Category Archives: Uncategorized

Almoner:

1. a person whose function or duty is the distribution of alms on behalf of an institution, a royal personage, a monastery, etc.
2. British.
   1. a hospital official who determines the amount due for a patient’s treatment.
   2. a social worker in a hospital. [Dictionary.com]

New one on me. Noted in “How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers,” Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli, WaPo:

But just before her Holy Week meeting with the pope, she felt less certain. Nervously lighting a cigarette at a cafe off St. Peter’s Square, she said Don Andrea and the pope’s almoner, a Polish cardinal, were trying to change her mind. She inhaled the smoke. Let it out. She didn’t want to let them down. Maybe, she mused, she’d go back to Paraguay. Retire.

A reader and parent writes concerning the banning of use of phones in schools:

I am a firm believer in keep your phone in your pocket in class or meetings, but that’s a skill they need to learn. I used to lean more toward no phones at school but it’s such a safety thing now….. Kids need to be able to call 911.

Judging from reports from schools, teachers, already overwhelmed with other tasks, are ineffective at teaching this skill. This, from the article, speaks to the effect of the pandemic as well:

Some educators turned to the pouches out of desperation. When students returned to school full time after learning remotely during the pandemic, their relationship to their phones had changed dramatically, said Carol Kruser, who was then principal at Chicopee High School in Massachusetts.

Instead of checking their phones at lunch, they were watching YouTube videos in class and refusing to put away the devices, Kruser said. Teachers were begging for help.

Insofar as 911 goes,

The school reminded parents that there is at least one landline phone in every classroom — and in many cases two. Teachers also still have their cellphones in case they need to call 911 (the pouches also are not “bank vaults,” Dolphin added, and can be cut open in an emergency).

However, the article did not answer the question, “And how well does that work?” And do you really want the kids carrying knives? Maybe each classroom is, not unreasonably, supplied with a few pairs of scissors.

Another reader and parent writes:

With so many active shooter drills and actual events, it seems like a bad idea to prevent kids from having phones.

I did not grow up with active shooter drills, so I’ve not been exposed to in depth discussions of this particular subtopic – and not the older parents reading this post. From the article:

In the worst-case scenario — a school shooting — students should focus on hiding and staying quiet, Dolphin said. “The whole idea that you want every kid to be taking out a phone and calling parents is the exact opposite of the safety protocols,” he said.

Mr. Dolphin, mentioned herein throughout, is Assistant Principal Raymond Dolphin, who researched and drove the introduction of Yondr pouches.

One of the motivations for the Hamas kidnapping, rape, and murder of Israeli citizens on October 7th was speculated to be an attempt to break up possible rapprochement between the Arab world and Israel. This report suggests a possible partial failure is imminent:

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said on Monday that bilateral agreements with the United States were “very, very close” as Riyadh seeks to secure defense and security pacts with the kingdom in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel.

“On the bilateral agreements between the kingdom and the US, we are very, very close, and most of the work has already been done. We have the broad outlines of what we think needs to happen on the Palestinian front,” the top Saudi diplomat said at a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.

He added that the only way such agreements would work is if there is “truly a pathway to a Palestinian state.”

In similar comments, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said a US-Saudi security pact with Saudi Arabia was near “completion.” [AL-Monitor]

One might argue that the Saudi stipulating of a guarantee of a Palestinian state is a victory for Hamas, but it’d be weak tea; similarly, such an agreement would take the wind out of the sails of the student protests on American campuses, leaving any non-student instigators without foot soldiers, if such instigators do exist, as has been suggested in some newspaper reports.

Solvolysis:

On the horizon is an even more promising method called solvolysis. Again, the term covers a range of technologies, but it essentially involves dissolving plastic in liquid and recovering useful chemicals from it. Solvolysis requires less heat than pyrolysis and gasification, making it greener, and it produces fewer toxic byproducts. [“The incredible new tech that can recycle all plastics, forever,” Graham Lawton, NewScientist (27 April 2024, paywall]

Not all new technology is good for schooling, or so I think. If you, like me, think cellphones should be banned from schools, WaPo has an article for you:

So in December, [Assistant Principal Raymond] Dolphin did something unusual: He banned [cellphones].

The experiment at Illing Middle School sparked objections from students and some parents, but it has already generated profound and unexpected results.

Dolphin likened prohibiting cellphones to curbing consumption of sugary foods. “In a matter of months, you start feeling better,” he said.

What unfolded at the school reflects a broader struggle underway in education as some administrators turn to increasingly drastic measures to limit the reach of a technology that is both ubiquitous and endlessly distracting.

Schools are used not just to teach knowledge, but to teach learning, including the ability to focus. Some might argue that includes ignoring the iguana in the pocket, but I’d argue that first teach focus, as it’s a skill unto itself, and then teach how to ignore the iguana in the pocket. Or let the kids figure it out themselves.

Love it!

A fifth installment? Is this then considered a success? I doubt it.

The Trump Problem

The Republican Party has, as a whole, the problem of the former President Trump on their hands. Convicted of 34 felony counts falsifying business records, he is now a convicted criminal. His allies’, or perhaps more accurately minions‘, support of him is now a potential anchor around their necks.

And many of them added more and more cables to that anchor over the last weeks as they went to New York City and pronounced Trump innocent, thus discrediting themselves when the jury came back with a guilty verdict, and did so with notable speed.

Some Members of Congress don’t care. Representing safe districts or states, they only worry, or worried, about being primaried by challengers more extreme than themselves.

But for others, their alliance with someone who committed crimes in order to be elected seven years ago is a major problem for independent and moderate conservative voters, who will refuse to vote for both Trump and his allies, despite Democratic flaws.

It all depends on Democratic messaging. I expect it’ll be expertly handled.

And if Trump continues to shriek about rigged trials and claim there is evidence of his innocence that was not submitted at the trial, it only gets worse for him. His claim that he was not permitted to bring those witnesses forth is ludicrous to all but the most devoted MAGA-head.

Candidate Quality

Recognition that candidate quality matters to independent voters must be an irritating surprise for some ambitious would-be candidates, but it’s a necessity in today’s world of aggressive national adversaries and nuclear weapons. The Republican Senate Election debacle of 2022 occurred under the leadership of Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), but whether it’s because the Republicans see his leadership as a joke, or because he’s running for reelection this year, he’s been replaced with Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), who appears to be more serious about the job than Senator Scott. The Republican pundit Erick Erickson, despite his desperation to keep the herd together, seems to get it:

And winning the election means picking real candidates who are not going to alienate middle class, independent voters *cough* Kari Lake *cough*. Frankly, in 2022, the GOP nominated clunker candidates who scratched itches, but made independent voters squeamish. In other words, the right’s reaction to the left’s actions was to nominate candidates who could “fight,” but lost all the fights.

To my mind, in 2020 and 2022 the political far-right nominated power and position hungry candidates, ideologues who were ideologues because it gave them social prestige, and theocrats who either passionately believe they were doing God’s will, or were in it for the social prestige thing.

Erickson’s problem is that he’s looking for candidates who keep him happy, keeping in mind he’s a far-right wing extremist, while making independents happy as well, and that’s a really big stretch. Worse, the ideologically pure, right or left, are rarely competent politicians in the American mold. They may fit right in with the murderous cultures of V. Lenin or F. Franco, but being humble rather than ambitious and arrogant as required by many in America? Hard to do for them. After all, God’s on their side.

Here’s a short article on the aforementioned Senator Daines:

An early Trump supporter, Daines worked with the former president to secure his endorsement of [“winsome candidates”]. Trump endorsed Gov. Jim Justice over Rep. Alex Mooney in West Virginia, and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy over Rep. Matt Rosendale in Montana, as well as former representative Mike Rogers in Michigan, David McCormick in Pennsylvania (whom he had passed over for Mehmet Oz in 2022) and businessman Eric Hovde in Wisconsin.

For Daines, a winsome candidate has independent voter appeal, a laudable and important goal. Does Daines have the judgment and drive to push his selections over the finish line? I see some problems.

1. Daines, a former Proctor & Gamble business exec, appears to like fellow business execs (McCormick, Justice, Hovde) and ideologues (Rogers, Sheehy – the latter, a naif, burdened with a scandal already). I expect former Governor Justice to become Senator Justice (R-WV), but I see McCormick losing by two or more points to Senator Casey (D-PA), Senator Tester (D-MT) beating Sheehy by three points or so in Montana, and Hovde to be slapped down, hard, by Senator Baldwin (D-WI). Only Rogers has experience in government at the Congressional level, and even he has a reputation as an ideologue. I don’t know if Rogers can win or not, assuming he even wins his primary. Daines picks appear to fall into two categories becoming increasingly unpopular with independents.
2. Daines may be picking those he’s most comfortable with, and not evaluating them for legislative competence. That’s an amateur mistake.
3. And who interviewed Daines? Marc Thiessen, one of the WaPo conservative opinion writers who doesn’t see his job as being hard-hitting when writing of conservatives. I generally don’t read him because his evaluations are damn silly, such as Trump being the most honest politician out there, and if you do, don’t take his Expecting great things approach to heart. From what little I’ve read, he’s overly optimistic about conservative candidates.

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos believes GOP Senate candidates are, once again, of dubious quality.

Polling Pitfalls

Mercy Ormont on Daily Kos has a meditation on good pollsters and bad pollsters these days.

And In Senate Campaign News

• Apparently the selection of Royce White (no relation) as the GOP endorsee for the GOP’s nomination for the Minnesota Senate seat of Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) has stimulated reports from several outlets on his past behavior as a candidate. If you’re interested, Aldous J Pennyfarthing on Daily Kos has a schadenfreude-filled summary. The primary is still to come.
• Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) has some more encouragement in what was considered a competitive State as The Tyson Group has given her a startling 14 point lead over leading Republican candidate for nomination Sam Brown (R-NV), 47%-33%. However, this pollster’s rating is only 1.2 out of 3, perhaps due to its use of online participants, so Democrats shouldn’t become too excited. Indeed, perhaps I shouldn’t cite such pollsters.
• NBC News reports that the situation in New Jersey could be a lot more complicated than expected for the Democrats:
  

  Indicted Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has collected the necessary signatures to run for re-election as an independent, five people familiar with the matter said.

  Menendez needs 800 signatures by Tuesday to gain ballot access in November and hopes to reach closer to 10,000 signatures by then, said three sources with knowledge of his plans.

  One of the sources, who previously worked for Menendez, said Menendez, who is on trial on federal bribery charges, wants the number of signatures to be a “statement” in and of itself, “to show the level of support he still has.”

  Menendez’s pride could be the downfall of the Democrats’ dreams of retaining control of the Senate. New Jersey may suddenly be on the hot list.

• In Maryland the former Governor and Republican candidate for the open Senate seat Larry Hogan (R-MD), does the respectable thing when his Party leader is convicted on all 34 charges of felony business record falsification – he issues a statement reminding folks to act in a sober, serious manner:
  

  Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.

  In response, he’s been smacked in the metaphorical teeth by what passes for the Republican Party leadership these days. Hogan is attempting to rally the traditional Republican Party that understood what it meant to be an American political party, but it’s not at all clear that he’ll be successful. In some ways, it would be very healthy for the United States if he were to win. But there’s probably more benefit in Democratic candidate Alsobrooks winning. Maryland may be coming back off the hot list, but Hogan gets to join the list of genuine American political heroes, while most of the rest of the current Republican Party leadership will not be on that list. Only those who testified to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack would be eligible for the list, in my mind, such as former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.

• An early May poll that escaped my attention gives incumbent Senator Casey (D-PA) of Pennsylvania an 8 point lead, 49%-41%, over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?). The pollster is GS Strategy Group, with a mediocre rating of 1.5.
• A mid-May poll in Washington gives Senator Cantwell (D-WA) a 9 point lead, 39%-30%, over the guy who they must consider the leading challenger, Raul Garcia (R-WA). Mr. Garcia has little experience in electoral politics. I’m sure Cantwell would like to be closer to the magic number of 50%, but she has a substantial lead. The pollster is Elway Research (1.9). The jungle primary is still to come in August.
• 

  Governor Jim Justice (R-WV). Source: Wikipedia.

  Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is now (I-WV). Might he be considering rescinding his retirement announcement and take on Republican West Virginia heavyweight Governor Jim Justice (R-WV) and relative unknown Glenn Elliott (D-WV)? In some ways, it feels like West Virginia is a businessman’s political playground, as Manchin, Justice, and Don Blankenship (D-WV) are all businessmen who’ve been involved in this Senate race. Could there be personal animosity animating some of these maneuverings? This is all speculation, but if Manchin does enter the race, the tug of war between the two political titans could allow Elliott to win. West Virginia doesn’t go on the hot list unless Manchin decides he wants to retain his Senate seat.

  By the way, the picture on the right of Governor Justice is just the sort of visage I’d rather not face for a job interview.

• In Wisconsin, GS Strategy Group (1.5) gives Senator Baldwin (D-WI) a 12 point lead, 49%-37%, over Eric Hovde. If a more respectable pollster gives similar numbers, I suspect the Republicans will write Hovde and Wisconsin off.Incidentally, Mr. Hovde is another businessman. Are the Republicans becoming the Party of the Businessman? They have a long association with Big Business, to use the old terminology, but usually as representatives of Big Business, not as what feels like a private club devoted to vanity  political runs. But with Hovde in WI, Scott in FL, Daines in MT, McCormick in PA, Justice, Manchin, and Blankenship (a former and, I suspect, future Republican) in WV, and no doubt a few others that slipped my notice or mind, well, that’s a lot of ridiculously rich businessmen seeking to buy themselves a Senate seat.

  Heck, it feels quite Roman. Buyers beware.

The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts on the latest tom-foolery from the Arizona Republican Party:

But maybe not in the formal sense. Phys.org has news about a newly discovered … recognized … oh I dunno … law of nature:

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes “a missing law of nature,” recognizing for the first time an important norm within the natural world’s workings.

In essence, the new law states that complex natural systems evolve to states of greater patterning, diversity, and complexity. In other words, evolution is not limited to life on Earth, it also occurs in other massively complex systems, from planets and stars to atoms, minerals, and more.

So it’s a proposal that we recognize systems satisfying certain requirements will move forwards as a result of ‘selection for function’, of which there are three types: stability, energy, and novelty.

Fascinating stuff. It should be interesting to see how useful application of this law might be in guiding us to new discoveries.

And maybe this explains platypuses.

A reader writes an impassioned condemnation to my statement, to which I’ll reply in parts. First, a technicality:

It seems your friend Haviva, however, leans in that direction. Reading his words …

According to the author biography, the author is female. Here’s her Wikipedia page for more information.

… most significantly, it does not matter whether some Palestinians or some Gazans in the form of Hamas or any other organized group or as individuals have committed some sort of crime, say, terrorism. Between October 7 and this past week, Israel has destroyed 70% of every structure in the entirety of the Gaza strip — a home to over 2 million people. Most of the officially dead are women and children. The number of “missing” people vastly outnumbers the official dead count.

Which leads back to an old philosophical conundrum of mine: when your moral/philosophical system leads to unintentional suicide, i.e., when following your moral dictates, which should guide and even govern your self-defense activities, leads to the destruction of your society, then what is the worth of your moral system?

It’s not hard to see that the actions of Hamas are intentionally genocidal, from their chants, echoed by American students, to their rocket attacks, the despicable October 7th incident, and the use of the civilian population of Gaza as a shield.

That last, used efficiently, is part of what leads to my conundrum. Terrorists who survive their terrorism are, in general, recidivists; enough recidivism and one has, in reality, a victorious army that has pushed the Israelis into the sea. If Israel’s moral dictates, either internally derived or imposed externally, endanger Israel’s population, then why should they be retained?

Do you for one second believe that 70% of those 2 million people deserve to die? Do you for one second believe that most of the “officially” dead of 33,000+ who were women and children deserved to die? Does the 75 years of non-stop harassment and killing of Palestinians by Zionists, starting with exiling over 700,000 of them and confiscating their property have no bearing on the situation? Do the egregious statements by some of those members of the Netanyahu cabal and members of the IDF wherein they literally state their intention to wipe out all Palestinians and/or all of Gaza have no meaning?

I am not omniscient, but I will note Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and undoubtedly many other organizations have issued similar statements concerning Israel, and I have no doubts that, much like Israel hard-liners, they are working on activities designed to expel the Israelis and destroy Israel.

Insofar as the movement of Jewish Israelis to Israel since the end of World War II goes, I’m once again puzzled as to what was to be done. Irrationally hated by many Europeans and Soviets, they were returned by the substantial assistance, as I understand it, of the Western powers. And I’ve seen claims, 30+ years ago, that they displaced nobody, that it was all empty, which seems unlikely in retrospect. Surely it was occupied, and surely that was unjust? Except then we get into historical claims, but as you say below, all the history matters not.

No, the truth is, the power structure in Israel — not all Israelis, not all Jews — but those in control and directing the continued attacks — are literally engaged in crimes against humanity, engaged in attempted genocide of Gazans.

And for that, there can be no excuse. There is no excuse. They are in the wrong. There need be no further discussion on who did what to whom in history to do the right thing right now.

And, for me, resolution of conflict always requires understanding, if not validation or acceptance, of the motivations of the participants. For example, using the reasoning in the previous section, the actions of Hamas in using the civilian population as a shield leaves Israel with two options: Ignore such gross crimes against humanity as the October 7th kidnapping, or ignore the human shield.

And, yes, the actions of Prime Minister Netanyahu are so questionable that he’s been indicted – but terrorist actions took place back when Likud’s political adversary, the Labor Party, was strong enough to be in control of the government. This serves to suggest that Hamas, its progenitors, and its context are not primarily reactions to Israeli actions, but to Israel’s existence.

And that leads back to the above conundrum. The Western moral tenet concerning genocide, as important and admirable a recognition as it may be, can be seen leading to Israel ceasing to exist; or, worse, to the elimination of all non-Israelis in Gaza, as adherence to moral tenets that lead to self-destruction rarely survives with those threatened by that destruction. And if Gaza is threatened with complete destruction, will we see Jordan or Iran or Saudi Arabia step in?

Haviva Ner-David’s “both sides are culpable” is unhelpful in this context.

I could not disagree more.

The friend who pointed me at Ner-David’s article writes:

SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] explicitly supports Hamas. So eff them. And it seems to me that the right thing to do is to release the hostages and agree to a cease fire. YMMV.

History did not start in 1948. Israel isn’t going anywhere. The idea that the international border can be erased and the Jews expelled is both ludicrous and criminal.

The Palestinians aren’t going anywhere either. They cannot be expelled, wished away, or all killed.

Given that, there needs to be a legal and political solution. Which there could be. But Hamas et al need to get over the idea they can disappear Israel, Iran needs to stop funding them, Qatar needs to stop protecting them, and Netanyahu AND THE DAMN AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WHO PROP HIM UP need to get back inside the borders and stop making things worse. And of course, a lot of people need to stop using words they don’t understand. Like genocide.

I don’t know if a political solution would work or not, there are too many folks running around thinking their actions are blessed by a bloodthirsty Divine.

But I’ve thought for decades that Americans are a bunch of bloody drama queens, from Manifest Destiny ideologies to the End Times cults that have flourished throughout our history, despite their manifest failure. Only recently, though, have I thought to attach the adjective arrogant to them. Our overwhelming need to be certain and right in an uncertain world echos throughout our culture, most certainly in our poor communications skills. My Hah hah is painfully ironic, I assure my reader. While there is value in the debate in which two sides put forth clashing ideas with great certitude, I fear most of us, now given the platform of the Web, do not understand that we should separate our self-worth and emotional well-being from the acceptance of those ideas.

And that leads off to anthropological landscapes of social prestige and power structures unrelated to the subject of this post, and so I shall omit them.

Incidentally, while researching my responses, I ran across this NBC News report from last month:

Support for Hamas as a political party has fallen to 34% among Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a 12-point drop from December 2023, according to a poll released Wednesday by a leading Palestinian research institute.

While the war is eroding Palestinians’ view of Hamas as the governing body in Gaza, relative support remains high for the militant group’s role in the war. Seventy percent of Palestinians said they were “satisfied” with Hamas’ war performance, as compared to that of other Palestinian entities, like its political rival Fatah, whose deeply unpopular leader, Mahmoud Abbas, governs the West Bank. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, which has so far killed more than 31,000 people in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry. …

Support for “armed struggle” dropped by 17 points, from 63% to 46%, driven largely by Palestinians in Gaza, and Gazan support for a diplomatic two-state solution has jumped by 27 points — to 62%.

It’s interesting, but I’m not certain how to approach it, given the volatility of the numbers.

Endosymbiont:

An endosymbiont or endobiont is an organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism. Typically the two organisms are in a mutualistic relationship. Examples are nitrogen-fixing bacteria (called rhizobia), which live in the root nodules of legumes, single-cell algae inside reef-building corals and bacterial endosymbionts that provide essential nutrients to insects. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “A bacterium has evolved into a new cellular structure inside algae,” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (20 April 2024, paywall):

It is quite common for one species to live inside the cells of another in a mutually beneficial relationship called endosymbiosis. For instance, cells in the roots of legumes such as peas host nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The success of cockroaches is partly due to endosymbiotic bacteria that produce essential nutrients. Some cells even host multiple endosymbionts.

My thanks to the friend that pointed me at this: Haviva Ner-David, a Jewish Israeli obviously more knowledgeable than I as I am not Jewish, nor have I studied the subject, expresses some thoughts and feelings congruent with mine on the muddled subject of the conflict between Israel and Gaza, and the accompanying protests on the American college campuses, in this article for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

When you say, “I am Hamas!” you are not identifying with innocent civilians, including children, women and seniors who were massacred and kidnapped or the women raped in captivity (according to eyewitness accounts from hostages who were freed). Even my Palestinian Israeli activist friends strongly condemned Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and say Hamas is terrible for the Palestinian people.

And when you call out, “Say it loud and say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here!” you are fomenting violence against and silencing other Columbia students. You may disagree with them, but does that mean they have no right to inhabit your shared campus — or even live? Do you think I, an activist in the struggle for peace and equality for all in Israel-Palestine, have a right to live? …

The situation here is so much more complex than you care to understand. There is a bloody conflict going on, with people suffering and dying on both sides in brutal ways, not just in the past months but for the past century. One who studies the history and present will know that both sides are culpable and responsible for the conflict and its resolution.

And I suspect what might be termed moral norms are entirely different in the Middle East from the West. In this regard, the American students could profitably be studied on the subject of moral colonialism, the import of one group’s moral system into another society. This import is a dubious enterprise, as it’s being motivated by those who are not facing an existential crisis.

Sadly, given the overwhelming religious nature of the conflict’s participants, I do not foresee a happy ending to this conflict. Both sides see the divine approving of their stories and reasons for their actions, and when God is on your side, hey, why compromise? We see such attitudes here in the United States, at least those studying the intersection of society, religion, and politics.

When it comes to the students’ activities, I am inclined to remind them that, as Ner-David observes, the situation is far more complex than just about any of them know; that’s their moral system they wish to impose, unequally; and that we hire Presidents to deal with difficult international situations.

And, to be sure, the American people are the ultimate boss, but to promulgate dissatisfaction without having something to resolve the situation at hand, something that hasn’t been rejected by Hamas or the Palestinians, is really simply arrogant bullshit and not being an adult.

So how do I feel? Bewildered, aware that the Middle East operates on differ morality systems, frustrated – and painfully aware I have no real solution, acceptable to the morals of our system, to propose. And I fear that Ner-David is being painfully naive as well.

And I hope I’m wrong.

Professor Richardson gives the issue:

“I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S. Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act,’” lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm defends democratic election laws, wrote today on social media. He added: “I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

Elias was referring to the argument of Trump’s lawyer before the Supreme Court today that it could indeed be an “official act” for which a president should be immune from criminal prosecution if “the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him.”

The Supreme Court today heard close to three hours of oral argument over Trump v. United States, which concerns former president Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal charges for “official acts”: in this case, his attempt to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and to stay in office against the will of the voters.

And the disappointing part? There are two answers, either will be correct:

1. The case of Trump vs. United States should have been silently rejected by SCOTUS, leaving Trump with yet another legal failing.
2. SCOTUS should have let Trump’s lawyers present their cases, and then chuckled, roared with laughter, and then told Trump’s lawyers, and Trump himself, to get lost.

And I’m not kidding. Pompous, self-important, self-aggrandizing, arrogant asses are best treated with laughter, as bad stand up comedians undeserving of serious consideration. Societal rejection, as lead by SCOTUS, is effective in discrediting fools like Trump, his allies, and his supporters. Supporters will continue to leak away as, well, the scales fall from their eyes; a lower percentage of allies will also leave him.

Some positions are simply not worthy of even minimal respect.

Inveterate columnist George Will speculates on comparisons of today with world history:

Monica Hesse at WaPo asks what seems an important question:

For the past few months there has been a stealth political campaign going on, the subject of which feels so unseemly that nearly every person publicly participating in the debate insists they would rather not be participating in it, and would, in fact, prefer the debate not be happening at all.

The question: Should Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor voluntarily retire before the next presidential election?

And, if your answer is yes, are you sexist?

And, if your answer is no, and you support liberal jurisprudence, are you a fool?

No, not really. The short answer is that if the American electorate is taken in by the Big Con that Trump and his allies are selling and return him to office, they deserve everything they get.

Whether they like it or not.

At some point, the liberals have to accept that. Not that they’re likely to walk down the McConnell path of dishonor and, frankly, disaster, although some might urge that. Easily debunked lies and frantic power grabs is more a Republican thing.

And the American electorate has to bear responsibility for their bad selections, should they make them, and not depend on liberals to ride white chargers to their rescue – or depend on the right-wing extremists and their arrogant philosophies to lead the conservatives to self-defeat.

But asking Sotomayor to leave just because there’s a few more wrinkles in the face is really unacceptable. Not after the absolute parade of wrinkly old men leaving SCOTUS feet first. Stay in your chair until you’re tired of the job, Justice. We appreciate your efforts.

A Republican recognizes the tumor of the Party:

“It’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags,” Gonzales said. “Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around in white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.” [The Daily Beast]

Another rip in the Party? It’s especially interesting:

The evisceration came out of seemingly nowhere, as Gonzales, a Navy veteran who represents a portion of San Antonio and Uvalde, has in the past refrained from bashing his party, despite withstanding heavy criticism from his colleagues for supporting federal gun-safety legislation. He’s otherwise been a steadfast repeater of Republican talking points since he joined Congress in 2021.

I suspect he saw his behavior as a key to success, but recently just couldn’t stand the tumor that is Gaetz, et al, any longer.

This is rather cool. From paleoanthropologist Professor John Hawks:

This naturally raises a broader question: How many other people have installed travertine with hominin fossils inside? …

Travertine also commonly includes fossils. Many are fossil inclusions of algae, plants, and small animals—especially molluscs and crustaceans—that live within the spring water. Much larger animals may be found and humans are no exceptions: Several well-known hominin fossil discoveries are from travertine deposits. Most of these discoveries have happened because of quarrying of the travertine deposits for use in construction.

Pictures at the link. I do not have any travertine floors, otherwise I’d not be writing this, but crouched on the floor looking for fossils.

And it’s a doozy:

NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

Launched in 1977, it’s damn near 50 years old, traveling through space, and recently was threatened with the dust bin of history when NASA lost its connection; a bit of recovery engineering saved a mission that was exceeded long, long ago.

The next time I buy a *phone, I want it to say

MADE BY NASA

Google, Samsung, and all the rest have nothing on NASA.

Given the bad guys’ inclination to project, I can’t help but speculate if former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has a reason to be nervous after this statement:

“But considering the rusophobic decision that took place [i.e., American foreign aid to Ukraine] I can’t help but wish the USA with all sincerity to dive into a new civil war themselves as quickly as possible. Which, I hope, will be very different from the war between North and South in the 19th century and will be waged using aircraft, tanks, artillery, MLRS, all types of missiles and other weapons. And which will finally lead to the inglorious collapse of the vile evil empire of the 21st century – the United States of America.”

Poor guy. The Russians are learning that war has become a technological endeavour, and we do it better.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has exceeded my expectations – kudos! – when, with Ukraine teetering on the edge of collapse, he finally passed foreign aid packages for Ukraine, as well as Israel and Taiwan, over and through the objections of the anti-Ukraine brigade of the GOP House caucus – a group that some call the Putin Wing. This is all at the risk of his position as Speaker of the House, as it’s commonly said his advantage in the House is one seat, so if more than one Republican files a motion to vacate the seat, as Rep Greene (R-GA) and a couple of others have done so, and the motion is activated (not the proper terminology, I’m sure – apologies), then he’s subject to a vote. The implicit expectation is that the expected assent of all of the Democrats, currently in the minority, plus a few of the Republicans, would result in Johnson’s losing the position.

However, the Democrats are not an inflexible group. They’ve backed Johnson, in very limited circumstances, in other areas, and certainly aid to Ukraine is a top, top priority of the Democrats. I expect a horse trade of voting for Johnson as Speaker in exchange for getting the desired foreign aid packages to the floor for a vote – which then passed – did occur, even if such is denied by the principals. If the Putin Wing follows through on the motion to vacate, we’ll find out if that horse trade did occur. I think there’s little doubt that Rep and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) can deliver  the necessary votes to save Johnson.

But, beyond this apparent snub of the concerns of the execrable Putin Wing, there are other concerns for the masters of the Republican Party.

First, Speaker Johnson has defied the wishes of well-known anti-Ukraine partisan and Putin admirer Mr. Trump. Mr Trump, presumptive but not guaranteed Republican nominee for President in the 2024 national elections, has a host of troubles, consisting not only his current New York state criminal trial, but his health (age 77, with known heart disease) and even his reputation. To the latter most point, Mr Trump depends, to a very large degree, on his purported accomplishments as a businessman, lover, actor, and even as an avatar of the Biblical character of Cyrus. If he’s convicted in his current criminal trial, more voters will begin to disregard him as worthy of their vote; revelations in this trial, which is a collection of accusations that he falsified business records, could do more damage to him. Even his inclination to fall asleep while at the defendant’s table may damage him further.

In essence, this is another rip in the tattered fabric of the Republican Party. Many of the fourth-rate party officials, owing to Trump their newfound positions and prestige, will stick with him; but Johnson has shown that ignoring Trump’s wishes is possible, even when Vladimir Putin, President of Russia and invader of Ukraine, is involved. This, in turn, damages the mystique, unearned as it was and is, of Mr. Trump. Naturally, this is a complex relationship between Mr Trump and his base, and many will remain loyal even in the face of the most dire revelations in court. But many others will have reached their limit in the number of major indiscretions and doubts, and not vote for Mr. Trump. His performance in the primaries, while victories in all but Vermont, have not been as convincing as President Biden’s, or of the sort of a truly dominating politician. They reflect the results of a Party suffering internal conflict. And that’s fine, out of context. American politics is about debate, because debate and doubt result in positive progress. But in a Republican Party where uniform voting in general elections – Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line – is a virtual law, the untold strain on the voter is worse. One might think, reasonably, that the primaries are a release valve, but if one’s preferred candidate loses, how easy is it, intellectually and emotionally, to transfer their vote to the winning candidate, who the voter detests?

At some point, the Republican Party member blows a gasket and refuses to vote, to participate, to even be a member. This Gingrichian dictate is, like so many such dictates, like borrowing money to pay dividends in the corporate world: madness.

Second, the purported power of the Freedom Caucus, the primary troublemakers in the House, to decide issues and control the House, is now on the line. If the Democrats choose to vote to support Johnson for Speaker, the power of the Freedom Caucus is shown to be blunted. It’s another step to understanding the true image of such Representatives as Gaetz, Gosar, former Freedom Caucus member Greene, and a number of others, as simply a pack of power-hungry and immature clowns, with little idea of how to govern.

Third, this violates another Gingrichian dictate: never give the Democrats a substantial victory. This is about as big as they come, and, much to the blindly loyal Republicans’ dismay, they’ll discover the world doesn’t catch fire and burn. Thus are the Republican Party’s tenets slowly and painfully destroyed. Again, the Party will suffer damage as some members walk away.

So there are many consequences to Johnson’s decision to bring desperately needed foreign aid to the House floor, and for doctrinaire Republicans, clinging to Mr Trump’s pants legs, none of them are good.

It is events of this sort that serve to put the picayune machinations and beliefs of humans in perspective:

In October of 2022, a wave of radiation washed through the solar system, more intense than anything observed before. Astronomers dubbed it the BOAT, the brightest of all time. Its source was an unusually close brush with a gamma-ray burst, a 1-in-10,000-year event, according to a 2023 study published in Astrophysical Research Letters. 

Fortunately for life on Earth, the confined nature of the beams means that a direct collision would be very unlikely. Nonetheless, the elusive nature of gamma-ray bursts ensures that they will continually inspire awe — and perhaps a bit of fear — of our cosmic backyard. [“Gamma-Ray Bursts Could Wipe Out All Life, But Are Unlikely to Hit Earth,” Max Bennett, Discover]

For an article on gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), it’s almost unforgivable that the magazine didn’t supply the name assigned this GRB, so I looked it up. This is it:

GRB 221009A also known as Swift J1913.1+1946 was an extraordinarily bright and long-lasting gamma-ray burst (GRB) jointly discovered by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on October 9, 2022. The gamma-ray burst was around seven minutes long, but was detectable for more than ten hours following initial detection. Despite being around two billion light-years away, it was powerful enough to affect Earth‘s atmosphere, having the strongest effect ever recorded by a gamma-ray burst on the planet. The peak luminosity of GRB 221009A was measured by Konus-Wind to be ~ 2.1 × 10⁴⁷ J/s and by Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor to be ~ 1.0 × 10 A burst as energetic and as close to Earth as 221009A is thought to be a once-in-10,000-year event. It was the brightest and most energetic gamma-ray burst ever recorded, with some dubbing it the “BOAT“, or Brightest Of All Time. [Wikipedia]

It’s fascinating that we live in a Universe where such extraordinary power can be naturally focused and released, endangering the integrity of anything in its path.

And the pic?

The aftermath of GRB 221009A, as seen by NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). (Credits: IXPE)

WaPo has a report on an old technology:

Music fans may love the immediacy of streaming music, but that hasn’t stopped them from bringing vinyl records mainstream. Revenue from vinyl jumped 10 percent to $1.4 billion in 2023, and outsold CDs for the second time since 1987, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Back, back to the farm!

I always found vinyl to be annoying, from scratching to warpage to maintenance, and, after my fairly good record player was stolen, I was happy enough to be rid of my paltry vinyls and go to only CDs.

Is the quality advantage of vinyl over CDs really that discernible? I don’t doubt that it’s better than streaming and radio, or, if I may shudder in public, 8-track, but is the digitization inherent in CDs really that recognizable? I know my Dad claimed to know people who could discern virgin vinyl from vinyl played once or twice, but not me, so it’s no surprise that I can’t discern it.

Or is it the greater tangible footprint of vinyl? Streaming means, as most of us know, no tangible artifacts, as well as paying for each repetition. Having a CD is one sunken cost and a medium sized artifact, the jewel case if memory serves. A vinyl record sits between – a sunken cost that degrades with each play. And a bigger artifact with room enough for art and sheets of protective paper hanging out, to boot.

A romantic return to an earlier age where the environment is not in such perilous condition, where the dangerous impact of environment-deniers, of election-deniers, of people who isolate themselves from the real world through their horrendous hooting?

Probably contributions from these and a dozen other factors.

Gender incongruence:

Gender incongruence is a marked and persistent experience of incompatibility between a person’s gender identity and the gender expected based on sex at birth. [MSD Manual]

Noted in “Will Big Trans Be Held To Account?” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish:

[The release of the The Cass Report (Hillary Cass) is] a decisive moment in this debate. After weighing all the credible evidence and data, the report concludes that puberty blockers are not reversible and not used to “take time” to consider sex reassignment, but rather irreversible precursors for a lifetime of medication. It says that gender incongruence among kids is perfectly normal and that kids should be left alone to explore their own identities; that early social transitioning is not neutral in affecting long-term outcomes; and that there is no evidence that sex reassignment for children increases or reduces suicides.

Inflation is neither some random thing that affects your finances nor exclusively the result of printing money; it also can reflect real-world phenomenon. Consider this UPI report on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statement on inflation:

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell highlighted a significant yet often overlooked contributor to the persistently high inflation rates: soaring insurance costs. Powell emphasized in congressional testimony that various types of insurance, including home and car insurance, have experienced substantial surges in recent years, impeding the Fed’s efforts to achieve its 2% inflation target. He noted, “Insurance of various different kinds — housing insurance, but also automobile insurance, and things like that — that’s been a significant source of inflation over the last few years.”

Climate change is overwhelmingly attributed to our fossil fuel economy, in case you were wondering, and climate scientists have been warning about it for two or three decades now. Think about who consistently defends the fossil fuel industry, while denigrating cleaner technologies, when listening to some politician harp on and on about inflation.

This WaPo article never mentions the possibility, but I have to wonder if the time of the cows in America may be ending, to be replaced by camels.

The camels had thump-thumped for seven days across northern Kenya, ushered by police reservists, winding at last toward their destination: less a village than a dusty clearing in the scrub, a place where something big was happening. People had walked for miles to be there. Soon the governor pulled up in his SUV. Women danced, and an emcee raised his hands to the sky. When the crowd gathered around an enclosure holding the camels, one man said he was looking at “the future.”

The camels had arrived to replace the cows.

Cows, here and across much of Africa, have been the most important animal for eons — the foundation of economies, diets, traditions.

But now grazable land is shrinking. Water sources are drying up. A three-year drought in the Horn of Africa that ended last year killed 80 percent of the cows in this part of Kenya and shattered the livelihoods of so many people.

If, faced with the same climate conditions, would Americans stubbornly hold on to cows, or would we switch to camels? It brings in dizzying visions of the Strategic American Reserve of Camels.