Scurrilous:

adjective

1. grossly or obscenely abusive:
   a scurrilous attack on the mayor.
2. characterized by or using low buffoonery; coarsely jocular or derisive:
   a scurrilous jest.

[Dictionary.com]

Just because I used it earlier today, and I wanted a more precise definition than I had in my head.

Lloyd Alter surprises me with this statement on Treehugger.com as he discusses the world’s largest building constructed with Cross-Laminated Lumber:

Anthony Thistleton, speaking in Toronto at the Wood Solutions Fair, explained that the reasons for using CLT are prosaic: it is a lot lighter, a fifth the weight of a concrete frame, so it doesn’t need deep pile foundations, which would have been problematic with a new Crossrail subway line going underneath. It goes up a lot faster, and in real estate development, time is money. Because the CLT has a bit of insulation value, it needs less additional insulation. Because the CLT buildings have more wall and less column, there is less infill framing. So that overall, the cost often ends up being less than building with concrete.

All those other green benefits, the storing of carbon, the saving of 600 heavy trucks running through London, the renewable resource? Nice to have too, but the real story here is that you can build a better building for cheap.

Thistleton said he wasn’t thrilled about cladding the building in brick, necessary to fit in with the neighbourhood; he thinks it’s inappropriate to put such a heavy cladding on such a light building. I don’t agree; architects have been putting brick facades on wood frame buildings for centuries, and it does fit in with the neighbourhood. I love how they photograph the building from in front of an old brick wall with old mattresses and junk; it is now part of the urban fabric. “The building’s intricate brickwork references both the surrounding Victorian and Edwardian housing and the craftsmanship-like detailing of the local warehouses.”

The brick also gives it a bit of weight; Thistleton notes that a problem with such a light building isn’t holding it up, but holding it down. Wind loads become more important.

It hadn’t occurred to me that generally reasonable winds might cause a building made of lumber to take flight. Naturally, extreme weather such as tornadoes and hurricanes are a different matter, but the implication here is of more reasonable winds.

Into the old email feedbag comes another bit of dubious email. It feeds off some true life scandals, making it easy to lead its readers down scurrilious paths. Due to its nature, I’ll quote it in total and then descend upon it. It was quite colorful, with red dominating the first set of entries, and green the second half.

FALL IS NEARLY UPON US WITH THE GIVING SEASON RIGHT BEHIND – DONATING ITEMS OR MONEY… WHICH GROUP? A TIMELY REMINDER BEFORE YOUR GENEROUS SPIRITS OPEN YOUR WALLETS. Who Would Have Imagined That This Was The Case   The  American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans’ salary for the year was $651,957  plus expenses MARCH OF  DIMES It is called the March of Dimes because only a dime for  every 1 dollar is given to the needy. The  United Way President Brian Gallagher receives a $375,000 base salary  along with numerous expense benefits. UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,200,000 per year (100k per month) plus all expenses including a ROLLS ROYCE. Less than 5  cents of your donated dollar goes to the cause. GOODWILL  CEO and owner Mark Curran profits $2.3 million a year. Goodwill is a very catchy name for his business. You donate to his business and then he sells the items for PROFIT. He pays nothing for his products and pays his workers minimum wage! Nice Guy.  $0.00 goes to help anyone!  Stop giving to this man. Instead, give to any of the following GO “GREEN” AND PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE IT WILL DO SOME GOOD:   The  Salvation Army Commissioner, Todd Bassett receives a small salary of only $13,000 per year(plus housing) for  managing this $2 billion dollar organization. 96 percent of donated dollars go  to the cause. The  American Legion National Commander receives a $0.00 zero  salary.  Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth! The Veterans of Foreign WarsNational Commander receives a $0.00 zero  salary. Your donations go  to help Veterans and their families and youth! The  Disabled American Veterans National Commander receives a $0.00 zero  salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth! The  Military Order of Purple Hearts National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.  Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth! The Vietnam Veterans Association National Commander receives a $0.00 zero  salary. Your donations go  to help Veterans and their families and youth! Make a Wish: For children’s last wishes. 100% goes to funding trips or  special wishes for a dying child. St. Jude  Research Hospital 100% goes towards funding and  helping Children with Cancer who have no insurance and cannot afford to pay. Ronald  McDonald Houses All monies go to running  the houses for parents who have critically ill Children in the hospital. 100% goes to housing, and feeding  the families. Lions  Club International 100% OF DONATIONS GO TO HELP THE  BLIND, BUY HEARING AIDES, SUPPORT MEDICAL MISSIONS AROUND THE WORLD.THEIR LATEST UNDERTAKING IS MEASLES VACCINATIONS (ONLY $1.00 PER SHOT). Please share this with everyone you can.

So do these accusations fly? Or is this more like that poor cow used in catapult testing? Here’s my analysis:

American Red Cross – Via Charity Navigator, here is the data on the American Red Cross:

Compensation of Leaders     (FYE 06/2015)

Compensation	% of Expenses	Paid to	Title
$517,364	0.01%	Gail J. McGovern	President, CEO

ARC is characterized as being in excess of $1 billion. While the mischaracterization of the CEO’s salary is minor, it’s important to keep in mind the size of the organization, the high rating of the organization – and how little impact the CEO’s salary has on it. So long as the CEO is an effective leader, it’s difficult to fault the salary. Still, it’s a judgment call.

March of Dimes – Via Charity Navigator, I chose to use their Financial Performance Metrics, since the complaint was about how much money makes it to the recipients.

 

Financial Performance Metrics

	Program Expenses (Percent of the charity’s total expenses spent on the programs and services it delivers)	75.6%
	Administrative Expenses	11.0%
	Fundraising Expenses	13.3%
	Fundraising Efficiency	$0.14
	Working Capital Ratio (years)	< 0.01
	Program Expenses Growth	0.6%
	Liabilities to Assets	88.1%

All data for Financial Performance Metrics calculations was provided by March of Dimes on recent 990s filed with the IRS.

Questions concerning the above categories can be answered by following the link, above, and clicking on the category names. In general, it appears to fairly well run, but with room for improvement – Charity Navigator’s score of 75.6% for Program Expenses is near the top of its second-tier in that category, nearly first tier. I’d rate this claim false.

The United Way – Via Charity Navigator –

Compensation of Leaders     (FYE 12/2015)

So the mail is accurate. However, here are The United Way financials:

Financial Performance Metrics

 

	Program Expenses (Percent of the charity’s total expenses spent on the programs and services it delivers)	91.4%
	Administrative Expenses	5.4%
	Fundraising Expenses	3.0%
	Fundraising Efficiency	$0.04
	Working Capital Ratio (years)	0.49
	Program Expenses Growth	0.3%
	Liabilities to Assets	44.5%

All data for Financial Performance Metrics calculations was provided by United Way Worldwide on recent 990s filed with the IRS.

A Program Expenses value of 91.4% is very good, indeed. So here you have to decide if you’re terribly offended at the high salary of a very well run, apparently, charity.

UNICEF – Via Charity Navigator –

Compensation of Leaders      (FYE 06/2016)

Compensation % of Expenses Paid to Title
$537,682 0.09% Caryl M. Stern President, CEO

Or less than 50% of the claim. Still, it’s a hefty amount, isn’t it? Does the CEO deliver?

Financial Performance Metrics

	Program Expenses (Percent of the charity’s total expenses spent on the programs and services it delivers)	89.8%
	Administrative Expenses	2.7%
	Fundraising Expenses	7.4%
	Fundraising Efficiency	$0.07
	Working Capital Ratio (years)	0.22
	Program Expenses Growth	3.1%
	Liabilities to Assets	50.2%

All data for Financial Performance Metrics calculations was provided by UNICEF USA on recent 990s filed with the IRS.

Program Expenses of 89.8% puts it in the top tier for efficiency, and suggests far more than 5 cents of your dollar makes it to recipients.

At this juncture, honestly, the authors of this mail are beginning to look like cold-blooded manipulators who object to these causes on ideological grounds – and will lie and bully to get their way. Still, let’s see on this last one.

Goodwill – In Charity Navigator there are a number of Goodwill entries, confusing me, so I did a search of the Web for Mark Curran and Goodwill. The result, as summarized on Wikipedia (other sites supporting):

A widely circulated email titled “Think Before You Donate” aims to convince readers that “Goodwill CEO and Owner Mark Curran profits $2.3 million a year”, but fact-checking groups have debunked the content of the email: the CEO of Goodwill Industries International is not Mark Curran, nor does he make $2.3 million a year.^[27] The current President and CEO of Goodwill is Jim Gibbons, who in 2014 received a total reported compensation of $689,418.^[28]

So this appears to be out and out deception. For those who believe that all scandals should be revealed, Goodwill has certainly had a few, such as pay out of line for CEOs of  the various branches, and some questions about the use of disabled labor. In the end, this out and out lie was unnecessary, as the facts on the ground may be enough to discourage potential donors.

So how about this manipulator’s favorites?

The Salvation Army – I do not see a Todd Bassett on the Salvation Army’s list of Commissioners. Ah, here we go – PRO bono of Australia covered a similar email, and I’ll just borrow their coverage on The Salvation Army:

Finally, in reference to The Salvation Army Snopes.com said “The information presented above is outdated, as W. Todd Bassett stepped down as National Commander of The Salvation Army in April 2006; the current National Commander of the Salvation Army is William A. Roberts. The Salvation Army is not required to file a Form 990 with the IRS because it is primarily a religious organisation, but according to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Roberts’ last reported total annual compensation was $126,920, much higher than the $13,000 reported above. Forbes rates this organisation’s efficiency at 82 per cent, a fair bit lower than the 93 per cent figure claimed in the story.”

The American Legion has been difficult to find uptodate figures. Back in 2009 and 2011 stories were published refuting this $0 salary claim, but of course, this may have changed – perhaps current General Rohan is not receiving a salary. However, given the size of the organization, I feel that’s not true, and feel reasonably confident in the suspicion that the author of this mail has, once again, lied through his teeth.

Well, that’s enough of today’s game of Manipulate the Reader – I feel full up to the ears of malignant lies. We’ve seen buttons pushed and money thrown around. Were you a victim? Or did you smell rotten fish and ignored this one? I hope it was the latter.

And I must say there are many sites out there that will discredit mail like this. Rather than accept these malignant lies into your lives, perhaps a little research is in order.

Or just discard the damn things. They rot the mind and the soul.

Lloyd Alter, design guy on Treehugger.com, surveys the terror truck landscape and sees it all about being a design problem:

So a solution to the problem of vehicular terrorism is the same solution that we have been proposing to reduce the number of deaths of pedestrians and cyclists all along: Make SUVs and trucks as safe as cars or get them off the road. It is a vehicle design problem. Or if you are going to still allow a more dangerous design of vehicle, give it a tougher licensing regime. Reduce their availability to those who actually need them and regulate the hell out of them.

I cannot agree, because the first rough patch in the road will be the drivers who will howl in protest on any limitations on their vehicles. First you have to deal with how the perception of absolute freedom is leading to advancing terrorism, both in terms of vehicles and in terms of guns.

And why did the guy in NYC end up waving around a paintgun, rather than some NRA special? I sure hope he – or someone – provides an answer to that one.

On Lawfare, Mieke Eoyang, Ben Freeman, and Benjamin Wittes performed some polling and have a warning for Robert Mueller:

The first question, regarding Mueller, ran from October 25 to October 27, which was coincidentally the day that Mueller obtained the indictments from a grand jury but which preceded any announcement of charges. The results show that the public has low confidence in Mueller. In fact, 32 percent report having “no confidence” in Mueller on a scale ranging from 1 (“no confidence”) to 5 (“high confidence”). No confidence was by far, the modal response. When combined with respondents selecting 2 on this scale, more than 45 percent have low confidence in Mueller, compared to just 30 percent that have above average confidence in him (those selecting 4 and 5 on this scale). While other polls have found that Americans are sharply divided along partisan lines about the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, we find this same general pattern of low confidence in Mueller holds across all age, gender, and regional sub-groups. Google Survey’s inferred demographics do not let us screen for party preference, registered voters, or likely voters.

Given that Mueller is a Republican, I suppose the Democrats don’t trust him, and the GOP tribal members regard him as a traitor to the Party. Don’t despair, though:

At the very moment we published this post, the Washington Post released its own poll on confidence in Mueller, one with a strikingly different finding:

More than twice as many Americans approve as disapprove of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds, indicating that the conservative effort to discredit the probe has fallen flat as the case has progressed toward its first public charges.

A 58 percent majority say they approve of Mueller’s handling of the investigation while 28 percent say they disapprove, the Post-ABC poll finds. People’s views depend in large part on their political leanings, but overall, Americans are generally inclined to trust Mueller and the case he has made so far.

Meanwhile, fewer than 4 in 10 Americans say they believe Trump is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, while about half believe he is not.

The poll was taken a few days after ours, between October 30 and November 1, and thus may well reflect respondents’ reaction to the indictment and plea this week. In other words, the two surveys may be less inconsistent they are evocative of volatility in public opinion about the investigation.

Time will tell. I thought this was interesting as well:

While concern about foreign influence may be lower than many in D.C. would expect, the public is unabashedly opposed to foreign influence in U.S. elections and the spreading of fake news, even if it is designed to help a candidate respondents support.

A majority of respondents (51 percent) “strongly disagree” with the statement “I believe that spreading inaccurate news is an acceptable tactic in a U.S. election if it helps a candidate I support.” And, a plurality (42 percent) “strongly disagree” with foreign interference if it helps a candidate they support. If respondents that just “disagree” with these statements are included, then more than seven in ten respondents oppose both foreign influence generally and the spreading of fake news specifically even if it would help their preferred candidate.

Source: Lawfare

I’m fairly appalled that the barest majority strongly sees fake news as an illegitimate political tactic; I take the simple “Disagree” category respondents to be fairly wishy washy on the topic, no matter how tempting it is to add them to the strongly oppose group and come up with a 75% or so opposition. Unfortunately, the poll respondents were not classified as to political leanings or to age group, so I can only speculate that the finding reflects the feelings of those who feel threatened by today’s controversial and new topics – that is, the older white male, who sees their dominant cultural position threatened.

Still, I’d hope the adherence to the best principles of our Republic – not to mention various religious sects – would be stronger than this. I’d be far happier with a number in the 80s or 90s; a reading of 51% suggests a culture of lip-service to principle which will eventually destroy the nation if it’s not corrected.

So this is not an encouraging poll for the future of the nation.

And in a bit of unexpected … well, insert your own emotion here …  CNN put up a report overnight that echoes our own problems. It’s entitled:

North Korea defector says information more dangerous than US threats

“Until now, the North Korean system has prevailed through an effective and credible reign of terror and by almost perfectly preventing the free-flow of outside information,” according to Thae Yong-ho, a former high-ranking North Korean official who defected to South Korea. …

“There are great and unexpected changes taking place within North Korea. Contrary to the official policy and wish of the regime, the free markets are flourishing … the citizens do not care about state propaganda but increasingly watch illegally imported South Korean movies and dramas,” he said. …

The US could “touch the Achilles Heel of Kim Jong Un” by tapping into the societal shift within the North Korean population with a targeted information campaign that disseminates basic concepts of freedom and human rights, according to Thae. …

But by strategically producing and distributing tailor-made content that challenges the North Korean population to critically analyze their own living conditions, the US could counter the Kim regime’s brainwashing operation over the long-term — a move that could foster domestic dissatisfaction that may eventually help drive Kim toward a willingness to compromise, he said.

“These changes, however, make it increasingly possible to think about civilian uprising in North Korea,” Thae told US lawmakers. “As more and more people gradually become informed about the reality of their living conditions, the North Korean government will either have to change and adapt in positive ways for its citizens, or to face the consequences of their escalating dissatisfaction.”

This is congruent with Obama’s strategy of patience, but I don’t know if that Administration was attempting to insert information into North Korean society. Such a strategy, it’s worth noting, is not congruent with American Instant Gratification.

FiveThirtyEight‘s Clare Malone and Jeff Asher are upset at the latest FBI Crime Report:

Every year, the FBI releases a report that is considered the gold standard for tracking crime statistics in the United States: the Crime in the United Statesreport, a collection of crime statistics gathered from over 18,000 law-enforcement agencies in cities around the country. But according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, the 2016 Crime in the United States report — the first released under President Trump’s administration — contains close to 70 percent fewer data tables¹ than the 2015 version did, a removal that could affect analysts’ understanding of crime trends in the country. The removal comes after consecutive years in which violent crime rose nationally, and it limits access to high-quality crime data that could help inform solutions.

And this move by the FBI – or the Trump Administration – can be construed as a head feint:

The FBI noted that in addition to its decision to streamline the report, UCR had launched a Crime Data Explorer, which aims to make crime data more user-interactive. But data contained in the explorer does not replicate what is missing from the 2016 UCR report, and it doesn’t allow users to view data for particular years, but rather aggregates trends over a minimum period of 10 years. The National Incident-Based Reporting System is another tool the FBI uses to provide more detailed information on crimes, but it too does not replicate what is missing from the 2016 UCR report and has a substantially lower participation rate⁴ from police departments across the country.

By placing a software interface between the data and person, the data can be manipulated as the author and/or controller of the interface wishes, whether to change the data or simply not make it available. I much prefer the raw data be made available, even in slightly processed form, over the provision of some fucking interface.

In general, this is the sign of authoritarianism – the control of information. And in the Age of Information, this is a blow to the knees of the nation. This is information which needs to be made freely available in order to assess ongoing efforts to resolve issues associated with criminality. For example, former NYC Mayor and Trump ally Guiliani likes to claim policies he instituted reduced crime in NYC, but this has drawn criticism from crime researchers. FBI information may be critical for assessing the claims – and if it’s not available, a Trump ally can continue to claim success (and prestige).

As much as it makes me cringe, I think it’s worth exploring the option of having Congress require the FBI  issue this report and specify the content of the report. It’s not nearly enough, but Congress can only do so much; malcontents within the Bureau could still contaminate the data. It would at least fix the suppression of data on a political basis.

But I’m a little at a loss as to what else to do.

The Alliance to Secure Democracy is watching Twitter, or more specifically those accounts linked to the Russian campaign to influence American opinion. It’s a  near real-time dashboard summarizing the activity of suspected and known Twitter accounts. There current Top Themes section:

Between October 14 and October 20, we examined 58 unique URLs that were promoted by Kremlin-oriented Twitter accounts. The most prominent theme (24% of all URLs shared) was the probe into the sale of a uranium mining company to Russia’s Atomic Energy Agency that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010. The original reporting by The Hill was a top URL for several consecutive days, all other URLs shared promoted some variation on a theme of corruption, collusion, cover-up by the Clinton-led State Department and/or the Mueller-led FBI (#ClintonRussianCollusion was also a top hashtag last week). Outside of the uranium probe, ten other URLs shared (17% of the total) were coded as anti-Mueller, Comey, and/or Clinton. Conversely, four stories (7%) shared by the network were pro-Julian Assange/Wikileaks. Syria was again the most discussed geopolitical topic, appearing in 10% of the URLs shared by the network. Among other geopolitical topics, “whatboutism” was a prominent theme, with individual stories shared that compared Catalonia to Kosovo and that blamed the United States for worsening U.S./Russian relations due to the bombing of Belgrade in 1999.

I’m not a Twitter user, and I can’t imagine bothering, but if I were and had the time, I’d keep an eye on this in an attempt to understand the psychological approaches the Russians are using to subvert our Republic.

So we can at least say the GOP is not led by zombies. NBC News reports on the progress of the tax reform bill:

House Republicans will delay releasing their tax bill until Thursday, it was announced Tuesday night.The bill had originally been scheduled to be unveiled Wednesday. But speculation over a delay was rampant on Capitol Hill on Tuesday night, with representatives of House leaders pointing to the Ways and Means Committee for any final decision or announcement.

“In consultation with President Trump and our leadership team, we have decided to release the bill text on Thursday,” said Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the committee’s chairman. “We are pleased with the progress we are making and we remain on schedule to take action and approve a bill at our Committee beginning next week.”

Republican members privately aired their frustration with a process that they feel cut out of, and some issues were still unresolved hours before the bill had been slated for release.

My bold. I wonder how much longer Rep. Ryan (R-WI) will remain Speaker of the House. In this position, he has the ultimate responsibility on how these bills are written, and if he’s pissing off members of his own caucus, well, that’s not encouraging happy feelings. Right now it seems like Congressional Republicans, with key exceptions, are mostly useful for being votes – and nothing else.

That can’t be a good feeling, especially as they watch their dominant Party demonstrate amazing incompetence.

How many of them have learned to assess the long-term with clear eyes? Or are they crippled there, too?

For those of you who use the ACA for healthcare coverage, the open enrollment period is now available here. Please spread the word.

CNN is reporting Trump’s reaction to the supposed terror attack in NYC:

President Donald Trump called for “quick” and “strong” justice for terror suspects in the wake of the deadly New York City attack, saying that it is not surprising terror attacks happen because the way the United States punishes terrorists is “a laughing stock.”

So what, does Trump want a lynch mob to bust into the jail holding the alleged terrorist and lynch him?

To be frank, I suspect Trump would have no problem with that. Trump the politician has existed on the unrestrained emotions of his followers, and for his continued political survival, he has to keep stirring the pot.

No matter how much more damage this does to the reputation of the United States.

Quick and strong justice is the recipe for INjustice, for discouraging the highest quality immigrants which we depend on. It is in the strongest American legal traditions to permit a strong defense of all accused criminals, and then to incarcerate them, whether in jail or in a mental institute, once a finding of Guilty or Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity is reached.

I suggest that, in view of the newly emerging trends of today, the Era of Information, President Trump, if he’s honest, give up his “Oh, believe me” schtick, and provide us information that shows the world thinks the world’s finest justice system is really a laughingstock. A poll run by a reputable polling service might be just the ticket.

The catch is, he’s not allowed to suppress polls he doesn’t like.

No, Mr. President, this nation is not going down the path of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Not ever. You can quit your rabble-rousing ways right now.

Take a very close look

If you can get that big ball of incredulity regarding the background of Screamers (1995) down your throat, the balance of the movie is a nitty-gritty story that hews fairly close to the logic inherent in the background and premises, bringing a certain grim integrity to this example of noir.

The NEB is a corporation mining for “barynium” (I think) on another world, but when the scientists realize that radiation is flooding out of the mines, they demand they be shut down. The greedy corporation refuses, and the scientists and miners shut them down by force; the corporation retaliates through the use of nuclear weapons.

It’s five years later, the Alliance and the soldiers of the NEB are holed up in bunkers, and the revolt now employs “screamers,” cat-sized robots capable of fast burrowing through the sand of the planet, equipped with sensors with which to distinguish friend from foe (through “tabs” worn by the Alliance), armed with “swords” with which they hack opponents to pieces and make an unholy racket.

And they’re also armed with artificial intelligence.

When an NEB soldier appears in front of an Alliance outpost carrying a message, and is hacked to pieces by the screamers, the message is conveyed to the Alliance commander. It’s a request for peace negotiations, as the NEB has found a new source of barynium and no longer needs this planet.

The commander, along with a new recruit rescued from a crashed transport, decide to investigate, and they make their way to the NEB bunker. On the way, they pick up the unexpected: a child, clinging to his teddy bear, who has survived these 5 years in the ruins of a city, and they take him with them.

When they come across an NEB outpost, they come under fire, which is certainly unexpected, but even more unexpected is the target: the child. And when the child is hit, it doesn’t bleed.

It erupts sparks.

The Alliance commander discusses this with the NEB outpost, who seem half-insane, but agree to take him to the NEB commander, if he can be found. But the place is a charnel house, dead soldiers hacked to pieces, and no sign of the commander. And now a new type of screamer appears, a type that appears to be collecting intelligence.

Joining forces, the Alliance and NEB troops retreat out into the open, hurrying back to the Alliance outpost. Communications has been lost, apparently due to the systemic radiation, but as they approach, suspicion takes hold, and they avoid being caught in the flood of screamers which bursts forth from the compromised outpost.

Now down to two, the commander and a black marketeer woman, they decide to head for the emergency escape ship and return to Earth. Once there, and discovering the ship can only take one, a double of the black marketeer woman appears.

She’s a screamer.

In fact, they’re both screamers.

But because the first one has fallen in love, they fight, and in the end, the double is dead and the first is badly damaged, confessing all.

The commander boards the ship and it takes off for home. As we watch, a reflection in a viewport reveals a teddy bear.

And it’s moving.

While there are certainly some plot holes to go along with the preposterous background, and as long time readers of this blog will realize, I was very appreciative of the subtle but effective handling of the question of how artificial intelligence might evolve in response to the evolutionary pressures of being in the middle of a shooting war – and realizing that the side that created it isn’t necessarily the side it must be on. While Ex Machina (2015) was a more vivid and shocking movie, it didn’t address the question of how an artificial intelligence might evolve; it was really about the madness of the inventor infecting his creation, which may be more romantic or dramatic, but is less believable than the ideas presented in Screamers.

This is a dark and depressing movie, featuring characters at the end of their rope, in the midst of the insane situation which is war, struggling to adapt to a situation in which the constants have become variables, the servants struggling against masters.. It’s also one of the few movies I’ve caught on TV which I regret not seeing uncut, as there were some anomalies possibly attributable to the ready blade of the TV editor which detracted from the movie.

If you’re in the mood for some futuristic darkness, you may find Screamers is the under-rated movie for you.

Helioseismologists:

It’s not easy to figure out what’s inside the sun. “We can’t go and take a sample,” says [Sarbani] Basu. There are two main ways to investigate. Helioseismologists such as Basu look at sound vibrations on the sun’s surface, which give outward evidence of the vast quantities of energy being unleashed within. That energy depends on the sun’s internal structure, as well as its ingredients, which Basu can identify by working backwards from observations beamed from her space-based probes. [“Hiding in plain sight: The mystery of the sun’s missing matter,” Shannon Palus, NewScientist (21 October 2017, print title “What’s wrong with the sun?”, paywall)]

What a doozy! Although if the Sun is wholly plasma, how can it have a seismology?

A little different view of the transition on this one, brought on by a ray of sunshine above some shadows.

While reading about an Executive Order permitting the recall of retired military personnel to active duty on Lawfare, I ran across this uncomfortable reminder:

Last month, as Presidents Bush and Obama did annually after 2001, President Trump renewed the national emergency.

I have to wonder if it’s occurred to any of the Executives that the continuance of the National Emergency may not be because of foreign aggression, but because of our own poor behaviors.

Although I suspect that, for demographers, the real reason is simply overpopulation.

Most plots revolve around the driving needs of a character – sex, money, revenge, and several other goals are the pivot point of many plots. So I was baffled by Lucky (2017), the story of a 90 year old man named Lucky who is riding out the end of his life in a small town.

But it does gradually come into focus, and explains why a movie that seems to be plot-free is cohesive and makes sense. The driver is a basic urge we rarely encounter in cinema: the fear of the true final frontier, death, as faced by a man who either has discarded religion, or never wore it. As death inevitably approaches, Lucky undergoes the transformation of realizing that life, in all its form, is precious, from people of other races, other moralities, and, as he rescues a box of crickets meant to be food for reptilian pets, other species.

This is a movie of uncommonly subtle touches, where a mere sentence concerning Liberace reveals a bigotry he has since discarded, or a friend’s grief over the disappearance of his pet tortoise, but recognition that the tortoise has primal urges which it, too, must obey, comes along as an apparent comedic side-trip, and yet may be the central message of the movie – a plea to consider our fellow creatures as being something other than our playthings.

A movie rich in professionals, executed with a crisp, relaxed competency, and a fine ear for dialog, this is a movie which will repay the audience’s patience and attention.

Strongly Recommended.

It’s been three days since the announcement of indictments, and the Gallup Presidential Approval Poll does show an impact:

I suppose the cynical might say this means smoke is as good as fire for some folks. And, to be honest, when we’re talking about our government, this is not an inappropriate attitude to take – our governments should exemplify ethical behavior, not sleaze under the bar. But it’s also indicative of how much time people are willing to put into their evaluation of the government, and this may be a trifle too precipitous for some observer’s taste. And then we could also interpret this as the indictment pushing voters who were doubtful but not certain right off the edge of the cliff.

But it’s worth stepping back and considering just how this is working out for the GOP. After all, they spent 8 years trying to pin scandals on President Obama, and yet most dispassionate observers rate the Obama Administration as one of the cleanest ever run, an accomplishment I put down to the considered temperament of President Obama. He is, after all, a Constitutional scholar who appeared to have a very methodical approach to government, handing out nominations to people who seemed to be the best qualified, and often being right in these difficult matters. It’s said that if you want to be a successful leader, hire people smarter than yourself, and I think he hired experts who he could manage, but not manipulate.

On the other hand, President Trump has … gah, I don’t even know how to state it. Ah, got it – he’s off on the other end of the spectrum. I’ve used words and phrases such amateurish and incurious, and they remain keywords in this trainwreck of a Presidency. With the exception of Secretary Mattis and perhaps Secretary Shulkin, his Cabinet is of dubious quality, with several apparently teetering on the edge of being chased out.

But even worse, it’s not the Democrats who’ve been instrumental in chasing after Trump’s indiscretions, but honorable, if former, Republicans themselves. Oh, not those in Congress responsible for Presidential oversight. I don’t think anyone merits any admiration, although I’m not privy to all the relevant meetings. But former FBI Director James Comey was a Republican before he was an Independent, and he kicked off the entire investigation; his successor, Christopher Wray, is currently a Republican. Finally, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who, for those living under a rock, brought the indictments and news of a guilty please, is a Republican.

All Republicans.

President Trump can squeal about fake news and Democratic intransigence and witch hunts and all that rot, but the plain fact of the matter is that patriotic Republicans are the ones digging up the dirt on President Trump.

Now, given recent Republican Presidential approval ratings of 81%, this doesn’t mean the GOP is turning on Trump. They don’t seem to understand that chronic lying is not an isolated phenomenon, but is indicative of a systemic problem in the Administration. Then again, tribalism makes it easy for an incompetent leader to remain popular and in power. That’s one of the reasons I reject team politics for either party, although I’d give an exemption to the Democrats for the next election, because the Republicans badly need a spanking.

I don’t know if a thorough spanking would remove the blindfolds they seem to favor these days, but it might help jostle them a little. I suppose it would depend on how much the base continues to believe those who continue to feed them their feel-good news, and how many of them are willing to lap it up. The attempt to discredit the mainstream media remains a very disturbing phenomenon, as it seems to have had some impact – but I can’t find the link.

But tomorrow, and the rest of this week, should prove interesting.

Professor Ilya Somin has an appealing analysis of the behavior of consumers of the Internet with regards to scams, commercial and political, on The Volokh Conspiracy:

By contrast, we do a much worse job of minimizing the risk posed by political deception and disinformation. If you get an e-mail from a wealthy heiress who offers to pay you a million dollars, or see a website that promises to increase your sexual potency at a bargain-basement price, you are likely to be highly skeptical. By contrast, many people don’t apply anything like the same degree of common-sense scrutiny to political snake oil – especially when it conforms to their preexisting views. Politicians and activists who peddle dubious conspiracy theories, promise to give you something for nothing, and otherwise spread disinformation, often gain a wide following. Donald Trump’s large-scale use of lies and deception is just an extreme case of a far more widespread tactic, also successfully used by more conventional candidates and political movements.

The problem here has less to do with the specifics of the internet and more with the way we process political information. In most private-sector contexts, we have strong incentives to guard against deception and keep wishful thinking under control. If you believe the promises of the self-proclaimed Saudi prince who e-mails to say he will send you a million dollars tomorrow if only you will forward him a much smaller sum today, you will probably lose your money. That leads most people to be duly skeptical of such offers, even if they badly want to believe in the possibility of getting rick quickly with little effort.

By contrast, if you find a website or Twitter feed that promises we can promote social justice or make America great again by supporting some dubious candidate or public policy, incentives for skepticism are much weaker. If you get taken in and end up with false political beliefs that lead you to vote for the “wrong” candidate on election day, the chance that your vote will make a difference to the outcome is infinitesimally small. And even if your mistaken vote does somehow end up being decisive, most of the cost of the error will fall on the rest of society, not you or your family.

As a result, most voters have strong incentives to be “rationally ignorant” about politics, often remaining unaware of even very basic information. They also tend to a poor job of evaluating what they do learn – including believing extremely dubious claims that reinforce their preexisting views, while ignoring strong evidence that cuts the other way.

In most nonpolitical transactions online, we stand to pay a high price for ignorance and credulity. That does not mean we completely avoid bias and error. But it does greatly reduce it. When it comes to politics, by contrast, we can indulge our prejudices at little personal cost.

I like it because it explains the tenacity with which horrible political positions are retained by otherwise bright people – when you’re one of just a few holding an outré political position, you’re unlikely to be hurt by it because it never achieves dominance. And, for many, learning comes only from mistakes that bloody your nose.

But this Administration is the actualization of those odd-ball political beliefs. My suspicion is that, as horrific as it might have been, we will lose the opportunity to learn from this mistake, because Trump will be impeached, resign, or will flee the country and try to govern from afar, out of reach of law enforcement.

I give that last one a 1% chance of occurring.

However, if Trump does ride out the storm that seems to have been unleashed this morning, we may have the opportunity to discover just how bad Trump and GOP governance can be. Sadly, that will be much to our regret, in my opinion.

Lawfare‘s Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes present their analysis of this morning’s big reveal. Their conclusion?

We offer no prediction as to how this will play politically or whether such antics will carry any water with Republicans who must be feeling a little uneasy today.

We will say this: Mueller’s opening bid is a remarkable show of strength. He has a cooperating witness from inside the campaign’s interactions with the Russians. And he is alleging not mere technical infractions of law but astonishing criminality on the part of Trump’s campaign manager, a man who also attended the Trump Tower meeting.

Any hope the White House may have had that the Mueller investigation might be fading away vanished this morning. Things are only going to get worse from here.

For those who’ve been waiting for Trump to grow into the job, it must feel like a spike is coming right up out of their chair. This may take longer than I expected, but, unlike Andrew Sullivan, I expect Trump will be leaving office before the end of this term, one way or another.

A little fun with a discarded petal.

Yeah, that’s about as unimpressive as it can get – out of focus on a pathetic subject. OK, just to make it up to you, here’s some out of focus night photos.

I had to use them somehow.

The oddly named Mr. Sardonicus (1961) is a cautionary tale for the modern religious zealot. In (fictional) Gorslava, the superstitious young peasant, Marek, has a shrill young woman, hungry for improvement, for a wife.  She rejects the gift of Marek’s father, a lottery ticket, one of the hundreds the old man has bought over the years, foolishly in her eyes. The next night, the old man is dead of a heart attack, and Marek buries him in his favorite coat.

Months later, the lottery winners are announced, and the gift ticket is a winner! Lo, let the celebrations begin – once Marek has dug up Dad in order to retrieve the ticket from the pocket of his favorite coat. But during the night time operation, Marek suffers a terrible affliction from, he supposes, God on high.  It is punishment for being a ghoul, a creature that digs up and consumes the dead. His wife is terrified, and soon takes her own life.

Years later, Marek is now Baron Sardonicus. He bought the title and land using his lottery winnings, and now stalks about with a mask to conceal the horror that is his face.  His sole occupation is now a desperate search for a medical cure for God’s affliction. Remarried to a woman who cannot stand his appearance, he & she contact her former boyfriend, Doctor Sir Robert Cargrave, who is now a successful researcher into various conditions, in hopes that he may be able to affect a cure.

He comes to visit, and discovers there are medical experiments underway, managed by the one eyed man-servant, Krull (love that name!). The subjects are vulnerable young women, and an appalled Cargrave orders Krull to discontinue the experiments.  Krull is grumpy about the matter, but wary of dominant men, for we soon learn Sardonicus is responsible for Krull’s missing eye. Meanwhile, Cargrave soon meets his former love, Maude, and then his host, the Baron. After some exploratory conversation over a repast, the Baron retires to secretly take his pleasure with a local innocent peasant woman.

The next day, the Baron reveals his affliction to Cargrave: the punishment meted out by an angry god is that the Baron’s face is to model that of his own father.

No so bad, you think? But context is all, and in this case, the face he displays is that of his father in the grave, dead and decayed. Sardonicus is stricken with the rictus of death.  He admits that he could not speak for years after being so afflicted, and only achieved speech through careful retraining. Sardonicus wishes Cargrave to bring his successful heat and massage techniques to bear on this curse from God, and Cargrave agrees.

His technique fails, however, and Sardonicus demands he try experimental treatments, or he’ll torture his own wife. Cargrave reluctantly agrees and engages in months of research on a cure involving South American poisons which will relax the muscles causing the rictus. At the moment of an announcement of success on a dog, Sardonicus requests an instant treatment. Despite Cargrave’s demurral, Sardonicus demands and manipulates until Cargrave agrees.

As it happens, Sardonicus’ father’s corpse is resident in the house, and it is to this room they repair for the treatment, at Cargrave’s insistence. Sardonicus is strapped down, facing his father, the drug injected, and the others leave the room. As the candle goes out, Sardonicus loses his nerve and begins screaming, inducing his man-servant, Krull, to open the door, which throws some light on the corpse, inducing more terror in Sardonicus.

And the muscles in his face relax, and once again he is normal, except now he cannot open his mouth. Cargrave announces this to be a temporary condition, a matter of a few hours. Sardonicus releases his wife, Maude from their marriage, and soon Cargrave and Maude are at the train station. This is where Krull catches up with him and begs their return, as Sardonicus still cannot open his mouth.

And now we get another reveal: there was no drug. Sardonicus was injected with distilled water. This cure was a reluctant psychological experiment, inducing Sardonicus to relax his own muscles through terror, just as initially the terror paralyzed his muscles. It’s all in his mind, Cargrave says, that’s all Krull must tell the Baron, and he’ll cure himself. Krull returns to the castle to inform the Baron.

Except …

This story is bookended by an anonymous, omniscient narrator. Flippant, he treats the camera as a theatrical audience, and at this juncture, he calls for a democratic vote: Should Sardonicus be rewarded, or punished? And Krull will the carry out the result of that final vote, now won’t he?

So, you must be wondering how this applies to the religious zealot. I see it this way: The submission of reason to emotion, which begins Sardonicus’ descent into hell, is strongly reminiscent of the true religious zealot’s experience of life: the attempts to explain the vagaries of existence through the exigency of a supernatural creature. Once experiencing a supposed incident of supernatural nature, every counter-action becomes supremely a matter of certainty for the believer – a fatalistic belief that the activity, regardless of its morality, is sanctioned by the divine, or, worse, will be forgiven by the divine.

So it is with Sardonicus, a superstitious peasant, transformed through his self-inflicted horrific incident.  He becomes a man, elevated to dominance, who has suppressed all communal, positive impulses in favor of his egocentric requirement to find a cure for a condition which, frankly, is merely repulsive, but not a danger to the Baron’s life. Utterly certain of the rightness of his position, there is no compromise, nor any hurdle upon which he balks. Krull is brutalized, and then required to brutalize other test subjects. Cargrave can find no traction in his protests against those demands, and Sardonicus is willing, even eager, to sacrifice his wife to gain his goal.

This is not unlike most religious movements, where the belief that since the divine favors the believers’ movement, the absolute goodness of any action taken by the movement is assured, and is analogous to the old horse-before-the-cart position. The phantom foundation shifting under their weight, of course, is the belief in the supernatural, whether it be ghouls, vampires, or gods.

And one may see in Krull those members now on the edge of disbelief, who have faced too many harsh realities to believe in the fairy tale. To be fair, Krull hasn’t espoused the fairy tale; he labors without rest in the service of the Baron. But as Sardonicus is revealed as having never been punished, but, instead, being a foolish victim of his own beliefs, Krull becomes the disillusioned members of the sect, leaving with bitterness in their hearts.

Heck, even the GOP could learn from this movie.

Technically speaking, this is a competent movie in all respects. The cinematography of this B&W effort is especially well done.

All that said, I can’t say I found this to be a compelling movie. It is interesting, trying to understand where it would go next, and what appeared to be the ending was almost appalling, until we learned how the finale would really play out.  And the necessary tensions were just not as vibratory as I might have hoped.

But it was fun.

My Arts Editor has caught the flavor of the transition as well.

A mere salamander is becoming a celebrity millennia after its death. From “Exceptional soft tissues preservation in a mummified frog-eating Eocene salamander,” Jérémy Tissier, Jean-Claude Rage, Michel Laurin, PeerJ:

The ‘Phosphorites du Quercy’, in southwestern France, include numerous karstic fissures in-filled by phosphatic sediments rich in vertebrate remains (Legendre et al., 1997; Pélissié & Sigé, 2006). Almost all remains appear as classical disarticulated fossil bones, but a few of them (a salamander, anurans and snakes) are spectacular cases of exceptional preservation; the animals are entirely mineralized, including the skin, in three dimensions. Unfortunately, these ‘mummies’ were collected in the 19th century and their precise provenance and geological age are unknown. However, it is suspected that they come from the late middle or late Eocene (Laloy et al., 2013; Tissier et al., 2016).

Until recently, only the external morphology of the ‘mummies’ was known. However, recent tomographic studies showed that the skeleton is preserved within the ‘mummies’ of the frog Thaumastosaurus gezei (Laloy et al., 2013) and of the salamander Phosphotriton sigei) (Tissier et al., 2016). The specimen of P. sigei includes a large part of the trunk (preserved posterior to the shoulder girdle), the anterior portion of the tail and the proximal portions of the hind limbs (Fig. 1A). The right side of the trunk is crushed. Diagnostic external features include the absence of scales, the presence of costal grooves visible on the left side, and the presence of a longitudinally slit-shaped cloaca.

And from the abstract:

Indeed, the digestive tract contains remains of a frog, which represents the only known case of an extinct salamander that fed on a frog, an extremely rare type of predation in extant salamanders.

I suppose that makes the frog a bit of a celebrity as well. Cool stuff.

If you’ve been wondering about the sudden blather about Secretary Clinton and uranium mines, Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare covers the issue at length. Perhaps of most interest, though, is his reference to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the matter, and his reaction to it:

NRC’s review of the transfer of control request determined that the U.S. subsidiaries will remain the licensees, will remain qualified to conduct the uranium recovery operations, and will continue to have the equipment, facilities, and procedures necessary to protect public health and safety and to minimize danger to life or property. The review also determined that the licensees will maintain adequate financial surety for eventual decommissioning of the sites. Neither Uranium One nor ARMZ holds an NRC export license, so no uranium produced at either facility may be exported.

…

• Uranium One’s licenses are for mining and extraction, not for export. This makes the claim that we “gave away” 20% of America’s uranium fairly hyperbolic. The expectation, in light of the NRC’s assessment, would have been that the uranium mined would be marketed in America (with the profits going to Russia).
• It is, however, true, that the mining rights to 20% of American uranium are now held by a Russian state agency. That is troubling (and had it been me, I would have tried to generate opposition to the sale). It isn’t a “give away,” but it is the case that Rusatom has de jure and de facto legal rights that can be exercised to limit production if it wishes to do so.

Along with with this note that the purchasing entity, Rosatom, “… is reported to have promised to retain the Uranium One corporate management and corporate structure, not breaking up the company,” it’s really hard to see the current GOP-generated uproar as anything more than a frantic distraction tactic for its own base. The Uranium One corporate structure will be Canadian, or perhaps even American, so it seems unlikely there’ll be illegal export or sabotage. More likely, this is simply seen as a way to take advantage of American nuclear needs by siphoning off some profits. It’s even possible that some Russian nuclear know-how made its way into Uranium One and is being applied to the extraction of the uranium.

And will the GOP base be smart enough to do some independent research? Maybe even read Lawfare, a hard-nosed legal blog that doesn’t put up with bullshit from either political party? Probably not, but I can keep up my hopes that my fellow citizens will return to thinking for themselves.