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Jerry Falwell, Jr, President of Liberty University, preceded in that position by his prominent father, gave an interview with WaPo a few days ago that has caused a bit of a stir. Elizabeth Bruenig, also in WaPo, uses her interpretation of theology to make this point:

Of course, that doesn’t mean Falwell never cares for Christian principle in American leaders, or that he would actually endorse a misreading of Augustine if it were laid out for him next to a stronger reading. He seems instead to have been reasoning backward, trying to explain in Christian terms why he holds the conclusions he does, rather than beginning from the religion and following it to its own conclusions. Critics of Christianity have struggled for centuries with precisely what Falwell does: That the religion isn’t very good at making you rich or powerful and that it offers very little advice for crushing your enemies or securing your own benefit at the expense of others. “A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume,” Falwell claims, in direct contradiction to a lesson shared by Jesus in Mark 12.

Tim Thomas on the right-wing The Resurgent remarks on a disturbing remark by Falwell:

But note what he says in defense of supporting a man who is lacking in the moral realm.

“What earns him my support is his business acumen.”

“A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume.”

“ … he’s got African American employment to record highs, Hispanic employment to record highs. They need to look at what the president did for the poor.”

Notice anything in common among these statements? In each case, Falwell relies upon financial arguments to defend the notion of supporting someone lacking morality. The unavoidable impression is that Falwell actually believes improved economic conditions are sufficient to identify policy – and more importantly, that policy’s promoter – as moral.

That part of the actual interview:

You’ve been criticized by some other evangelical leaders about your support for the president. They say you need to demand higher moral and ethical standards. You disagree with them on that?

It may be immoral for them not to support him, because he’s got African American employment to record highs, Hispanic employment to record highs. They need to look at what the president did for the poor. A lot of the people who criticized me, because they had a hard time stomaching supporting someone who owned casinos and strip clubs or whatever, a lot them have come around and said, “Yeah, you were right.” Some of the most prominent evangelicals in the country have said, “Jerry, we thought you were crazy, but now we understand.”

So let’s talk about morality, or ethics. How do we identify morality and immorality? Most folks would point at a code of ethics or a religious canon and, you know, gesticulate a bit before finally saying “Rule #3 forbids incest!” But, as an agnostic, I’m inclined to throw out what appear to be arbitrary lists of rules and begin anew by asking, In the absence of some divine authority inscribing lists, how do moral / ethical systems form? Are they random?

Biologists may object, but I have no problem applying the principles of evolution to human institutions. To illustrate my point, imagine a collection of fair-sized islands in the ocean. Each has a population of humans. As the Creators, we endow each separate population with a distinct ethical system. From time to time, we check in on them, and what will we find?

That some of these societies are in better shape than others. Some will have gone extinct – or, even more likely, their original ethical system will have gone extinct, replaced by something more geared to societal survival.

Now, of course I’ve glossed over numerous points, such as the effects of resources, general health, and other purposes, but I’m simply making the point that your ethical system will substantially affect your outcomes. So when Falwell attempts to use some perceived positive outcomes as justification for supporting Trump, in his remarks there is a serious echo as to how we determine good ethical systems.

Is this to say I agree with Falwell? No.

Backwards reasoning often suffers from mistaking coincidence for causation: This happened and then that happened, they must be related. Well, no. In any environment of even slight complexity, teasing out which factor is causative and which is caused or even coincidental can be quite the feat. Ethical systems evolve over long periods of time, during which, like biological evolution, avenues are explored and those rules which lead to bad outcomes are explored and discarded, while those rules leading to good outcomes are selected. It’s a bloody business, and sometimes the value of a rule, which is to say whether a rule is good or bad, takes a long time to play out. For example, the American / libertarian rule that greed, in the private sector, is a good thing, is a societal rule that is still rather up in the air, in my view, and its occasional leakage from the private sector into other societal sectors proves to be quite problematic. So when Falwell tries to work backwards from alleged good outcomes to Trump’s actions, activities, and policies, he’s committing an intellectual error of mistaking two possibly unconnected results to Trump’s actions. It would not be unfair to suggest that it’s deeply reminiscent of wishful thinking.

Ethical systems evolve to help produce good outcomes for society, and in that they circumscribe behavior, straying outside those circumscribed boundaries signals danger to society. For example, it’s commonly acknowledged that truth-telling is an important part of leading an ethical existence. Thus the importance of fact-checkers in current society, under the common understanding that the more the President, whether the name is Trump, Smith, or Warren, misleads their base, the more they put society as a whole in more danger, because analyzing both past & proposed policies based on fallacious knowledge of current conditions will, in all probability, lead to fallacious, even dangerous conclusions.

All that said, could Falwell be right? After all, I did not demonstrate that he is wrong without doubt, only that there’s a very good probability that he’s wrong. How about supporting, circumstantial evidence?

Unfortunately for Falwell, he misstates facts and mistakes personal certainty for certitude about reality. Let’s look at some of his statements in the interview. In the following, personal pronouns not referring to himself usually refer to Trump.

What earns him my support is his business acumen.

No, just no. By all reports, he’s at best mediocre.

Yeah, Congress, the spending bill that they forced on him in order to get the military spending up to where it needed to be — he said that would be the last time he signed one of those. But he had no choice because Obama had decimated the military, and it had to be rebuilt.

Falwell fails to note Trump’s whole-hearted embrace of the 2017 tax bill, which contributes far more to the sudden ballooning national debt than the false meme that Obama somehow decimated the military. This is misleading and is easily interpreted as self-serving. The cutting of taxes is doing far more to bankrupt the country than anything else – except perhaps the monstrous military budget.

In general, failing to consider all the evidence, particularly that evidence which hurts your cause, is an ethical failure.

… he’s got African American employment to record highs, Hispanic employment to record highs. They need to look at what the president did for the poor.

A statement shorn of context. Add the context that the previous Administration did far more for the blacks than Trump, and Falwell looks really bad. Noting the disparity between blacks and the general populace simply reinforces the perception that this misleading statement is, again, self-serving.

And this last statement…

Only because I know that he only wants what’s best for this country, and I know anything he does, it may not be ideologically “conservative,” but it’s going to be what’s best for this country, and I can’t imagine him doing anything that’s not good for the country.

This should leave commonsense folks aghast. Even the best of us makes mistakes, yet Falwell thinks that any policy Trump decides on will be what’s best for the country? What, is Trump God?

This is one of those idiotic remarks which forces the reader to make a judgment: is the author of the remark really as dumb as a cinder block, or is this as self-serving as the others? Considering that Falwell managed to “inherit” the post of President of Liberty University upon his father’s death (a creepy circumstance deserving its own rant), has kept it for years, and manages to head up a large segment of the Evangelical movement, I think we can assume he has at least average intelligence.

So one is forced to analyze the statement to understand its hidden message, and that message is that, basically, President Trump is another coming of God on Earth, and so you Evangelical faithful had better get in line behind Falwell and engage in the usual unquestioning obedience. And note the remark about some policies

… may not be ideologically “conservative,” but it’s going to what’s best for this country …

This isn’t a throwaway line, it serves as an insulator for Trump against any sort of judgment that might come out negative from the conservatives. Falwell doesn’t care about the liberals or even the moderates, but when it comes to conservatives, he doesn’t want them to even think they can judge Trump. Just accept and, ah, worship.

So, why? Forgive my cynicism, but the Evangelicals have finally gotten their grip on the levers of power, and by God, if you’ll forgive the phrase, certain of them plan to keep their paws on them. It’s clear from his misstatements and his position of intimacy with Trump that his influence over Trump is far more important to Falwell than much anything else, such as the health of the country. Of course, I may be influenced by my observations that the pulpits do tend to attract those who wish to assume powers beyond their abilities, but then I don’t see much reason to doubt that observation.

It was really quite the interesting interview, a portal into the dark soul of the Evangelical movement. For all that Goldwater was a nut, he sure was right on this one, wasn’t he?

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

It’s easy to see this interview for what it is: the religious impulse to impute omniscience to itself. They endorsed Trump, and thus he can do no wrong. It’s really an embarrassment to the religious folks to see this mania sweep over this guy.

Steve Benen writing on Maddowblog concerning the revelation that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is only providing partial inspection coverage during the government shutdown:

In WaPo Marc Thiessen makes the case that President Trump’s address to the nation was a big win for the embattled President:

And he laid out his solution, which he explained was “developed by law enforcement professionals and border agents” and includes funds for cutting-edge technology, more border agents, more immigration judges, more bed space and medical support — and $5.7 billion for a “physical barrier” that he called “just common sense.” Without naming her, Trump responded to the absurd charge from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that a wall is “immoral.” Democrats voted repeatedly for physical barriers until he was elected president, he noted. If a wall is immoral, Trump asked, “why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.”

Thiessen, of course, is well-known as a Trump apologist who has twisted himself inside out on occasion to justify Trump’s record. Steve Benen’s reading of the situation is hardly correlational with Thiessen’s:

He probably won’t admit it publicly, but Donald Trump reportedly didn’t even want to deliver his Oval Office address last night.

The New York Times  reported, “[P]rivately, Mr. Trump dismissed his own new strategy as pointless. In an off-the-record lunch with television anchors hours before the address, he made clear in blunt terms that he was not inclined to give the speech or go to Texas, but was talked into it by advisers, according to two people briefed on the discussion who asked not to be identified sharing details.”

The president, of course, delivered the speech anyway, and by any objective measure, it was a transparent failure. As became painfully obvious over the course of his nine minutes, Trump has no plan. He has no new material. He has no offer to extend to his rivals. He has no bill to promote or lobby on behalf of. He has no facts, as evidenced by the avalancheof falsehoods he peddled to the nation. He has no support, with polls showing broad American opposition to his demands for a border wall.

Benen, too, reads the events of the day through his prism, and while I have more sympathy for his take on things – and in particular his reference to polls which document the lack of public support for Trump’s wall – it comes to mind that, in reality, it’s better to wait for polls to emerge indicating whether the citizenry was swayed, or not, by the President, by the Democratic response – or if they just didn’t give a shit. Either or both of these writers may hope to sway opinions.

But while I was contemplating the various spins presented, it seems that after these two and more years, one fact about walls finally tapped me on the shoulder and asked me why I hadn’t mentioned it yet. It’s this:

Do walls at zoos exist to keep visitors out? Or the animals in? How about prisons?

Did the Berlin Wall exist to keep the Western hordes out? Or to keep the citizens of Communist Germany IN? If my reader is too young to remember the Berlin Wall, go look up the statistics on how many people were killed by the Communist guards for attempting to go over the wall, and their identities.

For those readers who prefer to interpret reality through the prism of fantasy, consider the purpose of the wall at the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

Now, I’m not really sure how this all applies to our particular situation. Perhaps it doesn’t. But in all the yelling and screaming from both sides, it’s worth remembering that walls can keep people in as well as out. And that’s an infringement on our freedom, now isn’t it?

The problem with party zealots is that they’re useful right up until the point that a compromise with the big bad enemy comes along – and then they scream bloody murder about being sold out. So I read this CNN report on the development of a potential compromise to break the government shutdown with some hope, of a perhaps dubious sort, but I’m having my doubts that it’ll immediately go anywhere:

Staring at a prolonged government shutdown, Republican senators are privately planning to court Democratic senators on an immigration deal that would give President Donald Trump money for his border wall and include several measures long-sought by Democrats, according to sources familiar with the matter.

After Trump stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders, GOP senators privately gathered in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office Wednesday to discuss a way out of the logjam. The long-shot idea: propose an immigration deal that would include $5.7 billion for Trump’s border wall along with several provisions that could entice Democrats.

Those items include changes to help those who are a part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as well as immigrants from El Salvador and other countries impacted by the Temporary Protected Status program – along with modifications to H-2B visas.

The plan is in its very early stages. Its chances of success are still very uncertain at best, Republicans cautioned.

As an independent, I do not favor Trump’s Boondoggle, and I wonder if it’s better for the Democrats to hold out in hopes of breaking Trump on this issue. As I view Trump and his ilk as a danger to this country’s most important institutions, it might be a wise thing to do.

But compromise is integral to our style of government, and if the Republican Senators are finally going to get off their asses and offer something up, it’s certainly worth at least considering working with them on it. Possibly the best way to handle this is to offer Trump a paltry $1 billion for his wall in exchange for a few Democratic priorities, and then leave it to Trump to either accept it, and risk the wrath of his base and his Fox News handlers, or veto it and face a possible and humiliating veto override, which would sting especially as the Senate is Republican-controlled. That’d amount to a rejection of Trump by the Senators of his own Party.

Trump remains the center of political life in this country, but no longer as a vortex of chaos for the Democrats, but a cancerous wart on the throat of the Republican Party. Faced with this decision, he may find it impossible to swallow his pride and accept it, and thus split the Republican Party right down the middle.

And the Virginia state Senate race that had the DLCC so worried is in and the results are … blowout. Democrat Boysko wins by nearly 40 points. As I noted before, this seat has a history of recent Democratic victories, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise, except perhaps the magnitude. The total votes cast was just over 21,000, which appears to be a trifle on the low side insofar as turnout goes, but not terribly so.

So I think we can classify the DLCC as willing to harvest dollars through mild misrepresentations and emotional manipulation, although admittedly I couldn’t find any polls for this race, so a DLCC claim that they just didn’t know for sure is somewhat believable. Something to keep in mind, especially as their report of their victory also bridges on to the next special election, which they have left unspecified except that it’s located right here in Minnesota, and involves a Republican-held seat. A little research shows this will be for MN state Senate District 11, and has been held by the Republicans by comfortable margins over the last two elections; Ballotpedia has no data before then. The special election is Feb 5, 2019, and should be more interesting than the Virginia special election.

Perhaps most interesting is the magnitude of the victory of in Virginia, which is quite a bit larger than in previous elections for this seat. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the Democrats are still excited, especially with the government shutdown and resultant tug of war between Trump and the Democrats over the Trump Boondoggle. Will this continue? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

Keratometer:

A keratometer, also known as an ophthalmometer, is a diagnostic instrument for measuring the curvature of the anterior surface of the cornea, particularly for assessing the extent and axis of astigmatism. It was invented by the German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1851, although an earlier model was developed in 1796 by Jesse Ramsden and Everard Home. [Wikipedia]

Used on my Arts Editor yesterday.

For those readers who found the mystery foreign corporation appealing to SCOTUS to void a subpoena titillating, it has come to a disappointing end, according to Politico:

But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court turned down the company’s request to step into the dispute, at least for now. The order in the case came a little more than two weeks after Chief Justice John Roberts put a temporary freeze on the contempt order and the sanctions.

The court’s order Tuesday offered no explanation for its decision and no justice publicly signaled any dissent. The high court did indicate that Roberts referred the issue to the full court and that the short-term stay he ordered last month was now dissolved.

And no further details were given. A pity.

Politico has a piece confirming the Trumpists are clenching their fist tighter and tighter on the Republican Party apparatus:

President Donald Trump is tightening his iron grip on the Republican Party, launching an elaborate effort to stamp out any vestiges of GOP opposition that might embarrass him at the 2020 Republican convention.

The president’s reelection campaign is intent on avoiding the kind of circus that unfolded on the convention floor in 2016, when Never Trump Republicans loudly protested his nomination before a national TV audience. The effort comes as party elites like Utah Sen. Mitt Romney are openly questioning Trump’s fitness for the job, and it’s meant to ensure that delegates at next year’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., are presidential loyalists — not anti-Trump activists looking to create a stir.

But what sparked a new thought was this:

Delegate selection will be preceded by an array of elections for GOP state chairmanships, which began last month. Ohio GOP chief Jane Timken, a close Trump ally, is expected to be easily reelected this week. There are also key contests in Florida and New Hampshire.

The winners of those chairmanships will play major roles in determining who becomes a delegate in Charlotte. Trump aides have been making calls to those states in recent weeks to take stock of the contenders and determine how the contests are likely to play out.

“We are monitoring, tracking, and ensuring the president’s allies are sitting at the top of state parties,” Stepien said.

In the months that follow, individual states will determine how to select their delegates. While some state parties will choose their delegates on their own, others will pick them through conventions or caucuses. Some will hold elections where Republican voters decide.

In each case, the Trump campaign is planning on influencing the process — in some instances by organizing at local conventions, and in others by helping Trump supporters wage campaigns for delegate slots.

And what makes for “… the president’s allies …”?

Think about it. It seems reasonable – to me – to presume an ally of President Trump is someone who approves of lying, taking credit when not due, hyperbolizing beyond all rationalization, and a few other character traits which, frankly, I was taught are not desirable in anyone.

Much less a President.

But these allies of the President are now attempting to take over the levers of power. Quite honestly, if I was a moderate Republican, I would be on my way to the mailbox with that envelope containing my GOP membership card and a letter of resignation. After all, a coterie of people who approve of a lying braggart, who probably are themselves the same, are now trying to take over the entire party.

Can this end well for that moderate Republican?

I’m sure the Trump Team can simply claim that they’re wrapping up a nomination as early as possible and that it’s simply good politics, and I don’t doubt they’re being honest about it, because for them, as the old saying goes, Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing. Sadly, this is rarely true, and it isn’t at this time in American politics. Perhaps for Trump, losing would be the end of his political career, but for the American who believes in country over party, this attempt to shield Trump from intra-Party competition damages the country, rather than improves it, because we need the best candidate the Republicans can provide – not an amateur-hour politician who has proven himself to be a weak and easily manipulated man, incapable of learning or even concentrating. He mistakes bluster for strength, random chaos for strategy.

That’s not what America needs.

So I expect this purification effort in what used to be the Republican Party to squeeze more moderates out and move the party ever further into the wastelands of extremism. Look for the theocrats, such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., delighting in their new-found access to power & influence, to find more and more outlandish ways to justify their pleasure in being in proximity to President Trump.

The party will become more of a strait-jacket, and conservatism, in itself an honorable political tradition when practiced with honesty and wisdom, become more and more discredited. That, too, will be unfortunate, but I think almost inevitable when it has the face of such dishonorable people as Trump, McConnell, Ryan, Falwell, and everyone else swearing fealty to Trump.

Admittedly, not compelling on its own. The story, though, is good. In passing, I have mentioned House of Representatives hopeful Mark Harris (R-NC), supposedly a pastor in District 9 of North Carolina, who employed a Republican operative who allegedly illegally collected and discarded absentee ballots from District 9 voters for the 2018 mid-terms. Harris won the contest, but by a small enough margin that those discarded ballots may matter, and the North Carolina Elections Board refused to certify the election. The House of Representatives has stated it’ll refuse to seat Harris without the certification, so he’s kinda stuck at the moment, as the above .

You’d expect he’d be willing to to speak to the press like, oh, any legitimate representative of the people. But, nope, as WSOC TV found out:

To avoid the media, Mark Harris ran down a fire exit staircase. A man tried to prevent us from following but we still did. The alarm went off as he ran out. When media caught up he sprinted across the street to the First Baptist Church of Charlotte's parking lot #NC09 @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/vDFca16EYx

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) January 8, 2019

That sort of behavior really makes you wonder, especially as it comes from a pastor, who, popular opinion has it, should really be above such behavior.

Of course, Harris had an excuse: he wanted to go watch a football game. Not exactly responsible behavior.

There’s little chance to closely examine these war machines. Maybe we would have giggled rather than shuddered if we had.

The faux documentary War Of The Worlds – The True Story (2012) is a different approach to the classic story (retold in radio and movie forms a number of times). It’s structured as a continuous interview with “Bertie” Wells, an elderly survivor of the Martian invasion of 1896. It recounts, in linear fashion, the landings and subsequent fighting between British Army regiments and the Martian war machines.

I don’t recall ever reading H. G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds, so I’m not sure of the fidelity of this movie to the novel. Taken on its own, as independent from other retellings, is not easy, since I was favorably impressed, many many years ago, by both the Orson Welles radio version as well as the 1953 movie version, but not quite so much by the slicker 2005 version. But let’s give it a whirl, because it’s fun.

That is, this version of the story is fun.

First, the plot is suitably tight. Playing on our perceptions of late Victorian sensibilities, it’s fascinating to see how the butcher with a horse carriage reacts when a 100 foot tall war machine with a laser cannon comes stomping down on him. The courage of the Army regiments, and, later, the self-sacrificing defensive actions of the fictional warship HMS Thunder Child, reminds me of a letter written by the famous British Army officer T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, who, upon being informed of the deaths of two of his brothers in the front lines during World War I in Europe, lamented his loss but their gain in, I suppose, honor, at being able to serve their country to the point of losing their own lives. I recall reading that with some surprise, as I do not believe it is a widespread sentiment in current times. The courage depicted in this movie brought that sentiment once again to mind for my musing and fascination.

Despite isolated successes, humanity’s war efforts are generally so ineffective that armed resistance collapses, and the Martian war machines roam the landscape at will, carbonizing some of the fleeing humans, while scooping others up for a quick bite to eat. But all the while, they carry the seeds of their own destruction within them: the bacteria and viruses of Earth are hard at work, as our invisible, sometimes-loathed fellow Earth-dwellers win the day where the science and arms of mankind cannot, and soon the war machines are collapsing as the invaders driving them die from the very treasure they had in their hands. Claws. Tentacles. It’s a satisfying story in that it celebrates persistence, bravery, and a belief that, where there’s a will, there’s a way – no matter how dubious such a belief may be in real life. There’s no need to ask for congruency with reality in this theme, for if we do, then despair overtakes us and we can never hope to survive if we despair. Take that last chance buzzer-beating shot from half-court, even if you have a broken wrist – you can’t hit that shot if you don’t take it.

Equally well done is the presentation of the movie, because I’d estimate 85% of it is not original footage, but borrowed from old film reels of everyday Victorian life as well as war footage from World War I. Yellowed, sometimes out of focus, the creators of this film have deftly intermixed original footage featuring Bertie and, for a short time, his  brother, as each struggles with issues of survival and bravery in the face of a power that just doesn’t care about them, with the old newsreel footage, taken out of context, in order to suggest the reactions of Victorians to the hungry Martians. The intermixing is almost entirely well done; only once did I yell “oooops!” As I’ve watched my Arts Editor struggle with issues of integrating old photographs, now digital, with new photographs, I sympathize with the struggle of doing so in video, and this is not really a criticism of the movie, but only an observation.

Oh, and the Martian war machines? I don’t know if they were original to this production or not – but I loved them. Great stuff. The film makers were mostly faithful to Burke’s adage concerning the sublime – never try to show it all.

I see from the Wikipedia page the producers were following in Orson Welles’ tradition of blurring the line between reality and fiction, and I’m not sure I’d agree that they managed to pull it off – but I do celebrate this well thought out attempt.

So, if you like alien invasion movies, and don’t mind a bit of a twist, see this one. Or if you’re tired of Hollywood blockbusters, see this. I can’t quite say it’s generally recommended, but it’ll repay the curious viewer.

This report in WaPo is discouraging, if it turns out to be true:

A secret effort to influence the 2017 Senate election in Alabama used tactics inspired by Russian disinformation teams, including the creation of fake accounts to deliver misleading messages on Facebook to hundreds of thousands of voters to help elect Democrat Doug Jones in the deeply red state, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

But unlike the 2016 presidential campaign when Russians worked to help elect Donald Trump, the people behind the Alabama effort — dubbed Project Birmingham — were Americans. Now Democratic operatives and a research firm known to have had roles in Project Birmingham are distancing themselves from its most controversial tactics. …

Recent revelations about Project Birmingham, however, have shocked Democrats in Alabama and Washington. And news of the effort has underscored the warnings of disinformation experts who long have said that threats to honest, transparent political discourse in the age of social media are as likely to be domestic as foreign.

It efficacy has not been ascertained as of yet, but that’s not really the point, because the up front question has to be Is this the right thing to do?

Now, we know what Trump operative and Mueller target Roger Stone would say:

Roger Stone is pleased to be known as a campaign “dirty trickster.”  A former Trump campaign aide and Republican operative, he has embraced his past as practitioner of the political dark arts. “One man’s dirty tricks,” he has said, are “another man’s political, civic action. He has warned that “Politics ain’t bean bag, and losers don’t legislate.” Going still further, he has articulated as one of his “rules” for success that “To win you must do everything.” Yet he has also insisted that, “Everything I do, everything I’ve ever done has been legal.”  [Bob Bauer, Lawfare]

His bald embrace of the old lie that “all’s fair in politics” is why I think Stone comes across as one of the more loathsome members of our national political soap opera. A willingness to discard social norms, to engage in deception, in the name of victory has a long history of short-term earnings but long-term disaster.

And this, apparently, is a large part of this Project Birmingham, allegedly run in support of underdog Democratic candidate, Jeff Jones, for the Alabama Senate seat of Jeff Sessions, in which Jones very narrowly defeated Republican former Alabama Supreme Court Justice (twice removed for cause) Roy Cooper. If true – and this has not been verified, so far as I understand it – then this willingness to use deceptive tactics pioneered by the Republicans has two repercussions of vast importance.

First, it tars the Democrats, to some extent, with the black, gooey stuff that already obscures so many Republicans. This is tragic because the Republicans have not been showing wisdom in their governance, but rather ideological rigidity, which is to say allegiance to positions that are becoming clearly false, such as lowering taxes will induce riches. Democrats, on the other hand, are willing to investigate and debate new ideas and toss out ideology that has proven false. Tarring themselves with deception can do them no good.

More importantly, though, is the negative impact on the entirety of politics. I’ve been disturbed of late at the FB posts suggesting that all politicians lack the code of ethics we should expect of them (this includes those with the message that term limits should be imposed, which tends to serve the goal of ensuring our legislatures are smothered in well-meaning amateurs, self-centered gold-diggers, and even the odd malevolent entity bought by national adversaries). This is not only unfair to those who do adhere to a plausible set of ethics, but it also leaves large numbers of citizens, especially those in the younger generations, discouraged and even alienated from the idea of public service.

Of course, this can become so toxic that many decide to serve in order to correct the problem, as we saw in the recent mid-term elections. Perhaps some of them will step up to the plate within the Democratic Party in order to ban such efforts in the future. Such a move would result in positive returns as people realize, through aggressive reporting by the press, that only the Republicans continue to engage in deceptive practices in order to win. A useful Democratic tactic might be to ask if the Republicans’ policy proposals are really so discredited that they have to resort to deception in order to win public elections.

But I do remain discouraged at the lack of moral and political sense shown by those operatives who tried pulling the political levers. They really should have known better. “All’s fair in xyz” is never, ever true – in the long run.

Readers who are aware of the Republican Party dishonorable hijinks in North Carolina will be interested in the report from Mark Joseph Stern of Slate on their latest delaying tactics concerning the elimination of gerrymandering:

GOP lawmakers devised a rather startling theory: They alleged that the plaintiffs were attempting to force North Carolina to violate the Voting Rights Act, the 14^th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and the 15^th Amendment’s bar on race-based voter suppression. How, exactly, could an effort to remedy partisan gerrymandering wind up disenfranchising minorities? Republicans argued that if the current map were invalidated, either the North Carolina Supreme Court or the General Assembly would have to draw new districts. And, they insisted, neither could do so without trampling on the voting rights of racial minorities. The argument implies that both legislators and the justices are too racist to be trusted to redraw the maps in a way that wouldn’t violate the Constitution.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan rightly tossed out this embarrassing Hail Mary, sending the case back to North Carolina court. Flanagan noted that she would explain her full reasoning in a later opinion, but it’s easy to see why she kicked out the case: It has no business in federal court, it is built upon a strange and offensive legal theory, and it is obviously just a delaying tactic—a bid to run down the clock so that new maps cannot be drawn before the 2020 election. Flanagan, a moderate conservative appointed by George W. Bush, had no desire to become complicit in the North Carolina GOP’s undemocratic machinations.

And that puts it back on track to end up in front of a Democrat-dominated state Supreme Court, with time to actually redraw the boundaries. Will North Carolina Republicans continue to squall about how redrawing the boundaries in any way but the one that keeps them in power?

And just how did North Carolina Republicans fare in the mid-terms? From Ballotpedia’s report on the NC Senate results:

Republicans maintained their majority in the North Carolina State Senate in the November 6, 2018, elections, winning 29 seats to Democrats‘ 21. Democrats, however, broke the Republican supermajority in the chamber by keeping them below 30 seats. All 50 Senate seats were up for election in 2018.

Heading into the elections, Republicans had a 34-15 majority. The seat previously held by Republican David Curtis was vacant. Democrats needed to win six seats to break Republicans’ three-fifths supermajority, the margin necessary to override gubernatorial vetoes.

And the NC House?

Republicans maintained their majority in the North Carolina House of Representatives in the November 6, 2018, elections, winning 65 seats to Democrats‘ 55. Democrats, however, broke the Republican supermajority in the chamber by keeping them below 72 seats. All 120 House seats were up for election in 2018.

Heading into the elections, Republicans had a 75-45 majority. Democrats needed to win four seats to break Republicans’ three-fifths supermajority, the margin necessary to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Thus forcing the Republicans to reconsider their extremism, now that they are not the supreme political force in the State. The governor is held by Democrat Cooper, and the judiciary, to the extent that it is political, has a Supreme Court mostly containing judges elected under the Democratic banner.

The Republicans are far from being discredited to the extent that they must reform, but a step has been taken. Now there’s pressure on the Democrats to be wise in the governance they can exert.

And then there’s the corruption which potentially occurred in District 9, in which Republican Mark Harris had apparently beaten Democrat Dan McCready for a seat in the Federal House Of Representatives, but then a controversy arose concerning absentee ballots being illegally collected and discarded by a Republican operative, and the election board refused to certify the election result – unanimously. That corruption may spark more resentment towards the dominant Republicans, leaking away their support among the independents on which they depend.

An exciting, if frustrating, election result, if you’re a North Carolinian.

Will the bluefin tuna, a top ocean predator, survive mankind’s blundering ways? Well, in this report concerning a single, fresh-caught tuna sold for $3.1 million …

Bluefin tuna is highly valued for its taste in sushi restaurants, but decades of overfishing have sent stocks plummeting. …

“The celebration surrounding the annual Pacific bluefin auction hides how deeply in trouble this species really is,” said Jamie Gibbon, associate manager of global tuna conservation at The Pew Charitable Trusts. “Its population has fallen to less than 3.5 percent of its historic size and overfishing still continues today.”

In response to the growing scarcity of the fish, Japan and other governments agreed in 2017 to strict quotas and restrictions on fishing, in an attempt to rebuild stocks from 20 percent of historic levels by 2034.

That has caused considerable unhappiness and some hardship in Oma. …

Hundreds of Japanese fishermen also protested against the new quotas outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in June, while Oma also canceled its annual tuna festival in October in protest.

But Gibbon lamented that Japan and other countries were already lobbying for higher catch quotas for 2019, just one year into the 16-year recovery plan, while also noting reports of Japanese fishermen discarding and not reporting dead bluefin to avoid exceeding their quotas. [WaPo]

The immediate question is what will the Japanese do when the tuna are gone? Will they abjectly take responsibility, as it won’t matter? Or will they disavow it?

Image source: Tillamook County Pioneer

Or will the Japanese decline in population^[1] be rapid enough to save the bluefin tuna from oblivion? Probably not, as I doubt the decline is rapid enough, but it’s worth considering the fact that human overpopulation is the single largest factor in the decline and extinction of many species world-wide – regardless of them being land- or sea-based. If tuna have sentience, I doubt they’re laughing that at least they get to poison those who prey on them with mercury. (I have a friend who, until recently, had dangerous levels of mercury in his body, attributable to his tuna addiction.)

But over-population is not the entire problem. Fragmentary information is also a problem, as if we had perfect information, then we’d realize that this problem is of our own causing, and the fishermen would be collaborating on how to rebuild that population – and not be clamoring to commit industry suicide. That is the most macabrely funny part of this little story of mankind vs the fishes, that the future is not as important as is tomorrow.

And how we’re going to get past that wall in our path is a supremely important question.

¹ Another WaPo article which, ironically, explores the damage the Japanese demographic decline is doing to Japan’s economy, if in fact it’s really damage at all:

According to a new report from the Japanese government, Japanese women had 921,000 babies in 2018. That’s the fewest births since comparable records began in 1899 — when the country’s population was a third its current size.

Meanwhile, deaths in Japan hit their highest level in nearly a century. Put together, that means the country’s population is shrinking rapidly, experiencing its largest natural decline on record.

Why does this matter? Well, it’s hard for an economy to grow with fewer workers. And as more people age out of the workforce, a swelling number of retirees must depend on a shrinking number of working people to power the economy. The tax base required to fund public services for those retirees — including health care and elder care — also shrinks.

Perhaps this is the idolatry of the perpetually growing economy. In the more extreme wings of the left side of the political spectrum, this idolatry has been called in question. I would do so simply because it’s so abjectly accepted by the author of this article, who goes on to suggest that if the United States wants to avoid the Japanese problems, then it should begin adopting policies much like those under exploration in Japan. The article seems to completely ignore the problems population growth will bring on, fixating only on the well-known problems of a growing retiree demographic in combination with a static or shrinking worker base.

This is one of the great conundrums of the age, and may not end well at all. I keep hoping for some unexpected solution, though, such as a great leap forward in medicine such that the elderly experience ill health for only a month, and are otherwise healthy and able to work. The other options are far less appetizing; macabre, even.

From Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee in WaPo concerning implantable devices and the FDA:

Although the FDA insists that high-risk devices undergo “stringent” testing to win approval, few actually do. A recent study, for example, found that only 5 percent of the highest-risk implantable cardiac devices were subjected to clinical trials on par with the testing required for drug approval.

In 1976, when medical devices first came under the regulatory control of the FDA, the agency simply grandfathered in all devices that were already on the market. Under this provision, known as the 510(k) pathway, new artificial joints, cataract lens implants and thousands of other devices developed after 1976 can win approval for sale (or “clearance” in FDA parlance) if the product is shown to have “substantial equivalence” to a previously cleared “predicate” device.” Four out of five devices are cleared for sale this way. Of those, at least 95 percent were cleared without clinical studies, according to research by Diana Zuckerman and her colleagues at the National Center for Health Research.

This “predicate” nonsense is especially alarming. Speaking as a software engineer, building a device from the ground-up, and then exempting it from all testing, in particular safety testing, simply because it’s similar to another device, is a sign of sheer madness. It’s a sign of vast incompetence in the FDA, or, more likely, of malevolent influence of the FDA by the industry it’s assigned to regulate. And, in fact, that’s what the article states.

If you’re a candidate for an implantable device, it might be wise to ask the surgeon if the device has been through the rigorous FDA approval scheme and s/he’s read the reports, or if it’s been exempted under the “predicate” protocol. If the latter, request an alternative recommendation of a device which has been fully tested, and that s/he write a letter of reprimand to the FDA, with a copy going to the local newspaper.

It’s a good article. Go read it.

The email bag has delivered something non-political that still has gotten under my skin.

Not only is this fantastic technology, but India now makes patches – and complete highway restorations – out of recycled plastic bags, which are holding up better and lasting much longer than traditional macadam.  Wow!

High Tech Pothole Repair

Now this is truly inspired, though the public employee unions will never stand for it.  It eliminates way too many jobs for guys standing around, leaning on shovels.

Then an mp4 is attached to the mail. Here is a YouTube video which appears to have the mp4 embedded in a story about Moscow’s pothole problem.

What is getting my attention? First, I haven’t heard of this from a real news source; second, the video appears to be a bad CGI video rather than real life. Third, the size of the machine implies so much mass that, in Earth’s gravity field, I expect the city streets on which it works would themselves crumble, as well as the sidewalk when the stabilizers are deployed and end up on the sidewalk, as one of the demos shows.

So I went looking on the Web. That leads to the fourth clue – I didn’t find a site dedicated to promoting this technology and its originator, whoever that might be. Ordinarily, it’d be right at the top of the search results. I found a couple of videos, but the first real results seems to be an article in the Detroit Free Press, which, at least in the past, was a reputable news source. I don’t really regard this as a strong clue, but still it’s the sort of thing that tells me that whoever is pumping this technology, which probably doesn’t exist, isn’t really competent to the task of evaluating the technology. Here’s the tell-tale paragraph.

Besides being James Bond cool, the machine can repair potholes in less than two minutes at a cost savings of 500% versus traditional repairs. The precision plugs will outlast typical poured asphalt solutions by years, and also provide a smooth ride for motorists compared to the uneven patchwork of today. With the new speed, precision, and quality, potholes could be diminished to the point of urban legend instead of major headache.

Did you catch the megablunder? “… cost savings of 500% …” OK, a lot of folks like to hide behind their innumeracy, but, rhetoric aside, I’m quite serious when I say that this should catch every last person’s attention, because this is simple math. Let me explain a trivial method for recognizing the meaning of that blunderous phrase.

If you had a 50% cost savings, that would mean the city is only paying half of what it’s paying now for pothole repair. Amazing! It’s worth checking out!

If you had a 100% cost savings, that means it costs nothing to repair those potholes. Even if you have to pay for the machine, that still implies the materials and power are free. Wait a minute, something’s not right here…

So, by simple progression, if you had a 500% cost savings … well … I think the manufacturer is paying the city to take the machine. Or that rubble they generate during application of the patch is apparently more valuable than gold nuggets. Wait, am I a sucker … ?

In my estimation, not finding anything believable on a quick & simple search suggests this is a hoax. I have no idea why anyone would make this video, unless it’s a school project for their computer graphics class – and then they should only get a ‘B’ on it, because the realism factor is markedly off.

And, yeah, this was just venting. The video on its own? Not worthy of comment. The guy in the Detroit Free Press who has no idea what he’s babbling about, or is a pumper? That irritates me. The editors at the Detroit Free Press should have caught it.

And me venting all over my readers is part of what this blog is all about.

There are, I’m sure, many reports on the swearing in of new members of Congress. I’ll use ursulafaw’s report on The Daily Kos, just because it’s convenient:

Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib asked to be sworn into the House of Representatives using a Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson in lieu of a Bible and the proverbial s*it hit the fan. To add a comic spin to the proceeding, none other than evangelical wingnut Vice President Mike Pence conducted the swearing in where this (undoubtedly to his mind) heretical request was made.

Etc etc (in the usual progressive patronizing tone of voice). Another new member used a law book, which motivates me to say:

ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE.

Look, we’re a secular nation, and these folks are taking an oath to defend the Constitution, etc etc. So why the hell aren’t they, that is, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, taking it on [a copy of] the Constitution? It’d be affirming, far less divisive, and all that rot.

No?

In NewScientist (22 December 2018, paywall), Douglas Heaven suggests the machines just about have us beat when it comes to games:

Gamers everywhere were watching as OpenAI, an artificial intelligence lab co-founded by Elon Musk, pitted a team of bots against some of the world’s best Dota 2 players at an annual tournament back in June.

Machines had been on a winning streak. In 2016, DeepMind’s AI mastered Go. In 2017, a poker-playing bot called Libratus, developed by a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, won a professional Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. Dota 2, a popular online battle game, looked to be next in line.

In the end, the bots beat amateur players and lost to pros – but that probably won’t be the case next time. “I think OpenAI’s chances are pretty high,” says Julian Togelius at New York University.

But this caught my eye as a vital clue as to the irrelevancy of the claim:

After playing thousands of years’ worth of the game, Open AI’s bots managed to beat a team of amateurs, largely by dominating skirmBut lishes. The bots have a reaction time of 0.2 seconds – roughly that of humans – but in that instant they can take in the entire state of the game, including details that human players have to click on or switch screens to read.

This makes the bots formidable in battle because they know the exact effect of any action at all times. The bots are also ruthless. Human players often get killed trying to save their buddies. Bots aren’t so stupid.

Or are they?

Let’s divide games into two categories, those that are fundamentally single player, such as chess, fencing^[1], or wrestling, and those that are fundamentally team events, such as football (either variety), rugby, or Data 2. I want to discard the former category from this analysis because it lacks subtlety in the interesting facet to be described, focus on the latter category, and concentrate on that statement: Bots aren’t so stupid.

Let’s consider the differences between the players in Data 2. On one side, you have human players. They have lives before and after the game. These lives may include further interactions with their team members, often in another game. Their activities during this game are not only focused on winning this game, but on being invited to play the next game. Humans are social creatures who value interactions and social membership, and to win those, they must show that they will work for the good of the group as well as winning. Think about the “hot-dogging” team member on a football or basketball squad. He or she may be supremely talented or skilled, and considered the key member of the team – but, because they may not be willing to do the down ‘n dirty stuff that such team competitions often require, and certainly hog the limelight, they will find themselves oustered from the team, despite their value. By being willing to take a risk to rescue a teammate, that team member isn’t just playing to win today, but to be part of tomorrow’s game.

On the other side, you have “bots,” computer programs which run autonomously. Perhaps cleverly programmed, or perhaps trained (as in this case) on thousands of renditions of a game. But bots? Bots are not social creatures. That’s not yet part of any AI I’ve ever heard of. They do not plan for anything beyond the end of the game.

They literally have no future.

So there are two strategies going on here. One side plays the game, with no concept of anything outside of it, while the other side is playing not only for this game, but for games in the future – and social membership.

The subtle differences in tactics appears to tell an important tale.

¹ Yes, there are fencing team events of various formats, such as relay, but in the end each constituent bout is still a one-on-one encounter.

In case you were wondering about the breadth of the impact of the Trump Government Shutdown, here’s a sample, courtesy an AL Monitor mailing, concerning Middle East lobbying of the US Government:

From Leah Crane in NewScientist (22 December 2018) concerning the new Event Horizon Telescope’s (a composite entity, actually) attempts to actually image a black hole:

The EHT collaboration’s images will look not like a sphere of darkness, but rather a banana of light. As the black hole rotates, it actually drags light along with it. This causes a bright crescent to appear on the side rotating towards us, juxtaposed with a dark shadow from the event horizon – the edge of the black hole itself.

Dragging light. That’s just a fascinating thought for this ignorant old software engineer. I would have expected the hold hole to bend light around it.

A reader remarks on my the market may be in a perform perfect storm commentary:

Come on negative Nancy, look at this way we have lived through at least 3 recessions, the sun came up this morning and We are still breathing lol, 😂.
Have a great day 🤗

Yes, hopefully we all are still breathing – but remember, there was a recession where the investors fell from the sky like rain, but without rain’s grace and charm.

For what it’s worth, the market recovered its losses and perhaps more yesterday, with the DJIA up 3.3% – and it was the laggard of the big three. The market supposedly reacted positively to unexpectedly good employment numbers, an unemployment rate which ticked up a tenth of a point, and some remarks from Fed Reserve chairman Jerome Powell which seemed to indicate the Fed won’t be the vampire that swoops in and sucks the nation dry.

Ahem.

I can remember when good employment numbers caused the market to sink, because the expectation would be that wages would go up due to competition for workers in a shrinking availability pool, thus lowering corporate profits, so I’m uncertain how much weight to give to the employment numbers assertion of yesterday. Perhaps no weight should be given to it. Perhaps investors have figured out that, in order to spend, people must first have at least a prospect of higher wages in front of them. But it’s worth reading Kevin Drum’s recent furious rant about the phantom of rising wages:

If you want to look at wage growth, you have to adjust for inflation. Period. There are only a very few specialized instances where you want to look at nominal wages, and those are unlikely to come up in ordinary conversation. So for the last time, here is real wage growth for blue-collar workers over the past five years:

To the extent that official inflation numbers are an effective proxy for however price inflation impacts you – and, remember, there were NO SMARTPHONES (you in the back row, stop twitching!) back in 1966, so how do you integrate them into inflation numbers? – blue collar workers have made no progress.

Outside of possibly owning smartphones, flat screen hi-res TVs, improved vehicles, etc.

Baaaaaack to the topic, so what’s driving the market? I’d put $10 – but no more – into the pool that says this is all about algorithms. Look, it’s hard to write computer algorithms that are working in what may be positive feedback loops, and I’m talking individual feedback loops; I’m not even sure how an individual algorithm would deal with a cumulative feedback loop. Can it be written, or trained, to recognize such a beast and either GET OUT NOW or TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE LESSER ALGORITHMS? ‘cuz that’s what they’re all about, those algorithms. Try to catch the other algorithms unaware.

It’s damn silly and I still haven’t seen a good argument to even permit their use.

Be careful out there on the trading floor. We pruned off a couple of stocks to get us out of the fossil fuel industry, something we should have done years ago, but I’m a slug. Otherwise, we’re planning to hold tight. We thought we had some dry powder, but unexpected medical expenses may shoot the chance to take advantage of a potential Trump Recession. But so long as we don’t panic and sell, we should be ok.

You?

The first special election since the midterms is coming up for a state Senate seat in Virginia, and this information is coming from a, well, I’ll call it a shakedown mailing just because I think it’s a fun phrase. It’s from the DLCC:

We’re down to the final 4 days of a crucial special election campaign for Virginia’s 33rd Senate District, and the news isn’t good:

Top Republicans have poured tens of thousands of dollars into this snap election in recent weeks, hoping to overpower Democrats and deliver a huge victory for Donald Trump in the very first special election of 2019.

Grassroots Democrats have been stepping up across the country to help our nominee, Jennifer Boysko, fight back, but we need a BIG final push to counter the GOP’s late money and make sure Democrats like Jennifer deliver a statement win to start the year off strong.

We’re down to the final 4 days until the very first special election of 2019. Please RUSH a donation to help push great Democrats like Jennifer to victory everywhere >>

And, while the first special election is mildly interesting in its own right, I was actually more interested in the content of this letter – and how it’s trying to inspire fear in its reader. I mean, just consider that second paragraph … “Top Republicans have poured tens of thousands of dollars into this snap election in recent weeks, hoping to overpower Democrats and deliver a huge victory for Donald Trump in the very first special election of 2019.” Playing on loathing for President Trump, the fear of the Big Money that is perceived to fund the conservative causes, and the possibility of a big triumph for Trump, it’s all about the money the DLCC wants.

Not about the analysis.

I read this and wondered if this was a play for a seat held by a Republican, because – despite the emotional manipulation – it would make some sense, even this late in the game, to try to buy enough ad space to wake up previously dormant voters who might vote for the lonely, windswept, fig-leafed Democrat who has only the least of chances to win victory –

Er, sorry about that. My strain of purple prose is struggling to get out. I’ll use a hammer on it. The hammer of reason.

So, let’s talk about Virginia’s 33rd State Senate District. Is this a chance to flip for the Democrats? Ballotpedia says … no. The previous election for this seat:

How about the previous election? That one wasn’t even as close as this one. The one before that? Nope.

This is a long-time Democratic seat, although it was Republican previous to 2010 – which may have been a redistricting year. Is it in danger? I doubt it, but on the other hand, it appears the Republican is quite the moderate, if I’m to believe this article in the Loudoun Times-Mirror, a local news source. No mention of Trump on the front page of his website, which may be a strategic move to appear more moderate after watching many extreme Republicans go down to defeat. Perhaps Trump won’t be entirely pleased if May were to win, because that would signal the Republicans moving away from Trump’s extreme positions. Well, extreme when he’s not being so erratic …

But now I’m off point. My real point is that the Democrats seem to be using fear tactics in order to harvest some dollars. Whether this is really true is only known to those who authorized this campaign, and whether it’s necessary will only be known when the votes are counted. If the Democrat, Boysko, wins by a comfortable margin, then the answer is No. If Republican May wins or makes it a close run, then the answer is Yes.

But I still dislike the DLCC missive. It’s little more than an electoral scare tactic.

NewScientist (22 December 2018, paywall) notes the latest evidence of Alzheimer’s, one of my personal bugaboos, spreading from person to person:

GROWTH hormones given to children decades ago seem to have spread proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

Between 1958 and 1985, approximately 30,000 children around the world received injections of human growth hormone extracted from the pituitary glands of dead people. These were used to treat genetic disorders and growth deficiencies.

Three years ago, while looking at the brains of eight people who had such injections and later died of the rare brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), John Collinge at University College London and his colleagues noticed they all had beta-amyloid proteins in their brains.

Beta-amyloid is known to accumulate and form sticky plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. These eight people didn’t have Alzheimer’s, as they all died from CJD at a young age, but Collinge says that had they lived, the presence of beta-amyloid suggests it is possible that they would have gone on to develop the illness.

I can hear the cries of the anti-science types from here. Deliberate poisoning and all that shit. This part’ll be ignored, or not understood:

The team wondered whether growth hormone itself stimulates the accumulation of beta-amyloid proteins or if the hormones were contaminated with this protein. To investigate, Collinge and his team examined samples of the growth hormone given to these eight people, which had been archived in the UK. They found beta-amyloid proteins in those samples. Also present were tau proteins, which are implicated in Alzheimer’s too.

The growth hormone used by the eight people who died of CJD was extracted from cadavers using one particular method. So Collinge and his team also looked at growth hormone prepared from cadavers using three other methods, and found no sign of beta-amyloid or tau proteins.

Of all the sciences, I often think biology is the most difficult; I’ve read somewhere that astronomers claim the innards of a star are nowhere near close to the complexity of the innards of a frog. My point? Medicine is damn hard, and sometimes I tire of people running around with their eyes bugged out over the latest medical faux-pas. Sure, sometimes there’s real, culpable fault to assign when it comes to medical blunders. Human greed can infiltrate the medical community like any other, and the pharma industry has spent decades casting that greed as a virtue rather than the corrupting influence that it is.

But the anti-vaxxers just make me tired and cynical about whether it’s real worth saving humanity.

A reader reacts to my proposal to flood the Internet with deepfakes of everyone having sex with everyone else:

Wiping out the myth will combat it, for sure. Good idea. I wonder what the side effect of not being able to believe anything you see any longer is, however.

At least on video.

But this reminds me of some background for an undeveloped novel of the near future. The pertinent idea was the saturation of society with Virtual Reality (VR). The visual was that a significant portion of society indulged in VR in public. In this fictional background, VR goggles are passé, and the desirable technology appears to be a holographic globe. From the outside, it may be opaque or translucent; the user sees the virtual reality incorporated into the holographic walls of the globe. The VR would be adaptive to local reality in such a way as to keep the user relatively safe, such as projecting a wall to keep the user from straying into a road used by real-world vehicles.

I had not considered the digital security of such a device, however, and if VR ever manages to take off, it’ll become a significant concern for anyone associated with VR. The potential damages seem almost immeasurable, and, to some extent, unpredictable.

And this may already be happening. I’m aware of certain industries, such as elevators, in which VR-like goggles which enhance the vision of technicians are a requirement of the trade. Since these are digital and connect with a home base, this renders them vulnerable to intrusion, especially if security is, as usual, lax.

To circle around to my reader’s comment, if computing and energy resource problems can be solved, an entertainment VR technology much like I visualize doesn’t seem to be out of the question – and it’ll be a tempting target to criminals ranging from simple thieves to sophisticated assassins. The problem of trusting what you see may be compounded.

Market skepticism continues, as the chart for the DJIA as of 1/3/2019 demonstrates:

CNN/Business‘ analysts are blaming the drop on …

Apple warned it will badly miss its quarterly sales forecast because of weakening growth and trade tensions in China. …

Beyond Apple, investors were also rattled by the biggest one-month decline in US factory activity since the Great Recession. The closely-watched ISM manufacturing index tumbled to a two-year low, providing further evidence of slowing growth and pain from the US-China trade war. ISM said manufacturing activity is still growing, but suffered a “sharp decline” last month.

“Awful, and worse to come,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote to clients on Thursday. “Trade wars are not easy to win.”

WaPo has a deeper analysis of the Chinese economy, suggesting the world’s second largest economy may not only be slowing down, but – a problem common to autocratic nations – may not be putting out trustworthy numbers:

While a number of factors may have played into Apple’s travails, including political tensions and a trade war with the United States, the news from the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters seems to affirm a warning that Chinese economic observers have been sounding for years, particularly in the last few months: The slowdown in China’s economy might be worse than many appreciate — and so, too, are the spillover effects.

“China’s economy is definitely slowing quite a bit across a bunch of sectors, and this slowing momentum is likely to continue for another couple of months at least,” said Arthur Kroeber, founder of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm in Beijing. “And consumer confidence is definitely down, which is probably part of what’s behind the Apple numbers.” …

Although Chinese officials report that GDP has been growing at more than 6 percent a year for a few years, “it looks truly like some sixth grader got out their ruler and drew a straight line with a slight downward slant,” said Christopher Balding, an expert on the Chinese economy at Fulbright University in Vietnam. “It’s totally unrealistic.”

And it’s unrealistic to think that an economy that large could continue to grow at 6%. After all, that implies that the inputs must also grow at roughly the same rate, and when it comes to tangible inputs such as metals, lumber, even sand for concrete, well, it can be quite difficult to expand an input by 6% when the base number is already quite large.

And then deal with the accompanying environmental damage.

So, assuming the Chinese are found to be cheating, what will that mean for the global markets? Beats the hell out of me, but I don’t think I’ll be off in left field if I state it’s going to be a bad thing. Add in the GOP’s destructive tax “reform” of 2017, Trump’s unsurprising lie that Trade wars are easy to win!, Trump’s Shutdown, and what we may be looking at is that tired old saying, A perfect storm.

Hang on tight and keep some powder dry, as they say. Try not to fire prematurely; the ejection of Trump from the Oval Office may be a salient signal of light at the end of the tunnel, although Pence is a relatively unknown quantity, and his time as Indiana’s governor was discouraging.