Category Archives: Uncategorized

Abnegate:

to refuse or deny oneself (some rights, conveniences, etc.); reject; renounce. [Dictionary.com]

Seen in ”Another Addition to the Chevron Anticanon: Judge Kavanaugh on the “Major Rules” Doctrine,” Asher Steinberg, The Narrowest Grounds:

To a certain cast of mind, the most heroic thing the Article III judiciary can do, at least in a post-Brown world, is to make law abnegating its lawmaking power.  So I have to comment on last Monday’s dissent from Judge Kavanaugh in the D.C. Circuit’s net-neutrality case on his discovery of the “major rules” exception to Chevron.

Ya gotta like the humor.

Katherine Martinko on Treehugger.com comments on the recent report from the World Resource Institute regarding the reduction of consumption:

This topic tends to be avoided in corporate boardrooms because it challenges the traditional business model that has proven so economically successful; but the WRI argues that a transition to alternative models of providing goods and services to consumers is inevitable. It’s better for companies to get on board with this now, to start exploring and innovating, to figure out ways of “delinking from increasing resource and environmental impact,” than to be irrelevant and outdated with the inevitable arrival of more transformational companies in the near future.

The WRI’s paper makes three recommendations as a starting point for businesses to become aware of resource limitations:

1. Do the math by looking openly and honestly at their dependency on natural resources and the associated limits on business growth;
2. Take a leadership role by using their influence to change the conversation with key stakeholders; and
3. Transform the business to one that will thrive in a resource-constrained environment.

Consumers are driving this change, too. People are catching on to key phrases like “circular economy,” “cradle to cradle,” and “eco-efficiency,” wanting to see these associated with the products they buy. A shift is happening already, and the sooner big companies realize this and start rethinking their use of resources, the better off we’ll all be.

This is all oddly reminiscent of a story from last year about Millenials not driving cars, and how this was forcing businesses to relocate from office parks in the suburbs, which are generally unserviced by mass transit, into the downtowns, where at least buses will provide service. The managers seemed shocked at this revelation that the Millenials didn’t care to drive – whether for environmental reasons or just not interested in driving (with the associated costs). The behaviors of the oncoming generations will change as their perceptions of how the behaviors of preceding generations have shaped their own reality – and their own chances of survival of themselves and their children.

If they see this as a matter of moral behavior, then companies who do not incorporate that thinking into their economic models may run into some unpleasant surprises.

Spaceweather.com has a violently lovely time lapse of the rise and collapse of a filament of magnetism here. Here’s a screen scrape:

It’s strangely beautiful, acting as if it’s in the midst of a hurricane. More here (look down the page).

To hear Andrew Sullivan tell it in New York Magazine, Trump isn’t really a Republican – he’s a Reactionary. Sullivan presents a long, fascinating article defining the recurring phenomenon and interviews with some of its leading proponents. I’m still mostly absorbing the material, but I did have to note one thing – the intellectuals of the movement do seem to ring some false notes.

For example, this paragraph summarizes Professor Charles Kesler of Claremont McKenna College, and editor of the Claremont Review of Books:

It was an act of desperation, he explained. In classic reactionary fashion, he believes that we are living through a crisis of American democracy. The Claremont consensus (to put a name on this strain of thought) holds that beneath the veneer of constitutional democracy, we are actually governed by a soft despotism of permanent experts, bureaucrats, pundits, and academics who ignore the majority of the American people. This elite has encouraged a divisive social transformation of the country, has led us into disastrous wars, and has created a deepening economic crisis for the middle class. Anyone — anyone — who could challenge this elite’s power was therefore a godsend.

This requires me to believe that the Iraq War was a common decision taken by a professional elite for hidden reasons – and not the decision by the Bush / Cheney administration, taken in contravention of intelligence resources, agencies later proven right, that Saddam Hussein had indeed rid himself of weapons of mass destruction such as poison gases. If I must discard as a reason motives of revenge, personal loathing, and avarice, then I shall also discard Professor Kesler’s apparent conspiracy theory, as it appears to have a logical weakness, and instead consider more probable the bidding of the military-industrial complex as we were warned about by President Eisenhower.

Another example is that of computer programmer Curtis Yarvin, writing as Mencius Moldbug on Unqualified Reservations, who Andrew reports making some dubious sweeping statements. First, he defines the “Cathedral” as an elite amalgam of universities and mainstream press. Then:

And the Cathedral has plainly failed. “If we imagine the 20th century without technical progress, we see an almost pure century of disaster,” Yarvin writes, despairing from his comfy 21st-century perch. His solution is not just a tyrannical president who hates all that the Cathedral stands for but something even more radical: “the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law, and the transfer of absolute power to a mysterious figure known only as the Receiver, who in the process of converting Washington into a heavily armed, ultra-profitable corporation will abolish the press, smash the universities, sell the public schools, and transfer ‘decivilized populations’ to ‘secure relocation facilities’ where they will be assigned to ‘mandatory apprenticeships.’ ”

This is 21st-century fascism, except that Yarvin’s Receiver would allow complete freedom of speech and association and would exercise no control over economic life. Foreign policy? Yarvin calls for “a total shutdown of international relations, including security guarantees, foreign aid, and mass immigration.” All social policy also disappears: “I believe that government should take no notice whatsoever of race — no racial policy. I believe it should separate itself completely from the question of what its citizens should or should not think — separation of education and state.”

A mix of rousing rhetoric and highly unstable system prescriptions, it skips rapidly over the hard work of an honest appraisal of the foundations, and on to the easy work of applying logic. He wants to just assert that it’s been a century of disaster – never mind the recognition and response to the political problems we’ve encountered (i.e., the United Nations), the development of humanitarian organizations, recognition of ecological desolation and how to begin returning the environment to a better condition (nevermind how hard that question can be to answer). In a sense, I’ve read similar crap from other computer-oriented folks since the ’80s – and have real troubles taking it seriously. Programmers, by the nature of the trade, have to make simplifying assumptions, and sometimes they are wrong, wrong, wrong. (Been there, done that.) Noting the flow of how he wrote that, it raises the red flags for me – someone who thinks they have wonderful insights – but has only skimmed to fortify his own predilection, not dug in deeply to question his own desired conclusions.

Or perhaps Andrew is right in the first instance, and Curtis is just putting forth an immense intellectual trick.

It’s worth taking a look at his article, especially if your bewilderment quotient is currently high – a peek behind the curtain that other people are holding.

Sometimes a failure to think comes across the ol’ virtual desk. In this case, someone chose to visit Cuba and then wrote up a report without really thinking much about it. It ended up in my mail, but you can find the full report here on ExpatExchange. Here’s a representative paragraph:

Outside Havana, the country is still in the 19th century. Many people walk, but equally as many use horses, both to ride and pull carts. I saw wagons pulled by oxen on the highway. We traveled by motor coach, stayed in crude motels, and ate in restaurants; all owned by the government. Staying clean was a challenge. In the public restrooms washing your hands was interesting. You need three things to wash your hands; water, soap, towel to dry. Well the towel was your shirt or pants, because there never was any towels. In 1/3 of the toilets there was no water and in one case, there was a lady standing beside the sink with a bottle of water to pour over your hands. In an equal number of places, there was no soap.

I don’t doubt it’s true. In fact, I rather appreciate the report to this point, as I’d probably not do the same trip myself, even if I did biking. But then his or her brain shuts down:

Glad I went, but have no desire to return. Cuba makes our inner cities look like paradise and the poverty is staggering. After two weeks abroad, we flew home and I spent the night in a Hampton Inn at the Atlanta airport, before catching an early morning flight back to Seattle. Took the longest hot water shower every after having a cheeseburger, fries and two gin & tonics for dinner. I was really glad to be back

Dedicated to all Bernie Sanders supporters and other DUMMYCRATS that believe “Government Socialism” is so much better than our country that was built on “Capitalism.”

Indeed? And, ah, did you find the same problems in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland?

It’s a pity, really. He (I’ll make the assumption) could have used the current condition of Cuba to discuss the importance of natural resources, the problems of overpopulation, the fallacies of authoritarianism (which is the proper description of Cuba) – and no doubt several other topics which escape my attention. Instead, he lapses into political gunnery, using a mislabeled example of a country embargoed by the United States decades ago, of a country which might be in trouble even if it was “free” – take a look at the history of Cuba at the time of the Revolution.

It’s a pity, really. An opportunity wasted on stupid political points.

For those interested in on the ground reports of Cuba, my cousin Scott went last year. He knows something about Cuba’s history, so his report is fascinating reading. I recommend it.

She’s located out in our parking lot at work. At first, she’d squawk and run, and sometimes pull the old “I have a broken wing” trick. Quite interesting, really. But now?

She just glares at us. Sometimes yells at us. Her mate watches from a distance.

I wonder if he thinks Omelette, too.

Evolutionarily, it makes sense. Ever feel hungry? It’s caused by a hormone named ghrelin. Apparently it’s multi-use, as Clare Wilson reports in NewScientist (29 April 2017):

But there is also evidence that ghrelin can enhance cognition. Animals fed reduced-calorie diets have better mental abilities. Injecting ghrelin into mice improves their performance in learning and memory tests, and seems to boost the number of connections in their brains.

Now Jeffrey Davies at Swansea University, UK, and his team have found further evidence that ghrelin can stimulate brain cells to divide and multiply, a process called neurogenesis. When they added the hormone to mouse brain cells grown in a dish, it switched on a gene known to trigger neurogenesis.

So if your immediate problem is a lack of food, you get sharper; but once you’ve satisfied that, you go into drowse mode. And then the tiger takes you.

So far, it’s not clear if fasting helps protect the brain, but it’s an interesting thought. Personally, I find “hunger headaches” to be blinding.

FBI Director Comey has been dismissed by President Trump while in the midst of investigating President Trump – power politics at its most despicable. Here’s the statement:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 9, 2017

Statement from the Press Secretary

Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office. President Trump acted on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“The FBI is one of the Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” said President Trump.

A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin immediately.

Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey of Lawfare:

The question before us now is whether Trump will get away with it. There is no question that the President has the legal authority to remove the FBI director. But there’s also no question that removing the FBI Director in the midst of a high-stakes investigation of Russian influence in the inner circle of the President’s campaign and White House is a horrifying breach of every expectation we have of the relationship between the White House and federal law enforcement.

What’s more, there is also no question that members of Congress, particularly members of the Senate, who are concerned about the integrity of that investigation and, more broadly, about preventing the gross political intervention in ongoing law enforcement and intelligence operations have tools at their disposal. We expect them to use those tools, as every American should.

Jonah Goldberg on National Review:

3) I keep reading that this is a “Nixonian” move. I get it. But that’s not clear. President Nixon fired people in the vain hope that he could stop the bleeding. There’s no evidence that Trump was trying to kill an investigation — yet.

4) Moreover, Nixon was a brilliant, cynical politician. I have a hard time seeing the political brilliance in this decision. Trump does not help himself with this line from his letter to Comey:

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.

I get what President Trump thinks he’s doing by saying this, but politically it’s the equivalent of saying “It’s not about the money.”

Kevin Drum:

So what’s the real reason? Well…the FBI is investigating the ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. If I were president while that was going on, I probably wouldn’t want someone running the agency who was eager to prove that he could get tough on my party too. Much better to have a friendly face running things. I imagine that Trump feels the same way.

But it feels like a big old hand in the air saying GUILTY!

Should this be labeled FBI or Trump Administration?

I wonder if this really qualifies as a silencing of Comey, however. He knows what he knows – and the Senate can subpoena him for further testimony as a private citizen. I don’t know how much he’s bound not to answer as a former Director – but his information remains fresh and hot.

But will the investigation continue? I suppose, like a headless chicken, it may run around until the deputy Director, Andrew McCabe, puts an end to it – if he does. But McCabe appears to be the choice of Comey, so we may see a very hurried choice by Trump for a new director. This must be confirmed by the Senate, however – and will the Senate permit itself to be hurried by an erratic Administration?

The political drama continues, while we blow about like a pennant in a hurricane. Will Trump’s successor have an intellectual understanding that there are fundamental differences between governments and corporations? If not, this will just continue.

I think this is a bit of marketing genius on the part of the Democrats. Steve Benen reports:

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) appeared on the show on Friday, the day after House Republicans passed their far-right health care bill, and he raised an interesting idea.

The Republican representative in the neighboring district, Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.), backed his party’s regressive plan, took his office’s phones off the hook, and decided not to host a local event to explain to his constituents why he’d voted for legislation that would do so much deliberate harm.

Maloney told Rachel on the show that if Faso wouldn’t talk to voters in his own district, answering their questions about health care, Maloney would do it for him. “I think every Republican who voted for this thing ought to have to stand in front of their voters and explain it,” the congressman said. “And if it takes a Democrat to go in and do it for them for a while, I’ll explain what is in this bill. And if he doesn’t like it, he should stand up and explain it himself.”

Wow. I cannot imagine being a Republican who just had a neighboring sitting Democratic Representative come and speak in his district. The embarrassment. The humiliation. What self-respecting voter would possibly consider voting for the guy if he’s not willing to come and defend his vote?

This is starting to stink of Tammany Hall.

I’d been mulling over a hypothetical chain of logically connected incidents, but it turns out it may already be underway in Missouri. glesslib (“an old blue lady”) on The Daily Kos explains:

I have, over the past two years, noticed a marked increase in the number of assisted living facilities in [Columbia, MO], as well as senior apartments and condominiums.  Granted, Columbia is growing a lot, but the number of these senior apartments in a college town is amazing.  At the same time, hospitals in small rural towns in Missouri are struggling to stay afloat.  More will close, if Medicaid is cut.  And that’s something our state legislature is always looking to cut.

As those small hospitals close and our population ages, the time has come where these two problems collide, and that collision brings moves from small towns to cities.  Cities like Columbia.

When there is no hospital in a small town, or the doctors begin retiring, or a peron develops a health issue that sends him or her for medical assistance an hour away, it’s a real wake-up call as to what will happen in a serious medical emergency.  So, if the health care leaves, the people won’t be far behind, starting with the oldest and most vulnerable. And when the people leave those little towns die.  And when those little towns die they don’t need some teapartying, Medicaid-cutting, underemployed lawyer to represent them in Jefferson City.

That’s what I’ve been thinking. Then she continues.

As people move to larger metropolitan areas, even if it’s just a city of one hundred thousand like Columbia,, over time, their thinking begins to change.  They become more cosmopolitan.  It takes time, but they become less susceptible to the classic GOP scares.  Pretty soon, perhaps two or three election cycles, the legislature isn’t just a place favorite sons of small towns come to become semi- important. Hopefully government will begin to mean something again.

That hadn’t occurred to me.

The GOP has come to be the party of stasis – but in this era, stasis doesn’t even apply to monuments. Against the broad background of the inevitable demographic shifts of the Boomers aging and going away, the refusal to provide proper medical care may bring reprisals from their own base. (Curiously enough, this may bring to the fore the problem of different sectors of society, and the mistake of applying one’s methods to another.)

There may be an opening, but whether or not the Democrats are able to take advantage of it is is another question.

Sarah Tate Chambers on Lawfare summarizes the Rivello and Steele cases (the latter featuring a Minnesota rogue lawyer), which are crimes enabled by the Internet. Here’s some detail on the case against Mr. Rivello:

On December 15, 2016, Kurt Eichenwald received a tweet from Twitter user @jew_goldstein that a flashing strobe GIF superimposed with the text, “YOU DESERVE A SEIZURE FOR YOUR POSTS.”

When Eichenwald viewed the tweet, he did in fact have a seizure, which lasted for eight minutes. According to the New York Times, he lost feeling in his left hand and had trouble speaking for several weeks afterwards. …

Three days after Rivello was arrested on federal charges in Maryland, the State of Texas, where Eichenwald lives, indicted Rivello on the charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, defining the deadly weapon as “a Tweet and a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and an Electronic Device and Hands.” The state attached a hate-crime enhancement, claiming that Rivello targeted Eichenwald primarily because of Rivello’s prejudice against Jews, as defined either by faith or descent. The significance of this enhancement is underscored by the anti-Semitism displayed by some of those who have rallied behind Rivello.

It may sound funny, but it’s a reality, and so long as we have the Internet and self-playing files, these sordid expressions of hate will continue. I suppose the silver lining is that at least we know the cockroaches of society do still exist and how to find them, but it’s not much consolation.

NewScientist (29 April 2017) is reporting that a new study indicates the legalization of medical marijuana may lead to a reduction in the use of opioids for pain reduction.

In the US, 28 states have legalised medical marijuana in some form. Conditions sometimes treated with cannabis include pain, depression, nausea, psychosis and seizures.

Now, an analysis of data from 2007 to 2014 has shown that states with legalised medical marijuana spent less than others on prescriptions for those five conditions through Medicaid, a scheme for people on low incomes.

The study couldn’t prove that medical marijuana caused this difference. But no difference was found in prescriptions for conditions unlikely to be treated with cannabis.

This is important because of the opioid epidemic the United States has been experiencing of late. However, are the forces opposed to marijuana legalization willing to accept defeat if this study is confirmed through other studies? I don’t really understand opposition as it is, so I can’t really guess.

Iran held its second of three presidential debates, and the focus turned to that irritant under their hide – the nuclear deal. Rohollah Faghihi reports in AL Monitor:

The most controversial issue during the second debate, which dealt with political and social issues, was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). At the time of its signing in 2015, many conservatives expressed staunch criticism of the nuclear deal, but during the May 5 debate, Ghalibaf and fellow conservative Ebrahim Raisi both vowed to protect the JCPOA and remain committed to it. However, they said that they do not consider the deal as perfect, and questioned the Rouhani administration’s ability to take sufficient advantage of it. Indeed, Ghalibaf and Raisi likened the nuclear deal to a check Rouhani “is not able to cash.”

In response, Rouhani challenged Ghalibaf’s and Raisi’s command of the details of the nuclear crisis, saying, “What do you know about the JCPOA that [compels] you to talk like this?” In response, Raisi said, “When Mr. Rouhani was the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council [1989-2005], a meeting was held between him and me, and I told him that we had received some reports about the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], and I asked him if he was aware of this, but he said [let’s] talk about it later.”

Rouhani also accused his rivals — and the conservative camp more broadly — of plotting to kill the nuclear deal while being “jubilant” about the election of US President Donald Trump, since he had pledged to tear up the JCPOA during his campaign. Noting the installment of anti-negotiation billboards by the Tehran municipality headed by Ghalibaf during the nuclear talks, Rouhani said, “If the JCPOA was acceptable to you, then why did you install billboards across Tehran, and spoke in that way with the [Iranian] negotiators. … Your talk was similar to the statements of [Iran’s] opponents, including the Wahhabists [Saudi Arabia] and the Zionists [Israel].”

It’s interesting how the conservatives on both sides of the conflict hate the instrument of peace. Perhaps the conflict itself gives them a reason to exist? Granted, on the American side there’s more to it; what about the Iranian side?

A live blog of the debate by Golnaz Esfandiari is on RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty.

From the email bag comes another bit of parasitism: the story of Irena Sendler (misspelled in the mail I received, although no doubt an honest mistake). I’ve poked around online a bit, but not found this exact article, nor a more honest version from which it might have been derived, so I’ll reproduce it, sans pictures and formatting.

WHAT A  WOMAN

Irena Sender

Died: May 12,  2008 (aged 98)

Warsaw , Poland

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids. Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazis broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. Later another politician, Barack Obama, won for SIMPLY BEING THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT. It is now more than 65 years since the Second World War in Europe ended.

This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be ‘a myth’, it’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.

Please don’t just delete it.It will only take you a minute to pass this along.

Of course, the shots at Al Gore and Barack Obama are gratuitous. The former Vice President, in using his position to alert the world to an imminent and widespread threat, was certainly a valid candidate for the award (which this mail misleadingly doesn’t note is actually a joint award, the other party being the Panel on Climate Change), and while Irena certainly should have her champions for the award, the committee may have felt it was more important to help save humanity from an imminent scourge than celebrate someone who courageously fought a vanquished scourge. Intriguingly, Snopes.com notes the names of nominees are not actually released for 50 years, yet I see The Independent claims to know at least some of the nominees. A leak, perhaps?

Of course, the award to President Obama is rather harder to defend. I’ve often felt the award was along the lines of “thank God, an Administration not headed by war-lovers!”, which hardly seems adequate. However, the “first black President” remark is quite simply racist; and, in any case, Sendler had passed away at this point, and Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously.

And that leads in to the real point of this missive – This is the story of an extraordinary woman, who received many awards over her lifetime for her self-sacrifice, including from both the Vatican and various Jewish organizations. And it was used for base political ends, and, worse yet, to spread the diseases of racism and petty resentments. It’s subtle, it’s vile, and the writer should be ashamed.

I see on CNN that President Trump issued a signing statement when he signed a bit of legislation over the weekend. I’m so tired of these damn things. Either bloody well litigate what you don’t like, or get yourself elected to Congress, Mr. President. You are only the President with Executive duties, not some lawmaker.

I must be cranky this morning.

Coffin birth:

There was a fourth skeleton in the grave: that of the woman’s near-term fetus, estimated to be 39-40 weeks old. After death, gases build up inside a body which can, for women who were pregnant at time of death, cause the expulsion of a fetus. This is known as post-mortem fetal expulsion (also called post-mortem fetal extrusion, as it is in the most recent paper) or, more commonly, coffin birth. [“The Coffin Birth of Liguria: The Science Behind A Sad Story,” Gemma Tarlach, Dead Things]

A tree in Shoreview, MN:

Immotile:

lacking motility

a free-form sculpture that manages to suggest movement while remaining an immotile object [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in the NewScientist Aperture column (22 April 2017):

The place is significant for Barker, for it was here, in 1816, that marine biologist John Vaughan Thompson was posted as a military surgeon. In Cobh harbour, he became the first person to observe the small, immotile organisms known as plankton.

I suppose it should be noted that, in the context of the column, Barbie Doll legs are considered to be immotile.

Ever wonder about those textiles made of “Egyptian cotton?” Didn’t seem to be all that special? They may have been fake. Menna Farouk reports on steps taken to stop the fraud and how this is helping the Egyptian economy in AL Monitor:

In August 2016, a US retail chain accused India’s textile manufacturer Welspun of using cheaper, non-Egyptian cotton in bed sheets and pillowcases. The Indian manufacturer acknowledged the accusations, admitting that some of their products were falsely labeled as 100% Egyptian cotton.

Following this announcement, internationally, retailers have begun to more closely monitor their products labeled as 100% Egyptian cotton, many requiring manufacturers to provide attestation for products labeled as such.

In an effort to crack down on these fraudulent practices and ensure quality, in 2016, the Cotton Egypt Association started licensing the use of the Egyptian cotton logo to suppliers and manufacturers all over the world. Carrying the logo means that the association certifies the authenticity of the Egyptian cotton through DNA analysis. …

Economist Ahmed el-Shami said that if Egypt’s cotton industry returned to its previous glory, the economy would flourish, the spinning and textile industries would boom, and stalled factories would reopen.

A large enough number of fraudulent cases can drag an economy to the edge, apparently.

When Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister of Australia in 2015, I had some hopes that he was conscious of the cilmate change problems facing the world, seeing as he dismissed his predecessor’s overly political approach as “bullshit.” Sadly, he seems to fall into a similar category, as noted by Alice Klein in NewScientist (22 April 2017, paywall):

The scientific consensus is clear: the increased frequency of mass bleaching events is being driven by global warming – both directly by warming water and indirectly by extreme weather that ravages corals. The only way to save the precious remains of the reef is to rein in our carbon dioxide emissions.

So it might come as a surprise that the Australian government seems hell-bent on doing the opposite. Last Monday – the same day the latest reef report card was released – Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was in India finalising a deal with multinational conglomerate Adani to build the largest coal mine in Australia – just 300 kilometres from the Great Barrier Reef. Will this seal the reef’s fate?

The emissions certainly won’t help. Coal from the A$22 billion (US$16.5 billion) Carmichael mine will go by rail to the Abbot Point coal port in the central section of the reef and shipped to power stations in India, where it will pump out more than the annual carbon dioxide output of New Zealand.

The coal will also have a more direct effect: dust blowing from shipments at Abbot Point is likely to poison nearby coral. Coal dust exposure can kill coral in as little as two weeks.

Australian citizens are against the Carmichael mine, as noted in the guardian:

Three-quarters of Australians, including most Liberal voters, oppose the government giving a $1bn loan to Adani to build a rail line between its proposed Carmichael coalmine and the Abbot Point shipping terminal.

But there may be a greater objection raised to Turnbull’s plan, as Klein reports:

Because while the Australian government has insisted that India needs coal to power the lives of 100 million impoverished people, the Indian government has plans to move away from fossil fuels. Last last year, it announced it would harvest 60 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2027. The rapidly falling price of solar energy is making it an increasingly attractive alternative to coal for India and other lower-income countries.

And all this in contrast to the coal miners’ own efforts to leave the industry in its own hole in the ground.

Testator, testatrix:

A testator is a person who has written and executed a last will and testament that is in effect at the time of his/her death.^[1] It is any “person who makes a will.”

A female testator is sometimes referred to as a testatrix, particularly in older cases. [Wikipedia]

The latter noted in my wife’s will today. Seeing as how at one time she made a living grading test papers in the area of English Composition, I was a trifle confused.

Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare remarks on the ongoing efforts to differentiate people from bots in the broad contextual problem of fake news:

A recent project by “Truthy” at the University of Indiana gives a good window into how the technology might work (and how difficult it may be to implement at scale).  The project, known as BotOrNot, is an academic project partially funded by NSF and DoD.  The objective is a limited one — to try and assess whether the traffic from a particular twitter account can be analyzed to determine whether the account is connected to a real human being or whether it is controlled by a bot network.  Because the assessment is probabilistic rather than definitive the “score” assigned to an account is a numerical percentage rather than an absolute “bot or not” determination.

And thus my contingent humanity.  The analytics of my own Twitter account (@RosenzweigP) assign me a score of 13% as a bot (or, reciprocally, as 87% as a real human being).  The analytics rely on things like the timing of my tweets, their language structure, and my use of hashtags as a way of gauging my genuine nature.  Interestingly, the area in which I most resemble a bot seems to lie in a sentiment analysis—apparently, my tweets have been angry of late (you can imagine why) and that is indicative, at some level, of artificiality.

That last bit concerning the operationality of the software touched my contradictory nature. What if I were a bot writer, dedicated to retweeting fake news, and this came up? What would I do?

Actually, I’d write my bot to be trainable, and then I’d train it – on known human Twitter accounts. Let it learn how humans write, when they write, the patterns that emerge. And then it can use those same patterns when it goes about its dark business. I’m not saying it’d be easy – you’d need some training and experience in the Big Data arena, I’m sure – but it’s probably doable.

Maybe it’s the Rock of Sisyphus

I’ve been trying to write a review of The Red Turtle (2016), a 2016 Oscar nominee in the animated film category, for nearly a week now, but it’s gone poorly. This is a movie which dispenses with subtlety and ambiguity in the tangible parts of the story, as there is no doubt to the actions taken by an anonymous man washed up on a deserted island, from his basic nourishment to his attempts to escape the island, nor does dialog exist to cloud the issue. Even his dreams, if initially misleading, are swiftly clarified as to their true nature.

The motivations of his antagonist, however, are less clear, as it blocks his attempts to leave. The actions are, again, beyond dispute, but the motivations are the bridge to the other part of this story – that of symbolism and metaphor, and these are quite ambiguous. In contrast, the concrete actions of the man, the violent and terminal destruction of his antagonist, are such that the audience may not be able to empathize or understand those actions.

And then we are treated to a metamorphosis, a puzzling occurrence that makes no tangible sense, nor does it really work for this viewer in the metaphorical realm, although I suspect there are several competing explanations. In tangible terms, a turtle sheds her shell and transforms into a beautiful human woman.  The two become a mated pair and make the island their home. They reproduce and age.  We see their son grow up and eventually leave the island.  After a full life, the man dies – and his mate resumes her original form and returns to the sea.

Without a convenient explanation, it’s difficult to argue for, or against, The Red Turtle‘s thematic material, but I’ll give it a bit of a try. It was, in a word, punchless. If there’s a lesson to be learned & debated, it was too subtle for my rather straight-ahead temperament. I did not see an argument made for the integrity of the metaphor, whatever it might have been, or the validity of the thematic argument. As much as I enjoyed the minimalist artwork, the unusual story-telling style, and the very comedic crabs, my primary final emotion was neither exhilaration nor introspection; just puzzlement.

Taken as pure mythology or allegory, the story kind of works.  But for someone who doesn’t deal well with ambiguity or unexplained lapses of logic, this film leaves the viewer with more questions than answers.  I don’t know, though.  Maybe that’s the point.

Steve Benen wrote something which triggered a sudden logic process. Here’s what he said:

I’ve long been fascinated by the degree to which America’s current Republican Party is an international outlier. Our GOP, for example, is the only major party in any advanced democracy on the planet to reject the science of climate change. It’s the only major party that believes citizens should have largely unfettered access to firearms. It’s the only major party to oppose the international nuclear agreement with Iran.

And it’s the only major party in any advanced democracy on earth to oppose health care as a core benefit of citizenship.

Now let’s throw a couple of proper names into the mix, such as Albert Einstein. Madeleine Albright. Felix Frankfurter. The point being that we’re really a country made by our immigrants.

And something must attract those immigrants. Honestly, it’s a competitive landscape out there – unlike, say, the time of Einstein, where it was America or persecution. Albright escaped Communism. Frankfurter came as a boy with his family, who no doubt were looking for opportunity.

So now, as Steve points out, the GOP wants to tell prospective immigrants that healthcare may only be available to the rather well-off – and those who are willing to use the counter-productive, in both the financial and health senses, emergency rooms. For the desperate immigrant, this may not matter much. But for the skilled immigrant – say, a PhD in a biology-oriented discipline – who may have his or her pick of countries to go – what does the United States offer?

Health care forced into crisis by the GOP. A xenophobic President. A legislative body dominated by incompetent ignoramuses, who don’t realize that they just crippled this nation in the field of attracting highly desirable immigrants.

The health care debacle, if it comes to that, may be more costly than we know.