this when the news gets out in Russia?
• Does this make it less likely that Russia will employ their nuclear strike force against Ukraine, or us, or China? Or more likely?

And are we nearing the conclusion of this bloody tragedy?

Triboluminescent:

The largest assemblage of extremely rare worked Neolithic rock crystal was uncovered by archaeologists from the University of Manchester at the monumental complex of Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire, England. More than 330 fragments of crystal were discovered during excavations at the nearly 6,000-year-old complex, which once featured a series of long earthen mounds and large timber buildings. Rock crystal is a form of nearly transparent quartz that was coveted by Neolithic people, who likely believed it had magical properties. “In the Neolithic period, there was no glass—or any other transparent solid material—so rock crystal would have been a really distinctive and notably different material,” says University of Manchester archaeologist Nick Overton. “Quartz crystals do a few really unusual things with light. They can be used to split white light into the visible spectrum and they are also triboluminescent, which means they emit a flash of light when struck with another stone or crystal.” [“Neolithic Crystal Age,” Jason Urbanus, Archaeology (November/December 2022) ]

As ever, Archaeology is one of the more gorgeous magazines out there.

Peter Olandt is one of the Daily Kos diarists who’ve been covering Putin’s War. This group has been fairly accurate in their prognoses of the Ukrainians and Russians, especially once it became clear that the Russians’ expectations of a one to two week war were so unrealistic as to indicate incompetence. So this off the cuff prediction is really interesting:

There will be no Russian army left in Ukraine by the end of winter. There may be no Russian army left period. Between the mass numbers of Russian soldiers dying from cold, and sudden breakthroughs by Ukraine caused by greater mobility, strategy, equipment, and depleted Russian units, we will finally see the full collapse of the Russian army many of us have been looking for.

I’ve mentioned, once or twice, that China has to be watching this conflict with great interest, as it tells them a lot of things: the military status of their Russian rival, the willingness of the Western powers to stand with countries and territories that may not be essential to Western security, the capability of a fellow autocracy’s military as a lead to their own military’s ability.

And while the obvious target in China’s viewfinder has to be Taiwan, the next target might be, of all countries, Russia. They share a border, over which there has been periodic conflict, and Russia has been considered an influential power, rivaling China’s influence. Both are old, old powers, full of pride and ambition.

So if China has a chance to gain at Russia’s expense, we may see that happen. We’ve seen Russia fruitlessly wave the nuclear dagger about, and China may decide that Russia doesn’t dare use it.

Will anything come of these speculations? Probably not. But if Russia’s entire military, excepting the nuclear arm, is seriously depleted by their Ukrainian adventure, it’s going to be a temptation for China to take some territory they may have been coveting.

Think that sounds nutty? Compare that to Japan maybe putting a military force on the long disputed Kuril Islands. Now that would be nutty.

UPDATE: The protests in China over Covid-19 restrictions, exacerbated with China refusing to use Western vaccines, may act to stop any Chinese aggression – or it may increase the odds of aggression. Why? As a way to distract protesters and silent supporters.

November 9th, to be precise:

The cryptocurrency market has fallen by about two-thirds from its peak to $1.07 trillion. [Reuters]

I gotta wonder where that “lost” money went.

A few months ago we watched the trio of movies that make up Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, these being The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). It’s a bit of a puzzle when it comes to reviewing, isn’t it, because it’s not clear as to what the focus of any review should be.

For the hobbit purist, the deviations from the original may seem the natural focus, and there are substantial deviations, including the prefixing of an introduction to Middle Earth at the beginning of An Unexpected Journey, the disappointing scanting of the dwarves’ imprisonment in the castle of the Wood-elves of Mirkwood, and the addition of an inter-race romantic subplot, in The Desolation of Smaug, and the explicit and grisly deaths of Thorin Oakenshield and his nephews, Kili and Fili, at (and in) The Battle of the Five Armies. With regards to the last item, in the book, Bilbo suffers an injury early on that renders him unconscious, and he returns to his senses barely in time to bid Thorin farewell, while Kili and Fili are already dead. The movie version of their deaths is wholly invented.

The outrage of the purist could be palpable and understandable.

But, at least in this reader’s estimation, the story delineated in The Hobbit, that is, the book, is imperfect. The plethora of dwarves leads to a lack of strong characterization of most of them. It’s true that the obesity of Bombur, and sometimes the counsel of Balin, distinguished them, and, of course, Thorin, as heir to an unavailable throne, and later a dwarf driven to the edge of insanity by his pecuniary lust, have some attainments of individual existence. But what of Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Fili, Kili, Dori, and a few others? In case my reader wonders, yes, I had to look some of those names up. That I had to attests to their annoying anonymity.

In general, the book reads like, well, the author is learning the art of story-telling. I can’t help but wonder if a more mature Tolkien might have assigned each of the dwarves a theme or character flaw, and used the battle as a way to winnow out those carrying an inferior theme – or have them discard or repair their flaw or theme.

Which is not to condemn The Hobbit. There is much to laud as well, such as the moral dilemma Bilbo faces when he finds the Arkenstone, the ultimate treasure of the dwarves, among the hoard of the late dragon Smaug, or the entire creepy sequence in Mirkwood, from entry to exit. It’s a book worth reading, particularly if you can assume the mindset of a child, eager for adventure.

Another option is to consider the movie trilogy in isolation, as a standalone artistic achievement. A quick appraisal of these many hours of action is a challenge, but I would note that the problem of the dwarves from the book remains a glaring problem in these movies; the aforementioned romantic subplot, which results in the graphic death of Kili in front of the elf Tauriel, left me wondering as to the point of the subplot in the first place.

On the other hand, the special effects are generally spectacular and occasionally funny, such as the death of the Great Goblin. The special effects are a signature of Peter Jackson’s, and occasionally work against the story-telling, reducing some of his work in the earlier Lord Of The Rings trilogy to little more than Let’s go kill some orcs! A similar observation applies here.

The acting is generally top-notch, but some of the details, such as discovering the Elves have a class system, was disappointing. Perhaps Jackson derives this from other material, such as The Silmarillion, which I’ve read but do not recall; I cannot say.

Generally, these three movies do not disappoint.

But I think, at least from a theoretic point of view, what interests me is the change to point of view from book to movies.

The Hobbit is told nearly entirely from the point of view of Bilbo, the hobbit. From the visit of Gandalf to Bilbo’s home, called Bag End and kicking off the tale, throughout their journey through the caves held by the goblins, in and out of the dungeons of the Wood-elves, into the nest of the malevolent worm Smaug, to Bilbo’s return to Hobbiton, interrupting one of the greatest injustices of the age, all we see and hear are what Bilbo sees and hears, with the exception, as I recall, of the minor, if critical, incident in which Bard of Lake-town battles Smaug.

This decision serves to concentrate the ties of empathy between the reader and Bilbo. Yes, there are similar ties organically built between the reader and Gandalf, and perhaps to Thorin Oakinshield, and even Bard of Lake-town.

But Bilbo’s role as the otherwise exclusive point of view permits the reader to learn as Bilbo does. His existence in isolated Hobbiton serves to place him nearly on the same level as the reader new to the book, learning about the wonders and friendships of wizards, dwarves, and proud elves, as well as the dangers of trolls, goblins, and orcs, all in concert with the reader, and the reader with Bilbo.

The movies make a different choice. For the audience member unfamiliar with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, in book or movie form, these new points of views potentially can be confusing, as Gandalf the Grey hares off^[apology] with fellow wizard Radagast the Brown to investigate the contents of the tombs of the Nazgûl; Tauriel and Legolas, the latter of whom is in LOTR but not the original The Hobbit, have a colloquy concerning a possible romance; the ever mysterious Elrond pops up; and during the climactic battle, keeping track of all the characters and their survival or deaths becomes quite a chore.

Not that this is a bad choice! Confinement to a single point of view does threaten to make the story difficult to comprehend, and necessarily constrains drama to that which affects, in this story, Bilbo.

In the end, it’s more the stuff of spirited discussion, rather than condemnatory or adulatory conclusions, and perhaps more of interest to professional story tellers and unqualified speculators such as myself, than to an audience eager to experience a land of good and evil.

In the end, if you’ve read and approved of the book, see the movies. You can compare your judgments to that of Jackson and his collaborators, who are not an inconsiderable lot in themselves. I think the movies might have done well to have more humor than they do, but admittedly it’s a grim story if you’re a dwarf, or an elf, or a goblin of Middle-Earth, particularly at the clash of the Five Armies.

^apology I do apologize for that quip. If you’re puzzled at the phrase, it means to run rapidly and/or wildly, and if you remain puzzled, see the movies and use your imagination.

Cryptocurrency has achieved some popularity in the Middle East, but the FTX debacle has spurred concern about legitimizing a currency which, traditionally, has spurned such calls as unnecessary. Here’s one call for crypto regulation in the Middle East, detailed by Cointelgraph:

A new blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused association has been launched within Abu Dhabi’s free economic zone that aims to further the development of blockchain and crypto ecosystems across the Middle Eastern, North Africa, and Asian regions.

The Middle East, Africa & Asia Crypto & Blockchain Association (MEAACBA) was officially launched on Nov. 8 in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a free economic zone based in the center of the city subject to its own set of civil and commercial laws. The zone was designed to further the growth of fintech companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The nonprofit organization will aim to facilitate regulatory solutions, create commercial opportunities and invest in education to support industry growth, according to its website.

It’s one thing to see users finding new uses for a project unenvisioned by the project creators/sustainers. It’s a bit of a ephemeral boost to the ego.

But it’s quite another to see organizations forming to build exactly what the creators were trying to avoid: government oversight and manipulation. But this is not happening just in the Middle East:

I was a little surprised by this from Brian Katulis on The Liberal Patriot:

Two main wildcards exist for those who are open to an argument for building back U.S. politics of national security from the center.

First are the open questions of who will emerge as the leading voices in Congress on national security in both parties.  The GOP remains in disarray after the surprising setback it suffered in these midterms. Inside of the Democratic Party, there are loud voices who like to pretend the positions they espouse on foreign policy have more public support than they actually do.  Yet the American public supports a more balanced foreign policy agenda than these fringe voices seem to recognize.

It sounds like a nice bit of patter until you think about it a bit. So the American public supports a middle of the road foreign policy.

So what?

The American public supported isolationism in the late 1930s, and that got them a metaphorical smoking hole where the US Pacific Fleet was docked on December 7th, 1941, and our closest ally, Great Britain, teetering on the edge of oblivion.

While it’s important to understand the aggregate American public position on foreign policy, it’s not in order to conform to it, but to understand the deficiencies of the public’s understanding in order to correct them. For me, we elect the President to represent the nation to other nations, and that includes becoming and/or hiring experts on what can be done, in combination with what we think is best for us as a nation.

And not relying on the provincial attitudes of the common citizen, who knows little of other nations, even in the Era of the Internet.

“Now, I know you want a relic from the Event Horizon, you can feel it down in your soooouuuuul, you just have to have one! Brothers, sister, predators, it’ll make you one of us to have a bit of this famous ship of Christ in your living room! So here’s the first piece we have, and it’s … the … ship’s STEERING WHEEL! Imagine how the neighborhood will talk about you once you reveal this is in your living room, with the victims’ blood still on it! Who’ll start the bidding at $24.99?” They should have gotten Drew Carey to run the auction, instead.

Event Horizon (1997) is, I suppose, an infuriating story for science fiction fans. It gets off to a fine start, as spaceship Lewis & Clark gets underway to rescue a ship, Event Horizon, that’s been missing for seven years that’s suddenly popped up in orbit around Neptune. The science sounds good, rescue ship is suitably worn, rescue crew interactions are mostly believable, although the eccentricities seem a bit exaggerated, but the idea that the designer of the Event Horizon didn’t go with the ship – especially with his wife aboard – seems really odd.

Designer, you say? But yes; it’s revealed that Event Horizon is more than a whimsical name. The ship was designed to be the first interstellar exploration ship, and to do so, it creates a temporary, artificial black hole, and uses its event horizon to make the leap to its target star system.

All well and good. After all, a good star drive is one of the accepted exceptions to real physics allowed in science fiction.

But … it turns out the path opened by Event Horizon is the one to Hell. Just about literally. Yep, use your reverberating bass mind voice for that one. One by one, crew members experience terrible things in their heads, so frightening they become catatonic, and then one of them is taken over.

And let me say, Bah. My Arts Editor and I were involved in multiple incidents of eyeball-rolling, because an interesting story about rescuing explorers had become just another religio-jump-scare movie, with demons and evil and all that unexplained trash, including a space captain who happens to speak Latin at moments of supreme stress.

Might as well encounter Jason in Space. (“Jasons In Space”? Anyone care to describe what was in your mind when you read that?)

So this was off to a fine start, and abruptly jumped into the metaphorical La Brea Tarpits for an informal wrestle with a sabre-tooth tiger and the lead monster from Alien. Unrecommendable, really. And too bad.

A congratulatory bouquet to the victors!

The first half of the ruin of extremists in the United States has now been completed by Rep Mary Peltola (D-AK) and Senator Murkowski (R^moderate-AK), as each is projected by CNN and Ballotpedia to have won their reelection contests.

In Rep Peltola’s case, she has defeated former Governor and VP candidate Sarah “quitter” Palin (R^extremist-AK) and Nicholas Begich (R-AK) in the ranked choice voting (RCV) contest, triumphing in the third round. Rep Peltola had assumed the late Rep Don Young’s (R-AK) seat on winning the special election for the seat just a few months ago. Keeping in mind that CNN still shows votes to be counted, how does Peltola’s victory compare to her previous victory?

The margin is significantly larger.

Peltola’s special election margin over Palin was 3 points.

CNN and Ballotpedia has her margin in the general election currently at nearly 10 points.

This suggests that either moderate voters skipped the special election, which is certainly possible, or the regular Republican voters have decided that Peltola is not a member of the Devil’s Party, or at least that the Devil’s Party isn’t so bad as a fully configured religious extremist.

It’s a trap!
(Apply metaphor as needed.)

And that would be a real problem for an Alaska Republican Party (ARP) that put forth said extremist as its most popular candidate. It suggests that the extremists currently in control of the Party in Alaska don’t know how to make their positions palatable, don’t understand the voters’ preferences, and that voters don’t care for their loyalty to the former President, a loyalty evident in ARP’s censure of a sitting Senator for voting for conviction of the then-President, and his endorsement of Palin in return. Have Alaska voters decided that the Trump brand is the brand of losers who don’t know how to govern, and the ARP is controlled by out of touch advocates of positions incompatible with the future? If Trump wins the nomination for the 2024 Presidential Election, is it possible that Alaska will go Democratic? I think so, although that depends on a number of factors. Stay tuned for a couple of years.

Moving on to the victory of moderate Senator Murkowski (R) over Trump-endorsee Kelly Tshibaka (R), for a race that was considered to be a nail biter by conservative news outlets who, in obeisance to the former President, were rooting for Tshibaka, Murkowski won by a comfortable 7+ points. Importantly, Murkowski not only was running without endorsement from the ARP, but had actually been censured by the ARP for voting to convict the former President in his second trial for the January 6th Insurrection, as well as voting to confirm U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as Department of Interior secretary. As Haaland is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, this censure may have served to alienate many indigenous Alaskan voters from Tshibaka, although I only speculate. Murkowski is well known for her devotion to indigenous Alaskan interests, so it may not have mattered.

Even more interestingly, the ARP also voted to censure Senate GOP leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) for his financial support of Murkowski. This is not important in the context of the election, except to signify the fury of the extremists at the proper functioning of a democracy, but McConnell’s investment on Murkowski’s behalf had multiple purposes: Frustrate Trump, who hates McConnell and had endorsed Tshibaka; preserve an ally for McConnell; and, most importantly, conserve a U.S. Senate seat for the Republican Party. In previous posts I’ve suggested Murkowski might consider starting a new political party of a moderate nature, or could go independent; McConnell’s investment should restrain such impulses on her part, which I think is a sad result, but very smart investment by McConnell.

These results should dismay the extremists who thought the “red wave,” which disappeared into the vortex of disaffected voters, would carry them into dominance. Other extremist news includes the 13 point defeat of former two-term governor of Maine Paul LePage (R), who characterized himself as, paraphrasing, “Trump before there was a Trump.” (I preferred Amanda Chase’s self-description of “Trump in heels,” which has a lovely, terrible visual.) This rejection of LePage’s radical politics is perhaps not as decisive as desired, but if the Maine Republican Party wants to return to governance, they’ll be well-advised to dump LePage and those who advance his causes.

While national Republicans continue to make radical noises, those states in which RCV is used should see moderates winning elections – and Republicans hating RCV. It’s the bane of extremists who find toxic team politics and first past the post voting to be far more favorable.

But I see RCV as a natural result of toxic team politics and the consequent election of incompetent, grandstanding extremists. Look for it to become ,ore popular with moderates of all stripes.

Copypasta:

A copypasta is a block of text that is copied and pasted across the Internet by individuals through online forums and social networking websites. Copypastas are said to be similar to spam as they are often used to annoy other users and disrupt online discourse. [Wikipedia]

Well. I wonder if the Flying Spaghetti Monster approves. Noted in “Twitter king Dril on Musk’s chaotic reign,” Taylor Lorenz, WaPo:

A lovely apple pie, before I baked it.

nom nom nom

Feel left out when red-shift is mentioned? Never had that fascination with star stuff? (Maybe that’s due to light pollution.) Click here to see a professional’s Map of the Universe^{tm [maybe]}.