Category Archives: Uncategorized

It must have been a conspiracy that caused this tsunami, as noted by Higman, et al, in an abstract in Nature’s Scientific Reports:

Glacial retreat in recent decades has exposed unstable slopes and allowed deep water to extend beneath some of those slopes. Slope failure at the terminus of Tyndall Glacier on 17 October 2015 sent 180 million tons of rock into Taan Fiord, Alaska. The resulting tsunami reached elevations as high as 193 m, one of the highest tsunami runups ever documented worldwide. …

Our results call attention to an indirect effect of climate change that is increasing the frequency and magnitude of natural hazards near glaciated mountains.

Any ground-based eye-witnesses would be dead, of course. In fact, a drone hovering above would probably have been wrecked by air currents induced by the tsunami.

The impending drowning of various sea ports and other coastline cities is the true big story, of course, followed by changes to agricultural patterns, but incidents such as this one are terrifying reminders of the power of physics and how it ignores all the delusions of humanity.

While having a rare listen to The Rachel Maddow Show tonight, in which she was discussing Judge Kavanaugh’s views on contraception and abortion (in her view, he appears to be deeply confused concerning the biological facts of the matter), it suddenly occurred to me why the Republicans are opposed to Universal Health Care (UHC), or a one-payer system. It has little enough to do with infringement on free markets, but is simply this:

If we have UHC, then the US Government will be paying for every abortion in America, full stop. Since the government is funded through individual taxes, it’s not a big step to see anti-abortion opponents seeing themselves as taking on a personal responsibility for each abortion.

I’m not going to step into the abortion controversy except to note that a fetus is not a human being. But I do think it’s worth taking note that this could be one excuse for the ideological rigidity of Republicans on this issue.

And maybe everyone else knew that.

NewScientist (1 September 2018, paywall) reports on a possible natural phenomenon that would wipe us out without a chance of redemption:

Most gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of the universe caused by the motion of massive objects – are spherical. They propagate outwards like a 3D version of ripples on the surface of a pond after a stone is thrown in. But when a high energy object or particle moves at the speed of light, theory says it creates a different type of gravitational wave: flat, or plane-fronted waves, like a tidal wave.

Frans Pretorius at Princeton University in New Jersey and William East at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada simulated what happens if two of these unusual waves collide.

Smaller varieties simply pass through one another and go on to dissipate. But when they get large enough, a pair of colliding waves can collapse into a black hole, Pretorius and East found. “These particles have a lot of energy and produce curvature in space-time, and when the waves collide, that curvature wraps in on itself,” says Pretorius.

The black hole left behind would devour about 85 per cent of the energy in the waves, the pair found. Most of the remaining energy would stream outwards in a shell of slightly weaker gravitational waves, while a small proportion of the waves would be essentially caught in orbit, circling the black hole forever (arxiv.org/abs/1807.11562v1).

I’m just fascinated at both the idea of gravitational waves colliding causing a black hole – and that a gravitational wave is itself affected by gravitation. I suppose it’s inevitable, given how a black hole warps the area around it, but I’m still boggling a bit. A measure of my lack of knowledge about exotic physics.

I’ve discussed the sectors of society in the past, and how the importation of operationality of one sector may be non-optimal for achieving the goals of another society. It appears that, consciousness of this or not, the health sector is trying to move away from private sector operationality:

A group of major American hospitals, battered by price spikes on old drugs and long-lasting shortages of critical medicines, has launched a mission-driven, not-for-profit generic drug company, Civica Rx, to take some control over the drug supply.

Backed by seven large health systems and three philanthropic groups, the new venture will be led by an industry insider who refuses to draw a salary. The company will focus initially on establishing price transparency and stable supplies for 14 generic drugs used in hospitals, without pressure from shareholders to issue dividends or push a stock price higher.

“We’re trying to do the right thing — create a first-of-its-kind societal asset with one mission: to make sure essential generic medicines are affordable and available to everyone,” said Dan Liljenquist, chair of Civica Rx and chief strategy officer at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah. [WaPo]

This could be quite a big bit of news, and it’ll be worth keeping an eye on.

Come back, foolish airplane, I want to play!

The first half of Varan The Unbelievable (1958) is an oddity among old kaiju movies – there are actual characters with real chemistry that get to speak believable dialog, and I’ll tell you what – that was a real, if relative, pleasure. Added to that, the moviemakers had the smarts to make the first encounter with the eponymous monster quite sublime in the Burkean sense of the word, as I’ve mentioned in other reviews: one had the sense there was more to monster, that its horror went on and on, since all we could really see was its foot, and even that was enveloped in dust.

So what’s going on? US Navy Command Bradley is at a Japanese lake to test a desalination process based on adding chemicals to the water, along with his Japanese wife and some elements of the Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF), which are illustrated with some nifty real-world footage. Unfortunately for Bradley, his experiments awaken Varan, a big ol’ lizard sleeping on the lake’s bottom, that eventually begins to trample the country-side, despite the efforts of the SDF. Not satisfied with tromping about the lake’s beaches, Varan heads back into the water for Oneida, a local city.

At this point, it’s become a standard city romp (technically only the airport is stomped, but the experienced reader will understand the point), complete with plastic model tanks and plot holes. For instance, why should the chemicals used by Bradley to inadvertently awaken Varan be used to try to kill him? It makes little sense, and the relentless good acting isn’t enough to overcome the disappointment of what this movie becomes.

Never mind me, just looking for that Chicken McFinger I dropped on the floor.

And it’s too bad, because Varan itself wasn’t too bad in the monster department (although my Arts Editor is not in complete agreement on that point). Some other average to good special effects, good dialog, and a halfway decent start to the movie makes the second half sting a bit more.

And, in that, this review may be unfair. After all, this is a 60 year old movie. Perhaps the destruction of the city’s airport by a monster was quite the novelty for the contemporary audience.

But this movie also lacks a good theme. We could theorize the theme is not to mess with Mother Nature, but awakening a big lizard isn’t really something I’d worry about when boldly experimenting. I’d worry more about my hair falling out.

In the end, it’s actually a bit fun, a bit disappointing, and you wonder what it could have been.

In The Plum Line Gary Sargent reckons the already-notorious anonymous op-ed piece in the Times is little more than a cover for officials in the White House as well as the GOP’s reputation:

In reference to anonymous Times op-ed from a senior White House official detailing how officials are colluding to keep President Trump from making truly terrible decisions, NBC News has been collecting statements from the many candidates, and I find I can’t help supplying the silent additions and corrections to them. This turns out to be a more serious exercise than one might expect. I shan’t capture the entire NBC News article, I’ll just supply my thoughts for each candidate:

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: He’s been caught in a number of his own lies, so maybe he’s the one. But it’s clear, from his days as Governor of Indiana, if he’s bright enough to coordinate such an effort – or realize that it’s necessary.

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO: Despite his politicization of the CIA, his experience there and as Secretary of State may have broadened his horizons enough to “be the guy”.

DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DAN COATS: “Oh, I wish I had, I wish I had.” Coats was publicly castigated by Trump personally, and of course the intelligence community has been dissed by Trump on numerous occasions. But I suspect he’s too circumspect.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: You can bet your poker hand she did it. Her reputation is absolutely in shreds, and this is the only way to restore it.

DEFENSE SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: Too busy.

DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET MICK MULVANEY: He’s a lunatic in Trump’s vein. He might do it if he saw personal opportunity to advance up the career ladder, though, because that’s what Trump would do.

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY BEN CARSON: He may have been too sleepy.

TREASURY SECRETARY STEVE MNUCHIN: This guy’s a cipher, but his lack of prior government service suggests it’s not him. Don’t put too much money on that bet.

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY ROBERT WILKIE: Too busy cleaning up prior Republican war detritus to write something like this.

LABOR SECRETARY ALEX ACOSTA: Who?

CIA DIRECTOR GINA HASPEL: “Yes!”

COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT KELLYANNE CONWAY: You bet she did. It’s part of makeup sex with her husband, trenchant trump critic George Conway.

EPA ACTING ADMINISTRATOR ANDREW WHEELER: He’s been a non-entity, so I dunno. If it was still Pruitt, the answer would be a slobbery NO, because his mouth would be XXXXXXXXXX^[1].

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY SONNY PERDUE: Who? Probably too busy trying to buy off Trump-voting farmers who are now weeping over the tariff-wars.

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATOR LINDA MCMAHON: This former pro-wrestling executive wouldn’t possibly be this subtle. She’d deliver – in person.

ENERGY SECRETARY RICK PERRY: It’s possible. I can’t imagine he enjoyed the Trump-praising session all that much.

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE WILBUR ROSS: This guy is scum, and I saw a report that Trump balled him out once. I could see him tossing a hand grenade into Trump’s shorts while trying to make like an angel.

WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL DON MCGAHN: Perhaps. I don’t have much of a read on the guy.

TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY ELAINE CHAO: “But she wishes she was.”

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA JON HUNTSMAN: But why?

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY ALEX AZAR: Mr. Azar is keeping his head down until the shrapnel has cleared. Then, and only then, will he claim credit.

U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT LIGHTHIZER: He said, “I did not write it. It does not reflect my views at all, and it does not reflect the views of anyone I know in the Administration.” He then returned to his hermit’s life in the Ural Mountains.

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION BETSY DEVOS: She was too slow composing the essay to claim to be the author.

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS NIKKI HALEY: By temperament, yes, by access, probably not.

Just going through them and contrasting them with the top people in either of the previous two Administrations makes clear just how much of a debacle this amateur has brought about, because it’s very easy seeing at least half, if not more, of these senior officials having it in for President Trump. The Obama and Bush Administrations? Even if their ideology didn’t suit you, it was a lot more difficult to find rank incompetence, although I will admit the FEMA guy in the Bush Administration turned out to be a total loss. Bush called him Brownie.

But in comparison … wow. Just wow.

¹I like to pretend this is a mildy family-friendly blog, so I shan’t quite say that. Just remember that Mr. Pruitt’s picture is next to the word sycophant in the latest Merriam-Webster dictionary.

A conservative friend, no doubt a little upset about the pressure under which President Trump finds himself to which I made reference, asked me a question on Facebook today:

Have you looked at your 401k lately?

Well, no, not as such, although I keep an eye on the entire portfolio.

But this gives me an excuse to talk about choices of metrics. This is an important topic, I think, which is sometimes under-addressed by media and citizens alike, because using the wrong metric can and almost always will lead to bad conclusions.

My friend’s implication is that the economic system should be the metric by which we measure “how well we’re doing.” But I have my doubts that this is an appropriate measure.

First, it’s quite self-centered. If my self-worth inflates by a magnitude or two, but all those around me sink by 90%, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Frankly, I suspect there’s a problem. It may be one of those problems where the villagers show up at my door with pitchforks and torches.

In addition, this metric reminds me of something that has irritated me about some progressive arguments I’ve seen on The Daily Kos, where a few members were puzzling over the failure of conservative voters to vote their self-interest. I’m sure some conservatives make the same argument, only they see self-interest differently. And, for those of us who understand the concept of self-sacrifice and why it’s actually a selfish action, my observation may seem amiss. But taking the whole vote your self-interest thing face value, it turns elections into contests over which group is larger in terms of benefiting from lower taxes or higher taxes, stronger development or weaker development, etc. In particular, that first clause, concerning taxes, is deeply misleading given the Kansas debacle.

Disregarding a side road labeled Self-interest is not necessarily economic, my second point is to ask, what use is wealth when we risk inflation? The tax change bill passed by the Republicans and signed into law by a boastful President Trump has done little to boost the economy, but more importantly it’s pushed us toward the cliff of inflation and/or national bankruptcy, as noted by the folks at the Bipartisan Policy Center recently:

The federal deficit so far for Fiscal Year 2018 reached $532 billion in May, which is 23 percent higher than the same period last year, according to monthly data released today by the Treasury Department. The total deficit remains on track to reach roughly $800 billion for the year.

In the month of May alone, the federal government ran a monthly budget deficit of $147 billion, which was 67 percent higher than the deficit in May 2017, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Key drivers of the year-over-year deficit increase through May included:

• Gross interest spending rose 12 percent to $318 billion, a $33 billion increase relative to 2017
• Corporate tax revenues fell 25 percent to $124 billion, a $42 billion decrease from 2017
• Federal spending, excluding interest payments, increased 5 percent to $2.4 trillion, a $122 billion increase relative to 2017, driven in large part by increased spending on health care and defense programs

“Nine years into our economic recovery from the Great Recession, it is indefensible that we allow the deficit to grow unabated,” Shai Akabas, BPC director of economic policy, said. “These growing deficits are not a surprise, we have been warning about them for years.”

The Laffer Curve, while it may function in certain circumstances, is not a universal phenomenon, and so we’re now facing enormous new debts incurred by those with faith, rather than belief, that lowering taxes will increase economic activity. Turns out it’s not that simple. And to finance the debt? You-know-who may turn to printing money.

Therefore, an increase in my 401K is not impressive if inflation is eating it alive, and, worse, for those of us on a fixed income, it’s fucking disaster. Now some people would just shrug and state that it’s their problem for being, say, elderly, but I remember the United States as a polity, a political entity the purpose of which was the common defense and the common welfare. Throwing people off the cliff for not being as business-savvy as the rest of us is not how we started out – but it may be how we end, as those who would be discarded instead storm the mansions of the wealth and rid us of them.

Relating to the previous point’s conclusion concerning the common welfare, a third point is that measuring my self-worth doesn’t tell me anything about the trend lines of those structures around me which I require. A hypothetical might be the terminal degradation of all the farming land in Minnesota. A less hypothetical, and just as concerning, is our health system’s own health. There are many press reports on President Trump’s assault on the ACA, to the extent that I no longer use the term ObamaCare, but TrumpCare, because he’s taken it over. I know that members of my extended family are now worried about having health care at all in the future due to the continued assaults by Trump and other conservatives on the ACA. If the health of my neighbors and family is at risk, what do I care for my 401K?

Fourth, liberty. Yeah, I just said liberty, and by that, I refer to the authoritarian tendencies of President Trump. Of what use is money if our political system is damaged beyond repair? We need to remember that our economic system is secondary to our political system, or, better yet, our economic system is contingent on our political system. Capitalism may work in non-liberal democracies, but honestly it doesn’t work very well and often degrades into mercantilism, or perhaps doesn’t ever climb out of the black hole of mercantilism.

This suggests that our first metric must be the health of our political system, as was foreseen by the Founding Fathers. Given its current distress as President Trump continues to display so much incompetency that I honestly believe he’s afflicted with dementia, it seems entirely foolish to look at a 401K as the measuring stick of the current Administration, as well as the GOP so incompetently in charge of Congress.

Or, the 401K metric simply sucks. It tells us nothing of importance.

In case you wonder who’s going to be quoted in the paper soon – many people suffer this malady, I’m sure – I suspect it’s going to be mental health professionals specializing in dementia and how such a person can appear to be perfectly normal in one aspect of his life, and completely bonkers in another.

Just sayin’ it seems quite probable. After all, a big chunk of the American people are going to need an excuse for their misjudgments fairly soon now.

On Lawfare Professor Keith Whittington ponders how conviction on impeachments charge should proceed in the Senate (and if this conversation doesn’t leave you gob-smacked, you’re not paying attention to the conduct of our Executive branch):

President Trump presents a different problem, and indeed a problem that would be unique in the history of federal impeachments. The concerns revolving around President Trump do not center on a single incident like President Johnson’s effort to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, or even a closely related set of incidents like Judge Humphreys’ support of the secessionist cause. President Trump has found himself entangled in a myriad of legal, political and constitutional difficulties, and he seems to stumble into more with every news cycle. If the House were to pursue impeachment charges against the president—perhaps after the midterm election and the seating of a new Democratic majority – the biggest challenge might be how to edit the list of potential impeachment charges down to a manageable size. Members of the House Democratic caucus have already introduced possible articles of impeachment focused on the president’s rhetoric after the Charlottesville riot and his unerring ability to bring the presidency into “contempt, ridicule, disgrace and disrepute.” It is easy to imagine more, ranging from his actions during the 2016 election campaign to his obstruction of the Russia investigation to his ongoing financial conflicts of interest to his handling of national security secrets to his abuse of his discretionary constitutional and statutory authority. Rather than doing everything possible to walk back out of impeachment territory and demonstrate that impeachment is not a necessary remedy to what ails the White House, the president and his supporters have preferred to dig in and try to weather the storm.

Trump’s critics have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to presidential scandals. Their difficulty comes with establishing that any single scandal is sufficient to justify the president’s impeachment and removal. Of course the president’s most committed foes are already convinced that Trump should be removed from office. Indeed, many thought extraordinary steps should have been taken to prevent him from even being inaugurated. The president’s fellow partisans, however, have thus far been unimpressed. Although many Republicans might readily admit President Trump’s many missteps, relatively few are prepared to say that those missteps amount to impeachable offenses that would justify overturning the will of the voters. Like Bill Clinton before him, Donald Trump benefits from the fact that those who cast their ballots in his favor had already decided that his personal flaws did not override his political utility. Trump’s many foibles were priced in to his presidency.

And in conclusion?

If, however, offenses pile upon offenses and an officer cannot be adequately checked and trusted to conduct himself in a more responsible manner befitting his high office, then the constitutional calculus changes. Impeachable offenses cannot be adequately evaluated is isolation. Although senators might be called upon to vote on one charge at a time, they have a responsibility to consider the totality of circumstances when casting that vote.

If the history of the President is such to suggest that he’ll continue to engage in behavior that is not to the benefit of the United States, if it’s a pattern of bad behavior, I do not see how one can excuse it.

However, I suspect the extremist right wing that is now the GOP sees the President as a useful tool for implementing their agenda. They can tolerate his crass attacks on our liberal democracy, because, to their minds, a liberal democracy is not important. They may see a Dominionist future, a fascist future, or a corporatist future, but not one where a liberal democracy is critical – or even tolerated.

I fear the Trump supporters are being played, at least in part. I’d rather not see the conclusion of such a play, I suspect it’ll not be what anyone, except our adversaries, would like to see.

A reader remarks on our surprise garden occupants:

If you’re talking about the plant with the trumpet-like bloom, that is Datura. They open in the evening and are pollinated by the hummingbird moth. They will get a prickly seed pod that spits out seeds after it dries. You can probably thank a bird or the wind for bringing it to your yard.

Ah! Thank you! I see the folks at iNaturalist also identified it as Datura, aka Devil’s Trumpet.

Some poor fool uploaded a recording to YouTube of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) upbraiding Democrats for actually trying to conduct a thorough hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to SCOTUS:

A righteous scolding, no? Steve Benen points out some inconvenient facts:

But the GOP senator may not remember recent history as well as he should. “If you want to pick judges from your way of thinking, then you better win an election”? Well, Barack Obama won an election – in fact, he won two – and when he tried to fill a Supreme Court vacancy with a compromise nominee recommended by Republicans, Graham and his GOP colleagues refused to even give Merrick Garland a hearing, choosing instead to impose a months-long blockade with no precedent in the American tradition.

If “winning an election” is the prerequisite to picking judges, why did Graham participate in a partisan scheme to steal a Supreme Court seat from a democratically elected president?

What’s more, Graham is conveniently overlooking the fact that several Senate Republicans argued in 2016 that if Hillary Clinton won the presidential race, they’d block any Supreme Court nominee she chose, regardless of merit, for her entire term. There was, at the time, a pending vacancy on the high court, and at least three GOP senators said that they’d keep that vacancy open until 2021, at the earliest, if the Democratic won.

And there’s more.

But I’m not here to bury Senator Graham. I’m here to glorify his name.

In fact, I’d like to suggest that every time, in the future, that a politician, be they Republican, Democrat, or other, tries to ignore the facts of history while scolding his or her colleagues like children, that politician be known as “pulling a Graham.”

Thank you.

On Lawfare, while reading Professor Dakota S. Rudesill’s analysis of policy changes from the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration with regard to cyber warfare, I couldn’t help but reflect on alternative explanations for this:

It is by now clear that the Trump administration is pursuing a broad project of driving responsibility for national security decisions down the chain of command, and reducing review by the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) interagency process. The result is to empower agency-level actors, particularly cabinet secretaries, the directors of the NSA and CIA, and military commanders.  But decision devolution also drives up risks of uncoordinated government activity. Ultimately, the president is coming to bear less practical responsibility, and potentially less political responsibility, even as he retains ultimate constitutional and moral responsibility for what happens on his watch.

My question: who made this decision? President Trump? Or someone who doesn’t really want Trump involved in decisions for which he’s clearly not prepared? Steve Benen had similar remarks as well:

I realize many of us have grown inured to the bizarre circumstances we find ourselves in, but I’m inclined to stick that excerpted paragraph in a time capsule. The amateur president of a global superpower just says things, and no one — including White House officials — has any idea what to make of his orders or whether anyone intends to act on them.

As we discussed a few weeks ago, this comes up with alarming regularity. For example, Trump announced in June that he had “instructed” U.S. officials “not to endorse” an official G-7 communique negotiated by diplomats from member nations. Officials didn’t much care about the tweet and they proceeded to ignore Trump’s online instructions.

& etc. I’ve remarked on the long-term consequences of this de facto policy of treating the President like a child to be ignored, and while long-term the consequences are negative, we must first survive the short-term, which may require this regrettable policy.

In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser describes meeting Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who is retiring at the end of this term, at Senator John McCain’s funeral:

A few minutes after the service, when the talking and singing was over and the bipartisan establishment flowed back into the humid swamp outside the cathedral, I ran into Jeff Flake, McCain’s fellow-senator from Arizona and, like McCain, one of Trump’s few remaining public critics among Republicans on Capitol Hill. “The fever will break eventually,” Flake said. “It has to.” It was an oddly optimistic thing to say at a funeral, and, when he said it, it hardly sounded convincing.

Senator Flake, your analogy should acknowledge the role the body’s immune system, in particular the antibodies that neutralize pathogens, plays in breaking that fever. You, sir, should have considered yourself one of those antibodies and helped lead the Republican resistance to President Trump.

Instead, you’ve chosen to retire just because you were facing a tough challenge in the primaries. Those primaries were your chance to stand on a stage in front of your fellow Arizonans and articulate why your vision of the Republican Party is superior to that of President Trump’s and his fellow extremists. Being a Senator may mean working with others, but it also carries the responsibility of being a leader when the requirement arises.

As it stands, you sound desperate more than confident, a bystander who doesn’t understand what is happening, or how to fix it. And that’s a sad thing to say about a politician and his political party.

A doomed romance. Spaceship radio operators are never good mates.

We discover that we’re going to the moon to rescue the Moon-people in Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), who have deviously influenced the lady navigator of the first ship to go to the moon. There’s some barriers, of course, such as the moon-spiders (I think my parents made one just like those in the movie to scare the kids on Halloween and called it Herbie), and the fact the ladies on the moon, having eliminated the men of their race, plan to do the same with Earth-men.

And it’ll be a takeover, not a rescue.

It’s all dull, corny stuff, and if there was a noteworthy theme, it escaped my attention. In fact, we both managed to fall asleep during it. Stay away from this dog.

Not unexpectedly, Nike’s signing of Colin Kaepernick to an endorsement deal has led to some backlash, as reported in WaPo, although its magnitude is not yet clear. But the report goes further on the history of Nike and social justice:

[Corporate reputation adviser Anthony Johndrow] said there is a perception that “you’ve got to keep your house in order first,” and that companies “can’t go proactive unless they’re pristine.” But Nike is charting another path, Johndrow said, not because the company lacks issues of its own, but because it has historically engaged with hot-button issues in its advertising.

In 1995, for example, Nike looked to its “Just Do It” slogan to raise awareness of women’s rights in sports. That same year, the company featured Los Angeles marathon runner Ric Munoz, who was HIV positive. …

Joe Holt, an expert on business ethics at the University of Notre Dame, said there is an important moral difference to companies promoting their views “because you have to” versus “because you want to.” He said one true test of a company’s values is if that company is willing to stick to them even at a financial cost. Nike’s use of Kaepernick in the “Just Do It” ad seems to affirm that dedication, Holt said, because it will inevitably alienate some customers.

I remain unpersuaded that this will result in Nike losing money. I believe they’ve analyzed the moral issue in detail and came to the conclusion that Kaepernick is in the right – and, secure in the knowledge that a system with a component of a belief in justice will reward those who behave in a just way most of the time, took their decision to be on what they consider to be the side of justice.

It’s also possible they simply analyzed the demographics leanings and made their decision on which will lead to more profit in the future. However, if that information ever got out, they’d be at hazard of being abandoned by the youth element they’re pursuing, as they are far more idealistic than the older generations and more likely to abandon Nike for a purely profit-driven decision with no moral reasoning going into it.

Nike may not be profitable in the near-future, but in the long-term I suspect they made the right decision.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear that the Trump team understand the basics of negotiations, as Leon Sigal implies on 38 North:

While the Trump administration demanded that the North move first, reportedly by providing a complete inventory of its nuclear material and production facilities, the North countered with the demand that Washington join South Korea in declaring an end to the Korean War. The declaration would commit to initiating a peace process that would include military confidence building measures to reduce the risk of deadly clashes in the contested waters of the West (Yellow) Sea and the Demilitarized Zone and culminate in a formal peace treaty.

The administration contends that the North wants the peace declaration before taking steps to denuclearize, but as North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told ASEAN foreign ministers in early August, “We believe that a method involving the balanced, simultaneous, step-by-step implementation of all terms in the Joint Statement, preceded by the establishment of trust, is the only realistic means of achieving success.” He emphasized the North’s “unswerving resolution and commitment to responsible, good-faith implementation of the Joint Statement,” and the “unacceptability of a situation in which we alone are the first to move unilaterally.”

His statement is just the latest indication that a deal is possible if the United States is prepared to accept a peace declaration. Seeking a nuclear inventory in return will only initiate a long period of uncertainty, however, with little benefit to the US and allied security while Washington tries to verify that inventory and while North Korean manufacture of fissile material and missiles runs free. A better starting point for Washington to seek is a suspension of the production of plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and intercontinental- and intermediate-range missiles, along with a declaration of the locations of related production sites.

Giving in to the demands of a dictator would make Trump look weak, and upset those in his base who see North Korea as a slave state, which is not necessarily wrong. It’s certainly an alien ideology to the West, and one I would consider unstable as it depends on the temperament of exactly one person.

And, yet, sometimes one must compromise in order to make progress towards an ultimate goal. Will agreeing to ending the Korean War constitute progress towards transforming North Korea from a war machine to a democracy?  Or would Kim continue to reign unimpeded? These are the hard questions facing every American President, and, in Trump’s case, it may be complicated by the expectations of his base. Common right-wing expressions that Obama was terribly weak, especially in the face of contradictory indicators, may make Trump’s goals that much more difficult to reach.

A number of pundits and legal professionals got bent out of shape over President Trump’s Tweet yesterday concerning the recent indictments of Republican Representatives Collins and Hunter:

[tweet https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1036681588573130752]

For example, Steven Benen:

After more than a year and a half in the White House, Donald Trump genuinely seems to believe that the federal justice system should shield the president’s political allies – not only because of their partisan allegiances, but also because, in Trump’s mind, the attorney general should weigh electoral considerations before allowing criminal suspects to be charged.

Sally Yates, who served as acting attorney general before Trump fired her last year for giving the White House good advice, described the president’s rhetoric as “nothing short of an all out assault on the rule of law,” and I’m hard pressed to imagine how any fair minded observer would disagree.

Of course, it’s also easy enough to interpret this as another attempt to stir up the Trump base. The idea is to keep the emotional subsystem swirling about, aka “System 1”, and not let System 2, or the intellectual system, kick in^[1].

And, in fact, I do not credit the President with enough self-awareness to realize how what he writes may be interpreted. He may realize it, but even then he may not follow the consequences that the maelstrom that follows the collapse of the system we’ve built to so painfully over the last 200+ years would destroy not only him, but his family. He’s in immediate survival mode at the moment, proceeding on a plan he may think is clever, but has little basis in the realities of the moment.

But I think this is a great moment to take the measure of those in control of Congress. It’s clear that he’s calling for his own supporters to receive a break from the Federal law enforcement system, and in the past he’s whined about his political opponents not being investigated.

This is inciting corruption.

Any competent Congressional leader of any party should be calling for, and if they have the power, convening impeachment proceedings right now. Any excuse given in the past has been shredded and disregarded by competent observers. The fact that neither Ryan nor McConnell are not moving to remove this President is a measure of how far removed they are from the proper and required exercise of the powers of their offices. Whether it’s from fear for the fate of their party, their personal electoral fates (but Ryan is retiring at the end of this term), or fear for their personal safety matters not a whit.

And, as a further measure, the failure of the common Republican member of Congress stands as a further condemnation of the Republican members of Congress and the GOP itself. To my mind, this is due to the team politics concept that I’ve mentioned before, but perhaps I’m staring through my prism too much.

So, until November, it’s up to the Republicans to decide if they’re going to be responsible in governance – or prove they’re completely unworthy of the position. Their fate as an American political party is extraordinarily dependent on their decisions in the next few weeks.

¹This is from the book The Persuaders, which describes our cognitive apparatus as coming in two systems, #1 being the quick, fight or flight response, which is not rational but often serves best in emergency situations, while #2 is the rational, but slower, response. It’s a good book.

We think this may be wild cucumber.

Your Corporate Executive on Drugs.

The Wasp Woman (1960) is the classic story of the corporate executive who goes a step too far in pursuit of profit, and is turned into a wasp as a result.

Clllllllllasic. Yes. Shakespeare reportedly did a version, but lost the script during a drunken bout of sex with Queen Elizabeth.

And here it is.

Colin Kaepernick, the Super Bowl calibre quarterback that couldn’t find a job in the NFLlast year, remains unemployed in his chosen field this year after the entire preseason has been played – but not in that of endorsements, as The Bleacher Report notes:

Nike selected former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the face of its “Just Do It” campaign, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

And I think that simple, single sentence is a signal of how Nike sees the future, which is, as always, youth-centered. I did a little digging but failed to find any polls on the issue which call out results on an age basis. I suspect they would show that young people are more concerned with the justice of the situation than their elders, especially those who belong to no particular racial minority, who tend to have a more concrete approach to such matters.

So Nike, along with GQ^[1], recognizing the demographics of the situation, has made Kaepernick into one of their spokesmen, and by so doing have aligned themselves with the youth movement. Perhaps corporate leadership in either or both cases has an actual rational reason that has nothing to do with future corporate profits in making these moves – but, absent any cogent press releases on the matter, I doubt it.

And the poor ol’ NFL is between a rock and a hard place. Their best fans are getting older and don’t necessarily understand Kaepernick’s actions, the younger set are more likely to sympathize but wonder why they’re watching a sport that has terrible consequences for its players, and the President is – exceptionally inappropriately – pressuring the NFL to, well, take a knee by implementing rules that require the anthem to be honored.

Which is absolutely no  honor at all.

¹GQ named Colin its 2017 Citizen of the Year, according to The Bleacher Report article. On further consideration, that sort of honor may indicate GQ really does think kneeling for the anthem is a valid action. Good for them.

Years old, I think, but inspirational.

And the ornamental grass really didn’t appreciate it a week or two ago.

We tied it up with some string and it seems happier now.

Yes, Mr. Hammer, could you find my viscera? Someone seems to have sucked it out of me.

Mickey Spillane was not always content to simply write his books concerning leading man Mike Hammer, but once to actually play Mike Hammer in a movie, and that was in The Girl Hunters (1963). Hammer’s assistant and love interest, Velda, disappeared 7 years ago, apparently dead, and Hammer has crawled into a bottle and pulled the stopper in afterwards. But when a dying man appears with information suggesting Velda may still be alive, Hammer discovers purpose for his life has been restored.

The bullet that killed the man leads to another man killed with the same gun, a US Senator, and leads Hammer into danger where trusting the wrong attractive woman could get him killed. But Velda, mysterious Velda, summons him onwards, even as he discovers her concealed previous career as an OSI operative during the War. Hammer’s attention to detail and a sort of provocative caution serves him well as he solves more than one crime at a time, leading to a satisfying crescendo of betrayal and revenge.

The music is irritatingly repetitive, the audio is somewhat defective, but the cinematography is satisfactory and the story is not as predictable as one might expect. It’s no award winner, but it’s a respectable effort. And Spillane is not awful.