Category Archives: Uncategorized

A couple of weeks ago President Trump nominated right wing influencer Nick Adams for an ambassadorship to Malaysia. He sounds like a character out of a cartoon:

[Adams] is also known for displays of bravado about his own machismo, including his love of the restaurant chain Hooters.

In one post, he wrote: “I am based. I have rizz. I am smart. I am charismatic. I have superior genetics. I am strong. I am bold. I am intense. I have large amounts of testosterone. I am never wrong. I don’t apologize. I am an alpha male.”

“I never asked to be turned into a sex icon, God made me this attractive,” he wrote in another.

In addition to the life lessons, Adams praises Trump in daily posts on social media. “President Trump is the highest IQ President this nation has ever had, and it’s not particularly close!” he wrote on X this week. Last week, he wrote: “President Trump always wins, which means America always wins. Remember that.” [NBC News]

That last paragraph may have been savvy brown-nosing, although I don’t generally expect Australians to engage in such behaviors.

I wonder if he was confirmed by the GOP Senate.

Or at least so says the Arts Editor.

This might be a trifle malevolent.

Shy, yet extroverted.

Someone didn’t notice a picture was in progress.

Izzat how a lily bulges its eyes?

Caught in a paint storm. Again. Be more careful, eh?

Nicest bunch in years, iffen I say so myself.

I recall, during the 2016 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald J. Trump musing to a crowd that, as President, he’d have the right to turn off the Internet.

Given that the Internet provides a veritable fire hose of information, true and false, to voters, would now-President Trump turn it off simply to stop dissemination of information concerning the Epstein files?

I’ve opined a number of times that President Trump is simply a con-man, and the Republican Party’s swift dash to the far right land of absolutes and arrogance set them up to be grifted.

And I may turn out to be right. I know little enough about Nick Fuentes^[1], but he is a far-right influencer and member of MAGA, He is a supporter of President Trump – or, at least, was until the Epstein kerfuffle refused to go away.

During Wednesday night’s episode of the America First podcast, Fuentes responded to Trump’s [Truth Social] post, sharing a number of four-lettered words for the president, starting off with a strong: “F*** you. You suck.”

“You are fat, you are a joke, you are stupid, you are not funny, you are not as smart as you think you are,” Fuentes said, later adding, “This entire thing has been a scam.”

“When we look back on the history of populism in America, we are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history,” Fuentes said. “And the liberals were right. The MAGA supporters were had. They were.”

“When we look back in history, we will see Trump as a scam artist who served as a vehicle for this rather than the other way around. We were not the vehicle for Trump, Trump was the vehicle for all of us,” Fuentes added. [Newsweek]

My bold.

While many influencers, mostly wannabes, flocked to Trump because of an honest sympathy for at least some of his views, and others due to antipathy for liberals, a bunch went to Trump as a quick way up the social prestige ladder.

This means that some influencers will stick with the President, while others will flee as they discover the President’s essentially mendacious nature. Some will view the lies concerning the alleged Epstein files as a deal breaker, while others will see mendacity as simply another arrow in the quiver for the ambitious – or desperate – candidate. In turn, audiences will shift and shrink as they realize how their favorite influencer is reacting.

If you’re an aficionado of right-wing influencers, it may pay to track who dispenses with loyalty to the President and who clings like plastic wrap. The latter are the weak sisters; the former might bear consideration as those who are dangerously loyal to their beliefs.

And those who just hate liberals could go either way.

In the end, these are the fruits of arrogance and mendacity: self-destruction of the group because one’s ego is more important than triumph for the group. The President’s ego requirements and need to dominate, while initially satisfied, have now run into the ego-requirements of MAGA, i.e., Epstein! Epstein! And his clients!

So far, it looks like it may rip both the President and MAGA apart.

¹ Here’s a link to his page in Wikipedia, but I strongly caution that such entries can easily be corrupted, and that people do mature as the years pass. I have no reason to think the latter applies to Mr Fuentes, but I also have no reason to think it does not. Like all social media, approach what you read with caution, not abandon.

It’s been a while since I glanced at Bitcoin, and even now it had to thrust itself into my visual field. Its price is greatly improved from February, when it was $68,507/coin:

Source: CoinMarketCap

My calculator says that’s a roughly 72% move upwards. Yes, that’s quite a jump, isn’t it? But why? This is from a promotional e-mail from AL-Monitor:

This is from a couple of weeks ago.

I believe they were a gift from my late mother-in-law, but I forget the name.

Pharmacognosy:

Pharmacognosy is the interdisciplinary scientific study of natural drugs and bioactive compounds from plants, animals, and minerals—originally focused on identifying crude drugs but now expanded to molecular, chemical, ecological, and medicinal aspects of natural products.

Plants produce a variety of chemical compounds—primary metabolites essential for all plants and secondary metabolites with specialized roles like defense and pollination attraction—that include classes such as alkaloids, polyphenols, glycosides, and terpenes, many of which have therapeutic uses in humans and are isolated through bioassay-guided fractionation. Traditional medicine continue to inform modern pharmacology. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Sea Cucumbers Could Be the Key to Stopping Cancer Growth With a Rare Sugar Compound,” Jack Knudson, Discover (paywall):

“The cells in our body are essentially covered in ‘forests’ of glycans,” said Vitor Pomin, a professor of pharmacognosy at the University of Mississippi in a statement. “And enzymes change the function of this forest – essentially prunes the leaves of that forest. If we can inhibit that enzyme, theoretically, we are fighting against the spread of cancer.”

For those readers who were intrigued by Robert Wun’s previous video of a walking art installation featured here, this is his latest:

President Trump may be closer to exiting the Oval Office than most anyone realizes. Among the issues that threaten his tenure in office are dissension in his MAGA base over the issue of the existence, or lack thereof, of a file of client names of alleged child sex ring leader Jeffrey Epstein; alienation of independent and young male voters, who are discovering any old lie will dribble out of President Trump’s mouth, if he thinks it opportune; a Big Beautiful Bill, which will bring the sky down on many voters, under the President’s guidance was passed and he signed it; the failure of the President’s signature tariffs; the disassembly of the medical research establishment; DOGE; unpopular pardons and commutations that appear to buy the loyalty of criminals; and much else.

But what happens if he leaves office? He loses the protection of the ill-advised Trump v. United States decision, and may end up in jail due to his 32 criminal convictions in New York state court. What’s more, there are a number of prosecutions which were quashed when he assumed office, including a very serious question of why classified documents were not only found in his possession, but were actively hidden from the FBI upon searching Trump’s home / country club.

Upon termination of his Administration, he could be in very serious trouble. Welcome to the old icon of Greek despair.

So my guess is that he’s looking at running, and perhaps sooner rather than later. But this report may reflect the closing of an escape destination:

But Trump hasn’t folded to his erstwhile friend Putin. He’s not left Europe in the lurch under the shadow of an increasingly expansionist Russia amid the continent’s worst land war since World War II. Trump seems more warmly disposed toward NATO than he has been for years. …

But he at least has now shed some misconceptions that by force of personality alone he can bend Putin to his will. And by promising Patriot missiles to Kyiv — which Trump said on Tuesday are “already being shipped” — and being open to a new Russia sanctions push in Congress, he’s added steel to American peacemaking.

Trying to coerce Putin to the table may not work either. But at least Trump isn’t giving Ukraine away. [CNN/Politics]

An ex-pat former President in Moscow would have certainly been unique, but now it seems unlikely.

Nor does Beijing or Pyongyang seem likely.

The now-President, future former-President is a poor planner, so watching him try to find a future safe space should be entertaining.

When your tactics depress everyone:

Source: Gallup

When the two leading political parties are exhibiting autocratic tendencies, it’s not surprising that a substantial portion of the electorate is unhappy. However, the Republicans seem a little less conscious of the problem, although cycles of confidence and doubt, correlating to whether the voter prefers the party in power, is well-documented.

Source: Gallup

If the country seems grumpy, here’s why. Just remember to blame everyone.

… dominance.

… bullying.

From lefty blog Maddowblog, a couple of weeks ago:

Caving to the administration never seems to work out well, but institutions keep doing it: “The University of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday that it had struck a deal with the federal government that will limit how transgender people may participate in its athletic programs, bowing to the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the law that bans sex discrimination in education.”

Yes, kowtowing to bullies appalls allies and, worse, encourages the bully to continue to use oppressive tactics – and the Mendacity Machine^[1] is undoubtedly a bully.

But transgender athlete participation remains an unsettled issue which requires public, national debate – and that is taking place, albeit quietly, despite the frenzied assertions of the left that such is not needed, that it’s a settled issue. Bunch of amateurs, it turns out.

So those who are opposed to and fearful of the far right wing Trump Administration are finding the ground they’re on to be treacherous quicksand. This is an example of why procedure is so important. This is a lesson to learn from.

For both sides.

¹ The President, that is.

A bit ragged, but still out there showing off.

Or a cliff on the highway?

The Epstein Files, alleged to contain information concerning the late financier’s client list for his illegal and sordid operations, whether or not the list exists, appear to be giving President Trump and his MAGA movement an issue to worry over – on opposite sides. Here’s CNN/Politics, summarizing:

In the days since the Trump administration released a memo about Jeffrey Epstein directly at odds with conspiracy theories pushed by the president and some of his top lieutenants, Trump’s movement and most ardent supporters are in revolt.

The Justice Department and the FBI released a memo last week concluding there was no evidence that Epstein had a list of powerful men who participated in his alleged underworld of sex trafficking and pedophilia. It also said the disgraced former financier died by suicide and was not murdered in his New York jail cell.

Yet after years of big promises to the president’s base, the memo failed to produce a smoking gun, undercutting Trump and his team’s own words. And MAGA world isn’t happy, pitting the president’s closest allies against one another.

I think one of the biggest motivations of MAGA is a history of lies from the government power elite since the beginning of the Vietnam War, as documented in the Pentagon Papers, and moving on from there: the invasion of Iraq on the false excuse that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the lies of Big Tobacco in pursuit of profits, the Catholic Church cover-ups of sexual abuse, and insert your most detested instance of lying here.

So, faced with another power elite that claims it’s unable to deliver the promised goods, MAGA is understandably upset. Here’s the Mendacity Machine^[1] himself, via Maddowblog:

Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration. … They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands.

The problem with being a chronic liar, as Heinlein pointed out in one of his novels, is keeping everything consistent. It’s a bit like trying to analyze a system without having all the information – you try to fire up the engine and parts leaning against your coveralls suddenly become blazing hot.

Trump, having lied his way into office again, in order to avoid prosecutions over cases such as unauthorized possession of classified docs, now has to deal with a promise he can’t fulfill.

Or he could, but it’d get him in more trouble. Maybe Trump is in the alleged list of clients of Epstein’s underage sex ring – although the Biden Administration’s failure to reveal that juicy bit is a valid question.

In case my reader has forgotten relevant dates, Benen provides a few:

To the extent that reality still has any relevance in the public discussion, it was the Trump administration that investigated, arrested and charged Epstein. It was during Trump’s first term when Epstein, facing sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, died in 2019 while in custody, and a medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

But according to Trump, the so-called Epstein files were written by Barack Obama (who left office in early 2017), Hillary Clinton (who left office in early 2013), former FBI Director James Comey (who left office in 2017) and former CIA Director John Brennan (who left office in early 2017).

How could they have “created the Epstein Files” given that they were nowhere near public office when Trump’s own team tried to prosecute him? I haven’t the foggiest idea, and Trump’s weird tantrum never explained how this could even be possible.

I’ve been waiting for a missive from Erick Erickson on the matter out of curiosity as to the Trumpist defense, but nothing so far and I’ve other matters needing attention. Ta.

Update a minute later: Erickson’s missive arrives in the mailbox – begging everyone to take a break from politics. Well.

¹I.e, President Trump.

A moment of tenderness between a man and his meal.

The 2024 remake of vampire classic Nosferatu (1922), also entitled Nosferatu (2024), has mistaken the terror and fright of realism as being a reasonable stand-in for the incomprehensible horror of the Divine. In both versions, which tell essentially the same story, the victims of the vampire, Count Orlok, are not terrible human beings in their own right. They have their entirely human flaws of temper, of ignoring the needy, and other unfortunate characteristics, but they are neither horrific nor amplified to intolerable magnitudes.

Thus, the twin afflictions of the Count’s depradations on the humans of Wisburg, Germany in the early 1800s, and the terrible plague that accompanies the Count, are not punishments for misdeeds, individual or collective. This is not a story concerning how karma punishes miscreants, or superior beings correcting human behavior with the biggest rod possible. No.

This is about the realm of the Divine impinging on the human world, driven by the near-incomprehensible needs of Count Orlok. In essence, humans scuttle away from the Divine as it eats its way through Wisburg.

And the movie-makers’ aesthetic choices alter the affects of the story on the audience. The portrayals of creatures and events in the 1922 version are bizarre, outré, almost incomprehensible. The 2024 version has horrific visions, but they lack the oomph that pushes the audience over the edge and into the pool of the unknowable, of sensing our bodies submerge in a pool of something soul-threatening. The blood spatters and dead bodies and plague of the 2024 version may be graphic and technically highly competent, but they lack that element of Divine mystery that has terrorized mankind over the centuries.

And the 1922 version of Nosferatu has that edge to its eddies of emotion.

I do not wish to disparage the 2024 version, but in the end that version is limited by the aesthetic choices of the movie-makers. The 1922 version has the limitations of a young artistic form, yet it almost feels as if the team of movie-makers, headed by Director F. W. Murnau, turned that to their advantage. The chaotic vortex of the Divine impacts human society, destroying all regardless of crime. Can you feel your skin burn from its relentless consumption?

That’s the real Nosferatu.

And I hope you enjoy.

Some of these would work in a production of A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM:

Professor Turchin’s Secular Cycles, his and Sergey Nefedov’s review of structural demographic theory and how it applies to several case studies of agrarian societies, comes in two parts. The first is the integrative phase, where land is cheap, the hinterlands are empty but populating, the non-elites are in demand and growing, the elite is small, and prosperity is stable or increasing.

The second is the disintegrative phase, in which prosperity is declining for the non-elites, the elite is overpopulated and fighting among themselves, often existentially, to retain their positions, land is ruinously expensive for the non-elite due to overpopulation, famine may be rampant, and the hinterlands are emptying out of everyone but wealthy land-owners and their minions.

I think, with all due respect to the fact that we are no longer an agrarian society, that the dominance of the technological facet of our society doesn’t invalidate the application of Secular Cycles to Western Civ, but instead accelerates cycles.

So when I read this passage from Steve Benen, it seemed eerily familiar:

If the GOP bill becomes law [and it has – haw], millions will lose their health care coverage. Millions will be hungrier. Rural hospitals will close. The debt will grow by trillions of dollars. Struggling families will have less money in their pockets. Businesses that rely on immigrant labor will fail.

And the vice president apparently wants the Americans who will be worse off to believe all of these consequences should be seen as “immaterial.” ICE raids matter, the Ohio Republican effectively argued, and nothing else does.

Rural hospitals closing, immigration being choked off. If that’s what happens, the hinterlands are going to be squeezed by removing medical services and labor, and, watching influencers left and right, it’s not hard to believe the elite is under a lot of pressure to grow unsustainably as non-elite scrabble to join the elite, and children of the elite, many or even most not really qualified, try to refuse to slide into the abyss of, well, being mundane.

It’s Turchin and Nefedov’s application of structural demographic theory, albeit on a smaller time scale.

What haven’t we seen so far? Civil war. Violence has been isolated and generally originates with fringe players who believe too earnestly in their ideologies. Erickson would probably disagree,

Our democracy is fine. Progressives are not. They are deeply unwell and talking themselves towards violence.

But as he can’t be bothered to mention the Hortman assassination here in Minnesota, originating with a far-right fringer, we can conclude Erickson is a partisan, not a neutral pundit, and thus loses value as a prognosticator. Still, I think every liberal in the land would benefit from meditating on this paragraph, from the same post:

Instead of looking in the mirror to assess why voters rejected them, progressives have chosen to blame the voter, declare democracy dead, and they will head towards violence to take back what they think is theirs.

I don’t think he gets the Why, only the What. The Why is that the Democrats look like autocrats, just like the Republicans – although I’m hoping the Minnesota brand of Republicans, being the up close witnesses of one of their own shooting up the opposition, will be retreating to more civilized positions.

We shall see.

Synoptic scale meteorology:

In meteorology, the synoptic scale (also called the large scale or cyclonic scale) is a horizontal length scale of the order of 1,000 km (620 mi) or more.^[1] This corresponds to a horizontal scale typical of mid-latitude depressions (e.g. extratropical cyclones). Most high- and low-pressure areas seen on weather maps (such as surface weather analyses) are synoptic-scale systems, driven by the location of Rossby waves in their respective hemisphere. Low-pressure areas and their related frontal zones occur on the leading edge of a trough within the Rossby wave pattern, while high-pressure areas form on the back edge of the trough. Most precipitation areas occur near frontal zones. The word synoptic is derived from the Ancient Greek word συνοπτικός (sunoptikós), meaning “seen together”. [Wikipedia]

Ryan Hall, an Internet weather analyst and owner of a lovely voice, uses synoptic frequently in his discussions of weather forecasts, such as this one here.

I’ll leave it to the reader to actually find it. Yes, I do assume his synoptic is Synoptic scale meteorology.

Oh, another lily picture!

Bonus lupine!

Erick Erickson, backer of the Mendacity Machine^[1], is upset.

When [President Trump’s Attorney General Pam] Bondi did the initial disclosures about Epstein and trotted the hyper online right to the White House, Bondi blamed Patel and the FBI for not providing her with all the documents.

Bondi also went on Fox News with John Roberts. Roberts asked, “The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients. That’s gonna happen?”

Bondi responded, “It’s sitting on my desk right now.” …

But no, it apparently wasn’t.

She lied to the American public.

She lied to the President’s MAGA base.

She deflected the blame on the FBI.

And therefore,

If only because she lied to the President’s base and many of his most ardent online supporters, she should resign or be fired.

A sad day for Erickson, but not for the reasons he imagines. Given Trump’s long history of lying, is it any surprise that he’s hired professional liars as well? That he’s hired people he dominates and manipulates because that’s what his fragile ego requires of him?

I’m shocked that Erickson doesn’t get this. If none of this occurred to him, then it’s a very sad day for him.

Or is this someone else using the propaganda arm of the GOP to try to force Bondi out? It seems unlikely, but not impossible.

¹ I.e., President Trump, notorious for not being able to open his mouth without dribbling out a lie or three.

Just for fun.

I was quite disappointed, if perhaps not surprised, to run across this:

I see George Will is trying a bit of sleight of hand when it comes to spending on political races:

On [June 18th], peak absurdity reaches the Supreme Court. It must decide whether a compelling government interest is served by limiting “coordination” between parties and their candidates. Lest the parties corrupt their own nominees?

Notice the subtle bullying of the intellectual process by suggesting that this is obviously ridiculous. But let’s think about it this way: Are candidates and their parties inseparable entities?

No. Many candidates, especially in the past, held certain positions at variance with their national party’s interest. In fact, it was quite a common phenomenon; today, it’s a bit less common.

Candidates are also mutable. There’s an old trope about the well-intentioned innocent entering politics, and exiting umpteen years later covered in shame. It’s not a myth. Is it that hard to see a Party transforming the earnest politician into a self-serving wretch? No. The reverse is more difficult, but I think that historians will point to Mr Trump as a prime example of a candidate effectively corrupting a Party through the mechanisms of persecution of the earnest and the induction of the corrupt.

Actual quid pro quo corruption involving donors is rare. Abundant research confirms what common sense suggests: Political contributions move to politicians’ issue positions, not the other way around. Teachers unions generally support Democrats for the same reason opponents of gun restrictions generally support Republicans: the parties’ preexisting beliefs.

Abundant research doesn’t mean it was insightful research. After all, dishonest candidates, outside of Mr Trump, do not want to be caught being corrupt as the electorate puts a great deal of value on the honesty of candidates. Worse yet, Mr Will hits the big red button: Common sense. This is another bullying phrase that should never be used when it comes to politics, usually because scaling solutions to 300 million people is a delicate proposition. I still apply it in this distantly related area, as ethics are, as Mr. Heinlein once noted, the most important aspect of a political candidate, and coercing ethics from an unethical candidate is a tricky thing to do.

But citing abundant research that corruption is rare without acknowledging the difficulties inherent in such research is the sort of thing that makes my skin crawl.

The takeaway? When someone tries to intellectually bully you, look around for the curtain. Pull it back. See what’s cowering in the corner.

In case you’re wondering how the fringe is dealing with the tragic results of the flooding in Texas, here’s a sample from fringe figure and candidate for the House of Representatives from Georgia Kandiss Taylor:

They want us to believe it’s all just natural. The hurricanes. The floods. The droughts. The tornadoes. The fires. …

[Some liberal quasi-quotes]

These people are so brainwashed they sound like programmed zombies. They twist and pervert every word, not because they’re right, but because they can’t handle the truth.

Let’s talk geoengineering. Let’s talk cloud seeding. Let’s talk HAARP, stratospheric aerosol injection, solar radiation management, and weather weaponization.

Yes…those are real terms. Real programs. And they’ve been around for decades. You don’t need a degree in rocket science. You just need eyes to see and ears to hear.

So let’s take this apart, shall we?

1. Invocation of conspiracy theory culture. BTW, notice the word natural. It really has no role in her assertion, because the word really means without the interference of human activity, and that’s impossible; the word is used because often the interference is negligible. In the case of climate change, the argument from the conservatives is that human activity influence is negligible, while liberals and scientists assert otherwise, i.e., what is called anthropogenic climate change.
2. Prioritization of personal experience over collection & study of data. This justifies the reader’s experience being used to make a judgment, rather than dealing with the massive data collection and interpretation.
3. Reminder of conspiracy theories: for readers of Skeptical Inquirer, all of the terms mentioned, besides being legitimate science-related terms, are familiar as being subjects of conspiracy theories. Some are old, such as HAARP, an atmospheric study program from the 1990s, or cloud-seeding, involving silver nitrate seeding of clouds in order to induce rainfall. Some are relatively new, such as geoengineering, the goal of which is to reduce the amount of solar radiation trapped by the Earth’s atmosphere.
4. Reiteration of #2.

Then it gets kinda … funny.

What’s happening is not normal.

What’s happening is not natural.

What’s happening is FAKE!

What does fake mean? Those citizens of Texas weren’t killed?

No. She seeks to use fake as a linkage word from her religious tenet that anthropogenic climate change does not exist to the disaster in Texas. It’s clumsy, ungrammatical, and induces uncertainty in her meanings – probably not what she wants.

But she wants power, recognition, and prestige, and better a clumsily written calumny of the liberals than silence.

Because this tragedy is just the sort of thing that happens when climate change hits. Lives are lost, property destroyed, and the fringe-right loses the interest of independents who, until now, feared losing social position and, well, change in general. I can sympathize with the latter.

They were told repeatedly that climate change is a lie.

Then that it’s happening, a little, but it’s from a natural source.

But each bit of evidence that is injurious to those independent citizens also reduces the fringe-right’s influence and power. Every independent that walks away from the position of denying anthropogenic climate change reduces the fringe-right’s power.

And so we get confusing, twisted messages such as Taylor’s.