Category Archives: Uncategorized

Conservative Michael Gerson writes about the damage Trump is inflicting on the GOP in WaPo:

But here is the cost. When there is no objective source of truth — no commonly agreed upon set of facts and rules of argument — political persuasion becomes impossible. There is no reasoned method to choose between one view and another. The only way to settle political disputes is power — determined by screaming mobs or because “I’m president and you’re not.” Politics becomes an endless battle of true believers, conditioned to distrust and dismiss every bit of evidence that does not confirm their preexisting views. The alternative to reasoned discourse is the will to power.

This is the frightening direction of Trumpism. It is the corruption that good men such as White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly are enabling. And it is a source of enduring shame for many conservatives. “Sycophancy toward those who hold power,” said Bloom, “is a fact in every regime, and especially in a democracy, where, unlike tyranny, there is an accepted principle of legitimacy that breaks the inner will to resist. . . . Flattery of the people and incapacity to resist public opinion are the democratic vices, particularly among writers, artists, journalists and anyone else who is dependent on an audience.”

I don’t know how much Michael has written on this, as I don’t read WaPo much. He is, of course, right, as long time readers know I would say, having written on the effects of such mendacity since Trump won the nomination.

But I do notice Michael doesn’t want to go too far with this. For example, he continues to laud the nomination of Gorsuch to SCOTUS, along with various other judges to Federal seats, with nary a thought as to how Trump’s polluted thought processes may have resulted in the selection of people unfit for their positions – as has been thoroughly documented in a number of places and for a number of those so nominated and, tragically, confirmed.

So while it’s good to see a conservative recognize the long-term ill effects of Trumpism, it’d be good to see them acknowledge all of the problems, and not give those issues they favor a pass.

More of our local fall colors.

Hey, ya wanna go out for a drink after this scene? Say ‘yes’, or I’ll force another retake!
Gods can be such jerks.

It’s a fight between a would-be god and a couple of humans in Lord of Illusions (1995), folks. Substituting blood for a plot clever enough to keep us engaged, and gore for the sense of humor such a ridiculous fight is going to require, this story bumbles along from incident to incident. We’re with private detective D’Amour, sent to Los Angeles from New York to keep tabs on some guy, but when the guy goes to see a fortune teller and leaves as if shot out of a cannon, D’Amour has to investigate. The dying man he discovers in the fortune teller’s den leads him into the tangled web of a ruptured, insane cult, out for revenge for the loss of their leader-god.

Besides the silly, yet not silly enough, violence, the problem is that victory or defeat in each incident appears to be random. No one is particularly clever nor stupid, so it’s difficult to nod and feel a connection, positive or negative, with each crash-bang-thud. How do the good guys defeat the dude who’s a God in the end? It actually beats the shit out of me. Maybe he just tripped and fell down a hole. Or something.

Remember our affection for Dr. Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)? It wasn’t his aura. or his charisma, or his good looks – it was his persistence, his flashes of self-deprecating humor, and his cleverness – even when that cleverness failed – that made us root for him. But the story tellers of Lord of Illusions don’t gift D’Amour with any real feature to admire, and as the only character who we might have sympathized with, it fairly much leaves the audience with a single, dull theme.

Don’t get involved with an insane religious cult, or bad things will happen to you.

And we all knew that already.

If you want to see a young Scott Bakula, this might be worth your time. Otherwise, all I can give it is a bit of a positive on the makeup; between a bad set of characters, some choppy editing (perhaps a result of the random requirements of television), and a complete lack of sense of humor, it’s really a total waste.

Once again, someone has decided to try to drag our society towards militarism and away from peaceful democracy. Unfortunately, this mail is a picture, rather than text, so I’ll reproduce the picture and then address the points en masse, as I can’t interject them.

Let’s start with the petty and mundane. First of all, how many folks are we talking, and how much cost is involved? Something to keep in mind that it’s not just going to be pay, but also housing (which most military personnel get free).

Second, even for the 20 year career soldier, they’re getting out of the service in their forties. How long do you want to pay them?

Third, at least in the United States, they have access to the GI Bill, which helps pay the educational bills, as well as has other benefits. My Dad used this to get his electrical engineering degree. And many veterans come out with skills useful in civilian life.

Fourth, currently those with honorable and medical discharges have free medical care via the Veterans Administration. Additionally, those who are badly injured in American service do get lifelong compensation. An uncle of mine had 100% of base pay, due to a heart attack. My father had something like 60%, due to a heart infection.

But let’s step back and ask ourselves what else would happen if something like this proposal did pass; that is, what are the societal impacts? In my mind, we’d be creating an officially privileged set of people who, through 20 years of service, will then be paid even out of service and therefore will no longer be … citizen-soldiers. See, that’s what gives our society something that resembles cohesion, the idea that we can go into the service, do some work for the polity, and then come back out and be normal citizens. That’s one of our great traditions, the idea that going out and work in defense is something we all can do, through service full time or part time.

And then not be relegated to being peasants if we choose not to do so. Make no mistake, that’s what this is all about – elevating and materially rewarding, open-ended, a group of people for a limited service. That’s a setup for opening a division of mutual dislike between those who have served, and those who chose not to, whether for selfish reasons (such as President Trump), or reasons of principle, such as pacifists.

I’ll not ignore the point concerning those who serve in Congress getting 100% of their pay as a pension, but I’ll also note many of these folks are in the latter portions of their lives when they retire from their positions, so the strain on the Republic may not be great, while on the other hand their sacrifice of working for the Republic – now a full time job – may have eliminated them from contending for full time jobs once their Congressional career has ended. I would like to see those who are independently wealthy decline their pensions, of course, as a matter of honor, but in the end I find it difficult to be upset over this bit of controversial waste when they number so few in comparison to the military members.

I think this is a proposal which should be declined as deleterious to our Republic.

In 1955, after Eisenhower’s poor health required extended hospitalization, the president called on Congress to clarify the mechanisms for handling succession and disability. As the National Constitution Center notes, the Cold War made the possibility of a president who could not discharge the executive powers an even more frightening prospect and may have spurned Congress to act.

– Matthew Kahn, “How ‘Unraveled’ Does Trump Have to Be? Presidential Disability and the 25th Amendment,” Lawfare.

Hmmmm. Maybe he meant “spurred”. The other one only brings on visuals originating from my more incoherent nightmares.

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com has a cautionary message concerning Amazon looking to create a secondary headquarters:

It’s almost abusive. After shipping all their retail dollars and after years of losing jobs, sales taxes and so much else to Amazon, Cities are lining up to say hit me, hit me again! Amazon demands incentives to offset the initial costs and ongoing costs, tax credits, relocation grants, fee reductions. They want a “business friendly tax structure.”
The cities want growth. They want the jobs and the well-paid workers. But as Greg Leroy writes in Fast Company, there is no such thing as free growth. Particularly in some of the poorer, rust belt type cities that praying that Amazon will give them a new lease on life, they will have to bulk up on infrastructure and resources to cope.

More families arriving means more teachers to hire; more classrooms, roads, water mains and sewerage to build; more public safety to provide; and more trash to pick up. All of those things cost money. But if Amazon is paying no sales tax, no property tax, no income tax, and is getting cash gifts from its employees and/or the state treasury by selling tax credits, then Amazon won’t be bearing those new costs. Instead, there will be a huge burden shift: Either everyone else’s taxes will have to go up, or the quality of public services will have to go down, or some of both. There’s no such thing as free growth.

This is much like the Foxconn bribe that Wisconsin has issued, and I continue to wonder about the wisdom of trying to lure large companies via tax breaks and other incentives by cities and even states. After all, it really devalues and disrespects the local workforce, because it says We need to bribe these companies to come work in the local area – as if all workforces are interchangeable cogs in the great world-wide machine, or even inferior.

Which is most definitely not true. When education & experience levels and societies differ, inevitably the capabilities of the workforces will also differ – and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that. For example, in the computer industry there’s a widespread impression, possibly out of date, that the Chinese are good at replicating technologies and products, but innovation is not their forte. Assuming this is true, and it may not be, does it makes sense for an innovator to setup an office in a Chinese city? Of course not.

But – does it make sense for a company to try to get the best offer they can? You’d think so. Many follow this model. And so it’s incumbent on cities to

1. not permit themselves to get caught up in this whirlwind.
2. develop an able and distinctive workforce.

These are non-trivial undertakings, as the first requires an understanding of how corporations work – often not easy for government officials who may not have corporate experience.

The second is even more difficult in the face of easy nation-wide transport. Back when it was walk, ride a horse, or take a train, workforces would stay put; these days, a sufficient number of similar employers in a single location can attract the desired work force from all over the country – or the world. Meanwhile, cities don’t move and cannot restrain movement, which suggests more indirect strategies must be used, such as provision or encouragement of cultural institutions, entertainments (preferably peculiar to the area), etc.

For those cities which are losing population, this can be a real challenge. But trying to bribe companies to come to their town will have their inevitable – possibly fatal – costs.

And while most of my readers are in the Twin Cities area and so are experiencing the same colors, I can’t resist putting them online. These are all local to our domicile.

Nonce:

noun
1. the present, or immediate, occasion or purpose (usually used in the phrase for the nonce).
adjective
2. (of a word or phrase) coined and used only for a particular occasion: nonce forms such as “paintrix,” meaning “a female painter.”.

[Dictionary.com]

I recently used it and realized I wasn’t quite sure of its definition.

Andrew Sullivan believes the Democrats are in the process of throwing away the 2020 election because of how they are handling the immigration issue:

This is, to be blunt, political suicide. The Democrats’ current position seems to be that the Dreamer parents who broke the law are near heroes, indistinguishable from the children they brought with them; and their rhetoric is very hard to distinguish, certainly for most swing voters, from a belief in open borders. In fact, the Democrats increasingly seem to suggest that any kind of distinction between citizens and noncitizens is somehow racist. You could see this at the last convention, when an entire evening was dedicated to Latinos, illegal and legal, as if the rule of law were largely irrelevant. Hence the euphemism “undocumented” rather than “illegal.” So the stage was built, lit, and set for Trump.

He still tragically owns that stage. …. The most powerful thing Trump said in the campaign, I’d argue, was: “If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country.” And the Democrats had no answer, something that millions of Americans immediately saw. They still formally favor enforcement of immigration laws, but rhetorically, they keep signaling the opposite. Here is Dylan Matthews, also in Vox, expressing the emerging liberal consensus: “Personally, I think any center-left party worth its salt has to be deeply committed to egalitarianism, not just for people born in the U.S. but for everyone … It means treating people born outside the U.S. as equals … And it means a strong presumption in favor of open immigration.” Here’s Zack Beauchamp, a liberal friend of mine: “What if I told you that immigration restrictionism is and always has been racist?” Borders themselves are racist? Seriously?

And if the left has, in fact, taken up this position, I’d argue it’s intellectually wrong, and I’d suspect it’s a matter of group-think, although the latter is only a suspicion based on the use of the word racism. No one on the left, and few on the right, want to be tarred and feathered with that word. Ever. So you pick a position, associate the opposition with racism, and begin the campaign with your strategy already set out for you.

And the right, and much of the independents, won’t buy it. Indeed, it may repulse the right-inclined independents, who fiercely believe in a United States, but can’t stomach the craven failure of the GOP. That’s the political evaluation of this strategy.

It’s intellectually fucking lazy. If nothing else, nations serve as experiments in how to run societies, and immigrants to tend to mar the experimental parameters.

BUT SET that aside. Let’s analyze this from a more systematic point of view. Let’s try some analysis that doesn’t have us crossing our eyes to stare painfully at the speck on the tip of our nose. I think Andrew missed a bet. The left missed that same bet. The far right’s too incoherent to accuse of missing a bet, it would be unfair. (The moderate right – or true conservatives – I lump with the independents for the nonce.)

The real question to ask is Why is there an immigration issue? What is going on to force people to leave their homelands and come to a foreign land where they have to start all over again, illegally?

Political repression? Asylum is a legal option, so we can toss out those immigrants, who numbered about 25000 in 2014.

How about the rest? Mostly, it’s about economic distress. So what’s causing that?

Could it possibly be … the United States?

This isn’t an attack on the United States, but rather another rendition of the law of unintended consequences.. I recall reading, maybe 25 years ago, about several analyses of the impact of American agricultural exports on the agricultural sectors of the countries receiving these exports. It was apparently quite devastating, especially when those exports received financial support in order to give them a better chance at enduring success.

I’ve done some poking around, but haven’t found much to indicate this research continued. There is this report from The New York Times in 2003:

The more than $10 billion that American taxpayers give corn farmers every year in agricultural subsidies has helped destroy the livelihoods of millions of small Mexican farmers, according to a report to be released on Wednesday.

Prepared in advance of critical trade talks next month, the report by Oxfam International argues that the subsidies given American corn farmers allow them to sell their grain at prices far below what it costs to produce. That has led to cheap American corn flooding the Mexican market and pushing the poorest Mexican farmers out of business, the report said.

”There is a direct link between government agricultural policies in the U.S. and rural misery in Mexico,” according to the report entitled, ”Dumping Without Borders: How U.S. agricultural policies are destroying the livelihoods of Mexican corn farmers.”

I found it hard to find current corn crop subsidies for the current year, which surprised me. And then the export subsidies also must be part of the equation.

So our exports devastate the economies of our neighbors by destroying their agricultural sectors. Should it be a surprise that the result is a tide of economically distressed workers searching for a way to restore their economic fortunes?

Of course, this is all handwaving on my part. My information is old, possibly out of date – and the causal chain may still be up for debate. But stipulate it, and then what do you do? As an engineer, you look at stopping farm subsidies, but the political screams would send our politicians scrambling from rocks to hide under. Ban ag exports?

I think I’d be assassinated.

But I’d rather fix a problem at its source, rather than twist myself into a fatal knot, as the left may be doing.

Sometimes all it takes is a simple arrangement of facts to suggest a slightly different interpretation. I often see endorsements as the endorser actually approving the endorsee, usually for their ideological position, although sometimes simply for competency, and,  yes, I do understand that some of my readers probably consider me naive for it.

But these two notes from Steve Benen, separated in neither time nor space, sort of brought the alternative interpretation to the fore:

* As some Republican incumbents fret over possible even-further-to-the-right primary rivals, Donald Trump has reportedly assured three Republican senators — Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, Mississippi’s Roger Wicker, and Wyoming’s John Barrasso — that he’ll support their re-election bids.

* On a related note, though Deb Fischer is not seen as a vulnerable incumbent, Steve Bannon has reportedly been in contact with former state Treasurer Shane Osborn about a possible GOP primary.

It really sounds like Trump and Bannon are competing for loyalty from these various elected officials. Now, I know this isn’t anything new, but this looks like a big chess game going on out there on the extreme right.

And the question is whether or not the Democrats can find a way to take advantage of this (dare I say it?) inevitable discord on the right.

Heliophysicists (physicists who study the Sun) have coined the term hedgerow prominences, which I find charming, for what we see below. From NASA/JPL/CalTech:

At the edge of the sun, a large prominence and a small prominence began to shift, turn and fall apart in less than one day (May 8-9, 2017). Prominences are notoriously unstable. Competing magnetic forces pulled the plasma back and forth until they dissipated. The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. The 18-second video clip is comprised of almost 600 frames being shown at 30 frames per second.

The movies are at the link above. These starkly gorgeous images of that big light in the sky really can entrance me.

Professor Myles Allen of Oxford is an impatient, straightforward man, who’d like to ram the legal code right up the fossil industry’s ass. He recently talked to NewScientist (7 October 2017, paywall) about strategy when it comes to the problems of climate change:

In 2005, he called for action against “the 20 or so coal and oil companies” responsible for most carbon dioxide emissions in New Scientist. Since then, legal cases have been brought, but they have failed “because judges decided that because governments were regulating CO₂, the courts had no role”. …

… he finds an intriguing silver lining in Trump’s crusade against climate science. “The law could come to our rescue. The US withdrawal from the Paris accord may change things for American companies.” Why? If there is no government-level emissions regulation in the US, he says, then legal liability could return. “Concern over that may be why the large fossil fuel companies in the US were arguing against withdrawal,” he says.

So would EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s consistent resistance to doing his job. Indeed, if Pruitt succeeds in dismantling the EPA, if only in spirit, the fossil fuel companies could be wide open to anyone angry enough in the court system. Not to mention that Pruitt’s failure to fulfill his duties could be interpreted as illicit.

But Professor Allen has a wide range on his criticism shotgun:

“Paris was strong on aspiration, but the progress since has been minimal.” He believes more in the power of courts, economics and public pressure – and above all in being direct. For that reason, he is frustrated by the efforts of environmentalists to turn climate change into a grand debate about how the world gets its energy, or the ethics of consumption and capitalism. Just ban greenhouse gas emissions and be done with it, he says, and require those who make and burn fossil fuels to prevent emissions in whatever way they choose – with carbon capture and storage likely to play a key role.

He has no time for gesture politics. “If I had to pick out a group who I am most frustrated with, it would not be the fossil fuel industry; it would be the environment movement for their demonisation of the fossil fuel industry.” Big oil isn’t going away any time soon, he says, so environmentalists need to stop holding their noses and engage with it. When the giant US coal companies Peabody Energy and Arch Coal hit hard times last year, Allen called for one of the many cash-rich environmental NGOs in the US to buy them. “They could have taken a substantial share of coal reserves into the hands of people committed to stabilising climate. Sadly that opportunity passed.”

I couldn’t find anything on why the opportunity passed without anyone taking advantage of it. Sure would love to see the debate on that idea, and why everyone with the power – and how many would that be? – refused to do it.

Last week I managed some pictures from our garden, now in fall decline.

Or, in the case of our front yard peony, in full fall splat. Poor old peony went through the full old age experience.

The grass is far more graceful in the fall dance.

Last week the tomato plants were were nuanced in their reaction; this week, they’re just slumpin’. I’ll spare them the indignity of this week’s pictures.

The echoes from the 2011 East Japan earthquake and tsunami continue to reverberate around the world. This surprises and fascinates me, from Science:

Abstract

A Japanese fishing boat washed away in the tsunami. Later sunk by “naval cannon fire.” Source: NOAA via BBC.

The 2011 East Japan earthquake generated a massive tsunami that launched an extraordinary transoceanic biological rafting event with no known historical precedent. We document 289 living Japanese coastal marine species from 16 phyla transported over 6 years on objects that traveled thousands of kilometers across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of North America and Hawai‘i. Most of this dispersal occurred on nonbiodegradable objects, resulting in the longest documented transoceanic survival and dispersal of coastal species by rafting. Expanding shoreline infrastructure has increased global sources of plastic materials available for biotic colonization and also interacts with climate change–induced storms of increasing severity to eject debris into the oceans. In turn, increased ocean rafting may intensify species invasions.

While in previous eons it was probably more difficult to accidentally encounter debris that could convey inadvertent immigrants across oceans, no doubt it did happen – and explains how many species spread.

If you remember the wind sculptures of Theo Jansen, someone sent me a new (to me) video of his work. The creature at 1:45 is new to me.

CNN is reporting that North Korea has been writing letters to various nations across the world:

In an open letter addressed to parliaments in a number of countries, North Korea has declared itself a “full-fledged nuclear power” and accuses US President Donald Trump of “trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear disaster.”

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called the message “unprecedented,” noting that North Korea usually chooses different means to communicate.

Bishop and Australian Prime Minister Turnbull think they know what it means.

Both Bishop and Turnbull said Friday they believe the letter shows that North Korea is getting desperate as the US and its allies ramp up sanctions on the rogue regime.

“I see it as evidence that the collective strategy of imposing maximum diplomatic and economic pressure through sanctions on North Korea is working,” Bishop said.

If this were so, I’d expect more uproar from North Korea, though. Michael Madden on 38 North reports on the recent second plenary session of the 7th Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee. There didn’t seem to be chaos or even a lot of concern.

After the second plenary meeting of the 7th WPK Central Committee, the DPRK leadership has subtly and gradually shifted its media messaging and programming (i.e. the propaganda) away from some of the more heated rhetoric and activity^[12] that we have seen during the last six months. Much of Kim Jong Un’s report to the Central Committee and many of the personnel changes to the central party power organizations focused on the economy. While the North will still formulate and release interesting statements, and we might see one or two more ballistic missile tests, the DPRK’s political culture is probably moving on to the KPA’s winter training cycle and preparations for the cold, resource-challenged winter. While one does not doubt what “single-hearted unity” and “Mallima speed” can accomplish, there are limits.

The results of the second plenary meeting are an unfolding event. Kim Jong Un and his image makers have met us halfway by holding a large gathering and revealing who was appointed to what power body. But Pyongyang watchers will need subsequent state media reporting to determine where some of these officials have landed and what policy areas consume their daily lives. It would be unwise, however, and possibly dangerous to read these personnel appointments as simply a matter of reshuffling deck chairs on a sinking. Several elderly officials have been effectively retired. And if the DPRK were embarking on a course of action that might result in the country’s total annihilation or even the strategic shock of a surgical strike, then such things as policy statements and personnel shuffles would be unnecessary. Individuals, and nation-states, with a death wish don’t make long-term plans.

The shift in emphasis to the economy would seem to indicate a recognition of the sanctions, but not an incipient move towards capitulation of any sort.

I think an alternate reading is far more likely than that of the optimists in Australia. Kim obviously recognizes the turmoil Trump has stirred up world-wide with his amateur hour stunts, as well as the obvious ease with which he can be manipulated – he doesn’t have the iron will of, say, Hillary Clinton, Obama, or Bush. Kim may believe this is the time to strike in order to weaken or even break old alliances that otherwise endanger his regime. This letter is written to subtly highlight these worries about Trump, making world leaders reconsider their ties with the United States.

And thus strengthening his position, as well as potentially increase his prestige. In his area of the world, prestige is more important than democracy, and that’s what he’s trying to increase with these moves.

During our recent visit to Seattle, our host impulsively changed one of our destinations from a classic car museum to the Pacific Bonsai Museum, which turned out to be fortuitous because the Pacific Bonsai Museum appears to be in danger of closing, or at least moving – I am having trouble finding information online. I thought we got this information from the information staff.

This is an outdoor museum, hosted on the grounds of a former Weyerhauser campus, and was a very peaceful visit for us, as we were virtually the only guests (a weekday afternoon). I know nothing about bonsai, so I took a lot of pictures, as did our host, and my Arts Editor picked out the best of mine. We were somewhat hampered by suboptimal lighting conditions – it was too bright, the shadows too abrupt.

This first set are classic pictures – the subject centered and presented, almost informationally.

Perhaps to portray a bit of a wind?

Lovely fall foliage.

A lovely image of life and death.

Some of the bonsai had painted backgrounds. My Arts Editor didn’t seem to approve.

I find I prefer more dramatic shots, and here’s what I managed to get by my Editor in that category.

Some OK use of shading.

Then there’s this, just sitting there under the tree. I have no idea as to its nature.

We did run across another visitor, and I’m amazed at how well this shot came out.

All in all, a relaxing and fun time.

I would not have thought the super-powers of evaporation would save us from ourselves, but here we are. From Nature Communications and Ahmet-Hamdi Cavusoglu, Xi Chen, Pierre Gentine & Ozgur Sahin:

Has anyone seen my cat? It was this big! No one? Gah, you’re all guilty, then!

Albert Finney leaves toothmarks all over the train in Murder On The Orient Express (1974), the classic Agatha Christie cautionary tale of karmic revenge, hosted by the legendary European train. This is a luxuriant retelling of the tale of murder and counter-murder, as the friends and relatives of a family destroyed by a kidnapping-killing gather to exterminate the man responsible for the death of a child, all because of his lust for wealth. This group functions as a proxy for society as a whole, metaphorically thrusting the malefactor, who placed his own position ahead of the good of society, on the edge of a precipice – and then delivering a hearty push. But with detective Hercule Poirot unexpectedly present, their must be adjustments to their plan, and it all makes for a delightful hidden dance as each distortion is delivered with a straight face.

I don’t quite recommend it, as it falls slightly short of compelling, but for a rainy weekend morning, like today, it was comforting to lie on the couch, listen to the rain beat the windows, watch a classic murder mystery unfold – and be reminded that someone who may be beyond the reach of the law may still be within the reach of the determined.

Vacatur:

A vacated judgment [or vacatur] makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. An appellate court may also vacate its own decisions. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Judge denies Arpaio’s motion to erase his criminal contempt conviction,” Megan Cassidy, AZ Central:

“The President’s pardon moots the case, and it warrants an automatic vacatur of all opinions, judgments, and verdicts related to the criminal charge,” Arpaio’s attorneys said in their Aug. 28 motion.

What appears to be the final chapter of the Sheriff Joe Arpaio melodrama is finishing up. From AZCentral:

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton on Thursday denied former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s request to vacate his criminal contempt conviction after he was pardoned by President Donald Trump.

In her ruling, Bolton said while Trump’s pardon “undoubtedly spared Defendant from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed. It did not, however, ‘revise the historical facts’ of this case.” …

Though Arpaio will not be penalized for this case, Wilenchik said the conviction could hypothetically be used against him in future legal proceedings.

“At this point what the court has to do is undo it all,” [Jack Wilenchik, one of Arpaio’s attorneys] [sic]. “It’s not saying he’s innocent, not saying he’s guilty, it’s really just a procedural right he’s entitled to.”

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and plaintiffs’ attorney in the underlying racial-profiling case, said Bolton’s order “gets it exactly right.”

“The court made detailed findings after a bench trial about Joe Arpaio’s criminal conduct,” Wang said. “The court’s findings and documents in the record of the case should stand and now will stand.”

It’s interesting that Arpaio’s attorney’s worry that the conviction could be a problem for Arpaio in the future. It brings into focus the limitations of the pardon power.

I can see the point of an appeal of the judge’s decision, which would be that the conviction is not final, but I think the counter-argument is that the pardon is an acknowledgement of of the guilt of the party involved. Vacatur is inappropriate, as it directly contradicts the will of the Executive.

Abeyance:

1.  :a state of temporary inactivity :suspension —used chiefly in the phrase in abeyance
   • … new contracts on all but one existing mine … are in abeyance pending the outcome of a government inquiry to be carried out into Australia’s role in the nuclear fuel cycle. —Vimala Sarma
   a plan that is currently being held in abeyance
2.  :a lapse in succession during which there is no person in whom a title is vested • an estate in abeyance
   [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “The nation’s ‘top lawyer’ has no idea how executive privilege works,” Kerry Eleveld, The Daily Kos:

The [Reagan] memo does allow for a period of “abeyance” in which a president can weigh whether she or he wants to actually invoke the privilege. In Sessions world, that apparently means he can suspend congressional inquiry in perpetuity until such time as Trump manages to wrap his mind around the legal questions at hand—which, let’s face it, could take a very long while.

If you’re a star watcher, Idaho may go on your list of places to visit for another reason:

Tourists heading to central Idaho will be in the dark if local officials get their way.

The first International Dark Sky Reserve in the United States would fill a chunk of the state’s sparsely populated region that contains night skies so pristine that interstellar dust clouds are visible in the Milky Way. …

Leaders in the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley, the tiny mountain town of Stanley, other local and federal officials, and a conservation group have been working for several years to apply this fall to designate 1,400 square miles (3,600 square kilometers) as a reserve. A final decision by the association would come about 10 weeks after the application is submitted.

The association also designates International Dark Sky Parks, with nearly 40 in the U.S. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in central Idaho, known as a prime destination among avid stargazers, became one earlier this year.

“There is some astro tourism,” said Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas, a point driven home last month when thousands descended on the town in the path of the total solar eclipse.

Ketchum officials have applied to become an International Dark Sky Community and join Flagstaff, Arizona, Dripping Springs, Texas, and Beverly Shores, Indiana.

The Idaho city approved a dark sky ordinance requiring residents to install shields on exterior light fixtures to block light from going upward and mandating holiday lighting by businesses and residents be turned off at night. [Phys.org]

Goodness. I wonder how close that is to the Amtrak train line? Courtesy my Arts Editor.

Looks like a bit of a walk, as those towns are down in the south of the state, in the southern section of the Sawtooth National Forest.

Being part of Western culture can mean an eternal comparison to other denizens of the culture in terms of achievement, a savage drive to achieve in terms of novelty: the discovery of the new mammal, the creation of a new technology, etc. Thus we have the Patent Office and scientific journals innumerable. This can induce the feeling of redundancy, if one has completely accepted this culture.

But it’s also possible to explore simply with the intention of the joy of bending one’s mind over and around something. This can be as concrete as the retired guy doing woodworking in the garage, or something more abstract. A lot of my programming has gone down this path – sure, someone has solved what I’m trying to solve, maybe better than I can possibly hope to achieve – and possibly that solution is sitting in that Design Patterns book I can see from chair here at home. I found Design Patterns to be quite the sleeper, which I suppose is a commentary on my professional attitudes^[1]. However, my point is that the pleasure of pursuing a solution is more important to me than knowing the solution itself. And if I come up with a better solution, so much the better.

So in the latter spirit, and because I write this blog to vent all sorts of pressures, I write the following.

Due to a recent article in NewScientist (7 October 2017, paywall) I’ve been musing on the topic of prime numbers. These are critical to encryption, but they’re interesting in and of themselves. First, some terminology.

P is the set of prime numbers, where P_n is the nth member of P. P₀ is 2, P₁ is 3, etc.

_n is the nth member of P.

N is the set of natural numbers > 1.

_m is the mth member of N.

₊ (sub +) means one or more.

One of the mysteries of prime numbers is how to efficiently calculate them. There are formulas for calculation of primes, but they are not efficient – by which I mean they have an algorithmic complexity of O(n²) or worse, where n = the prime desired.

At this juncture I’ll note that my mathematical training is fairly minimal, and my grasp of the technical language, wobbly at best, has degraded markedly over the years.

So I wonder what would happen if we thought of N, of which P‘s contents are members, as, well, a secondary set, and P as a foundational set, a set upon which N depends. How, then, would they be related?

I think it’d be a projection. Think of N as an ordered series of P_n-derivatives, by which I mean that each N_m is ultimately related to P₊. The projection, which I suspect is a set of equations, calculates the value N_m. For N_m which are prime, the selected equation is trivially

P_n * 1

The balance of N will be built from P₊. But what is the relationship between _n and _m? That’s the worldly goal. The next step is understanding the equations involved, and as importantly – no, more so – the proper way to select which equation to use to calculate N_m. Once that is understood, then perhaps a more efficient worldly goal can be realized.

Or not. I’m just bumbling along here without reference to the weighty literature on the subject, nor any particular mathematical skills. Just havin’ fun.

¹Sitting right next to it is Functional Programming: Practice And Theory, Bruce MacLennan, which I think should be on every programmer’s shelf, and yes I’ve read darn near the whole thing. Couldn’t quite stand the highly theoretical material. But for what the future of programming should be, this is part of it.