Category Archives: Uncategorized

I suppose my physicist readers – if any – will not be surprised by this, but this is the sort of thing that boggles me. From NewScientist (17 February 2018):

It is called superionic ice. It only occurs at temperatures matching those on the sun’s surface, and pressures exceeding a million Earth atmospheres – the environment predicted at the centre of ice giants. In this hot ice, the oxygen ions of the water molecules behave like a solid, staying in place to form a lattice, while the hydrogen ions flow through it like a fluid.

This structure gives superionic water ice resistance to very high temperatures.

From the academic paper’s abstract:

Using time-resolved optical pyrometry and laser velocimetry measurements as well as supporting density functional theory–molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) simulations, we document the shock equation of state of H₂O to unprecedented extreme conditions and unravel thermodynamic signatures showing that ice melts near 5,000 K at 190 GPa.

5000° K appears to be around 8540° F. It’s just so interesting and surprising how the properties of matter change with pressure from surrounding matter.

The real question is whether or not some sort of specific, tangible benefit will come from this research.

And here’s an ice giant that may have this stuff at its core:

Neptune!
Image credit: NASA/JPL

It’s sort of a law of the markets that investors in big companies, as well as the medium sized companies, along with positive potential, want to see predictability in the business of their favored companies; it lets the investors sleep at night.

President Trump’s announcement of tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) may have just taken that quality away from businesses yesterday. It’s not that tariffs may be enacted, but the manner in which they were announced – uncoordinated, without consultation with industry or Congress, but simply as a matter of arbitrary fiat. President Trump may claim, even justifiably, that he is fulfilling a campaign promise, but President Trump is notorious for making many claims, mostly false, to justify his actions. He is in the process of proving, however, that is willing to enact tariffs on the spur of the moment.

And the result of these tariffs? No one knows for sure. Members of his own party aren’t happy. Certainly, foreign powers, from adversaries to allies, are not happy, as CNN makes clear:

The EU and Canada both expressed their opposition to the new tariffs shortly after they were announced, and said they weren’t afraid to retaliate.

“We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement.

Predictably, President Trump is embracing the chaos:

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!

It’s interesting how he tries a sleight of hand – moving from a product to a country. But will he continue? I’ve noticed Trump likes to throw proposals out to see what happens and then withdraws them – or pretends he never made them – in favor of another. So these tariffs are not a done deal.

However, this has to upset the jittery investor, as we’re already seeing in the market behavior of yesterday and, so far, today – down, down, down. And don’t forget the algorithmic traders whose algorithms may not understand how President Trump operates, which is easy to believe as most of the United States doesn’t really understand him, either.

Regardless of whether or not these tariffs are actually implemented, the markets have been put on notice that President Trump will meddle in the national economy as his whims takes him – and that investors should beware.

I anticipate a lumpy ride until we toss him out.

This long-dormant thread concerns the distribution of data across national boundaries, and recently a case involving exactly these concerns came up in front of SCOTUS, exciting some comment among the lawyers. Professor Andrew Keane Woods of Lawfare has a summary post:

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in United States v. Microsoft Corp., a case that will carry broad consequences for our digital lives. The issue to be resolved is whether a warrant obtained under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) can compel a U.S. company to produce information under its control but stored outside the United States. If the Supreme Court answers that question affirmatively, some commentators warn that authoritarian governments will compel American companies with a presence in their borders to produce similar information. But if the court says no, others fear that governments will pass so-called “data localization” laws requiring companies to preserve copies of their data within the judiciary’s jurisdictional reach.

Andrew then further comments here, but to summarize his fascinating post, SCOTUS was enigmatic in its questioning and behavior, and ideological position appeared to not be significant. Andrew’s conclusion, insofar as that’s possible at this point:

One thing that was not mentioned was how the world might react to this case. For a court that often has a keen eye on whether it is in step with other courts around the world (for better or for worse), silence on this issue was notable.

Countries around the world are watching this case because it could be used as a precedent—privacy advocates have called it a dangerous precedent—for the state to exert extraterritorial control over the internet. If the U.S. can do it, the thought goes, then other states will do it. The problem with this concern is that states have long asserted, under longstanding principles of international law, the authority to regulate some international conduct because it has effects in the state, or it concerns the state’s citizens, and so on. So it is unsurprising that states are already busy regulating the internet in ways that have extraterritorial effects. The Canadian Supreme Court has attempted to compel Google to take down certain links worldwide. French authorities have attempted something similar. And just this week, a top EU regulator announced that she expected the EU’s impending privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation, to have extraterritorial effect. (This is particularly striking because the EU filed an amicus brief in the Microsoft case to argue, more or less, that it was hesitant about extraterritorial application of U.S. law.)

This case may affect your Internet experience in the future, especially if the State considers your activities to be criminal.

Retrocausality:

This idea that the future can influence the present, and that the present can influence the past, is known as retrocausality. It has been around for a while without ever catching on – and for good reason, because we never see effects happen before their causes in everyday life. But now, a fresh twist on a deep tension in the foundations of quantum theory suggests that we may have no choice but to think again. [“Blast from the future,” Adam Becker, NewScientist (17 February 2018, paywall)]

Iran continues to be concerned about water management, as AL Monitor reports:

Explaining the prospect of water conflicts in the Middle East in the near future, [Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas] Araghchi said, “The West Asia region is rapidly moving toward a complete drought. There are currently only nine countries in the region, including Iran, that have not faced a complete drought. But by 2025, all countries in the region, including Iran, will be in a state of complete drought.”

He said, “In such a situation, all countries are seeking to make full use of their water resources and do not allow water to flow out of their country. Our neighbors will adopt this policy, and we will as well. The country’s policy is to stop the flow of water from leaving the country. Of course, this is not so our neighbors become thirsty, but as I said, this needs to be managed.”

Mohammad-Ali Sobhanollahi, chancellor of Khawarizmi University, told conference participants, “The geopolitical map of the world, which was previously based on energy, will undergo water-related changes in the next 25 years.”

He emphasized that the water crisis in the Middle East is more severe compared with other parts of the world. “Reports indicate that the water crisis will cause massive displacement in the region in the next 25 years,” he told attendees.

The ecological consequences of stopping the flow of water across national boundaries will not be positive, unfortunately, since national boundaries rarely follow ecological boundaries. The impact of climate change may be severe for those countries located near the equator, for temperatures may soar out of the bounds of human survivability – at least when the human is unaided. Remember the old Indian remark about mad dogs and Englishmen? That may fade, finally, as even the mad dogs retreat to any haven they can find.

It really leads me to wonder what the Arabs and Persians will do as the heat soars and the poor suffer and die. Will they build refuge centers and hope they can keep them air-conditioned? Will underground living come into vogue?

Will they sue the United States in international courts for making their lives unlivable? Seeing as they supplied a substantial portion of the fossil fuels in question, that may not fly, although much of that supply occurred before anthropogenic climate change was known to be possible, much less probable.

Still, it appears the Arabs and Persians face a subdued, if not out and out grim, future. Still, never count out the industrious person. Elevated areas should be somewhat cooler, new technology may be developed.

The real trick will be avoiding war, as that disrupts everything positive, and that’s what they’ll need – positive developments.

First, a bit of exploitation, then we’ll do a splashy sacrifice, eh, boys?

Pleasantly forgettable, The Crimson Cult (1968; this is cut version of Curse of the Crimson Altar) is one of those brittle UK examples of the period in which characterization is somewhat neglected, resulting in characters that come and go and flirt and die with perhaps less reasonableness and urgency than fulfills the modern sensibility. Add in segues between scenes of a staccato nature, and the movie shares that brittleness often seen in British films of this period.

Robert Manning and his brother, Peter, are antique dealers, and Peter has gone off into the countryside in search of merchandise. He sends some items to his brother and then fails to return home. Robert goes to the small village of his last known location, encountering a people celebrating the burning of a witch centuries ago, and a local mansion whose inhabitants either cannot speak or claim they’ve never heard of a Peter Manning.

He persists, romancing a lady of the mansion, Lavinia Morley, and finally recalls his brother often used a fake name. This elicits a response from the owner of the mansion, who, in fine upper-class British form proclaims he doesn’t where Peter went, but now Robert’s having nightmares in which a woman is on trial and he is  under pressure to do – something.

Creeping over the edge of his subconscious into reality, his arm is bleeding when he finds himself staring into the lake. A cop has ambled by and gets him back into the house – but after a bit of opportunistic nookie, he finds his blood trail leads into a wall. Behind that is a hidden room, and with his love interest in tow he discovers a room of fake cobwebs and items that come from his nightmares.

Well, hopping over the usual mistakes and flourishes, it comes out that the master of the household has been searching for all the Mannings and other descendants of those villagers instrumental in the death of the witch Morley all those centuries ago, and then running them through this trial through hypnosis. As the lass Morley had the poor taste of sleeping with Robert, she gets to share in his misfortune. Fortunately for these two, a local professor rumbles up in his wheelchair, finds the hidden room, and shoot the master of the mansion in the hand. He, however, has the presence of mind to set the room afire and dies in the resulting conflagaration.

Oh, yeah, his name was also Morley.

There is a little tension, and it was nice to not have this take the easy route into the supernatural, but the lack of connection to the characters made it hard to really care, despite the efforts of Boris Karloff, who carried the part of the professor with great gravitas. Great acting can only compensate so much for inferior stories.

In the end, harmless and a trifle dull.

Remember the candidacy of Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) for the Senate seat of Jeff Sessions during the special election of last year? He came in third in the GOP primary, and during his concession speech he said:

I do not support the Islamic state.

Well, the outrageous attacks are continuing, this time in Mississippi where incumbent Senator Wicker (R-MS) is facing a primary challenge from a certain State Senator Chris McDaniels, who, according to the Clarion-Ledger, kicked off his campaign with these statements at a rallly:

State Sen. Chris McDaniel announced his challenge and immediately began trying to run to the right of incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker on Wednesday, calling him “one of the most liberal senators.”

“I’m tired of electing people to Washington to score points for the other team,” McDaniel told a crowd of about 200 in a packed auditorium at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville. “We’ve been reaching across the aisle for years and what have we got? Twenty-one trillion reasons not to reach across the aisle anymore.. Wicker votes more often with Charles Schumer than he does with Rand Paul.”

McDaniel promptly mentioned Wicker’s support for changing the Mississippi flag—  the last in the nation to include the Confederate battle emblem — a potential weakness for Wicker among conservative, white Republicans.

Surely Senator Wicker must be some sort of liberal villain? Bunk buddies with Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-NY)? Ummm … no. As of this writing, Senator Wicker has a Trump Score of 97%, meaning he votes the way Trump would like him to vote 97% of the time. No person willing to do a bit of research will mistake Wicker for being a liberal. He’s more like Trump’s lapdog.

And, of course, the bland mention of the government debt and associating it with the Democrats ignores this Congress’ contribution to the debt going forward, as well as the spend-happy Congress of 2000-2006, when the Republicans also controlled all the wings of government.

But it’s this willingness to indulge in blatant lies and misdirection which indicates the depth of the wounds in the Republican Party – and potentially the Democrats as well. This is all about a lust for position and power that overwhelms any basic urges towards the decency on which any reasonable society must be built. If we’re unwilling to treat our neighbors and political adversaries – all fellow Americans – in an honest and forthright manner, then our mainstream political culture is badly broken.

Once upon a time, political gatekeepers would have bounced people like McDaniels, and whoever spread the slander about Brooks, out on their noses. Today, they’re respected – or feared – politicians and political operatives who terminally pollute the very lakes in which they swim.

Prepare for more outrageous remarks by those desperate for prestige and power. Fortunately, behavior like McDaniels’ marks them with a big red flag. The trick is for the citizenry to do their research and reject McDaniels’ and his poisonous ilk – whether they’re running on the right or the left.

A reader comments on future American weakness:

Yes, the damage to intelligent, skillful government functioning in this country is irreparably damaged, and will remain that way for 30 to 50 years, even if the current president does not make it to full term. Worse, by then the world will have essentially passed us by. America in 30 years will no longer be the world leader, nor have the diplomatic, military and economic clout it has today; it’ll be a has-been barring some catastrophic event which allows us to regain that position (.e.g. such as was WW2, and that’s a less desirable outcome).

While that is certainly a possibility, I do not consider it a certainty. Reports from the field indicate an awakening on the part of the Democrats and the irreligious to the current problems of and in government, resulting in a flood of candidates at all levels of government for seats. Given the erratic and poor performance of this GOP-dominated U. S. government, apparent to anyone not living within the echo chamber of the extremist right wing, the ideology of the right should be discredited to some extent, although there’s the possibility of the baby landing in the snowbank next to its bathwater.

And if there’s one thing this country can do, it can move fast when it wants to. I worry about future weakness in this country, but I also think that if a resurgence of rational people in important government positions occurs, we can clamber back to the top. We have educational centers, physical resources, human resources (just think of the Obama Administration personnel who could be ready to step up and bring their expertise to bear), and a number of other advantages which we can take advantage of – if we stop plopping second- and third- raters into government.

That’s the key.

Of diplomacy, that is. I’d never heard of White House Calligraphers before, yet today various news outlets are crowing over the fact that the chief White House Calligrapher holds a Top Secret clearance – while Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and lead on many important diplomatic missions, has lost his.

CNN has a nice history on the office, but here’s a site by the former chief White House Calligrapher Rick Paulus, showing some distinguished examples of his work:

Comity:

The legal principle that political entities (such as states, nations, or courts from different jurisdictions) will mutually recognize each other’s legislative, executive, and judicial acts. The underlying notion is that different jurisdictions will reciprocate each other’s judgments out of deference, mutuality, and respect.

In Constitutional law, the Comity Clause refers to Article IV, § 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution (also known as the Privileges and Immunities Clause), which ensures that “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” [Wex Legal Dictionary]

Noted in “Analysis of Microsoft-Ireland Supreme Court Oral Argument,” Andrew Keane Woods, Lawfare:

I would be surprised if the justices divide along ideological lines.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed most persuaded by Microsoft’s position, and Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed some sympathy too—suggesting that the government’s position was to “ignore” the extraterritorial aspects of the case. But Justice Stephen Breyer may be inclined to rule the other way.  He suggested that magistrate judges ought to be able to issue warrants for foreign-held data as long as they take account of comity concerns—factors like whether another state has a legitimate interest in the data’s disclosure.

I thought this article from The Onion was a joke:

In an effort to make the frequent festivities for departing staffers more efficient, White House officials announced Tuesday that the administration is now just holding one continuous going-away party.

No, really, I did. But then came this report from WaPo just yesterday:

Josh Raffel, a senior communications official in the White House who has been a go-to crisis manager and who has worked closely with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, is leaving the administration, officials confirmed Tuesday.

Raffel’s departure, which will take place within the next two months, comes as Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser, is under increasing scrutiny for his inability to secure a complete FBI background check for his security clearance, and with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation intensifying.

And Steve Benen adds:

The Raffel news came just one day after Joseph Yun, a top U.S. diplomat overseeing North Korea policy, announced his retirement.

And that news came three days after Elaine Duke, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, announced her retirement.

And I’d quote more from Steve, but we have an interruption here! Communications Director Hope Hicks has resigned:

White House communications director Hope Hicks, one of President Donald Trump’slongest-serving and closest aides, is resigning, the White House confirmed Wednesday.

Hicks’ departure capped her meteoric rise from Trump Organization communications aide to the upper crust of power in Washington in just a few years, during which Hicks sought to maintain a remarkably low profile for someone in her position.

Her resignation will undoubtedly reverberate for months to come inside the West Wing, where Trump will find himself for the first time in more than three years without the constant presence of his most loyal aide — who is among the handful of aides who worked with Trump at his company, during the rollicking campaign and into the White House. [CNN]

Some of these folks came along for the Trump ride and discovered it was excessively bumpy, while others are long-time bureaucrats with a lot of expertise, and their retirements really do hurt our government.

So what to think of these goings? There’s the temptation to take a bit of schadenfreude in an unprecedented wave of people leaving government, and Steve Benen tries to keep a list of all the important people who leave, which can be found at the above link. I fear his list is becoming unwieldy.

But behind each leave-taking is another step into chaos. True, for the high level ideologues such as Bannon and Gorka, it’s just as well that they and their peculiar beliefs and theories are gone. But a lot of these people have real, useful skills, and those exits destabilizes our government more and more, leaving us vulnerable both in the short-term and in the long-term. How so? Because we miss possibilities, we fail to pursue activities to take advantage of opportunities. Our current government, which is basically leaderless, fails to pursue possibilities and I have to wonder if, 20 years in the future, we’ll look back on this clown show and wonder how much betters things could have been if we’d had a competent leader in place, rather than our self-centered amateur.

When will Speaker Ryan finally act?

The socially highly conservative organization Focus On The Family (FotF) has declared itself a church, according to Right Wing Watch:

Focus on the Family, the behemoth Religious Right organization founded by James Dobson, has declared itself to be a church, thereby avoiding a requirement that it file public tax documents, according to IRS records and a document available on the organization’s website.

Focus on the Family filed as a non-church 501(c)(3) nonprofit as recently as the 2014 fiscal year, submitting to the IRS a publicly available Form 990 as most tax-exempt nonprofits are required to do. But when the group posted a Form 990 for the 2015 fiscal year on its website—dated October 26, 2017, and reporting a massive budget of $89 million—it was emblazoned with the message “Not required to file and not filed with the IRS. Not for public inspection.”

Right Wing Watch admits to being puzzled. I’ve been thinking about this, and in the light of the upcoming mid-terms, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m seeing the light. Despite the Johnson Amendment, which bans churches from endorsing politicians, it still happens through small subterfuges such as ‘voter guides.’ FotF may be looking at the coming mid-terms, gulping at the current polls, and deciding to batten down the hatches. If the Democrats are as successful as they are hoping, FotF will be losing a friendly Congress, if not an Administration, in about a year.

If they’re planning to pour money into upcoming elections, especially the 2020 Presidential election, this may be their way of obscuring some of the money trying to influence voters.

The mercuriality of a President who values loyalty to himself above all is evident in this CNN report of the President’s statement on assault weapons:

After listening to Vice President Mike Pence talk about due process and the conversation that Trump had with governors earlier this week, the President suggested that in some cases, it is best to take the gun first and then go to court after.

“Or Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court,” Trump said.

He added, “A lot of times by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures, I like taking the guns early.”

Trump pointed to the shooter in the Parkland case, citing all the red flags and calls from neighbors — all warning signs that went unnoticed by law enforcement.

“Take the gun first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

The NRA can’t be happy. In fact, I think there’s was a big thump on the right-wing as the NRA was thrown into the cement mixer by Trump.

Their “mistake” was to put him in a position where he was in a bad light, and it doesn’t matter what NRA-friendly option he offers – he looks bad. This ultra-sensitive President cannot stand that, and in tried-and-true fashion, he swung all the way to the other side of the spectrum, suggesting that due process rights should be violated.

Will this fracture the support for President Trump? It’ll be interesting to see the polls over the following few days. The last poll from Gallup showed an up-tick, while other polls supposedly went lower than ever before.

And the sight of a sitting President recommending an illegal action is appalling. That is not an option for you, Mr. President.

But don’t be surprised if we see a surge in buying of guns and ammo.

A reader asks a question and gets an answer on Facebook concerning war weapon wounds:

Is “cavitation” what people are trying to say when they talk about “tumbling” bullets?

The answer:

The tumbling bullets create cavitation: the formation of an empty space within a solid object or body.

the formation of bubbles in a liquid, typically by the movement of a propeller through it.

A third reader notes that healing is relative:

I’d also like to point out that if you survive a gun shot of any kind, you will likely be damaged for life. Most surviving victims of gunshots don’t just walk away with a scar on their leg that’s a conversation piece. There’s very little press or information on those people, yet there are ten of thousands of people living with gunshot wound disabilities.

I can’t say I know anyone with a gunshot wound, at least that I can think of offhand.

Ya know, at one time this was a country that really respected education, knowledge, and the research of scientists. There was a time – no kidding – when Albert Einstein was a rock star, a figure of learning and insight that inspired thousands to try to follow in his footsteps.

These days? I’m appalled.

On Tuesday a large crowd outside the [West Virginia] state Senate chamber loudly chanted slogans — including “United we stand!” and “Where is justice?” — and waved homemade posters as a walkout that began last Thursday escalated.

“We are fed up. Enough is enough,” said Jamie Heflin, 38, a single mother who teaches at Lenore K-8 School in Williamson. “We’re tired of the disrespect.” …

“We can’t be doing our jobs for less and less and less money,” said Carmen Soltesz, 37, a middle school social studies teacher in Williamson who has been on the job for a decade.

The strike began a day after Gov. Jim Justice signed legislation giving teachers and some other state employees a 4 percent raise over three years. They would receive a 2 percent raise starting in July, followed by a 1 percent increase in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, according to a news release.

That legislation has been sharply criticized by teachers’ unions and their members, who say the pay increases are too stingy. The raises, they say, would not cover cost-of-living spikes and the rising cost of health care.

“The proposed raise … doesn’t even keep us up with other states,” said Dale Lee, the president of the West Virginia Education Association.” [NBC News]

I think the treatment of teachers in this country is reflective of the general American attitude towards knowledge and learning, and I fear it’s just another step down the path to banana-hood. Against the challenges of tomorrow, how are we going to solve them if our children, by and large, are not getting a good education because we won’t pay our teachers enough?

For some of these legislators and school board members, it’s being parsimonious, although I’d call it penny-wise, pound foolish. The same can also be seen, to some extent, in the rising tuitions and falling share that taxpayers pay for the privilege of having people with college degrees in society – although in previous discussions on college tuition I’ve acknowledged other factors in rising tuitions.

People may complain about the cost of education, but perhaps they should concentrate on the price of having adults with no education in society.

And now, for a peep of sanity … in the above, I don’t necessarily get upset over West Virginia being ranking 48th in teacher pay, although it stirs the hackles a bit – some State has to be last, because it’s a relative metric. But when you hear that teachers have to take a second job on top of an already exhausting first job, that’s when the red lights flash – because that’s a fairly good proxy for an absolute metric. The wrong metric can raise the blood pressure unnecessarily, y’see. But it’s OK to be upset when you hear their raises don’t even keep up with the cost of living.

That’s just stupid disrespect. Education brings prosperity, ignorance brings poverty. Don’t these yahoos in the Legislature know how to think?

In New York Eric Levitz reports on the latest step along the path of logical insanity:

… on Monday night, Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows floated a compromise:

[Tara Golshan] One idea @RepMarkMeadows floats on gun control: tax credits for volunteers — like retired law enforcement — who want to offer security for schools.

This proposal gives something to both sides: It leaves teachers unarmed, just as liberals requested, while also giving a targeted tax cut to any patriotic American with a gun, too much free time, and a longing to legally pump bullets into another human being — or, in conservative parlance, to “a well-regulated militia.”

Well, my goodness. You’d think they’d eventually make sense.

But no. I wonder if they’ve realized that these “patriotic Americans” don’t have to be patriotic. They could easily just be one – or even more – sickos desperate to shoot themselves some kids.

The fact that the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre was giving off signals that he was dangerous doesn’t mean everyone else will.

If this proposal somehow goes through, I foresee a lot more massacres in our future.

Stertorous:

: characterized by a harsh snoring or gasping sound
[Merriam-Webster]

I’ve been encountering this word in Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, and finally decided I’d better find out what it meant.

And, yeah, I’m enjoying the book, too. First foray into Chandler.

In Slate Mark Joseph Stern is bitter about a case about to be decided by SCOTUS about the old problem of free-riding on union efforts:

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, a case designed to let the court’s five Republican appointees kneecap the Democratic Party. Everything about Janus reeks of illegitimacy. The legal claim is laughable, the outcome preordained; even the ostensible plaintiff, Mark Janus, is a puppet. At a recent event, Janus revealed that he does not understand the case at all and in fact supports collective bargaining but incorrectly thinks his union fees are supporting political campaigns. His lawyers seem to have lied to him—much like the court will soon lie to us in proclaiming that the First Amendment somehow prohibits the agency fees at issue in this case. Don’t believe it. The conservative justices can dress up their gibberish in whatever legalese they wish. The reality will remain that Janus is a partisan vehicle designed to serve partisan goals, carried across the finish line by five justices who might as well admit that the Constitution has nothing to do with it.

The background of this deeply cynical case is straightforward. In 1977, the Supreme Court rejected the exact argument being made in Janus. Its decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, involved a virtually identical challenge to agency fees in public sector unions as compelled political speech. These dues, also known as “fair share” fees, support the cost of collective bargaining. Unions are prohibited from using this money to support political activity, like campaigns and candidate contributions. The Abood court found that these fees—meant to prevent “free riders” from benefiting from union negotiations without having to subsidize them—do not violate the First Amendment, because they do not compel political speech.

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, upon whom liberal hopes often hang, seems to have dealt himself a black eye on this one during arguments:

In light of this unseemly background, you might expect all of the justices to shy away from the politics of the case. But Justice Anthony Kennedy embraced them head-on in a series of jaw-dropping exchanges. The first arose after Illinois Solicitor General David Franklin asserted that his state has an interest in “being able to work with a stable, responsible, independent counterparty” that “can be a partner with us” in contract negotiations. A look of disgust spread across Kennedy’s face, and he barked at Franklin:

It can be a partner with you in advocating for a greater size workforce, against privatization, against merit promotion, for teacher tenure, for higher wages, for massive government, for increasing bonded indebtedness, for increasing taxes? That’s the interest the state has?

He reveals his failure to keep up with an admittedly large number of issues^[1] – and, in fact, issues which are, at best, tangential to the case. That is, decisions should be rendered from settled law and the Constitution, not from projected outcomes. And, I should note, some of those outcomes are desirable. Does Justice Kennedy really believe that a tenured teacher, experienced in both subject and educational pedagogy, is inferior to some fresh out of school teacher?

Really? This would be a condemnation of our children to sub-standard education.

The issues cited by the Associate Justice, when they are problems, can be resolved without knifing the baby.

All that said, the unions had better begin planning on how to survive in this new world, assuming none of the conservative break ranks (I always hold my breath for the Chief Justice). I think their best (and perhaps most obvious) approach comes from this Steve Benen observation:

And what happens if/when AFSCME loses this case in another 5-4 ruling? Millions of public-sector workers will be able to opt-out of their agency fees, which in turn would further weaken unions, which in turn would undermine workers’ ability to negotiate for better benefits.

The union appeal should be if you don’t join the union and help fund our efforts at collective bargaining, your wages will not rise, they may even fall. Everytime you think you’re saving money by not joining us, you’re endangering your future instead.

And unions might benefit from offering a second membership status, one with reduced dues that are guaranteed to only be used for collective bargaining and, perhaps, paying for the officers of the union.

But I think bitter whining about Janus will serve only to alienate potential members of unions, because those folks who resented paying dues, even reduced dues, had a point. In the Land Of The Free, they were forced to remit dues to an organization which may have engaged in activities they found repulsive.

And the unions had a point – piggybacking is a problem.

Sometimes freedom for imperfect humans is tough.

¹For for the record, privatization has proven to not be the panacea envisioned by the libertarians, as they do not understand the importance of process optimization and how it one sector’s optimization is another sector’s disaster (see for-profit prisons for a stark example); merit promotion need not be negatively impacted by unions; tenure exists to retain talented people when it’s properly implemented; teacher tenure I addressed above; higher wages are hardly a negative, when earned, in that they help the economy keep moving along (see the recent research on raising the minimum wage and how that has affected the economy); and the rest is financial without examining the context of “skilled labor” (and it can be very skilled) is very important – I don’t want enthusiastic but unskilled laborers desperately trying to solve problems in government.

And while we’re sitting here, Associate Justice, shall we begin to discuss the various indignities (including the Pinkertons, of course) laborers have suffered when unprotected by the unions? If you’re going to sling shit, you’d better be willing to accept it as well.

Keith Whittington of Princeton University gives an overview on the Constitutional issue of departmentalism via Lawfare:

“Departmentalism” is the somewhat archaic name for the theory that each branch, or department, of the government has an equal and independent authority to interpret the Constitution for purposes of guiding its own actions. While the term “departmentalism” was likely coined by the constitutional scholar Edward Corwinduring the battle over the New Deal, the concept itself has deep roots within American constitutional history.  …

As Jefferson later emphasized to the Virginia jurist Spencer Roane, who was doing battle in the press with Chief Justice John Marshall over the court’s opinion in the McCulloch v. Maryland, “each of the three departments has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the Constitution, without any regard to what the others may have decided for themselves under a similar question.” Otherwise, the Constitution “is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” Andrew Jackson drew on such arguments directly, but even Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan nodded to departmentalist doctrines.

Departmentalist doctrines have sometimes been invoked by those who felt the courts had misinterpreted congressional powers under Article I of the Constitution—as the Jeffersonians did. In such cases, proponents of departmentalism argued that the courts had allowed Congress to do by statute what it had been barred from doing under the Constitution. Under such circumstances, presidents with a stricter understanding of congressional powers insisted on their duty to act on those beliefs and keep Congress within its proper limits.

It’s an interesting conceptual question regarding the American form of government. I mean, we’re taught that the three branches of government are co-equal, but there are implications that catch me by surprise. After all, the judiciary has the final word on the Constitution and the law, and doesn’t that mean they’re truly the superior branch in the government?

But how does one measure equality? Only the legislature can truly make laws, while the Executive has a few powers similar to laws, and the judges have to be extraordinarily creative to make any real laws – and are always subject to superior courts reversing those judgments. The entire equation becomes a matter of the time element, checks by a whimsical populace, and admission that powers may not be precisely co-equal – but are inferior or superior to the others depending on the situation.

Apparently the state legislators in the great state of Georgia are a bunch of hand-puppets, if I read this report from CNN/Money properly:

Image: Georgia.gov

Delta’s decision to cut ties with the NRA could cost it a generous tax break from the state of Georgia.

The state’s Republicans — including a major candidate for governor— are threatening to kill part of a bill that would eliminate a state tax on jet fuel. If it passes, the provision is expected to save the Atlanta-based airline tens of millions of dollars.

“We felt that it was wrong for them to single out one company,” said Chuck Hufstetler, chairman of the state’s Senate Finance Committee. Delta (DAL) on Saturday announced that it would end discounted rates for National Rifle Association members.

Hufstetler told CNN on Monday that if the airline does not reverse its stance on the NRA soon, he and others will push for the tax break to be stripped from the bill. The bill still needs to pass the Senate before it can be signed into law.

If Delta holds its ground, he added, “I don’t think [the bill] will pass as it is.”

Of course, it’s rather dubious that Georgia was going to hand a tax break exclusively to Delta. Government entities shouldn’t be in the business of handing advantages over to select companies, so this already smelled of corruption. But now Delta gets to see the flip side of winning a tax break – it can be taken away for all sorts of reasons, some of them having nothing to do with public policy, because this is power politics, baby. But that’s a rant for another day.

The twin facts of the matter is that Delta is the largest airline in the world, depending on how you measure it, and Atlanta, Georgia’s Hartsfield – Jackson airport is the busiest in terms of sheer numbers of passengers. Georgia’s Republican Party let its temper get the better of it – will Delta have the balls to signal that it’s thinking about moving operations elsewhere? That would be a symbolic slap in the face, even if it was mere rhetoric.

Georgia’s knee deep in corruption. First, a tax break that’s certainly nothing a principled conservative would dabble in, and then taking up advocacy for a private organization which has undoubtedly funded and supported many of their campaigns.

The swamp’s deep in Georgia’s capital of Atlanta.

Max Boot, stalwart conservative, hails goodbye to today’s conservatives in WaPo:

In the past I would have been indignant at such attacks [from the left] and eager to assert my conservative credentials. I spent years writing for conservative publications such as the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Commentary magazine and working as a foreign policy adviser for three Republican presidential campaigns. Being conservative used to be central to my identity. But now, frankly, I don’t give a damn. I prefer to think of myself as a classical liberal, because “conservative” has become practically synonymous with “Trump lackey.”

Richard Brookhiser, a longtime stalwart at National Review, summed up the Trump effect: “Now the religious Right adores a thrice-married cad and casual liar. But it is not alone. Historians and psychologists of the martial virtues salute the bone-spurred draft-dodger whose Khe Sanh was not catching the clap. Cultural critics who deplored academic fads and slipshod aesthetics explicate a man who has never read a book, not even the ones he has signed. . . . Straussians, after leaving the cave, find themselves in Mar-a-Lago. Econocons put their money on a serial bankrupt.”

Principled conservativism continues to exist, primarily at small journals of opinion, but it is increasingly disconnected from the stuff that thrills the masses. I remember as a high school student in the 1980s attending a lecture at UCLA by William F. Buckley Jr. I was dazzled by his erudition, wit and oratorical skill. Today, young conservatives flock to the boorish and racist performance art of Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter. The Conservative Political Action Conference couldn’t find room for critics of Trump, save for the brave and booed Mona Charen, but it did showcase French fascist scion Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.

I suppose it’s the ultimate repudiation of team politics – by leaving the team completely. Yet, as a professed conservative over the years, he must have been aware of how the GOP was moving from responsibility to extremism, all through the lure of power and money. To jump ship at this late date is unfortunately a bit late.

Source: Gallup

Not that I know how Gingrich, Ryan, and Co. could have been stopped, but I think the loss of the Republican Party as a responsible and respectable party (see previously cited Gallup poll on the right) and potential governing entity will be an enduring wound in the side of the United States. Will the probable accession of the Democrats to power in the halls of Congress in a bit less than a year resolve the problem? Not necessarily. As a country we need responsible voices on both the side of liberalism and conservatism. We do have some voices on the liberal side, but they need responsible critiquing by a serious opposition party. Did we see that when Obama was in power? Sadly, not. What we saw was No No No No No Fuck No! It’s not us so screw you!

Extremists are too much in love with themselves and their ideology to honestly and responsibly critique the other side. This group listens too much to their echo chamber, which, as Boot notes, seems to be populated by people who “… must be ever more transgressive to get the attention they crave. Coulter’s book titles have gone from accusing Bill Clinton of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” to accusing all liberals of “Treason,” of being “Godless” and even “Demonic.””

The failure of the Republicans is a failure of the United States, and is going to hurt the United States until the GOP returns to sober responsibility – or a sober and responsible successor party emerges to take its place.

And I must confess I have trouble visualizing just how that is going to happen without some truly earth-shattering revelations concerning some of the leading lights of the current GOP.

A peeping Johnny? A peeping Salvatore? Either way, it’s an unpleasant experience.

Salvatore Giordano goes from Sicilian chieftain to a hitman for an American mobster, but while he survives his faux-death in the Sicilian hinterlands, will he survive his sojourn in the States? Such is the central question of Johnny Cool (1963), a sordid tale of the conversion of a fiercely independent Sicilian into a methodical and nerveless killer. He was a man who defended his homeland with some sense of national independence, some patriotism. He had a sense of bravado then, appearing in a village to swagger and brazenly dance the first dance at a wedding, before running from the forces of the State.

But his killing, faked by a bribed Army officer, results in him becoming a prisoner of an American mobster, Johnny Colini, hiding out in Rome. Salvatore learns all he needs to become the virtual son of the Colini – the names, habits, and places of those men in America who sorely belabored Johnny, a man who never forgets an insult. And through this, he washes all that might have redeemed him, the good intentions, the affection for his countrymen, all that might have spared him Hell, and becomes a man on a mission that can only be satisfied with blood. Life is no longer full of color and bluster, just bitterly new needs.

And as the new son of Colini, Salvatore gets a new name – Johnny Colini.

Or Johnny Cool.

His knowledge of his targets is near perfect, his assassination and fighting techniques insightful, and his weapons varied. Thus is Johnny ready for anything but the woman named Dare Guinness, a directionless woman who encounters Cool at a very vulnerable moment – and becomes his mistress, his woman, his tool – but never his confidante. She is mostly uninvolved as the bodies begin to pile up according to Johnny’s frightful plans, but when a target presents himself early, Johnny makes the fateful decision to involve her. Speeding off from the bombing which kills the target and endangers two young boys, they split up, but all Dare can do is think of her role and her allegiance to Johnny, going against all she learned about being good in the world.

Her fateful phone call leaves Johnny hanging in the balance.

It’s a sordid tale of men unconstrained by the rules of civilization. For them, the power and prestige are everything, and little do they care for anything but themselves. Their endings are equally appalling.

It’s an OK story, especially at the beginning, but it became somewhat predictable in the middle. Painful in its decisions, it’s a noir film, especially for those caught up in the backwash; for those at the controls, they deserve what they get. It goes on a little too long, but if you like your noir relentless and conscienceless, you’ll like this.

Kevin Drum helpfully covers all the proposals from the right for stopping school massacres. His summary:

Have I hit the high points? The insanity here is jaw dropping. I could at least respect an argument that says gun rights are so important that it’s worth protecting them even at the price of more mass slaughters. I wouldn’t especially agree, but it’s the kind of argument I might make in some free speech cases. This flat-out lunacy, however, is beyond belief. Do the NRA folks really believe this stuff? Or are they just getting so desperate that they’re willing to toss out anything that might muddy the waters?

I want to know one thing. Back in the 1950s, back before my time, the American Golden Age as it were – did schools have armed guards, just waiting for the next shooter to come leaping out of the bushes?

Or did we have the guns under control and none of this happened, or at least not as much?

Sure, it’s not really useful to compare two such different time periods – but it’s so tempting to think about a time when the extremism wasn’t quite so prevalent.

Telson:

Source: Wikipedia

The telson is the posterior-most division of the body of an arthropod. It is not considered a true segment because it does not arise in the embryo from teloblast areas as do real segments. It never carries any appendages, but a forked “tail” called the caudal furca may be present. The shape and composition of the telson differs between arthropod groups. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Meet Your New Nightmare: Ancient Spider With A Tail Preserved in Amber,” Gemma Tarlach, Dead Things:

Known from four specimens, the ancient arachnid’s formal name is Chimerarachne yingi. Its genus name, from the mythic Greek Chimera, is a nod to its unusual mix of features. There’s that one feature you’ve probably noticed already that you might not expect to find at all in a spider: a long, segmented, whip-like tail that resembles the telson found in scorpions.