Category Archives: Uncategorized

SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito discussing his family history at the University of Buffalo Law Center:

When Alito’s father immigrated to the U.S. from Italy, he worked in a factory after graduating top of his high school class. He said he would never have gone to college if it weren’t for a $50 scholarship someone gave him.

“I don’t know who provided it, but I’m grateful to that person because it changed the whole history of our country,” Alito said.

A bacteria can fell us, a trivial scholarship can provide that first step up the ladder.

On Lawfare Sarah Tate Chambers gives some good coverage to banks around the world, SWIFT, and how the technology behind the digital currency bitcoin is playing into the banking future:

However, some financial groups are looking to systems beyond SWIFT to secure their transfers. After 18 months of preliminary work, Visa has invited a small number of European banks to join in a project that uses a blockchain for interbank transfers. A blockchain is a distributed ledger born in the Bitcoin system that allows a network of computers to contribute to it as well as verify it, negating the need for a central authority. Visa’s project also uses smart contracts, self-executing computer protocols that carry out or enforce contractual obligations. This combination allows for simultaneous transfers with heightened security.

Rather than creating its own system, J.P. Morgan Chase is using Ethereum, a publically accessible blockchain-based platform, to develop its own project, Quorum. While running off of a public system, Quorum limits access to transactions to those who need to know the details, known as permissioned blockchain technology.

Four big banks—UBS, BY Mellon, Santander, and Deutsche Bank—have banded together with ICAP, a broker, and Clearmatics, a London-based blockchain company, to explore blockchain transfers. Rather than using bitcoin, they created their own cryptocurrency, the Utility Settlement Coin (USC), which can be exchanged between banks and is the equivalent of its paired real world currency. USCs will be backed by cash in a central bank. They have proposed the project to central banks with an expected roll-out date of early 2018.

I’d never heard the term ‘smart contract’ before. While Wikipedia has a definition, I thought this discussion by Ledger Labs‘ head of operations Josh Stark on CoinDesk was more interesting:

They are defined variously as “autonomous machines”, “contracts between parties stored on a blockchain” or “any computation that takes place on a blockchain”. Many debates about the nature of smart contracts are really just contests between competing terminology.

The different definitions usually fall into one of two categories. Sometimes the term is used to identify a specific technology – code that is stored, verified and executed on a blockchain. Let’s call this type of definition “smart contract code”.

Other times, the term is used to refer to a specific application of that technology: as a complement, or substitute, for legal contracts. Let’s name these “smart legal contracts”.

Using the same term to refer to distinct concepts makes answering even simple questions impossible. For instance, one question I’m often asked is simply: what are the capabilities of a smart contract?

If we are talking about smart contract code, then the answer depends on the capabilities of the language used to express the contract and the technical features of the blockchain on which it operates.

But if we are asking about using that technology to create a binding legal agreement, or an effective substitute for a binding legal agreement, the answer depends on far more than the technology. This answer depends on existing legal doctrine and how our legal, political and commercial institutions decide to treat the technology. If businesspeople don’t trust it, the legislature doesn’t recognize it and the courts can’t interpret it, then it won’t be a very practically useful “contract”.

This remark suggests that either I don’t fully comprehend the nature of blockchains, or Josh is being sloppy as well:

Blockchains can run code. While the first blockchains were designed to perform a small set of simple operations – mainly, transactions of a currency-like token – techniques have been developed to allow blockchains to perform more complex operations, defined in full-fledged programming languages.

Because these programs are run on a blockchain, they have unique characteristics compared to other types of software. First, the program itself is recorded on the blockchain, which gives it a blockchain’s characteristic permanence and censorship resistance. Second, the program can itself control blockchain assets – i.e., it can store and transfer amounts of cryptocurrency. Third, the program is executed by the blockchain, meaning it will always execute as written and no one can interfere with its operation.

He later mentions storing programs on the blockchain, so perhaps I’m just ignorant. Ah, yes:

Smart contract programs can themselves hold balances of cryptocurrency, or even control other smart contract programs. Once they are created, they can act autonomously when called to perform an action. For this reason, many prefer the term “smart agent”, analogous to the more general concept of a software agent.

So this is interesting and making more sense. And Josh wrote a good piece. His speculation on a new kind of contract was thought-provoking:

The most widely discussed opportunity of this type is machine-to-machine commerce. The growing ecosystem of smart devices – particularly those that are in some fashion autonomous – will eventually need a way to engage in basic commercial interactions with one another. For instance, a washer that buys its own detergent or a car that can pay to recharge itself.

These transactions still require a minimum level of trust to be commercially viable, but are ill-suited for legal contracts, which are comparatively expensive and require the involvement of legal persons like a corporation or human. Smart alternative contracts might enable an entirely new type of commerce carried out between our computers, cars, phones, and appliances.

In this particular example, I could see dishwashers sold with a lifetime supply of detergent – perhaps not requiring legal attention in and of of itself, as it’s part of the deal for the dishwasher. But that doesn’t invalidate Josh’s larger point.

In the news recently, we find Kater the Alchemist, natal name and identity unknown.  Starting as a graffiti artist, he has his first one-day gallery show  “Nightmare on Kater St.” this coming Saturday, October 29, from  5-10 p.m. at the Riverview Business Plaza, 320 Chester St., St. Paul  MN.

Hue asked if I thought this was worthy art.  My response:  “Oh, yes.  Extremely worthy art.”  See pictures and read about the artist here and here.  Then go see the show.

Jason Urbanus covers some recently World War I discoveries, mostly in terms of more bodies discovered, in an offline article, “A Last Day, Reclaimed,” Archaeology, November / December 2016 pp 48-53. In the midst of the deadly chaos of trench warfare, the medical personnel retained some sense of humanity:

As bodies were transferred to the cemetery, their personal military identification tags would have been kept by the hospital staff. Archaeologists have discovered that in some instances a death certificate, recording a cause of death, had been placed in a glass bottle and buried with the deceased. Many of these documents have become faded and illegible over the past century, but they are evidence of an attempt to keep some kind of identification with the soldiers.

Struggling against the madness of that war.

(Emphasis mine.)

I asked what impact C-Suite executive salaries have on insurance rates, and it turns out that Chris Conover on Forbes took a shot at answering the closely associated question: if the CEOs’ compensation were confiscated and used to pay down insurance rates, what would be the impact?

How much money might the average plan member save if only we could confiscate the allegedly “eye-popping” (former industry “insider” Wendell Potter’s characterization) CEO compensation paid to executives of the nation’s largest health insurers?

The answer? Peanuts.

I went to the proxy statements of all 9 health insurance and managed care companies appearing on last year’s Fortune 500 list (this year’s list will not appear until May). As stock investors are well aware, the summary compensation table lists all components of compensation provided to each of the firm’s executive officers. These include salary, bonuses, stock awards, other non-equity forms of incentive compensation and other types of compensation such as health insurance, retirement and similar fringe benefits. Not all firms have yet reported their 2015 compensation levels, so I used 2014 figures and divided these by the latest membership figures I could find in annual reports etc.

The results are instructive. Average total CEO compensation at Fortune 500 health insurers amounts to 42 cents per member!

Which is fascinating, if accurate. And makes the central question of the motivation for the jump in rates that much more interesting. A reader did point me at a FB posting of some salaries, but I was unable to verify the source. Instead, I dug this up from MedCity News, which includes a quote from the aforementioned Wendell Potter:

Wendell Potter, former public relations executive for Cigna, where CEO David Cordani raked in a $14.5 million salary in 2014, said, “There’s no doubt that one of the reasons why Americans pay more for health insurance and for healthcare than people in any other country in the world is because of this high executive compensation.”

So who’s right? On the one hand, the guy actually doing math is more impressive than the PR guy who’s just waving his hands. On the other hand, does the math actually make sense?

I’m somewhat astonished – although without facts, it’s difficult to know if it’s a justified astonishment – at this CNN report out of Oregon that the occupiers of a federal wildlife refuge were found innocent of nearly all charges (the last charge, of theft, was not resolved). I’m a little puzzled – ok, really puzzled – how folks can occupy a federal facility, without permission, while heavily armed, and NOT be convicted.

But, like I said, I don’t have all the facts. I am looking forward to hearing someone who sat through the trial, or at least studied the transcript, explain why the jury could not find them guilty. Having sat on a jury roughly a year ago myself, weighed the evidence, and found the defendant not guilty, I do understand that sometimes the evidence is not what you might want, and that the particular requirements of the charges are not meant. You’re left feeling something illegal happened, but exactly what does not match the charges – and you can’t make up your own. So you find them not guilty.

I shan’t speculate further, since I suspect we all know the possible problems with the system.

Or, possibly, this is the beginning of the end of the American system.

apotropaic:

Apotropaic magic (from Greek apotrepein “to ward off” from apo- “away” and trepein “to turn”) is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. [Wikipedia]

From the Artifact column of Archaeology (November / December, 2016):

Found during recent renovation work [at St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge], behind the wainscoting between a window and a fireplace, the well-worn shoe was put there almost three centuries ago as an apotropaic item intended to ward off evil and bad luck. Popular magic of this kind was a relatively widespread phenomenon in England between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, with shoes being the most common items secreted, explains [archaeologist Richard] Newman. While the discovery of concealed items is by no means uncommon, he says “it’s always exciting because practical magic represents a silent tradition—there is no documentary record of the practice of concealment—and archaeology allows us to explore an otherwise little-known facet of the social lives of those in the past.”

This report from NewScientist (8 October 2016) is interesting:

… an ink has been developed that can be used to 3D print bone implants in any size, shape and form – from leg bones to entire skulls. And because the implants are flexible, they can be cut into the perfect shape in the operating theatre.

The ink is made from hydroxyapatite, a mineral found naturally in bone, and PLGA, a polymer that binds the mineral particles together and gives the implants their elasticity. …

Once in place, the implants are rapidly infiltrated by blood vessels and gradually turn into natural bone (Science Translational Medicine, doi.org/bq8r). This offers a cheap and versatile way to repair an injury.

Turns into bone? Wow. I wonder what limitations there might be. Could they print a middle ear and have it work?

How many levels of parody can there be? My Arts Editor sends me this article by ReverbPress‘ Timothy Bertrand, reporting on the dissolution of Trump’s Policy Advisors Group:

The Donald Trump campaign neglected to pay so many D.C. policy advisers and staffers, many of them have quit, according to a new report from The Washington Post. Beginning in August, staffers at Trump’s Washington, D.C.-based policy shop have been unhappy about missing wages, poor management, and general abuse of the staff.

“They use and abuse people,” a former staffer told reporter Josh Rogin. “The policy office fell apart in August when the promised checks weren’t delivered.” He also called the office a “complete disaster”.

Several former staff members say they were promised financial compensation for their hours of hard work poring over documents, writing policy memos, and organizing meetings and briefings. The leaders of the shop, former chiefs of staff Rick Dearborn and John Mashburn, later told the staff members that they were unpaid volunteers.

It’s like a parody of a cartoon parodying a banana dictatorship. I’m not even sure who’s more at fault – Trump’s organization for not handling this professionally? The folks who turned out to be “unpaid volunteers”, for not clarifying the situation from the get-go? Trump for skimping on everything he could possibly skimp on, like any “good businessman” – without realizing he’s not in the world of business anymore?

I’m agog. I mean, the guy doesn’t even have charisma. How does he retain this high level of support in the polls?

38 North‘s Martyn Williams checks in on the latest television developments in North Korea:

TV viewers in North Korea are no longer tied to watching shows at the time they air. The country has begun an “Intranet” Protocol Television (IPTV) service providing access to live and catch-up TV, according to a report carried by Korean Central Television on Tuesday, August 16. The IPTV service demonstrates greater media accessibility to the DPRK’s four TV channels, previously available only through a simple, one-time over-the-air broadcast. North Korea’s state TV appears likely to expand its potential reach by making programming available outside of its traditional 3pm to 11pm broadcast time, and free up viewers to tune in at their convenience.

The DPRK’s new streaming service demonstrates a technological advancement for the country, as it is run off North Korea’s Kwangmyong intranet, and could become an indicator of intranet accessibility in North Korean households.

But Williams has a caution for North Koreans thinking of using the service:

However, there is the question of availability: it is unclear how many apartment buildings and houses in North Korea have access to the kind of high-speed data service that such a service relies on. There is also the issue of control and monitoring, as with such a service, monitoring of what programs are watched per household is technically possible.

The UK has not yet achieved the ecstacy of Brexit (or will it be the agony), but there are already chewy bits showing up in their beer. Lawfare‘s Shannon Togawa Mercer analyzes:

Despite that, the tension surrounding foreign workers in the United Kingdom and their post-Brexit status has already begun to mount. After the September Tory conference to which I alluded above, Home Secretary Amber Rudd distributed a controversial briefing note suggesting that companies may have to aggregate and disclose to the government a list of the foreign workers in their employ. The note precipitated responses from more than 100 business leaders condemning the plan on the grounds that it would “hurt the economy, hurt workers’ rights and hurt Britain’s standing as a tolerant country.” The Government, in response, clarified its intention to “consult with businesses…on how [to] do more encourage [sic] companies – to incentivise them – to look first at the British labour market.” While no formal policy has changed, at least one other instance of ambiguous government policy has suggested a burgeoning panic regarding the government’s approach to foreign workers. On October 8, the Washington Post reported that professors at the London School of Economics (LSE) accused the British Foreign Office of making foreign academics ineligible to advise the government. The Foreign Office has denied any policy change post-Brexit, but reports coming from foreign professors at LSE have garnered a lot of press.

There’s been talk of a hard Brexit. Is that the only option?

While exiting from one of the four freedoms is a non-starter from an EU perspective, there may be a way to thread the needle in a softer Brexit. The Guardian reported in July that senior EU officials may consider allowing for an “em ergency brake” on the movement of people for a period of several years in order to avoid a shock to the EU economy and allow the U.K. to stay in the single market while assuaging the immigration concerns expressed in the process leading up the referendum. In exchange, the rights of EU citizens in the U.K would be protected for the term of the “emergency brake.” Further to the potential for a compromise, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has recently broken with May’s stance on immigration, suggesting that foreign students should not be counted in net migration numbers. Even more recently, former Tory leader Michael Howard, an oft-described eurosceptic, has said that he “think[s] the Government should make it clear now that those EU citizens who are currently living in this country would be allowed to stay in this country, would be allowed to carry on working in this country, would be allowed to carry on studying. I don’t think we should wait for any question of reciprocity.” If there are fractured opinions in Whitehall, the red-line of immigration control may fade into a fuzzier gray.

Probably not good enough for Scotland. I’m still betting on a breakup of the UK, now that Scotland has less reason to stick around.

Get a clue, take a cue …

From the Yale Record:

This year’s presidential election is highly unusual, but ultimately no different: The Yale Record believes both candidates to be equally un-endorsable, due to our faithful compliance with the tax code.

In particular, we do not endorse Hillary Clinton’s exemplary leadership during her 30 years in the public eye. We do not support her impressive commitment to serving and improving this country—a commitment to which she has dedicated her entire professional career. Because of unambiguous tax law, we do not encourage you to support the most qualified presidential candidate in modern American history, nor do we encourage all citizens to shatter the glass ceiling once and for all by electing Secretary Clinton on November 8.

The Yale Record has no opinion whatsoever on Dr. Jill Stein.

Eugene Volokh and Paul Levy of The Volokh Conspiracy discuss a new way to game the legal system:

There are about 25 court cases throughout the country that have a suspicious profile:

• All involve allegedly self-represented plaintiffs, yet they have similar snippets of legalese that suggest a common organization behind them. (A few others, having a slightly different profile, involve actual lawyers.)
• All the ostensible defendants ostensibly agreed to injunctions being issued against them, which often leads to a very quick court order (in some cases, less than a week).
• Of these 25-odd cases, 15 give the addresses of the defendants — but a private investigator (Giles Miller of Lynx Insights & Investigations) couldn’t find a single one of the ostensible defendants at the ostensible address.

Now, you might ask, what’s the point of suing a fake defendant (to the extent that some of these defendants are indeed fake)? How can anyone get any real money from a fake defendant? How can anyone order a fake defendant to obey a real injunction?

They go on to explain that by filing and winning a libel suit against someone who doesn’t exist, but who authored a libelous comment, those who want to erase stories from Google can show Google that judgment, and Google will remove the story from its indexes.

A later blog post indicates that these filings are being dismissed:

And Monday evening I learned that yet another pending case that shares the same pattern — similar procedural strategy, similar language in the documents, similar lack of any connection between the ostensible defendant and the ostensible defendant’s address in any public records — had been voluntarily dismissed, on the day that Paul Alan Levy and I put up our post on the subject. That case is Carter v. Quinn, filed in Florida state court, and it seems to have been an attempt to get Google to deindex a Charleston Post & Courier article about a sex crime arrest (though note that the arrest might not have led to a conviction). The article went up in January 2014, but then in July 2016 a comment was posted to the article. (The comment has been deleted in the past few weeks, but the people at the Post & Courier assure me that it wasn’t deleted by them.)

The infinite plasticity of the Web will let digital crimes pop up and disappear like the virtual particles of physicists.

Did anything like this happen before the Web?

Steve Benen on MaddowBlog provides a useful public service – context! – with regard to the rise in ACA rates which has caused a ruckus:

No one should characterize this as good news, but some of the details are getting lost in the shuffle. For example, the vast majority of Americans are covered through their employer, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA. Those on the individual marketplace may face steep increases, but (a) it will depend a lot on where they live; (b) federal subsidies are also increasing, which will soften the blow and insulate most of those covered through the individual market; and (c) this will be a concern for a tiny percentage of the population.

Of course, if you’re in that sliver of the population, it doesn’t much matter whether or not you have a lot of company. All that matters for these consumers is that coverage is going to be a lot less affordable. The question then becomes what happens next.

The fact remains, regular medical checkups and care will greatly reduce the cost of medical care to society – and if that means we have to subsidize the users of the ACA a little more, we’re still well ahead of the game. I’ve been wondering about the mad panic displayed by the local Republicans when Dayton shot his mouth off with “… but the reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable.” [minnesota.cbslocal.com] The cries of “it’s totally broken” and “we must destroy the monster” have been annoying, and makes me wonder if they ever try thinking. Perhaps there should be an inquiry into why the rates have gone so high? Perhaps they made an actuarial mistake – or perhaps there’s some collusion. How much higher will taxes need to rise in order to lower the effective rate increase to, say, 10%? What are we talking here, anyways?

Not to be snarky or anything, but has anyone calculated how much rates would drop if the salaries of the C-suite execs of the participating companies were dropped to reasonable levels? Say, no more than half a million a year?

A reader remarks concerning the original post on this thread:

You’re awfully optimistic. Didn’t they say those same horrible things about Obama, too?

Yes, and now they’ve had 8 years of being wrong. I figure eventually it’ll be like a lake eating away at the thin wall – the believers will finally shriek ENOUGH!, and run away from them. Especially those who’ve been RINO-ized.

Like Josh Barro.

A reader is skeptical about this result:

This looks suspect to me. It’s counter logical in multiple dimensions, for one. Schacht’s conclusion seems to be a wild guess which could or may not be supported by the data. That is, the data don’t suggest that as the reason — it’s just one crazy possibility. Your remarks about (I think, if I understood correctly) about men knowing the relative numbers of competing men in order to modify their behavior is telling. I have no idea which counties have more or fewer women than men in Minnesota, for example, and I consider myself better informed than most. 20 years ago, one would have to visit a library to find that kind of thing out, too. I’d like to see more evidence.

Yes, there are some doubts. I don’t recall reading in the study as to whether there was any attempt to compensate for varying cultural traditions, for example. The results remain provocative, though.

Another reader reacts to the first:

A surplus-male population means women have a broader selection of mates for the purposes of personal protection. The greater rate of violence against women in female-surplus populations reflects the default rate of aggression that will occur in the absence of protection.

Doesn’t reflect well on male behavior.

Not in the least. It’s a view of men, stripped of the trappings of civilization, as carriers of genes that are driven to replicate. Coldly calculating as to whether rape or marry is not the kind of man I run into, frankly, in my limited experience, although sometimes this one or that one seems misogynistic.

That said, does it really reflect a default rate? I’m not sure what that might mean. In the absence of civilization? Is mankind really mankind without civilization?

Spaceweather.com describes an experiment in which the ambient radiation levels are measured:

Source: Spaceweather.com

Radiation levels in the cabin of the Boeing 767 (Condor flight 2091) tripled within ten minutes after takeoff, and were nearly 40 times ground level by the time the plane reached cruising altitude at 33,000 feet. There was no solar storm in progress. The extra radiation was just a regular drizzle of cosmic rays reaching down to aviation altitudes. This radiation is ever-present and comes from supernovas, black holes, and other sources across the galaxy.

---

Another reason to avoid flying more than a couple of times a year. Wait, what as that other reason? Oh, yeah – climate change. From the David Suzuki Foundation:

Source: David Suzuki Foundation/IPCC

How do greenhouse gas emissions from flying compare with emissions from other forms of transport, like driving?Compared to other modes of transport, such as driving or taking the train, travelling by air has a greater climate impact per passenger kilometre, even over longer distances (see graph below). It’s also the mode of freight transport that produces the most emissions.

A reader writes about differing cultural customs:

My experience in Germany with a kid was that there are a lot fewer places kids are (group-wise) accepted. One child might accompany a parent to shop, or to a restaurant, but there generally were not many seen at one time in places of business. My son was welcomed just about everywhere, and he was fairly well-behaved and spoke with adults unabashedly. Our pace of living was less a sprint than a meander, so we were able to discuss life and expectations along the way. As for grandparents giving suggestions, ours seem often unwilling to talk much about how they did things, as the environment for a school-aged child is so different from the lives the grandparents recall.

Or even the life I recall. Although I suppose I could be a grandparent at this age.

AL Monitor’s Rohollah Faghihi reports on Iran’s President Rouhani’s continuing efforts to defend the JCPOA (Iranian nuclear deal):

“In the past, if we wanted to walk or move, shackles of the sanctions obstructed our way. But today these chains do not exist. We should move, because the main obstacle has been lifted, and our banking relations with the world have been established and will be expanded day after day,” Rouhani told a crowd of people in Arak.

Another piece of evidence in the attempts to isolate GOP voters from reality comes in the form of a video message from NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre to NRA members. MediaMatters provides a handy transcript and some commentary, the latter of which I quote incompletely:

LaPierre said his prediction that Obama “would come for our guns and do everything in his power to sabotage the Second Amendment” “came true” following the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, when Obama “exploited a horrible tragedy to launch a blizzard of gun bans, magazine restrictions, and gun registration schemes against law abiding gun owners all across the country.” (Nothing proposed by Obama would have violated the Second Amendment as understood in the Antonin Scalia-authored Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller. The background check bill that was voted on in the Senate after the massacre specifically prohibited the creation of registries.)

• Following terror attacks carried out by ISIS, LaPierre claimed Obama “attacked you harder than he attacked ISIS. He used the terrorism his own weaknesses and failures made possible to try to gut your right to shoot back at the terrorists he refused to kill.” (As commander-in-chief, Obama is actually carrying out a military campaign against ISIS which routinely kills the group’s leaders and fighters. Nothing Obama has ever proposed would bar citizens from shooting back at terrorists.)

• LaPierre claimed that Obama “has transformed America into a sanctuary nation for felons, criminal gangbangers, drug dealers, repeat offenders, and illegal aliens” and that “our inner cities now rank among the most dangerous places in the world.” (Although there have been upticks as well as dips, violent crime hascontinued to fall under President Obama.)

MediaMatters has several more rebuttals to LaPierre’s claims, the last being that Clinton wants to abolish gun ownership – a claim well-debunked.

But for my purposes, we’re seeing another far-right leader attempting to build a firewall around the right-wing base, isolating them from reality, by asserting that he was right about the horrors of liberal Obama – when he was tangibly wrong. I recall how shortages of ammunition were reported when Obama was elected, as gun owners scurried to buy soon-to-be banned supplies.

Those bans ever happened. Not even hinted at. Question is, are gun owners credulous fools, or will they look around and, who knows, maybe vote the bum out?

I expect we’ll be seeing more of these sorts of outright lies (I tried to find a kinder way to put that, but it was not to be) in the next few years as their predictions prove untrue. After all, it’s a big country – it may not be so bad here as it is over there, right?

And the media is not to be trusted, of course.

Maybe not even Fox News.

Yep, even Fox will get thrown under the bus if a shrinking audience forces them to become a better news source. A lesson from fiction is that the bad guys tend to chew each other up. Maybe the same will happen in real life.

A local group.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb8yga8kygU

The Vampire and the Ballerina (1962, Italian L’amante del vampiro) is a mish mash of bad and good elements. Such movies promise novelty and insight, but rarely deliver, and this falls into that category. The characters, the herd, if you will, of ballerinas and their instructors, are virtually interchangeable, dancers with little else to distinguish them. The predators, the vampires, have more going for them, a mysterious reserve married to sudden bursts of violence.

The promise comes from the choices made by the vampires. For example, a woman begins the transition from human to monster – and is destroyed, not by relatives or churchmen, but by the very vampire that has brought her to this cusp. Turns out he’s jealous of his world and does not wish to be challenged. It’s an emotional, even mad proposition – but believable. What are they trying to say with this twist?

Not much, it turns out, if anything. There are delicious hints of family dysfunction between the two vampires in this movie – but not much is really made of it. As we wait, in vain, for elucidations, the victims fall, the women fulfill the usual Italian movie stereotypes, and then they wander about at random. The men go to search for them in the forest – and find them, without explanation, in the castle.

The seams of plausibility fray, and then burst gracelessly all over the admittedly charmingly decayed castle. It could have been an interesting take on the vampire tale; it might have even been entertainingly mad, putting the powers of dance against the blood lust of the vampire. But it doesn’t dare such an outre approach to the concept; it spins meaninglessly, staggers at random, and in the end the movie falls with a ripe splat to the roof of the castle, there to turn to dust under an inexplicably invisible sun.

Regretfully, not recommended.

On Greensboro.com, longtime SCOTUS reporter Dahlia Lithwick describes the impact of the female justices on court proceedings:

The addition of more women justices, Lithwick said, has changed everything.

As recently as the Hobby Lobby case in 2014, Justice Kennedy avoided naming the actual contraceptive devices in question. It took the women in the room to say “IUD” out loud.

When the court heard Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt last October, Lithwick said, questions by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor during oral arguments pierced the pretense that the new abortion clinic requirements were about women’s safety. That law, which required abortion clinics to meet surgical center requirements, would have closed all but a handful of abortion clinics in the state of Texas.

“I have to tell you what it was like to see three women justices just strap on their skates and go,” Lithwick told the gathering. “They held a roller derby of gender in there, and it was so powerful to see the three women justices just take over the room.”

To clarify the intent of my previous post [connecting Planned Parenthood to Hitler]: Planned Parenthood has learned well the same tactics and deception used by Hitler regarding innocent lives. I was not in any way agreeing with Hitler’s words, rather, I was making a connection between the ideology he used and the arguments made by Planned Parenthood. I find both deplorable and heartbreaking.