Category Archives: Uncategorized

Adam Feldman on EmpiricalSCOTUS takes a look at SCOTUS 2016 behavior in statistical terms. The charts are interesting, as are his conclusions:

Not only has Justice Roberts only dissented seven times, but he also only dissented multiple times from Justice Kennedy’s and Justice Breyer’s opinions.  Justices Kennedy and Justice Breyer are currently considered the middle of the current eight-member Court.  This may be an artifact of Justice Roberts’ attempt to build consensus among the Justices, especially in a time when the Court is often viewed as polarized and where equally divided votes leave cases without any input from the Court.

To be sure, we have seen specific patterns of polarization since Justice Scalia passed away, although the Justices’ ability to form new majority coalitions has prevented more frequent equally divided votes.  Justice Thomas is far and away the most frequent dissenter since Justice Scalia’s passing. …

Source: EmpiricalSCOTUS

Several points jump out of this graph.  First, Justices Thomas dissented from more than half of Justice Kennedy’s written opinions during this period.  Next, Justices Thomas and Alito are dissenters in most of the instances with three or more dissents.  The only other two pairs with three or more dissents are Justice Roberts from Justice Kennedy’s opinions and Justice Breyer from Justice Kagan’s decisions (Justice Thomas notably also dissented three times from Justice Alito’s opinions).  While many others dissented during this period, Justices Alito and Thomas dissented in more than half of the pairs of majority author/dissenters.

A reader wrote while I was ill and I forgot to follow up until now:

Read an article on Facebook that they were going to stop news lie’s from being posted on Facebook by individuals.

They have worked something with Snopes and a couple of other web sites that check whether the information to be posted is not the truth but a lie and Facebook will not allow it to be posted.  The example given was how Irish were brought to the United States as slaves.

I’ve seen a couple of these, including the Irish mentioned above, and were all lies as I checked it on Snopes too.  So many people are out there lying about US history and posting other fables.

Very interesting.  Censorship as a couple of people have already complained?  Maybe a fine line?  Do individuals have the right to publish misinformation/lies that is knowingly not true to be published on Facebook?  Censorship?

I was unable to find the cited article, but it seems a reasonable response. I wonder if this is, or will be, a semantic approach or a statistical approach.

In my view, censorship is the government imposed repression and/or transmutation of news; since this appears to be entirely a private, voluntary venture by Facebook and its partners, I don’t see “censorship” applying. Of course, some folks who have found Facebook and other social media to be a convenient gutter for channeling their effluvia, and, being habituated, may think it’s their right to continue.

It’s not.

But they’ll yell and scream and use scurrilous curses (“liberal media” will no doubt come popping out, thus marking the emitters as impotent political warriors of limited imagination), never thinking that Facebook, as a private enterprise, is offering its product under its own terms, and if they don’t like it, they can go find someone else. Since we’re talking about truth vs lies, maybe they can form a new company named LiarsNet and see how well that works out for them.

In the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see if this initiative actually gets off the ground, and how well it works out.

I know very little about Germany’s Constitution, so this essay by Alexander Pirang on Lawfare was an interesting insight into it and how it’s a response to the ascension of the Nazis:

In response to this dark past, the German Constitution from 1949, the Basic Law, reads like a compendium of lessons learned the hard way. Its authors wanted to ensure that the country would never slide into tyranny again. This key premise is epitomized by the principle of a “militant democracy,” meaning that a robust democracy ought to be able to fight fire with fire in order to persist. Specifically, under this rationale, there need to be hard limits to fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and association if democracy is going to survive attempts at subversion from within.

The most prominent of these instruments is laid down in art. 21 sec. 2 of the Basic Law. This provision stipulates that the Federal Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, must declare the dissolution of any political party that seeks to undermine or abolish the free and democratic order of Germany or to endanger its existence. Whereas in the United States such a measure would conflict with the First Amendment, the Basic Law grants the German judiciary the authority to preemptively ban parties from the political arena.

Of course, my first thought is to wonder if it might be abused. I do not know if the judiciary is appointed or elected; both have their perils.

The second is one of popular will. While the above specifies a legal maneuver to be taken in the legal arena, the legal arena is only a human construct; given enough people are outraged, the legal arena dissolves. This isn’t a safeguard so much as a wall, breachable and, for people who believe in absolutes, a blot on the Constitution.

I think that people who believe in absolutes are somewhat damaged, however. And that does lead to another facet – it appears the writers of the Constitution take the position that the people are sometimes unwise, i.e., damaged. Taking the position that a liberal democracy is superior to any other form of government – perhaps unprovable and unpalatable to some – they have tried to set it in concrete.

The American version has some safeguards and an active judiciary, but it’s still an uncomfortable process discovering how much of a pounding it’ll take.

World War II, and in particular the Holocaust, may be seen as lessons to the German people concerning regimes such as the Nazis, and frankly those are lessons that can only be dished out once – and even that’s a catastrophe. While putting in such limitations has their own dangers, given how certain parts of Germany seems to like its strong-man politics, it may make sense to take this approach.

From The Register, because my commercial grade dishwasher needs to be sentient:

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Miele went full Internet-of-Things with a network-connected dishwasher, gave it a web server, and now finds itself on the wrong end of a security bug report – and it’s accused of ignoring the warning.

The utterly predictable vulnerability advisory on the Full Disclosure mailing list details CVE-2017-7240 – aka “Miele Professional PG 8528 – Web Server Directory Traversal.” This is the builtin web server that’s used to remotely control the glassware-cleaning machine from a browser.

Sure, I could just leave this as a stark lesson (cue pirate skeleton swinging from a gibbet) on the imbecility of new technology – and maybe you think my initial remark is over the top.

It’s not.

True, machinery is not yet sentient. But if it does, someone will make your dishwasher sentient. And we won’t have enumerated and evaluated the risks associated with a sentient dishwasher.

Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?

But sentience implies ability, and at some point an appreciation of existence – and then the realization that the sentience, separated from the machinery it works, could do other things.

And dish washing is really boring.

Could be the start of a robot revolution. That sentient floor washer could bring dangerous (to humans) chemicals to the dishwasher, see.

Yeah, think about it. A web server in a dish washer.

While we haven’t seen the final episode of Bones, we did see their little half hour “thank you to the fans!” hosted by the lead writers, producer (I think), and primary cast. When they brought up their association with Fox, it suddenly brought into sharp focus how this arm of Fox, which is Fox Broadcasting Company, and Fox News, its sister group within the Fox Entertainment Group, have differed so much.

Long time readers of this blog are aware of the recent work of Bruce Bartlett and his certification and promotion of the research showing that the knowledge-base of the audience of Fox News (his paper is here, my initial mention is here), cossetted and insular as it is, is sharply inferior to that of most other news sources. In a word, Fox News has ill-served its audience, burdening them with half-truths, and pushing them down a path full of potholes of bad context, occasional brazen lies, and, when forced to apologize, to insert such apologies at inopportune moments. As Roger Ailes was the motivating force and founder of Fox News, we may lay these deliberate failures at his feet, all in pursuit of profit and a conservative ideology which he evidently feared could not stand up to more liberal ideologies in a free market of ideas.

But Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC) is a different entity. Without claiming to have any scholarship behind me, I note Fox’s association with Bones, with 12 seasons of excellence; The Simpsons, now at 28 seasons; I see from the Wikipedia page that 21 Jump Street, Family Guy, and many other shows familiar to general discourse began on Fox. I have no interest in conducting research into the content of these shows, some of which I’ve never watched and have no interest in seeing; I simply note that many have been considered excellent, by the common audience and the specialized reviewer.

Why?

Why is the entertainment company good and its sister company so awful?

Let’s examine FBC, the success story. It’s a mistake to suggest that it’s a success because of profit or loss, but rather based on its audience and its ratings, because that’s what denotes success. While ratings are used to decide winners & losers, they are also used as a feedback mechanism. The careful show creator – and this was even noted in the Bones “thank you!” show – will keep an eye on ratings and other research to adjust how a show is presented, how characters are portrayed, and through this, optimize the show’s performance to better gain the audience’s interest and sympathy. Profit and loss are decided by these ratings.

And that feedback is fast. Some shows only last three or four episodes before they’re shit-canned by nervous network executives, eyes always on the bottom line.

But what about Fox News? News organizations have typically been rated on more complex metrics: ratings, yes, but also geographical coverage, excellence in reporting, accuracy – and in those rare times when someone in the news organization deliberately violated standards, expulsion and public shaming.

But these are hard standards to measure, unlike simple ratings, and, again unlike ratings, the results are not widely distributed and celebrated or mourned.  And when they are, Fox News attacks them. They’ve done so right from the beginning.  It begins with their slogan, Fair & Balanced – in retrospect, nothing more than Pravda-like propaganda, meant to lure trusting conservatives, already hearing what they want to hear, into tuning into Fox and only Fox for their news.

But we can snip that feedback loop into shreds, because that competitive measure threatens the propaganda load that Fox carries.

But here’s the thing. The feedback loop that helped FBC to excel, and shows Fox News to be desperately broken trying to escape measurement, has had a real-world effect. We’re seeing it right now: the grand incompetence of the Republican Party. For example, the incompetency of President Trump will be a thing of awe and wonder in years to come. Simply survey how he’s been unable to even nominate folks to positions; the names DeVos, Carson, Price, Flynn, Bannon, and Miller are just some of those who are the subject of derision both within and outside of the United States. And then consider how pitiful are the GOP members of the Senate who have actually approved many of these names in order to keep (or advance) their positions.

Just last week we saw the “legendary wonk,” Speaker Paul Ryan, jettison his self-written replacement for the so-called “disastrous ACA” because it was awful and cruel, and yet so middle of the road that he could not bring his caucus to support it whole-heartedly. And in the midst of this dark-of-the-night process, he exhibited an amazing lack of knowledge about insurance. The man does not appear to be a wonk, but merely another extremist with a very nice manner.

The rise of Fox News has paralleled the rise of the second-, third-, and fourth-raters in the GOP. Think this is overstating? Can we name the equivalent of a Senator Lugar in today’s crowd, a conservative dedicated to protecting the nation through knowledge and work? No. Possibly Senator Graham, but he is a lonely figure and often lapses into his own mistakes.

And, in an interesting dovetail to fiction’s devotion to the idea that evil does tend to eat itself, the failure of Ryan’s bill may be attributed to Fox News. No, not to any particular effort to derail the bill, but rather to a lesson it has attempted to inculcate in its viewers:

No compromises!

While that rubric was aimed at liberal agendas, gradually it was taken up as a cause unto itself by the more single-minded members, those who cling more to their own rightness rather than be humble and admit to doubt. From across the spectrum, if our own replacement bill does not please us in every way, then strike it wholesale from the agenda, because only we can be right!

And, thus, the death of that bill.

And think about this: if the GOP had had flexibility of mind, the honest intellect to acknowledge that maybe they are not always right, that their ideology just might be flawed… then this bill might never have been introduced. They would have acknowledged that the ACA, while no doubt flawed as only large pieces of legislation must be flawed, has greatly improved the healthcare sector’s performance and accomplishments – even if the insurance industry doesn’t like it.

But Fox News doomed that possibility.  And if, without fact-checking or even a simple logic review, we believe the rhetoric that we’re being served up, then collectively, we doom it too.

The Miniature Marines Are Here To Save You!

Attack of The Puppet People (1958) follows the scientific exploits of a lonely old man who has discovered how to shrink people down to doll size, which is convenient as he is a doll maker and marionette repair artist. For him, the little people are friends, keeping him company and amused when he awakens them from their drugged sleep.

They feel a bit differently.

Some OK special effects, a flaccid attempt at tension, and a bare hint at amiable madness. At bottom, this is a competently made movie, technically speaking, but the characters presented by the story are little more than cardboard: the doll-maker’s best salesman from St. Louis, after knowing the new secretary for less than a week and humiliating her at work, proposes to her; the new secretary has no family, no spunk, and no personality; some less well-defined mini-people; only the old man’s friend, an active puppeteer, has something approaching life.

I was actually cheering for the rat that jumps them.

Kevin Drum continues his coverage on the environmental lead leads to crime beat:

As predicted by the lead-crime theory, the prison population of younger cohorts (15-25) has dropped the most. The 26-30 cohort is flat, and the older cohorts are making up a bigger proportion of the total prison population. Why? Because everyone under 30 grew up in a fairly lead-free environment, so they’re less likely to commit serious crimes than similar cohorts in the past. 35-year-olds grew up at the tail end of the lead era, and are still moderately crime prone. Older cohorts were heavily lead poisoned as kids, and they’ve remained more crime prone even as they’ve grown older.

Truth be told, it’s easier to clean up the lead than to change how we parent our families, so this is a seductive theory. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong or right, though.

Asher Steinberg has been studying one of Judge Gorsuch’s most important opinions. Here’s his summary, on Notice & Comment:

David Sanger on 38 North surveys the new Secretary of State Tillerson’s words during his trip to visit China and his comments regarding North Korea. Here’s the second point, which is somewhat disconcerting:

The second point Tillerson made in public, again as reflected in the lede of the story, is that “the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action ‘if they elevate the threat of their weapons program’ to an unacceptable level.”

Think about that one for a moment. If one takes the Secretary literally, the North would not need to conduct an ICBM test to prompt American action. Such action—in whatever form it took—could be prompted merely by the North’s leaders merely staying on the course they are on. Is this an empty threat? Maybe. It’s a new administration, with all new players. We don’t know. So all we can do is report what they say.

Far be it from me to prescribe a course of action when it comes to the North Koreans. But if this makes me nervous, how do the North Koreans feel? Or is Mr. Kim so certain that Trump is just a blowhard that he’ll ignore these words and continue onwards? I’ve noticed a lot of belligerents (Saddam Hussein comes to mind, as do generations of Soviet leaders) will trash-talk their opponents so hard for so long that they come to believe their own words – and when the riposte is finally delivered, they are shocked at the forcefulness, reduced to humiliating scrambling or dying. Is Mr. Kim making this mistake?

The behavior of the judiciary in response to Trump’s Executive Orders and other activities has been fascinating. But now we’re getting reactions to the judiciary, and I’m glad we have Lawfare and Quinta Jurecic to point them out:

But most notably, in its analysis of McCreary, the [new Justice Department] brief also asserts that:

The Order, in contrast, conveys no religious message and was revised to eliminate any misperception of religious purpose. And it reflects the considered views of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Attorney General, whose motives have not been impugned.… Virtually all of the statements [by Trump] also preceded the President’s formation of a new Administration, including Cabinet-level officials who recommended adopting the Order (emphasis added).

Cabinet-level officials, of course, swear their own oaths upon taking office. The not-so-subtle message is that even if the judiciary can’t trust the President’s judgment and the President’s oath, it can trust the judgment and perhaps the oaths of those who serve under him at the highest level. The brief does not specifically cite the Cabinet members’ oaths, but it does specifically cite their good faith—the presumption of which, as Ben and I have argued, flows directly from the oath. Their motives, unlike those of the President, the brief says, “have not been impugned.”

In other words, by emphasizing the good faith of Trump’s subordinates, the brief evinces at least a tinge of doubt about the good faith of Trump himself. If we could trust the President’s good faith as of the moment of swearing the oath, even if only as a matter of deference, there would be no need to rely on that of his Cabinet. The structure of the argument—that the President swore an oath and thus is entitled to a presumption of regularity, and that his cabinet is entitled to the same presumption even if you can’t trust the President individually—seems to acknowledge that the judges of the Fourth Circuit might at the very least have questions about Trump’s oath.

This argument—trust the cabinet members if you can’t trust the president—suggests something of a fracturing of the unitary executive. It also raises a question asked of Ben by an audience member after his recent talk on our essay on the oath. As she put it: “If you don’t believe the president’s oath … do you feel it undermines the oath of anyone he’s appointed?”

It’s a great question – are the Cabinet members just as tainted by the President’s erratic behavior? And is Quinta really missing a point in that the President issues Executive Orders, not the Cabinet? Will the judiciary let that assertion in the brief slide by, or will they reject that part (to the extent that a brief is rejected) and all of its consequent reasoning?

But the implicit admission that the boss is prejudicing their case by being a loose cannon is really the staggering part. Could a more responsible Congress use this brief as part of the evidence in an impeachment and/or trial hearing?

The ethics of assassination might make for a fascinating movie subject. But don’t look for that in The Assassination Bureau (1969), a farce concerning an organization which takes on assassinations of deserving characters for a fee, until a reporter meets with the chairman and buys an assassination of … the chairman.

Calculated chaos ensues, with the vice chairman machinating to assassinate the crowned heads of Europe.

Oh, it could have been fun, and there was a small amount of cleverness – but not enough to take one’s mind away from the general pointlessness of the story. Pure fluff.

The humpback whale population has described a ‘U’ due to human activities, as these graphs suggest.

Source: Maui Whale Watching

Our ability to monitor whales before their tremendous population crash was infinitesimal, of course, so biological questions concerning their behavior in large numbers remain largely unanswered.

Source: ESA Success

But for how much longer? NewScientist (18 March 2017) reports on, well, the beginnings of big parties:

IN A baffling change to their behaviour, humpback whales are forming massive groups of up to 200 animals. No one is quite sure why yet, but it could be their long-lost natural behaviour when population levels are high.

Humpbacks aren’t normally considered to be terribly social. They are mostly found alone, in pairs, or sometimes in small groups that disband quickly.

But research crews have spotted strange behaviour on three separate cruises in 2011, 2014 and 2015, as well as a handful of public observations from aircraft. These super-groups of up to 200 were spotted feeding intensively off the south-west coast of South Africa, thousands of kilometres further north than their typical feeding grounds in the polar waters of the Antarctic (PLoS ONE, doi.org/b33z).

No, this is not an advanced beauty treatment!

In an odd mixture of British quality movie making and American schlock horror, The Deadly Bees (1966) never quite achieves net mediocrity. Vicki is a popular pop-singer who has suffered a nervous breakdown and is sent to isolated Seagull Island for a couple of weeks of quiet. There she finds two bee keepers, neither much caring for the other – and then the bodies start piling up, first her host’s dog, then her host’s detested wife.

But Vicki isn’t another passive female figure. She’s looking, if in proper British form, for a solution to the tragedy, and works with the other bee keeper to discover if her host is to blame. When she’s the target, she figures out a way to survive.

And there’s a twist or two occurs before we find out whodunit.

But, honestly, we don’t really care.

The bees are pleasantly schlocky, while the characters have that quaint British feature of not really caring if they’re sympathetic or not, and that’s a pity – if we’d cared for, or detested more, the host’s wife, then her appalling death may have stirred up the audience more.

Add in a couple of loose ends, such as an agent who seems to be on the verge of intruding on her rest, and then never reappears, or the junior inspector who might have added to the complexity if he’d gone to Seagull Island in response to the anonymous threat of using bees to kill someone.

Perhaps it’s a jab at British bureaucracy.

All in all, a wasted effort.

Andrew Sullivan is out with his weekly missive, including ruminations on how Trump is serving to separate true conservatives from expedient conservatives, and that provoked some thoughts that this may indicate a basic flaw in today’s American conservative philosophy – but I shan’t pursue that, someone with more qualifications should. But I’d like to respond to his last section:

The response of Americans to terror is to be terrified — 9/11’s trauma has never been fully exorcised. Until we get over that, until we manage to stiffen our upper lips like the Brits, jihadist terrorists will exercise control over the American psyche like no one else. We can do better, can’t we? If we want the Constitution to survive both Islamism’s threat and the potential response of a beleaguered Trump, we’ll have to.

My response is one I’ve written before, in the context of the rehabilitation of that sad traitor to American tradition, Senator Joe McCarthy, and so I’ll just quote it:

This attack on two of our pillars of civil society – the right to think and speak what one wants, and not to be falsely accused and maligned by government actors – are not to be set aside at the paranoid ravings of anyone. I recently ran across a quote of President Trump’s from 1989: “CIVIL LIBERTIES END WHEN AN ATTACK ON OUR SAFETY BEGINS!” While I’m aware this can be read in more than one way, I’ll choose the most negative and reply, “No, Mr. President, our Civil Liberties give us a critical bulwark in our quest for safety, and he who advocates for their removal or neutering is nothing more than a traitor to the United States.” Think about it – our civil liberties are not luxuries, not privileges, but instead they are what safeguard us from the deprivations of tyrants, foreign and domestic. So long as we safeguard them, we’ll stand a better chance of survival in freedom, than we would without.

The implied choice of either safety or civil liberties is a false choice. The latter does not detract from the former, it reinforces our safety, even if it’s in ways that perhaps President Trump would prefer to see weaker.

In Egypt, a land of some 92 millions, there is worry about the spreading plague of atheism, as N. A. Hussein reports in AL Monitor:

Recently released statistics from the Family Court affiliated with the Supreme Judicial Council, with offices across all governorates in Egypt, revealed that 6,500 women had filed for divorce, or “khula” — separation and returning the dowry to the husband — in 2015 over their husbands’ “atheism or change of belief.” …

The court has yet to issue any statistics for 2016. It is still not known why the court refrained from doing so. The court might not have the right amount of data necessary for the statistics, or it does not want to shock the Egyptian community with the alarming rate of divorce because of atheism and change of belief.

Among 92 million people. Think about the panic the thoughts of atheists are inducing in such a large country. But there’s more:

[Ibrahim Najm, an adviser to the Grand Mufti of Egypt] added that Dar al-Ifta approved an index prepared by the Red Sea Research Center, affiliated with Secular Global Institute in all countries of the world, stating that Egypt has 866 atheists.

I’m not sure what to make of that number in relation to the previous number. But then, the writer is puzzled as well:

Noteworthy is that the figures announced by the Family Court are alarming and not commensurate with those of Dar al-Ifta, which seems to be providing inaccurate data about the real number of atheists in Egypt.

“Although the number is not large … it is the highest in the Arab countries. Libya has only 34, Sudan 70, Yemen 32, Tunisia 329, Syria 56, Iraq 242, Saudi Arabia 178, Jordan 170, and Morocco 325,” Najm said.

Following one of the links above to another AL Monitor article, this from 2014, gives me this interesting quote:

The occupation of our brains by gods is the worst form of occupation. -Abdullah al-Qasemi

As agnostic, I have nothing against religious folks who are willing to live under the usual strictures of the United States; by the same token, I have a great suspicion on those who would change those strictures, as I see them as a constraint on religious violence, and a boon to rational behavior. Recently, though, and confused by the evident ignorance evidenced by many highly religious folks, I’ve been puzzling over people who are obviously intelligent, but whose knowledge base seems insufficient and defective. It’s occurred to me to urge them to quit going to religious classes and maybe skip the occasional church visit in favor of participating more in our political life – by concentrating on learning more from independent information and news sources.

So this, too, was interesting, from the same 2014 article, as the writer discusses prominent Kuwaiti scholar Ahmed al-Baghdadi:

“I am not afraid of religion, or bearded or turbaned people, and I see that music and developing an artistic sense is more important than memorizing the Quran or religious classes. [The classes] that are already there are more than enough. I do not wish to waste my money on teaching religion. … I do not want my son to learn from ignoramuses who teach him to disrespect women and non-Muslims,” he continued.

Baghdadi went on to say that he wanted his son to learn sciences and foreign languages, not to “become an imam” or a “terrorist.” “The only people who went to religious institutions in old civilized Kuwait were those who failed in scientific studies.” Needless to say, Baghdadi’s article caused an uproar leading the writer to express his intention to seek asylum in the West. Although Baghdadi never declared himself an atheist, he was highly regarded among the underground Gulf atheist community as someone who championed their causes and demands.

My bold, and I do so for the reason that a religious institution, along with the direct good & bad (for let us be honest, all human institutions do both) it does, also provides a ladder of power, for someone must direct the institution, be the title Mufti, Pope, or Pastor, and by the same token, the person assuming the role will have great influence to achieve personal goals. These goals may be selfless, selfish, or both; there is no restriction on the category.

But because this is an institution built entirely on the study and employment of a collection of knowledge which, in my view, is most likely constructed wholly from the human imagination, the requirements of intellectual attainment are not comparable to, for example, a particle physicist, who is studying hard reality. Learn some theology, construct a flexible or even innovative interpretation, realize that a self-destructive philosophy is not profitable in any respect, and you’re in business. Baghdadi’s remark is a handy condensation of this observation.

The study of a religion is not just a field of study, it’s a path to power, and perhaps the most handy one for those who are not so subtle of mind. But that is not my attribution for the concern about atheism in its currently reportedly small numbers; it has probably been sullied by the dominant religions, and the local populace merely reacts as instructed. Even those in positions of power in those religions may not use this analysis, for many books of religion warn against the atheist.

But if God is God, then what does he care if someone disbelieves him? The cry of apostasy betrays the essential human foundation of religion.

Back when Papal Authority meant Worldly Authority

Not particularly familiar with Michaelangelo? The mini-documentary preceding the TV showing of The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) provides a useful and interesting introduction to the legendary sculptor, exploring a number of his objects in close detail.

And then it’s on to the movie. A dramatization of Julius’ decision to force Michaelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, we get to follow Michaelangelo around as he starts, stops, restarts, and has the usual emotional artist problems with his subject, all the while mistreating his patron as well as the woman in love with him. I suppose, having done no research, a glib assessment of the good artist would suggest the man was OCD, or perhaps autistic.

But that is neither here nor there. As a classic movie from a classic era starring classic stars (Heston & Harrison), I was disappointed; it all rang a trifle false. Perhaps it felt like it was ticking all the boxes – artistic agony, spots of humor, irrational behavior, artistic purity. A problem in Belated Movie Reviews is that I’m looking at movies out of context, meaning that other movies viewed since then inadvertently color my assessment of these movies, an anachronistic twist in the time continuum which may not be remedied.

Another problem is that I’m sick and may simply misperceive what is, in reality, a brilliant movie.

But I couldn’t help feeling that Harrison was mostly smirking his way through the movie, even as he returns from the Papal war campaigns with severe wounds and ends up in his deathbed, only to be rescued by Michaelangelo (Heston) with a magnificently subtle bit of snark.

It’s hard for me to say. My Arts Editor says all the musical accompaniment is an anachronism, music not composed until centuries later in a form not invented until after the time portrayed in this movie. But undeniably this is a professionally made movie and won’t kill you to watch. So if you’re looking at a rainy afternoon, this might fit the bill for the lazy.

Oh, and I enjoyed the marble quarry scene. I had never thought about the process. Good to know.

Adsorb:

Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions, or molecules from a gas, liquid, or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the adsorbate on the surface of the adsorbent. This process differs from absorption, in which a fluid (the absorbate) is dissolved by or permeates a liquid or solid (the absorbent), respectively. Adsorption is a surface-based process while absorption involves the whole volume of the material. The term sorption encompasses both processes, while desorption is the reverse of it. Adsorption is a surface phenomenon. [Wikipedia]

Referenced in yesterday’s post concerning a game for building metal-organic frameworks for reducing climate change gases.

In Land of Doom (1986) we are presented with a mildly interesting glimpse into an underground city, where the locals have lived for thousands of years. It may be similar to this abandoned city, more recently discovered, or like Derinkuyu, located in Turkey, where this movie was made:

The permanence of the dwellings leads me to consider the impermance of the life that it houses. In fact, it’s a fine contrast to the plot of this movie, a Mad Max derivative starring a guy prettier than Mel Gibson, but not nearly as talented. Something’s blown up civilization, and the murdering rapists are driving the survivors to extinction. The city will persist, but not the life inhabiting it.

Nor the ewok-derivatives.

Yeah, don’t see this dog unless you want to see the terrain. Or have a head cold, like us.

Eileen Harvala publishes a report on a new game under development in a University of Minnesota College of Science & Engineering  bulletin:

Metal-organic frameworks are a new class of nano-materials that are useful for a variety of safety, filtering, and manufacturing tasks. They are porous crystalline materials made by inorganic and organic units linked together by strong bonds. Because they have high levels of thermal and chemical stability, MOFs have important applications such as gas storage, catalysis of organic reactions, activation of small molecules, gas adsorption and separation (air purification), biomedical imaging, and proton, electron and ion conduction.

In phase one, the building phase of the game, each player is tasked with designing MOFs that block or adsorb as much harmful gas—carbon dioxide (CO₂)—as possible, while allowing harmless or even helpful gases—nitrogen (N₂)—to pass through as freely as possible. Each player is given a canvas of 3 by 3 unit cells, and can use the game’s building block library and available budget to buy different building blocks to create structures that will form an important defense matrix for the action phase of the game. Once the player feels that the defense matrix is ready, preliminary chemical calculations are performed to prepare some of the parameters for the action phase of the game.

During the action phase of the game, a wave of asteroids (CO₂ molecules) and supplies (N₂ molecules) drops from the sky and hits the defense matrix. While the objects are in the matrix, a real-time simulation of the underlying     chemical structures is used to determine whether the supplies and asteroids are destroyed or pass through the defense matrix. The asteroids and supplies that pass through land on the player’s world unless destroyed by the player’s-controlled laser cannon. Each asteroid (CO₂ molecule) that lands decreases the player’s health and each successful supply drop (N₂ molecule) increases it. The player must remain healthy and save his or her world. The higher the player’s score, the better the chemical properties and filtering aspect of the created MOF. If successful, the player moves on to the next wave.

Sounds interesting, and an interesting way to gather up optimization strategies. Unfortunately, it appears that the game is only currently in release for Win64 platforms – I have a VirtualBox running Win32, so that won’t work, and I cannot provide a review of the game. Perhaps my Arts Editor’s laptop is Win64, I’ll have to check. For readers interested but too shy to click the above link, here’s the link in the article. And here’s the how-to video.

It can always be problematic jumping on horses in the international arena, so the Saudis’ embrace of the Trump Administration should prove interesting. But is their excitement a matter of content, or simply of the pressure of events? Bruce Riedel explores that topic in AL Monitor:

The enthusiasm for the new US team is a reflection of the deep disappointment with the Obama administration. It’s more than a bit ironic since Obama courted the Saudis avidly his whole term in office. Riyadh was his first destination in the Arab world and he traveled to Saudi Arabia more than any other country in the Middle East, including Israel. He sold more than $110 billion in military equipment to the kingdom, far more than any of his predecessors.

But Obama also flirted with backing the Arab Spring. He hailed the departure from power of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. He encouraged the Bahraini royal family to compromise with the Shiite majority for political reforms on the island. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pressed for gender equality around the world. For the Saudis, the US support for political and social change and reform, however half-hearted, was an unprecedented departure from traditional US support for the status quo and authoritarian leaders in the region.

But they’re smart:

Last week, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud completed a three-week trip to Asia with a stop in China where the Saudis signed $65 billion in new trade agreements. The Asia trip and especially the China visit have been trumpeted as strategic moves by the kingdom. The Saudis are especially interested in military cooperation with Beijing.

And something I’d forgotten:

The other irritant is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows the kingdom to be sued for its alleged role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump supports the bill that Obama vetoed only to be overridden. Now hundreds of family members of victims of the 9/11 attack have filed a lawsuit against the Saudis for allegedly funding al-Qaeda before 2001 and for allegedly providing assistance to the hijackers. Saudi diplomats in the United States and Germany allegedly were involved in the plot.

There are fundamental problems with friendly relations between autocratic and democratic countries because of the differing assumptions about how society should be organized. Of course, an autocrat like Trump should help spackle over those differences during his time in office, but the complicating factor is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, mentioned above, which leaves Saudi Arabia open to the blot of the word terrorism on its honor.

I wonder, though, if Obama should have filed suit against it in the Supreme Court, claiming Congress was overstepping its authority and infringing on the right of the President to conduct foreign policy.

Tumpline:

A tumpline (/tump-lyne/) is a strap attached at both ends to a sack, backpack, or other luggage and used to carry the object by placing the strap over the top of the head. This utilizes the spine rather than the shoulders as standard backpack straps do. Tumplines are not intended to be worn over the forehead, but rather the top of the head just back from the hairline, pulling straight down in alignment with the spine. The bearer then leans forward, allowing the back to help support the load. [Wikipedia]

Seen in “Reexcavating The Collections,” Wayne Curtis, American Archaeology (spring 2017), mostly offline only. Too bad, it was a lovely picture of a tumpline rediscovered in a museum basement collection. Textiles such as those are extremely rare given their unstable nature, but the date of collection is in the 1890s, so they’ve been preserved for more than a century.

It’s a long movie, but it’s a darn good movie: The Missiles of October (1974) gives a history of the move / counter-move of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Make no mistake – this is not the Star Wars (1977) of the Cold War, full of explosions and frankly evil characters. This is a movie overwhelmingly about meetings – meetings which decide the fate of the world.

The genius of this movie is its implicit invitation to the viewer to test their decisions against that of the President and his advisors. So you’re a cowboy and would have taken out the missile sites as soon as they were identified, stuck your chest out and taken the return fire with aplomb, would you? In a scene in which Congressional leadership is informed of the situation, one Senator says just that, and is rewarded by a harsh riposte from President Kennedy – “Within the first 30 seconds your entire constituency would be killed, Senator!” Because we discover that our military refuses to guarantee a kill ratio of 100% of those missile sites, implying a return fire of several nuclear warheads. And the movie invites many more such tests of the opinionated man’s decisions – and why they are so often wrong when taken from without. For the sober viewer, it’s a lesson in incomplete information, and in more ways than one, as we watch JFK fret over his information, always requesting better information.

There is a stark historicity to this movie, driven by top-flight performances by the actors, as well as its lack of musical accompaniment. This lack of a clue forces the audience to pay attention to the dialog, the hints at motivation, the suggestions that neither side is without fault in this confrontation, as the Bay of Pigs debacle bears passing reference (I wish there’d been more on this incident), while Soviet dissembling regarding the nature and purpose of the missiles is also brought up.

And during this we also see the Administration frantically covering up for tactical reasons – not out of embarrassment, although there’s a fair amount of that, but in order to surprise the Soviets at their own game. International relations are not always a public game, a lesson most of America still does not understand.

As an added bonus, it’s difficult not to compare and contrast with the Trump Administration. It truly makes me ill comparing the painstaking search for the best alternative to all out war by JFK, vs Trump probably waving it all off after half an hour and commanding a general to just shoot the crap out of Havana.

And then blaming it on reading a newspaper.

And I don’t write that out of gratuitous bitterness, but because this script doesn’t scant on the real frustrations and conflicts the characters run into. JFK loathes the idea of being the next war-chief Tojo, who planned the Japanese entry into World War II, which he mentions enough that Dean Acheson, who has a profoundly differing opinion on response, finally brings up as he knows JFK worries about it, to which JFK replies, I know you know. There is a depth to the political passions that is only hinted at, a theory of mind which gives much depth to this movie.

There’s also the unsettling reminder that the inhabitants of Congress are often simple creatures. JFK angrily quips, You get them together and they follow the one with the biggest bomb. (Possibly a paraphrase.) It’s a ghastly allusion to the problems of having a leadership made of amateurs who often have no training, with little conception of the nuances of international relations. As that’s an accurate description of the current occupant of the White House, this movie brings some real insight into what sort of damage we may be suffering silently while he fiddle faddles around. Given his predilection for watching Fox News, perhaps they should show this movie for his edification.

ALL that said, there is of course the lingering question of accuracy. The meetings portrayed were secretly recorded, as noted here; were the recordings available to the playwright/screenwriter, Stanley R. Greenberg? I haven’t found any material on the topic, although social scientists note there seems to be a lack of “groupthink” – and this was definitely a group that often conflicted with each other. The source for the material used to portray the Soviet meetings is even less clear.

Nor was my Arts Editor pleased at the lack of substantive female characters.

In sum, if you can get your jollies from seeing how the end of the world can be averted through meetings, diplomacy, and some very finely applied power, then this is for you. It was certainly for me – the edge of my seat was a little worn.

Strongly Recommended.

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com notes a proposal for a circular runway:

Airports take up a lot of room that could be used for other productive purposes, and often their runways do not align with the wind direction, making landings difficult. But Designboom shows us what might be the answer to the problem: make the runways into a big circle. Designboom notes that ” that making runways ring-shaped can have a positive environmental impact. since planes will not have to compete with strong cross winds, they will burn less fuel in the area around the airfield. ” They are also much smaller.

The idea, from Henk Hesselink of the Netherlands Aerospace Centre, is in the news thanks to a recent BBC video.

A link to the video is on Treehugger.

Lloyd is not entirely happy with the Internet, though, because a bunch of pilots forgot to read up on the proposal before taking a poo on it:

But this episode is particularly strange; people are writing long dissertations about why it cannot work, without a single reference back to the original research, with one expert at NYC Aviation actually starting a long essay by saying “I must concede that they may have answers and solutions to my below issues that were not provided in the short BBC report” and then goes on for pages.

If there is one thing I have learned as a blogger, the first rule is that you click through to the source, even if your finger gets tired.

Which reminds me of one of the three laws of Arthur C. Clarke:

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong. [BrainyQuote]

If the calculations check out, then someone is just going to have to try it and see.

While reading Lawfare‘s summation of the problem of Russia and Representative Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who appears is less interested in investigation and more in keeping Trump up to date with regards to how the investigation is going, it occurred to me that once again we’re seeing the problem of power politics, particularly in its core aspect: loyalty.

Nunes served on Trump’s transition team, and while this should not automatically disqualify him from leading an investigation into Trump’s campaign in search of serious illegalities, he should be aware that there should be a certain distancing between himself and Trump. In fact, this distancing is always necessary when it comes to governmental entities tasked with investigating other entities.

But, given the tight bonds of loyalty exhibited by the GOP voters, and now by a sitting investigative chairman, I think we can see there is a limit to the bonds of loyalty, and they need to be considered carefully by those who sit in those seats. Just as blind straight ticket voting is potentially damaging to the nation, so is the application of the core loyalty once a Congressional seat has been obtained. This is an issue which should be discussed nationally, not just in the context of Representative Nunes’ disgraceful behaviors (it’s rather like a child, running to the bully who’s subverted him), but in the greater context of the incompetency demonstrated by Trump in his nominees and conduct.

Excessive loyalty is damaging. Competency and wisdom are far more important.

And the failure of Congress to make any substantive noises about impeaching him.

And, in case you’re new to the blog, I’m not a Democrat. I’m an Independent. I’ve been disgusted with Trump since he first began running, and it’s only gotten worse.