Category Archives: Uncategorized

Professor Mark Lilla reflects on his recent release, The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction, in an interview with Humanities:

Source: Vos Iz Neias?

MARK LILLA: One of the most common metaphors for history, and for time itself, is that of a river. Time flows, history has currents, etc. While thinking about this image, it occurred to me that some people believe that time carries us along and all we can do is passively experience the ride. Think of cyclical theories of history or even cosmology: The world runs its course, is destroyed, and is then reborn to travel the cycle again.

Other people, though, have a catastrophic conception of history: The river flows but it may not be heading in the right direction. It might flow into a channel full of shoals or rocks, where a ship can run aground or be shattered. This, I think, is the picture of history that reactionaries have. They believe that some calamitous event has taken place in time, that history has gone off course, and that the kind of society they lived in (or imagined they lived in) has shattered. They find themselves on the shore, looking on as the debris of everything they valued is swept away by the current. The present becomes unbearable, as does the prospect of the future. And so they convince themselves that something radical must be done to either recover or redeem what has been lost.

It’s a great metaphor. I tend to think that that those who end up on the beach, dismayed by the wreckage, are those whose psyche required them to be in control. The power seekers, those who sought certitude, those who became married to the reality of their day, rather than the social currents, for want of a better term. Perhaps they even manage to freeze the areas under their control for a while.

But change is inevitable. From technology to church, change is inevitable; and those that don’t become the fossils we dig up, from history books and mass burial pits, or they become those responsible for those pits.

Later, Lilla notes:

Conservatives and liberals argue about politics in terms of human nature, and their dispute is about the proper relationship between individuals and societies. Traditionally, liberals begin with individuals who are endowed with certain rights, and think of the legitimacy of political institutions in terms of consent and the protection of those rights. Conservatives begin with societies and the observation that we all come into them as dependents, incurring obligations as we are protected and nurtured by them. Our rights are conventional, not natural, and are not the essence of politics. Traditions and norms are.

And so I fall into neither camp. The liberal camp doesn’t work for me as it assumes some Divine being to assign those rights; or they have to make murky assumptions about how intellectual concepts are integral to biological evolution. The conservative approach smacks of slavery, such that liberty no longer has a value. Perhaps this would be better put as the creation of false obligations on those who had little choice in them.

My own interpretation of the granting of rights is more pragmatic; what will keep the mob from burning down the White House or lynch the Monarch in outrage, vs what will cause society to implode through overburden? While most would agree Justice is a human construct, a position that is showing signs of instability, oddly enough, I see it as playing a role in such assignments. For all that the American Constitution makes an appeal to the Divine, the actual assignment appears to work fairly well.

And now taken well out of context is this interesting sentence.

One learns infinitely more about politics by reading Isaiah Berlin than by reading John Rawls.

I don’t know a darn thing about either of them – but now I’m interested.

When it comes to foreign policy, possibly the most important duty of the President, there’s not much to stop a bull in the China shop, according to Julian Ku on Lawfare:

Neither U.S. nor international law prevents President Trump from abandoning the One China policy, recognizing Taiwan as a separate country, and even stationing U.S. troops and military assets there.

Put another way, China should probably take President-elect Trump’s threats on “One China” seriously because he has all of the legal authority he needs to carry out this seismic policy shift.

Under U.S. law, President Trump has complete constitutional discretion over whether to recognize a foreign government, and even whether to recognize a foreign government’s territorial and sovereign claims.  The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that Congress cannot restrict this power in the 2015 decision Zivotofsky v. Kerry.  In that decision, the Court held that the President has the “exclusive” power to withhold recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and that this power even extends to refusing to print passports with the designation of “Jerusalem, Israel.”  The holding of Zivotofsky was not particularly controversial and would plainly govern any attempt to challenge a decision by President Trump to extend US recognition to the Republic of China (Taiwan’s formal legal name).

And as his set of advisors is not particularly impressive (some might say ‘disheartening’), there’s not much to hold him back from trying to put his stamp on the world, even militarily.

I’m sure that during the Constitutional Assembly where the areas of responsibility were hammered out, it made a lot of sense to give the President a free hand in the fluid world of international relations. However, given the amount of raw military power now available, that decision now gives me some pause. Watching China move, however so slowly, closer and closer to the economic model of Taiwan, it would seem that a slow, slow victory is much better than a bloody, even catastrophic victory – or defeat, for that matter. Trying to hurry that matter along seems foolhardy.

The initial post on this thread indicated that China was promising to shutdown the Chinese ivory trade – but when? Jani Actman of National Geographic reports a date has been set:

China will shut down its domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017, according to an announcement made today by the Chinese government. …

China now has 34 ivory manufacturers and 130 licensed retail shops that sell ivory, Wei Ji, an independent wildlife researcher, told the Guardian earlier this month. According to today’s announcement, China will revoke some licenses by March 2017 and eventually stop all commercial ivory carving and retail sales by the end of the year. The plan to phase out the ivory trade also encourages ivory carvers to begin using other materials.

Also according to Jani, the Americans are also fulfilling their pledge:

The U.S., also a significant market for elephant ivory, held up its end of the agreement with China in June when it enacted a near-total ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory. The new rules further limited exports and sales across state lines and restricted a hunter’s allowable ivory trophy imports to no more than two a year.

Which leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe just because, as an engineer, I hate arbitrary exceptions. Or maybe I just see this as a way to keep tastes whetted – rather than properly smothered.

In Meet Boston Blackie (1941) we find the former safecracker (Chester Morris) accidentally entangled with murder on a cruise ship. Slipping off the ship, he trades barbs with Inspector Faraday, who is shadowing him in the belief Blackie pulled of another heist, nearly gets darted, punctured, sapped, and maritalized, but manages to pull the fat out of the fire before it’s entirely rendered.

And if you think my prose is a melange of cliches, of only light-hearted interest, consider that a reflection of the movie. These Boston Blackie movies do not examine profound themes, so they have to have really good plots, dialog, and characters. Sadly, this one doesn’t really meet the bar in any of those categories. The pacing tends to be static, the bad guys are cardboard and forgot to stand in line for their quotient of cleverness, and the cops are little better.

But for an evening of shared head cold, it was adequate. Don’t expect much, but you do get a giggle now and then.

NewScientist (7 January 2017) reports on the findings of Brandi McKuin of UC-Merced regarding sustainable fishing:

Source: DiveBuzz

By combing through papers and catch databases, Brandi McKuin at the University of California, Merced, and her team found that tuna vessels using more sustainable methods such as pole and line fishing consume about three to four times as much fuel to land the same catch as boats that use a large net.

The researchers also compared the climate impact of tuna with that of terrestrial sources of protein, like tofu, pork and beef. Sustainably caught tuna has a larger effect than any other protein considered, except beef, for which climate warming emissions are five times those for the same weight of tuna.

One of those findings you don’t expect to see – one expects good karma to work hand in hand with good karma, but no such luck here. I wonder if anyone is noising about the idea of requiring tuna fishing vessels to be sailing vessels?

A reader disagrees concerning Obama’s errors:

It’s much more than voter belief about the truth of hard facts like unemployment numbers, which have improved. It’s the fact that the federal government took on huge amounts of debt to save the banksters butts, businesses and bonuses, and did very little for the common man, many of whom lost their houses in the largest spate of foreclosures since the Great Depression. That just looks bad. The 98% took it on the chin so that the 2% did not have to. The way capitalism is supposed to work is those banksters should have gone bankrupt and been penniless themselves.

Granted. But the Bush Administration’s Henry Paulson led the effort to stabilize those banks. Did Obama really have an option to let them fail after Bush began the injection of capital to stabilize them? Younge suggests Obama had a choice about that; I’m not so sure.

But I could also argue this is part of Obama’s reluctance to prosecute for the errors of the previous Administration. After all, I think certain members of the Bush Administration could have been put on trial for war crimes, and Obama declined to even consider pushing that issue. While I can understand that he saw that as another wedge to divide a nation that desperately needed to come together, the price on that decision was to legitimize a war, and a party that pursued a war of dubious moral quality – and they knew it.

Of course, I’m way off the initial question. I’ll spare my readers my speculations – although I think Obama chose to achieve positive results, rather than prosecute errors. He felt he had to choose between the two, apparently.

So let me say this: I found the article unpersuasive for three reasons.

First, throughout the campaign I did not hear or read a single rumble about the unfortunate treatment of the banking industry at the start of the Obama Administration. I didn’t see a single poll that mentioned the issue. So far as I could see, it didn’t exist. Now, I didn’t have time for complete coverage, so if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But I didn’t see anything referencing the banking industry.

Second, there are no numbers in Younge’s articles to bolster his argument. No polls. No nothing. He’s putting an opinion out there, but is really failing to back it up with relevant objective facts. Not that I’m not guilty of that behavior, but I’m willing to flag it in others. I’d love to see a single reputable poll where the handling of the banking industry is cited as a reason for not voting for … Clinton. That would make his case far more believable.

Third, for all that he wants me to believe that Clinton lost because she was running for Obama’s third term, it’s crap. In fact, it’s differentiated faeces, in two ways. First, Clinton is a different politician with different priorities and policies, She spent a fair amount of time explaining that – between defending and sniping. But secondly, and more importantly, if she was running for Obama’s third term?

She would have won. Hands down.

Presidential Approval Time Series
Source: Gallup

I tried to capture this chart with the relevant data showing, but it didn’t work. On 11/11, which is close to Election Day, Obama’s approval rating was 55%. If Clinton was seen as Obama redux, she would have won based on his popularity. But it didn’t happen. She lost for reasons peculiar to her campaign – not to Obama’s actions.

So I can’t accept Younge’s assertion, based on this lack of evidence and some counter-evidence and logic. I can accept that punishment of the bankers should have occurred – see here for the punishment of the Icelandic bankers. Sure, it’s galling – but it’s also eight years in the past. It would be an improper cliche to say that voters have short memories – but there are certain things they don’t remember. So far as I can tell, this is one of them.

Watching the GOP seek to normalize, to excuse the actions of the Russians (now that denial won’t work) has been an annoying requirement for catching the news, reading the blogs, or anything that doesn’t involve getting your car fixed. This is the latest item that gives me the What the hell are you thinking! reaction:

A Texas lawmaker on the House intelligence committee says it wasn’t just the Russians who interfered in last year’s election.

Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Midland, is comparing the use of Mexican entertainers to energize Democratic voters to the email hacking that officials say was orchestrated by Vladimir Putin’s government.

“Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth,” Conaway told The Dallas Morning News this week. “Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don’t hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.”

Asked whether he considers that on par with Russian cyber-intrusions that aimed to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Conaway said: “Sure it is, it’s foreign influence. If we’re worried about foreign influence, let’s have the whole story.”

It requires little thought to bring shame down on Conaway’s head, because we know there’s little comparison between a concerted attack to subvert an election by a foreign enemy vs a couple of songs by an acknowledged national of an ally. And this isn’t the only incident.

But, taken as a collection, this should be understood as a symptom of an underlying problem. Now, many folks, like myself, would simply call them conscienceless power-mongers and be done with it, but I think a little thought might yield a bit more insight. Like most commentators, let me pick up my favorite lens and examine the symptoms through it.

First and foremost, the behavior exhibited by most of the GOP consists not of foot-dragging, but active digging in of heels, of refusing to evaluate a problem with an eye towards justice – i.e., they have a baleful view of their own interests, and nothing else. Interestingly, this is also the dominant behavior in the private sector. Quite often companies sue other companies, not because some terrible crime has occurred, but because they can and they think some judge may be convinced that some law or another justifies the suit. There is little consideration for another company’s interests or fortunes; it’s a shark-tank out there. Oh, sure, you’ll find corporate alliances, but this is usually when a foreign-based competitor appears, and an entire industry feels threatened; see SEMATECH for an example.

This is a perfectly understandable behavior for a company, and therefore the executives in charge. The private sector is not in charge of justice. I have no problem with this attitude in this context, although I do think corporations that pay attention to cries of injustice have more potential to succeed than those who discard such notions in their crazed chase after money. But I digress.

But we know the big backers of the GOP are businessmen. The Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson are just two popular names in that category; I’m sure the readers can name thousands more. And it’s not that the businessmen are buying themselves politicians – it’s that the politicians are often businessmen folks themselves. Wonder about that? Look up the biographies of a few of them: Mitt Romney comes right to mind – don’t need to look that one up. Trump is another; Governor Bevin of Kentucky; Governor LePage of Maine; both Presidents Bush; VP Dick Cheney … notice how the names of the discredited GOPers (or soon to be, I suspect) come popping right up?¹

So think about it. Any parent can answer this question: where do kids pick up their ethics and morals? From those who are around as they grow up. Similarly, if you train as a private sector, corporate person, particularly an executive who makes these sorts of decisions, then you’re going to pick up the ethics appropriate to that environment. All for the team, no consideration for the other team.

And that’s not government. Folks, our ancestors understand this better than we do. Government is the definer & enforcer of justice, and therefore our Congresscritters must be aware that they have to think in terms of justice, because just as government enforces it, it also feeds off it. A just government is a stable government, because the people respect it, and a stable government leads to a stable society, and when we’re not all fighting with each other about the government, then we’re more likely to find our way to prosperity.

What happens to societies with unjust governments? Some implode – see the fate of Marshall Tito’s Yugoslavia. Some rebel – see Qadhaffi’s Libya, East Germany, the USSR, dozens of others. Sometimes they get lucky – the Nixon White House was just teetering into injustice when an alert free press caught Nixon’s men in the act of perpetrating an injustice and brought him down. The free press of the era is rightly celebrated, and today’s members certainly have a high standard to meet.

Of course, you may argue that those societies fell apart because of many other factors, and I won’t argue that there aren’t contributing factors. But injustice is key. When you see injustice perpetrated by government, then why remain loyal? Some would answer Well, does it benefit me? Problem is, what benefits you today may blow with the wind and run you over tomorrow. So why sign a contract when there is no enforcing authority? Oh, a libertarian might argue that then reputations will be sullied, business will fall off, and the criminal is thus punished. But in a large society like ours, it doesn’t work that way very well. Names are changed, new ignorant customers are found, and the scams continue. Even in today’s society, where there is an enforcing authority, we all know better than to accept an offer from some guy off the street to inspect your roof for hail damage.

Perhaps the nicest way to put this is that the GOP majority, with a few exceptions such as Senator McCain, has never been trained in government ethics. It’s been brayed in their ears that government is big & bad – and, of course, there’s always a little truth laying around to put some ooof in that inflated Santa Claus. The power of government is why there’s a necessity for government ethics – of course. But since they don’t trust government, government ethics is out as well. So all they have to use is their private sector ethics.

Which leads to some of the travesties we’re seeing now. 60+ attempts to repeal the ACA, a program which is apparently succeeding in its purpose. The SCOTUS nominee scandal. A refusal to take a Russian invasion of our electoral politics seriously. Nominees who are, for the most part, inappropriate. A refusal to compromise with President Obama for his entire term. A long history of GOP Administration scandals, while virtually none for the Democrats. I’m sure serious political pundits could come up with dozens more.

But let me leave you with this observation. In logic, there are several ways to prove a statement. One is by taking the statement to be proven and, instead, assuming it to be false. From this assumption you prove an impossibility, such as 1 == 0, and with the proof of the impossibility you now have proved the truth value of the original statement. This is known as Reductio ad absurdum. Given the utter absurdities we’re witnessing these days in the political arena, I think someone decided to prove the statement Government Ethics is good! using the Reductio ad absurdum technique – they negated it, set a bunch of politicians loose with some other ethics structure, and now our merry experimenter is watching the results of his proof. It’s animated logic, folks – try not to get stepped on.

¹You disagree about Romney ever being discredited? That’s OK. The point is most prominent GOP politicians are businessmen. A few do learn a different set of ethics for the new environment. Maybe Mitt did while he was governor of Massachusetts. He had a good teacher in his father, George, governor of Michigan and business executive, who did well by all accounts in both occupations. An example of a non-businessman is Governor Brownback of Kansas, who trained as a lawyer and then spent most of his life in various political positions. His brand of economic insanity, on brazen display in Kansas, while he insists the federal government should adapt Kansas policies, indicates some other defect in cognition or character.

Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson in a symbolic pose.

Strategic Air Command (1955) is a propaganda film for the US Air Force and its Strategic Air Command (SAC), and while I have very little exposure to propaganda films¹, I think this is a rather good example of the genre.

First, it has a bona fide star, the great Jimmy Stewart, in the leading role. (It also has Harry Morgan, but only in a minor role.) And he’s about as good as ever.

Second, Jimmy Stewart, a winner of the DFC twice in WW II, flew the planes that appear in this movie, and in fact achieved the rank of brigadier general during his post-war military career. While I knew he probably had flown these planes when I viewed the movie, I can at least hope the unknowing viewer would still find a measure of verisimilitude. We can also realistically hope that a measure of what the actual fliers experienced is brought to the theater: the claustrophobic quarters, the constant danger, and the occasional disaster.

Third, the patriotism that any propaganda piece will display in its attempt to invoke a sympathetic reaction is kept more or less to a minimum. Naked patriotism, so precious to those who display it, is often an awful sight, because while it reminds the displayer of a nation’s greatest moments, for others it may remind them of repugnant moments, for often those who commit war crimes are self-described patriots. For example, those who slaughtered Comanche women and children during the war with the Comanche may have thought themselves patriots – but those are still the bodies of noncombatants, virtually defenseless – and murdered.

Fourth, it has an actual story, and it serves to convey both official and human information. We see men (not so much women) and their spouses torn from their communities and jobs, called up to serve again because of their relevant experience – it admits that this is a great burden on some Americans. It makes no bones about low pay, awful conditions, and sometimes severe danger (rigorous work, but that’s more implied than explicit). Meanwhile, the motivation and mission of SAC is visited, but not at wearisome length. Just enough mint is added to the dough to make its presence known without overwhelming the viewer. By presenting the duty as a burden first, then an honor, it achieves more.

Now, it’s not a great story; intriguing characters are not examined for motivation and change, they just sort of bubble along. But it’s an OK story because it’s portraying a reasonable facsimile of what may have happened. Perhaps this was a wise scriptwriter, or perhaps this was a wise reading of a weary country that had recently endured both World War II and the Korean conflict, with World War I not all that far back; war as an opportunity for a young man to make a life for himself had begun receding before the might of the terrible weapons now available.

Courtesy the Truman Library.

Finally, if you’re a fan of the old USAF B-36 bomber, there are a number of luscious shots of this odd combination of pusher props and jet engines, and a bulbous nose to top it all off. And the insides! B-47s are also a major part of this movie, but not featured so prominently.

¹Or I have way too much exposure, and those antennae have died.

Gary Younge at The Guardian would have us believe that Obama’s to blame for the failure of the Democrats to capture the Presidency, and the core mistake was how the Great Recession was handled:

There is a deeper connection, however, between Trump’s rise and what Obama did – or rather didn’t do – economically. He entered the White House at a moment of economic crisis, with Democratic majorities in both Houses and bankers on the back foot. Faced with the choice of preserving the financial industry as it was or embracing far-reaching reforms that would have served the interests of those who voted for him, he chose the former.

Just a couple of months into his first term he called a meeting of banking executives. “The president had us at a moment of real vulnerability,” one of them told Ron Suskind in his book Confidence Men. “At that point, he could have ordered us to do just about anything and we would have rolled over. But he didn’t – he mostly wanted to help us out, to quell the mob.” People lost their homes while bankers kept their bonuses and banks kept their profits.

Without referencing the implications of his argument – that Obama should have restructured the banking system somehow – I have to question whether all these voters who allegedly skipped this election really knew that he had an option to do so – if in fact he really did have such an option.

Here’s the thing – political columnists tend to know more, and impute more knowledge to the masses, than the masses actually possess. Look at the polls concerning how Obama has done vs how the American electorate thinks he’s done. Steve Benen constructs a nice graph from data supplied by Public Policy Polling:

May 2016

This is just one example. The place where the boots hit the road is the information in the possession of voters. I do not believe Younge has learned the lesson that Trump seems to know quite well – the reality doesn’t matter, it’s what the voters think is reality. Remember his relentless beating of the drum about violent crime? The worst in decades!

Or was it? From WaPo and The Pew Research Center:

And then Trump suggested the numbers were false. He understands. It’s all about what the voters believed was true, not the actual realities.

And while the voters may have been outraged that the banking system was not dismembered at the time, we should remember that healthcare reform was the priority of the Democrats, not banking. The result of the ACA, in measurable metrics, has been good so far, even as the GOP tries to put on its 20 fathom boots in order to destroy it.

So the question is, how to get the proper information to voters? While it’ll pain Obama to see the ACA destroyed, its immediate negative effect on many citizens may turn out to be a positive – teaching citizens to fucking pay attention to who you’re voting. On both sides.

This AP news item caught my eye today (thanks to Steve Benen):

It’s still six days before Donald Trump is sworn in as president and Sen. Marco Rubio is telling Florida Republicans they have to start working now to make sure he’s re-elected.

Rubio briefly addresses Republicans at the state GOP’s annual meeting Saturday and said Democrats will be working hard to try to take Trump out.

Rubio said, “Re-election has already started.”

One of the key American concepts that differentiated itself from our old masters, the England of King George, and even today from such places as Russia and North Korea, and the basic foundation upon which the all-American word meritocracy is built, is performance. When Americans are at their best, we do not judge based on what we are, such as color of skin, but on how well we do something relevant. Did he run the corporation well, or did he screw over customers, workers, and all in a greedy search for dollars? Did she run the prosecutor’s office in a just, efficient manner, or did she only worry about getting a guilty verdict in every case the police brought her, without regard to justice or even legal ethics?

Trump has no record. Trump has no record. Think about that. He’s never even been a city council member. He hasn’t sat as President for a single day. Yet the GOP is already supposedly planning his re-election. (Of course, this could be a ploy, and the real planning is for his impeachment.) What has happened to this key American concept of evaluating someone’s performance when they request a raise, or to have their contract renewed? It’s been discarded.

But not inexplicably.

My best guess is that the GOP sees the Presidency as a prize, not as the job it is. Something to be put on the mantelpiece, not as four years of hell (but with better prestige), with a single option to renew. My second best guess is that the plague of religious certitude has gripped the vitals of the GOP in its terrible, evil grip; it dictates that only the GOP is good, and the Democrats are evil, and thus the GOP must do all it can to hold the Presidency. By definition, the GOP President will be good.

Because that’s how feverish evangelism works.

And to hell with the United States.

If the GOP wants to be a party worthy of national recognition, it must stop playing idiot games like this and return to a sober, serious quest for learning how to govern. It’s a skill, a job, and very much like pole sitting. If you screw up, you’re going to hurt yourself.

Part promo, part artsy. The product might give me seizures.

… can be an ugly, dangerous place. AL Monitor’s Ben Caspit reports on the contretemps of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Over the past few years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has marked one particular individual as the arch-nemesis of his rule: Arnon Mozes, the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. In Netanyahu’s world, Mozes is the ultimate demon, more than Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog or head of Yesh Atid Yair Lapid, and much more than Iran, the Palestinians or any other existential danger facing Israel. Mozes is the prime target, against whom Netanyahu fires off a paranoid, verbal barrage on a regular basis.

In 2015, Netanyahu started referring to Mozes by his nickname “Noni.” He posted about him on his Facebook page, with anyone who tried to undermine Netanyahu referred to as a “Nonist.” All who agreed to listen would be treated to a detailed account of how all the prime minister’s problems, haters and enemies could be traced back to that same mysterious “Noni.” After his stunning victory — against all the odds — in the 2015 election, hundreds of Likud supporters surrounded Netanyahu during his victory speech, chanting in a loud roar, “Oh! Ah! What happened now? Noni Mozes had a cow!” Not Herzog. Not Lapid. Noni.

For several weeks now, more and more information about police probes against Netanyahu has been revealed. This past week, it became clear that the mysterious businessman with whom Netanyahu engaged in long, corrupt wheeling and dealing was none other than Noni Mozes. The “deal” they reached could be seen as little more than a bribe. Israel was in shock. In terms of dramatic political developments, it may even have been unprecedented. It suddenly became clear to everyone that somewhere behind the scenes of this formidable political and economic rivalry, Netanyahu was engaged in intense negotiations with Mozes over a package deal. Mozes would tone down the Yedioth Media Group’s hostile coverage of Netanyahu significantly, and in exchange, Netanyahu would take steps to advance a law to prohibit the distribution of Israel Today at no cost. Israel Today is the free newspaper funded by Netanyahu’s patron, billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Enough to make one shake their head, just to feel the balls bounce around in there. I wonder how Netanyahu plans to pacify Adelson?

I’ve been a bad boy again, haven’t I?

The pleasures of Alias Boston Blackie (1942),  one of a series concerning an ex-felon now trying to go straight, lie in its details – the hotel manager who, in his 15 seconds of screen time, builds more character than most of the lead actors; Blackie’s assistant misleading the police, who are not mislead – and Blackie knows they’re not mislead; the clown who appears to be 60 years old, yet performs acrobatics worthy of a 20 year old.

There is nothing profound in the plot, but the actors play it with style and wit, and it seems almost no one lacks a wit; so the story has enjoyable twists and turns, the dialog is both crisp and interesting for the words that have gone out of style, the characters are differentiated, if not necessarily memorable.

You may not remember this half an hour after fin, but while you’re watching, you’ll be amused by it. Especially if you, too, are suffering from a head cold.

And all this notwithstanding possibly the worst cinematic fist fight I’ve ever seen, which led my Artistic Editor to exclaim, “What, don’t they have elbows?”

On The Daily Kos, RoyalScribe has a lot of fun discussing statistics and Administration ethics, starting with the Nixon Administration:

Source: RoyalScribe on The Daily Kos

Overall, Richard Nixon’s administration had the most criminal indictments and convictions. Wikipedia’s list enumerates 13 specific individuals who were convicted and imprisoned over Watergate alone, but notes that a total of 69 officials were indicted for the scandal and 48 were either convicted or pleaded guilty. (Nixon himself is not included; after his resignation, President Gerald Ford gave him a blanket pardon, sparing him from any potential indictments. However, his first vice president, Spiro Agnew, is included for indictments unrelated to Watergate.)

The Reagan Administration is next with 26 indictments and 16 convictions (including guilty pleas), followed by the George W. Bush Administration with 16 indictments, all ending in convictions or guilty pleas. The Nixon Administration had at least 15 people serve at least some time in prison for their crimes, while Bush 43’s administration had at least 9 and the Reagan Administration had at least 8. (Scooter Libby’s sentence is included here even though Bush pardoned him in 2007 before he was sent to jail, since the pardon did not expunge the crime and the pardon itself is a political act, not a judicial determination. But others whose convictions were later overturned—like Oliver North’s and John Poindexter’s—are included under indictments but not convictions since it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to second-guess the courts’ reasoning for overturning those convictions.)

All those Clinton White House “scandals”? Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on hearings on Whitewater, Travelgate, the use of the White House Christmas card list, and other oddities, almost all resulted in absolutely nothing. Clinton himself isn’t included. As with Nixon, the impeachment proceedings themselves should count as an indictment, and in the end his only citation was for contempt of court, which I didn’t interpret as the same as an indictment. (I will update this if folks show me this was incorrect.) The only indictments for his administration were of his Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy (who was acquitted of all 30 charges) and of Espy’s Chief of Staff Ronald Blackely, who was convicted of making a false statement and sentenced to 27 months in prison.

There’s some lovely charts as well. RoyalScribe has some advice for the current set of nominees, who appear to be attempting to avoid ethics office overview:

But as I mentioned before, his nominees are at great personal risk if their nominations are rushed through before FBI or Office of Government Ethics review. A conflict that is revealed after they take office could result in criminal indictments. And while President Trump could pardon them for criminal violations (but not civil acts), that only applies to federal charges, not those filed under other state laws, should there be any. And how many pardons can he issue before his own support erodes? Yes, some of his most rabid supporters won’t care (but still want to seek criminal charges against Democrats who didn’t even commit any crimes). But his winning edge in the states that pushed him over the Electoral College top came from a lot of undecided voters who broke for him in the final week (or eleven days, specifically) but won’t stay loyal if scandals grow. (Already, “voted for you Trump“ on Twitter reveals a lot of his disgruntled voters telling him they voted for him but want him to stop tweeting, vet his nominees with proper ethics review, address the Russian hacking issue, and other expressions of disappointment.)

If they were wise, Trump’s nominees and appointees should insist on an Office of Government Ethics review before taking office for their own legal protection.

And if they don’t, it’s just another instance of amateur hour in full swing.

But here’s my concern, I think. If you look at his charts, it’s clear that the GOP doesn’t really have a clue as to how to run clean government, compared to the Democrats. It’s not even close. As RoyalScribe notes, if you push your relevant history marker back to Nixon’s predecessor, it gets even worse for the GOP.

Now, a rational Party – or, for that matter, a competent corporation – would take a look at the cited numbers (go take a look, I don’t want to steal his thunder), realize that there is some sort of problem going on, and institute reform. Perhaps even request support from Obama’s Administration – zero indictments, convictions, and sentences, so Obama sets the standard – because improving how the government is run is a shared concern of all Americans.

But the current edition of the GOP? It sure feels like there’s not a single serious person in the GOP. Now, this is a disservice to many members, I’m sure, but those in positions of power & influence appear to be … power-mongers. Certainly, that’s Trump, someone who’s mostly picked inappropriate people for his nominees (exception: VA nominee, and Mattis for DoD appears to get a lot of respect as well). He’s not at all likely to try to reform the general GOP inclination to appoint ethically vulnerable individuals.

And that hurts America.

Very interesting. No preview, unfortunately.

https://videos-f.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/nZ44Y8ot/videos/fHLu8cvK-27972850.mp4?token=0_587bae8a_0xff69e4e909de838e3061c3e6d138e8c471f9c09e

Morbid curiosity.

Those two words are the only reason we finished watching The Twonky (1953). This wretched flick about an artificial intelligence masquerading as a television bought by a woman for her philosophy professor husband flops wretchedly from incident to incident, filled with illogic, grasping frantically at plot twists to pass the time. True, it does occasionally produce an unexpected character, such as the failed football coach who, in the accent and words attributable to a coach, quotes Freud and various physics texts, and says that women put him in the mood for french fries; the bill collector has a certain joie de vivre I found enjoyable; and just when you thought it was a total loss, some character or another will toss off a delightful zinger with barely a shrug of the shoulders.

But, trust me, don’t waste your time digging for them. Only watch The Twonky if it’s been prescribed as penance for some horrid crime.

Orotund:

marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound :  sonorous [Merriam-Webster]

Seen in Thereby Hangs a Tale, by Charles Earle Funk:

Bill Robinson may have heard [“copacetic”] as a youngster; its orotund polysyllabism may have stuck in his mind, and, unconsciously, he may have appropriated it, perhaps ascribing to it a meaning of his own. [Section on “copacetic”.]

HuffPo‘s Cristian Farias reports that SCOTUS will be accepting three cases centering around an important point – workers suing employers:

Suzanne Maloney publishes an analysis of the late Iranian leader on Lawfare:

Rafsanjani’s presidency played pivotal role in shaping Iran’s subsequent evolution. His embrace of economic development transformed the underlying social contract from one of revolutionary opposition and existential defense to one grounded in expectations of development and progress. His policies spawned divergent ideological movements, each of which rejected Rafsanjani’s own orientation. The political space that he occupied resists neat categorization, which helps explain the howling debate that erupted on social media in Persian and English after his death this week over whether he could be rightly described as a moderate. For his part, the former president saw himself as “a pragmatist,” as he acknowledged in 1993, when the term might have been construed as controversial within Iran. “I am interested in facts and practicality.”

Although he was a cleric and a committed revolutionary, Rafsanjani’s ideological dexterity was apparent from the outset—so much so that Reagan-era officials hoped to empower him to challenge Khomeini, thus inspiring the disastrous Iran-contra arms deals. He helped legitimize an interests-based approach to the theocracy’s decision making, as enshrined in an Orwellian-sounding state body that he led nearly since its 1988 establishment, the Council for the Discernment of the Expediency of the System. At the time, his advocacy of realism over ideology earned Rafsanjani the ire of much of the revolutionary establishment, particularly hard-liners who saw the cease-fire with Saddam Hussein and the subsequent economic reconstruction program as a betrayal of the regime’s core values and an endorsement of elite enrichment.

Which strikes me as a man committed to nation over ideology. Still,

He never wavered in his support for the Islamic Republic, pioneering the use of election rigging as a means of sidelining rivals and overseeing vicious campaigns at home and abroad intended to eliminate its adversaries and extend its influence. He was equally indifferent to Iran’s representative institutions and its citizens’ basic rights as to the excesses of the regime’s ideology. And while he consistently sought to improve Iran’s image and relationships abroad, he never proved willing or capable of reining in the regime’s reliance on terror and destabilization as a lever of regional influence—which constrained the horizons of Iran’s rehabilitation.

No saint, and suggests that maybe ideology – or religion – had the upper hand over humane treatment one’s fellows. Perhaps no Golden Rule fellow. Susan moves on to what his death may foretell for Iran:

… Rafsanjani’s demise looms large for the Iranian political establishment, whose old guard is dying off at an accelerating rate. As the gerontocracy passes from the scene, their replacements are already being readied, but the process of change itself inevitably creates uncertainty and openings. Within the foreseeable future, [Supreme Leader] Khamenei’s final farewell will arrive. The Islamic Republic has managed one momentous succession process before, at the 1989 death of the revolution’s charismatic founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The man responsible for the smooth navigation of that precarious moment was Rafsanjani himself. Who may play that role next time around remains unknown, and the simmering disaffection of Iran’s next generation, as expressed in the opposition chants at Rafsanjani’s funeral, should preoccupy the guardians of the revolution as they prepare for whatever may come next.

I note there is no attempt to predict who the next Supreme Leader might be – or from which part of the political spectrum he might emerge. And I clearly have no idea, being not even a dabbler in watching Iran.

The Tehran Times reports that Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, likes two of Trump’s nominations:

“Mike Pompeo and James Mattis, the famous American generals who are going to lead the CIA and Defense Department respectively, are two of the most important and sensitive faces among Trump’s cabinet picks,” said Mohsen Rezaei in an Instagram post on Friday.

“Although their remarks have harsh and exaggerated faces of reality, it seems they possess a better political wisdom compared to many American politicians, and given the realities, they would avoid illusions and daydreams,” he added.

The former IRGC chief noted that the Islamic Republic is well aware of the two generals’ records as well as their understanding and knowledge base.

“They, too, are aware of our capabilities,” he said, adding, “They perfectly understand that Iran is a ‘patient lion’ as well as an ‘alert tiger’ and that they should not get close to it.”

Does Trump care about an Iranian politician’s opinion on his picks? Probably not. Will the Senate take note? Harder to say, but again probably not. And they probably shouldn’t – nominees should be judged on their merits, not on the opinions of those who may have opposed agendas.

(Per Wikipedia, Pompeo retired as a Captain from the Army, not a General.)

Lee Remick is an astronomer who really likes her … uh …

Experiment in Terror (1962) stars Glenn Ford as an FBI agent handling a case in which a bank teller, played by Lee Remick, is being forced to steal money from her employer. This is a movie with fine acting and a good story, but burdened by a few details that clash or are not brought to full fruition.

For example, at one point Ford agrees to meet a woman at her home to discuss her problem. He’ll meet her in an hour – but, clearly, several hours pass before he gets there. And we know her address – but it’s an apartment building, they go right to her apartment – how did they know? And what was her part in this, anyways? The entire subplot, as intriguing as it is – she has an “unusual” occupation – comes to nothing. It would have been more effective if her occupation had something to do with the main plot, but, sadly, it doesn’t.

There are other upsetting head feints. At one juncture, it’s suggested that perhaps this is a criminal – a murderer – with a heart of gold. But, again, this point is not pursued; it’s as if someone snapped on a spotlight and pointed into the sky, but nothing ever appears and it ends up doing nothing.

All that said, this is a creepy movie to watch. Information is released slowly, letting us think and wonder before the next twist is slowly delivered. It’s easy to miss plot holes if you’re not looking for them, and the performances are effective.

While this doesn’t quite achieve my Recommended level, if you like mildly noir movies, this may be worth your time.

And if you have a head cold like I do, it’s a good way to pass the time.

I have no idea if this is authentic.

On SCOTUSblog, Eric Citron writes about potential SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch, currently on the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. While I have no opinion of Judge Gorsuch, I found this passage concerning his views of the “dormant commerce clause” interesting – if only because I had not heard of such a concept:

Another area of the law in which Gorsuch has shown both his writing talent and his similarity to Scalia is in the application (and critique) of doctrines surrounding the so-called “dormant commerce clause.” These doctrines treat the commerce clause not only as a grant of power to Congress to make laws regulating interstate commerce, but as a kind of presumptive limitation on the power of states to make laws that either unduly burden or unfairly discriminate against interstate commerce, without regard to whether Congress has ever passed a law in the relevant area. Because — as its name suggests — the dormant commerce clause cannot actually be found in the text of the Constitution, Scalia eventually came around to the view that it should not be a thing, and refused to endorse any future expansions of the doctrine. For example, in 2015, in a dissenting opinion in Comptroller v. Wynne, Scalia  stated: “The fundamental problem with our negative Commerce Clause cases is that the Constitution does not contain a negative Commerce Clause.” Although a court of appeals judge lacks the same freedom to disparage and/or depart from existing Supreme Court precedent, Gorsuch’s opinions also reveal a measure of distrust towards unwritten constitutional provisions like the dormant commerce clause.

For example, a 2015 10th Circuit decision written by Gorsuch, Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Epel, declined to apply the dormant commerce clause to strike down a clean-energy program created by Colorado on the grounds that it might negatively affect traditional energy producers outside the state. The opinion explains that this result is consistent with the limited reach of the dormant commerce clause’s “judicial free trade policy” even under existing precedent. But while acknowledging that lower courts must take the Supreme Court’s doctrine as they find it, Gorsuch’s opinion shows respect for the doctrine’s “[d]etractors,” like Scalia, who “find dormant commerce doctrine absent from the Constitution’s text and incompatible with its structure.” Though Gorsuch’s personal constitution seems to require him to write clearly about the many unclear aspects of the doctrine, his opinion plainly takes some joy in the act of demonstrating that not only does the dormant commerce clause not apply — the doctrine also doesn’t make much sense. That same instinct is present in a prominent concurrence last year in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, in which Gorsuch singled out one aspect of dormant commerce clause doctrine—the Quill rule that exempts out-of-state mail order sales from state sales tax—as an “analytical oddity” that “seems deliberately designed” to be overruled eventually. This opinion aligned him with Justice Anthony Kennedy (who has called for overruling Quill), and again with Scalia, who identified Quill as part of the “bestiary of ad hoc tests and ad hoc exceptions that we apply nowadays” under the dormant commerce clause.

Two things stand out. First, presumably Judge Gorsuch is a conservative, even highly conservative, but note that here he used his interpretation to preserve a clean energy program run by the State of Colorado, a position of several questions for conservatives. It suggests an allegiance to the law and his interpretation to it, but not necessarily ideology. At least, it might appear that in terms of priorities, he’s more likely to follow his methodology for interpretation of the law than whatever far-right conservative ideology may be calling for.

Second, simply the existence of exceptions for out of state mail order sales from state sales tax. Replace “mail order” with “Internet retailer” and they seem interchangeable.

On this subject, Eric draws a conclusion:

The dormant commerce clause isn’t a particularly hot-button issue, nor does it have obvious liberal/conservative fault lines. But it’s noteworthy that criticism of the dormant commerce clause is of a piece with criticism of the “right to privacy” that undergirds the Supreme Court ‘s abortion jurisprudence, as well as other judge-made doctrines that do not have a strong connection to the constitutional text. Again, Gorsuch’s opinions seem to follow the lead of textualists and federalists like Scalia in expressing great skepticism towards such doctrines, which allow judges to strike down duly enacted local laws on the basis of vague principles that cannot be found in the concrete text of the national charter.

Perhaps alarming to those of us who discover that, without such readings, justice is not so warm and fuzzy.

Parabiosis:

Mr. Thiel is focused on ways to prolong life. He was intrigued by parabiosis, a blood regeneration trial in which people over 35 would receive transfusions from people aged 16 to 25 — an experiment that Anne Rice gave a thumbs up to. [The New York Times]

Similar experiments have been performed on mice, both from young mice to old mice, and young humans to old mice (not a typo!), with positive results.