Category Archives: Uncategorized

I missed this one the first time around, which was reported on July 22:

Republicans on Tuesday proposed naming the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Opera House after first lady Melania Trump, with the lawmaker who sponsored the measure saying he wanted to honor the first lady’s “support and commitment in promoting the arts and humanities.”

House Republicans tucked the provision by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, into the bill that would fund the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other related agencies for fiscal year 2026, which begins in October. The House Appropriations Committee adopted it as part of an amendment in a 33-25 vote and reported the legislation out of committee in a 33-28 vote. It would next head to the full House for a vote. [NBC News]

Rep Simpson is thus in the running for the ceremonial used soup ladle that has been proposed as the trophy for those seeking to curry favor with Mr Trump. Hopefully, his constituents will take note and celebrate his entry by voting him out of office at the next opportunity.

Yesterday, we Fringed again. We saw:

Boxcutter Harmonica seemed to be an exploration of the mixture of artist and Divine, as our host explores the old story of Robert P. Johnson, who reputedly sold his soul for mastery of the guitar. But what does this have to do with our increasingly disturbed host? It’s an interesting, but opaque, exploration of a topic that is allegorical at best.

And …

Breakneck Twelfth Night is easy enough to describe, a one man show consisting of selected scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. A favorite of my Arts Editor, our host was most interested in the contemporary restriction on female presence on stage, meaning men portrayed the ladies – who sometimes portrayed the men. I was a little less charmed, as i find the language of Shakespeare to be overly ornate.

Go! Enjoy!

From Chris Truax, an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008 [I cannibalized that from the article below]:

Given this lack of independence in Trump’s Cabinet, I’m not sure what the ultimate solution is. But I know that the first step is for Trump’s most loyal supporters to admit, even if only to themselves, that there is a problem, just as Biden’s supporters did for him.

Donald Trump is showing all the signs of suffering from dementia. If this were a neighbor, a parent, or a family friend, you would have no trouble seeing it. We should not turn our heads just because it is the president. [“Trump’s mental decline is undeniable — so what now?” The Hill]

Truax alludes to the problem, doesn’t he? The relevant section of the 25th Amendment, pertaining to the involuntary relieving of the President of his duties and, eventually, his office, reads …

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department [sic][note 2][7] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

The thing about having a man-child with pathological narcissism as President and a subservient majority in the Senate is that the President, almost to the last Secretary, will select nominees whom he can dominate and manipulate, simply as a matter of his psychological processes. He’s not comfortable with competent, independent people, because he himself is not competent and only barely independent.

So could Vice President Vance, himself a weak occupant of his office, gather enough negative opinions from the Cabinet to oust the President?

Doubtful.

I just like these.

“So you liked the book, you’re saying?”

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012) is a tidy little murder mystery set in Australia. It’s almost a primer on how to write such mysteries: motivations, the awkward and sometimes unjust machinations of society and how they interact with the crime du jour; egos and their place; societal attitudes and their place; methods of murder and detection; and karma. In this mystery of a body is found in a hansom cab, who could have committed the crime and why, and then digging through layers of other crimes and the accompanying avarice, it’s all nicely done.

But there’s no standout characteristic. Audiences being human, we like to curl our fingers around some salient story feature, whether it’s Holmes, Dr Watson, Father Brown, Dexter, or any number of other characters, the bumbling upper class of Agatha Christie, seemingly impossible crimes yet committed, impossible-to-solve crimes solved, sometimes even something even as simple as Mrs. Murphy or Koko the Cat, those salient features make the stories memorable – something worth discussing.

And, in this respect, while the movie dates from 2012, the source material, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, by Fergus Hume, dates from 1886, and is, presumably, based on Hume’s experiences of his three years spent in Melbourne. While poverty is no fun for anyone experiencing it, today’s poverty does not compare to that of the late 1800s, and the Wikipedia page does mention that Hume’s novel served to underline the grinding, oft-fatal nature of the poverty of the time, sparking conversation of same.

In this way, our progress in reducing poverty has also reduced the impact of a generally well-made movie. Rather than be upset by the poverty, for audiences it simply becomes part of the expected background of the movie. That’s too bad, as Hume did the public a service with a novel that illustrated the fate of the unfortunate; and, yet, it also implicitly illustrates the progress it helped promote.

So, see The Mystery of a Hansom Cab? If you like complex murder mysteries, sure. It won’t knock your socks off, not like the novel affect audiences in 1886. But it’s still well done and makes one think.

[I wrote this probably more than a month ago and then forgot to publish it. It’s still worth a thought.]

Why smart nations don’t let attention-craving amateurs near important buttons.

Former top European Union Iran nuclear negotiator Enrique Mora warned Wednesday that the June 21st U.S. strikes on Iran could be a turning point that makes Iran forego efforts to try to reach a nuclear deal with the United States, and possibly decide it needs to obtain nuclear weapons.

“This unprecedented strike has shown, for the second time, the Islamic regime that nuclear diplomacy is reversible, fragile and vulnerable to changes in leadership in Washington,” Mora wrote in Spain’s Politica Exterior magazine. “There will not be a third time.”

“If Iran now decides to move towards a bomb, it will do so following a clear strategic logic,” he wrote. “No one bombs the capital of a nuclear-armed country. June 21, 2025 may go down in history not as the day the Iranian nuclear program was destroyed, but as the day a nuclear Iran was irreversibly born.” [“Trump turns Iran strike intel into loyalty test,” Laura Rozen, Diplomatic]

But I suppose this is the inevitable result of a decision-making process of a narcissist who doesn’t really believe anyone else is a human being. Think of his frantic attempts to reverse progress on several fronts, such as military force composition and the names of the military bases. The very idea of change beyond Trump’s control will terrify him.

And it’s a symptom of serious psychological disease.

You do have to wonder:

Trump: I solved 6 wars, I am averaging a war per month. Including wars that lasted 500 years.

— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com) 2025-07-29T19:22:54.820Z

I solved 6 wars, I am averaging a war per month. Including wars that lasted 500 years. – President Trump

I’m not shy to admit that, speaking, and I do mean speaking, to a large audience could compel me to misstate facts.

Now, if they can get whitehouse.gov to publish such misstatements it might mean something.

The Minnesota Fringe Festival began on Thursday, and last night we saw three shows.

Withering Lows: A Love Story Better Off Dead was a bit off-key, which is partly my fault for not remembering the original material from 40 years ago. But it also felt like lines were recited in proper order, rather than organically originating from the actors, and that was disappointing. It felt like a training exercise, in some ways. C.

The Spirit Moves You To Color The Unseen was closer to the essence of Fringiness, being a frankly mysterious homage to the artist Hilma af Klint and the philosophy of theosophy. The five six seven women constituting the cast clearly had rehearsed this thoroughly in both word and gesture, but I have to wonder if the script could have used another draft – or if theosophy itself needed a bit more work. Still, it moves beyond the vapid Hollywood question of Is it good? to the more pertinent question of Does it provoke thought? B+.

And finally …

Duluth: An Improvised Midwest Murder is an improv show that was, like most improv shows, wacky and silly. You’ll probably tire yourself out trying to keep up, but your questions may be only banal at the end. A fun improv show. B-.

We still have a 10-pass with four left, so two more shows are in our near-future.

From the redoubtable, and paywalled, Andrew Sullivan:

The point of the gay rights movement, as I’ve said many times, is not to empower people to be gay; but to empower people to be themselves. The goal is enhanced individuality; not collective consciousness of eternal “oppression.”

The tension of the sometime-necessity of collective action and its vulnerability to abuse.

I thought this was interesting:

Sounding the alarm on growing opacity of advanced AI reasoning models. Fortune reporter Beatrice Nolan reported this week on a group of 40 AI researchers, including contributors from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, and Anthropic, that are sounding the alarm on the growing opacity of advanced AI reasoning models. In a new paper, the authors urge developers to prioritize research into “chain-of-thought” (CoT) processes, which provide a rare window into how AI systems make decisions. They are warning that as models become more advanced, this visibility could vanish. [Fortune]

Which is us, which is them? And who is more delicious?

So, is Machine Learning (ML) that much like how humans reason? Mind you^[1], there’s formal reasoning, which is difficult and deeply dependent on in-depth understanding context and reality, which in realistic situations is almost impossible; informal reasoning, not guaranteed to lead to correct conclusions but much easier and less dependent on context as much of it is heuristics; and intuitive reasoning, the I just know that is so often bloodily wrong – but has you running from the tiger just because that fern flapped in the breezeless afternoon.

So, if Elon Musk’s worst nightmare arrives, that of the super-intelligent actual AI system, can we understand its thought processes? Or will its reasoning function in such a different manner from the above that we’ll stare at the COT and consider it gibberish?

Hard to say. The fact I can’t imagine another way to reason doesn’t mean it’s not possible, it only means I’m not imaginative. Or, as with calculus, I’m not trying hard enough.

¹ And I’m pulling this out of my ass from observation, not from study of psychology, which I always find a frustrating experience.

Subrogation:

Subrogation is a term describing the right held by most insurance carriers to legally pursue a third party that caused an insurance loss to an insured. This allows the insurance carrier to recover the amount of the claim it paid to the insured for the loss. [Investopedia]

Noted on a return envelope recently received. I should have taken a photo, I admit. I say admit because I think I suppose to be a bit nonsensical, when read literally.

Here, have a mushroom.

Hand provided for scale. Or maybe it was free. Union rules are confusing.

The opposite of arrogance, I suppose.

I found myself slowing down to thoughtful speed while reading “I co-wrote the anonymous HHS report on pediatric gender medicine,” by Alex Byrne (WaPo). It wasn’t because it was full of new facts concerning pediatric gender medicine, although no doubt that, for some readers, it had a few.

Rather, it was a reference for the arrogance that continues to wash over our professional culture.

^spelling Two ‘m’s, really, in accommodate? One m? They both look wrong.

My correspondent continues concerning the content of mainstream media:

A few liberal columnists do not a giant media outlet be “captured by extreme-left journalists.” I used to subscribe to both NYT (long time ago) and the WaPo (until about 1.5 years ago). The pair were definitely more liberal 8 to 12 years ago, but they are not remotely that at all when it comes to the majority of their print. Again, that they have a few liberal columnists (I’m a big fan of Jamelle Bouie at the NYT, for example) does not counteract the huge conservative slant on coverage, wording, headlining, and article placement in both of those papers. And it’s no surprise, given that both are owned by wealthy, conservative individuals (Bezos, WaPo) or families (Ochs-Sulzberger family, NYT). A couple liberal op-eds are lipstick on a pig compared to the endless normalization and slant and spin of the rest of the papers.

From AuntieB, “No Tassels, No Ears. A Sterile Summer In Northern Ohio,” on Daily Kos:

Then I started to notice the silence. Usually corn fields hum with life. Birds, crickets, all sorts of insects create a quiet hum all day and all night. I couldn’t hear it.

Some of the fields also looked different. They were planted just before that wild swing of rain followed by heat. That brutal one-two punch hit right as the seeds were waking up. Now the corn has grown tall, but it’s sterile. No tassels. No ears. No harvest.

Farmers here are calling it “tight tassel.”

They say it might affect a third to half of the local crop.

Up here in Minnesota I know my strawberries didn’t produce, the raspberries and blueberries produced minimally. Bumblebees are way down, as is the local morning bird flock, which used to be deafening at 5 in the morning, and now we barely hear it.

Slyly not acknowledging each other.

I thought the mushroom might run when it saw the lawnmower coming, but they stood their ground. I politely steered around it.

Joe Perticone of The Bulwark remarks on Congress and the Epstein Files incident in a paywalled post, to which I do not have full access:

Republicans are imploding over Jeffrey Epstein, and the evidence is hard to miss. The panic among GOP lawmakers is unlike anything I’ve seen in a decade of reporting on Congress. …

This time with Epstein is different. Republicans can’t keep their heads down and trust that the base will keep holding them up, because the Republican base is what’s causing the current panic. Far-right lawmakers are anxiously trying to navigate around the Scylla of Trump and congressional leadership pushing them to hold off on the Epstein issue, and the Charybdis of the hot-headed multitudes who lifted them into office after getting them to promise to reveal every dark secret of the Epstein case.

And now Speaker Johnson is shutting down Congress without a vote of any sort on the Epstein Files. And for more than a month.

Johnson and other House GOP leaders have resisted a push to hold a floor vote to force the release of materials on Epstein. Earlier this week, Johnson accused Democrats of playing “political games” by trying to force a vote. Johnson sent the House home for its summer break early amid the controversy roiling the lower chamber over the release of the Epstein files. The House had initially been scheduled to be in session through Thursday, but ended on Wednesday instead. [CBS News]

This, despite …

“We want full transparency. We want everybody who is involved in any way with the Epstein evils — let’s call it what it was — to be brought to justice as quickly as possible. We want the full weight of the law on their heads,” Johnson told CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in an interview Wednesday.

“It’s not a hoax. Of course not,” said the House speaker, a Louisiana Republican, when asked if he considers it a hoax — a word that has been used by President Trump to describe some of his supporters’ interest in the Epstein case.

I think he’s hoping the whole thing goes away. After all, voters are supposedly notorious for short attention spans.

But he’s sent his caucus home into what may turn out to be a frying pan. Townhalls filled with angry, demanding non-partisan crowds. Is this what he really wants? Protests potentially in front of members houses. What if a few Republicans resign in fear of voters or whoever has been terrorizing Congress (see Senator Schiff’s comments here, although you’ll have to do your own searching)? Speaker Hakeem Jeffries of the Democrats, anyone?

Will this turn into a morality play of gratitude to President Trump for members of Congress’ jobs while facing the possibility that the source of said jobs is a man on a list of clients of alleged sex ring operator Epstein?

And a really angry electorate?

Stay tuned for politics as entertainment. And watch for the Detemined Distractinator.

When it’s commentary, it’s not unsettling. But when the subject of commentary does it, it’s either exceptionally idiotic, or …

Sundog, a memecoin by crypto billionaire Justin Sun, just posted a meme depicting its mascot controlling the White House. Sun has spent (or will shortly spend) a total of $213 million on Trump-connected crypto projects.

— Molly White (@molly.wiki) 2025-07-24T16:35:26.861Z

[H/T Molly White. No relation.]

Although the dog does remind me of the next-door neighbor’s dog growing up. Name of Princess, everyone called her Prinny, except the paperboy, who I think called her That vicious thing at [redacted]’s house.

Professor Richardson may be a trifle optimistic:

This seems to be another unforced error, reminding Americans of another story the administration would prefer they forget, since opponents of Gabbard’s nomination for her post noted that she has a long history of repeating Russian propaganda. While Trump seems determined to reach back to the rhetoric that got him elected in 2016, it’s hard to see that as a powerful distraction from the Epstein story, since Americans have now had eight years to contemplate the many times Trump has deferred to Russian president Vladimir Putin and weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight back against Russia’s incursions. And claims about the health of a losing presidential candidate from nine years ago seem pretty weak sauce, especially since today she seems far more stable than Trump.

The professor really thinks Americans will remember Secretary Gabbard’s alleged role as a relay for Russian propaganda?

Heck, I pay attention and I didn’t remember that until this reminder came across my screen. I think this is one of the weakest paragraphs I’ve seen from Professor Richardson.

Pills, Pills, Pills, Pills
    I Think I Have Them Stuck In My Gills!

Thus, the old aphorism Easier than taking pills from a fish…

My recent suggestion that observers with more time than I believe the mainstream has gone into the left corner evoked a reaction from a reader and old friend:

This, however is bullshit: “While there’s been concern that The New York Times and WaPo have been captured by extreme-left journalists”. Not Even Close. Both are total normalizers of GOP insanity and total apologists for capitalist class warfare on the masses.

Being a subscriber to WaPo, I can state that right-wing madness is reported and marked as such by the journalism side of the house. I do not subscribe to The New York Times, but, as I understand it, for a while they were far gone left, which would imply a close examination of the right.

Whether or not either is thorough is another question, one that I haven’t the time or inclination to answer.

The opinion side of the houses differs. I’d imagine Marc Thiessen, a WaPo columnist and Trump partisan who once wrote a column proclaiming Trump as the most honest politician ever, is still soft on Trump – but I haven’t read any of his stuff since at least 2020.

But if opinion is important, WaPo’s Dana Milbank bangs GOP heads together at every opportunity.

The assertion that Both are total normalizers of GOP insanity and total apologists for capitalist class warfare on the masses strikes me as characteristic of someone with a strong ideological orientation, and I’ve noticed that such folks tend to view the media in a very binary manner – they’re with us or against us.

There’s little room given to the possibilities of being wrong, even that the media is trying hard but has the unfortunate attribute of being, well, human.

Coopetition:

Coopetition is the act of cooperation between competing companies; businesses that engage in both competition and cooperation are said to be in coopetition. Certain businesses gain an advantage by using a judicious mixture of cooperation with suppliers, customers, and firms producing complementary or related products.

Coopetition is a type of strategic alliance that is particularly common between software and hardware firms. [Investopedia]

Noted in “Trump’s tax bill has become a battlefield for tobacco giants,” Jacob Bogage, WaPo:

“They have a disagreement on this policy, but they’re partners. It’s classic ‘coopetition,’” said [Senator] Tillis, using a term that describes when two competing companies rely on a shared infrastructure. For tobacco firms, many contract with the same growers for various types of leaf. “At the end of the day, it’s the impact on growers I have the concern with.”

Long-time pollster Gallup has a poll up regarding immigration, and here’s their summary:

Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.

These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups.

With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

These findings are based on a June 2-26 Gallup poll of 1,402 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Hispanic and Black Americans, weighted to match national demographics.

The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration. Trump’s 21% approval rating on the issue among Hispanic adults is below his 35% rating nationally, with the deficit likely reflecting that group’s low support for some of the administration’s signature immigration policies.

It’s a bit fascinating how after media focusing on an issue for several months, Americans begin to really think about it. For a while, Republicans emphasized that a flood of immigrants – true or not – was lapping over our borders.

But, I suspect, this caused various media sources to explore and discuss immigration and its affect on the nation. For example:

• Do immigrants get free healthcare? Generally, no, although emergency rooms will provide care because of laws mandating same.
• Who picks fresh produce? Mostly, immigrants. They also staff abattoirs, and generally provide a lot of labor that native-born Americans currently find repugnant.

This way to common-sense. Just climb over that bank of plowed, compacted snow….

As their contributions become better known, the drive to chase illegal immigrants out becomes less and less attractive to the American public. The focus on removing immigrants, and anyone who gets in the way, from the country has the effect of focusing a conceptual lens on the issue for the electorate – and thus changing that opinion.

What are other issues that might change, or strengthen? Fossil fuel and their subsidies? Green energy? Coinage? Trump’s central motivation to return to the 1950s, see his demands that the Washington and Cleveland sports teams revert their team names?

And is this also true of lefty issues, such as woke-ism and transgenderism? While there’s been concern that The New York Times and WaPo have been captured by extreme-left journalists, Andrew Sullivan thinks that pendulum is beginning a return swing (paywall) in the wake of rank foolishness from the ACLU.

The times, they are a-changing, and maybe the extremists of all the sides are being rejected. We can hope.

Polycule:

The word “polycule” is a portmanteau for a “polyamorous molecule.” In practice, a polycule is a group of non-monogamous people linked by romantic and sexual relationships, … . It can be as big or as small as you can imagine. “A polycule can be three individuals or an infinite number of people, as no two polycule structures are alike,” she adds. The number of people in a polycule depends on each member’s intentions. [Women’s Health]

Maybe it’s new, I’d not run across it before. Noted in “MAGA and the single girl,” Kara Voght, WaPo:

[Arynne Wexler] believes there are plenty of people like her out there — those with “common sense, patriotic values” — who feel culturally out of place among conservatives. The 2024 election cycle had been an “ascendant time” for the right, she said, but that was partly because people were sick of the excesses of the left — the people Wexler would describe at her panel as “androgynous pixie haircut unbathed Marxist freaks in polycules.” But a backlash against liberal ways of life isn’t the same as an endorsement of the opposite.

A bit clumsy, like much of lefty thought.