Category Archives: Uncategorized

Justice Clarence Thomas is known to have sworn vengeance on liberals in the wake of his contentious, yet successful, SCOTUS confirmation hearings, and in those decisions of the last 32 years – he assumed his seat in 1991, or thirty two years ago, making him the senior member – those that were split decisions usually have been irritating and outrageous to liberals – or, in the case of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade, so infuriating to the general electorate that independents and even moderate conservatives ended up voting against proposals and candidates who supported Dobbs, and in such numbers as to disappoint those who were anti-Roe.

But whether or not Thomas has been successful by his own gauge, it appears that he’s beginning to become a leading example, as unwilling as he may be, of the corrupt side of a political party that has an implicit worship of money. Yet another facet of his controversial relationship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow has come to light, as reported by CNN/Politics:

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose a 2014 real estate deal he made with a GOP megadonor, according to a ProPublica report published Thursday.

The deal involved the sale of three properties in Savannah, Georgia, that were owned by Thomas and his relatives to the megadonor, Harlan Crow, according to ProPublica, which said that tax and property records showed that Crow made the purchases through one of his companies for a total of $133,363.

That’s not the worst of it:

But Thomas “never disclosed his sale of the Savannah properties,” the report said, noting that ethics law experts told the outlet that his failure to report it “appears to be a violation of the law.”

I wonder if there’s a penalty involved, or if this is another toothless ethics rule. But CNN’s source might be a bit too literal:

“The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice,” ProPublica said in its report.

If you’re not familiar with the previous revelations, you should click through to see all the other unfortunate details – the ultra-expensive vacations paid for by Crow, the great friends they’ve become, the cases in which a Crow company came before the Court, etc. This is all beginning to acquire the flavor of a story told in a history book, fifty years from now, in which Justice Thomas becomes not only an example of corruption, but an embodiment of the foundational flaw of a pious, yet arrogant, political party that happens to worship money and power, and confuses that lust with morality.

That’s not to suggest I expect Thomas to resign. No, to do so would be to lose face to the liberals, and that’s the last thing he’ll do. And within the hermitage we call the SCOTUS conservative wing, he’ll retain his influence and prestige, because they share the same political philosophy.

But this continuing scandal will alienate yet more independent voters. The GOP may make big noises about 2024, but between intransigence when it comes to gun laws, the continuing inflammation known as the Dobbs decision, and now this scandal, GOP candidates in swing districts will have to consider disavowing at least one of these GOP positions, if not two or even all three, if they hope to persuade the power-holding independents to vote for them.

If you seek to change [anything] legislatively without changing hearts and minds, you risk the voters changing the legislature.  — Erick Erickson

Yeah, it’s buried deep in a message that tries to conceal the fact that some pregnancies will end in either abortion or the death of the mother by blaming a culture which, in reality, only differs in how much shame is dished out and for what. But, on its own, it’s absolutely true.

And both the Autocratic Left and Autocratic Right would do well to remember this central fact of liberal democracies.

“Are you upset that you broke a nail? Did you get so mad you busted a blood vessel? Here at K-TEL we stand ready and willing to ship you products that’ll make you all better! Order five or more LPs and we’ll send you a set of Ginsu Knives as well!”
And that’s when the trouble started.

The Suicide Squad (2021) is a goony, lurching monster of a movie, filled with head feints, bits of cute dialog, characters who really should wrestle with the question of whether or not they have a superpower, or a dragging weight of a psychiatric condition, and the dark side of the decisive personality.

I’ll say this: as disturbing as the extravagant violence was, the high powered personality spars, booms, mountains, and molehills were just barely enough to keep us watching all the way to the end. Let’s be clear: this is no gentle morality tale, unless Teamwork counts! is a morality tale. Maybe it is.

But rarely are such repugnantly psychologically damaged proponents used to push the proposition.

Reticle:

a network of fine lines, dots, cross hairs, or wires in the focal plane of the eyepiece of an optical instrument [Vocabulary.com]

Noted in “All About The XM157 Next Generation Fire Control System for the XM5 Rifle,” Jennifer Sensiba, The Truth About Guns:

Fortunately, Vortex thought about that and made sure to design an optic that’s actually an optic, not a digital screen. The “smart” parts only project information (including a self-adjusting reticle) onto a transparent display inside of a normal low-power 1-8×30 variable optic (LPVO) with an etched reticle. If the smart parts fail, a soldier can still use the XM157 like a normal optic and stay in the fight without needing to switch to irons.

Although this entry in this intermittent thread might be better likened to STARSHIP TROOPERS (the book by Heinlein, not the movies), it’s also clearly a step towards the killer robots that are the raison d’être of this thread. The source article from a year ago, “All About The XM157 Next Generation Fire Control System for the XM5 Rifle,” by Jennifer Sensiba, is in The Truth About Guns, a source with which I have no familiarity.

One thing that makes this optic really special is that it has a full display with pixels. It doesn’t just light up a few different spots to give different reticles. Where a pixel is lit up, you see something on top of the optical image from the scope. Where pixels aren’t lit up, you see right through the display.

This gives the shooter a lot of options. Ballistic drop, wind holds, the range to the target (as detected by a built-in rangefinder), menus, augmented reality (including ability to tag objects and see what other soldiers have tagged), waypoints, and basically anything else that the Army wants it to display.

The optic will calculate and adjust for bullet drop, windage, angle, etc. The optic has a number of sensors, including a compass, atmospherics, and a laser rangefinder to get the data it needs to make ballistic calculations and move the digital reticle automatically in fractions of a second to make it a true point-and-shoot system. That means people with less skill can shoot faster and more accurately at the longer ranges the 6.8x51mm round has the energy to work well at.

And more interestingly:

Perhaps more importantly, the optic networks with not only other XM157 optics, but computers, smartphones, and even augmented reality visors the Army is developing. Data can potentially come from commanders, satellites, UAVs, and military aviators. It can also be sent to all of those other people who are also in the fight. This gives everyone rapid access to a common operating picture and sensor fusion data, much like the pilot of an F35 or F22 gets.

While there is no self-agency reported, this is a step in that direction because the recognition phase is now arguably in the domain of the machines, rather than exclusively in that of the soldier, the entity making the moral decisions. Moreover, it’s networked between the various weapons. I wonder how much vetting security experts had in the design phase.

Give it full control of the weapon and a decision making capability, and it’s the “tip of the spear” for the killer robot.

Irruption:

1. The action of irrupting or breaking into; a violent entry or invasion; an inbreaking; an intrusion.
   The Trojan irruption into the Greek camp is related in Book XV of the Iliad.
2. (ecology) An abrupt increase of an animal population.
   Extreme rainfall events predict irruptions of rat plagues in central Australia.
3. (by extension) An abrupt increase in the size of a movement or organization.
   How can we explain this irruption of young people self-identifying as socialists? [Wiktionary]

Noted in “Massive waves of squirrels once roamed America. No one knows why.”, John Kelly, WaPo:

From the retired Hawking partner Bernard Carr in NewScientist (1 April 2023, paywall):

Recently, however, I have become interested in an even more exotic possibility: that some black holes could be older than the universe itself. It is a wild idea, but not inconceivable. And new research suggests that we might one day be able to positively identify them, a breakthrough that would radically change our understanding of cosmology.

It requires replacing the acyclic, or “Big Bang”, model of the Universe with a cyclic, or “Big Bounce” or “Big Crunch” model. I wonder if that would let us return to a Universe with a set of universal laws that don’t vary over time, or if we’d still be seeing such speculation.

My mind has been broadened.

Jibboom:

a spar that extends the bowsprit [Advance Dictionary]

Noted in this 9 Chickfield Lane cartoon strip.

A recently released Hubble Space Telescope find, complete with caption:

This Hubble Space Telescope archival photo captures a curious linear feature that is so unusual it was first dismissed as an imaging artifact from Hubble’s cameras. But follow-up spectroscopic observations reveal it is a 200,000-light-year-long chain of young blue stars. A supermassive black hole lies at the tip of the bridge at lower left. The black hole was ejected from the galaxy at upper right. It compressed gas in its wake to leave a long trail of young blue stars. Nothing like this has ever been seen before in the universe. This unusual event happened when the universe was approximately half its current age. Credits: NASA, ESA, Pieter van Dokkum (Yale); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Fascinating, yet plausible, speculation.

I see that President Biden is finally beginning to acknowledge the huge mistake the Democrats made in the management of the transgender issue – a sentence I write with greater precision than most.

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed new regulations that would allow schools to bar transgender athletes from participating in competitive high school and college sports, but disallow blanket bans on the athletes that have been approved across the country.

The rules would narrow when discrimination of trans athletes would be permitted. But they also would offer guidelines for when schools could bar their participation.

Under the proposal, schools would need to consider a range of factors before imposing a ban on trans athletes and would need to justify it based on educational grounds, such as the need for fairness. So, for instance, a school district could justify a ban on transgender athletes on their competitive high school track and field team, whereas a district would have a harder time making that case for an intramural middle school kickball squad. [WaPo]

But notice how much more difficult of a process this has the potential to be. Rather than a quicksilver debate, in which points can be made rapidly, digested, and responded to, now we have the painful, blocky, and undoubtedly politically ugly process of proposed rules changes. Those who promulgated or approved of the original Title IX rules changes in the Obama Administration will be outraged, it’ll move quite slowly as those who bought into, or were bullied into, have to think it through.

It’s potentially a mess.

And it’s an embarrassment for the Democrats, but I suppose that’s better than actually acknowledging their abrogation of the foundational tenet of liberal democracy, that of not imposing profound new rules on society, but rather engaging in discussion, debate, and persuasion. Such an acknowledgment, itself improperly handled, could make them look like they operate on the same level as that pack of fourth-raters who call themselves the Republican Party these days.

Predicting a long and messy campaign for society to figure out how to manage transgenderism.

Erick Erickson, whose own agenda isn’t the cleanest, illuminates the entire mess of 2020 shenanigans clearly:

For the sake of argument, let’s agree 2020 was stolen.

Donald Trump lost in 2020 while in control of the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security. He had Republicans in charge in Georgia and Arizona, with legislative majorities in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.  And the race was still stolen. Now, with Christopher Wray still at the FBI and Joe Biden in charge of the federal government and Democrats in charge of Arizona, fully entrenched in Pennsylvania and Michigan, in charge now of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and with Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger still in Georgia — how exactly will the election not be stolen from Trump?

So, speaking of argument:

For the sake of argument, let’s agree 2020 wasn’t stolen.

So what to do? He discusses that on his radio broadcast, so I guess I just don’t get to find out. But he’s done a service with that simple takedown. Now if he’d just consider the possibility of the Republican stand on issues, as well as the tactics they use, being wrong and needing modification, or even rethinking.

Today’s nominee hails from the great State of Georgia,

“Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today,” she said during an interview with Right Side Broadcasting in New York. “Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus — Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government.”

She said Trump joins the ranks of people who have been arrested and persecuted by “radical, corrupt governments. And it’s beginning today in New York City, and I just can’t believe it’s happening, but I’ll always support him. He’s done nothing wrong.” [USA Today]

If you had Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on your bingo card, you win! And extra points if you can hear Mandela spinning in his grave.

As I read Professor Richardson’s statement that newly elected Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Protasiewicz, a de facto ally to the Democrats, is estimated to have won her election by ten points or so, a figure I presume comes from behind the paywall at The New York Times, I was at first somewhat disappointed, as this will be a 55% – 45% victory, which seems scant.

But then it occurred to me that there’s an intellectual error in marrying a name too tightly to meaning. By this I mean, in this case, that political parties’ character changes over time; they are fluid. The Wisconsin Republicans of today are not those of 50 years ago, or, before that, of Senator McCarthy (R-WI).

As the Wisconsin Republican Party continues to lose, the moderates will begin to learn that the nature of the culture of their party, toxic team politics, is the reason they’re losing. They’ll quietly rebel against its strictures by not voting for extremists; indeed, strident extremists may very well find themselves unceremoniously ejected and shunned.

The entire leadership could be asked to leave.

Will they try to change their spots? Sure. Such is the lure of power for the extremist. But they won’t succeed. There’s little point in concealing one’s extreme positions during a campaign, followed by attempting to consummate them after winning. Voters get angry.

So I don’t see margins getting much larger for the Democrats, and that’s OK. I’d rather see a sane Republican Party that contributes to governing and not a Gingrich Doctrine dominated Party devoted to winning, regardless of the consequences for the Party’s makeup.

Catherine Rampell’s summary in WaPo of the ongoing debt ceiling debacle is really a summary of the consequences of one of my favorite wish-it-were-dead horses, toxic team culture.

To wit: [House Republicans] won’t raise taxes (to the contrary, they have pledged to cut taxes further); they won’t touch Social Security or Medicare; they won’t slash defense or veterans’ programs; and they won’t zero out the rest of the nondefense discretionary budget, as would be required if they chose to extend all the Trump tax cuts and took all those other spending categories off the table, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. …

Republicans, on the other hand, appear to have abandoned any pretense of a counteroffer. They have no budget, nor even the basic outlines of one.

In a letter in late March, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) accused the president of being “missing in action” on debt negotiations. Never mind, apparently, McCarthy’s lack of concrete positions of his own, beyond platitudes about “reducing excessive non-defense government spending” (which ones are excessive?) and advocating “policies to grow our economy and keep Americans safe, including measures to lower energy costs.” (Okay, how?)

Yeah. They won’t raise taxes, and, in fact, will exacerbate the situation by lowering them again, while swearing up, down, and sideways to leave so much of the budget alone during the cutting process that they actually cannot accomplish what they wish to do.

Here’s the raging clue: Reading about the ringleaders of this mess leaves one wondering just which asylum they have escaped from. Comer (SC), chair of the Oversight Committee, doesn’t seem to understand that big countries comes with big budgets, and that failing to raise the debt ceiling will enshrine our country as no longer trustworthy in the financial world; Gaetz (FL) wants to bring Federal agencies that investigate Republicans “to heel” or defund them; Greene (GA) of Jewish Space Laser fame foams at the mouth as she proclaims Democrats are pedophiliacs; Biggs and Gosar of Arizona are so scatterbrained I don’t know where to start; Boebert (CO) doesn’t seem to understand that the Establishment Clause really exists, and that no matter how many ways she asks a question, the unexpected answer remains the same (public urination in D.C.).

And Speaker McCarthy (CA) runs around making random, useless remarks. We’ve gone from one of the most effective Speakers in modern times, Pelosi (D-CA), to someone whose guiding principle appears to be What do I need to say and do to hold my position? There’s no hint of a real, live moral principle in McCarthy’s public pronouncements. Just studying what he says makes me see him as a deer in human clothing, staring blankly at the oncoming car lights.

And how do they get elected in the first place? Standard political wisdom states it with brevity: Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. That’s right, they line up and vote for the Republican candidate without discretion. This is the rule for general elections; primaries, on the other hand, can degenerate into appalling brawls. Just ask former Congressman Mo Brook (R-AL), accused of supporting the Islamic State during a Senate primary run. (Brooks, himself an extremist, came in third.)

Why?

Experience and moderation are no longer important, and are in fact burdens; it’s about ideology. Abortion: Evil. Taxes: Evil. Regulation: Bad. Democrats: Evil. Deep State: Persecution. Compromise: Evil. Losing: Evil (see Kari Lake (R-AZ)). Guns: Unlimited good. Look at how Republican primaries go these days: candidates exhibit how extreme they can get on the various issues mentioned, plus a few more, and then sit back and hope their performative ideology appealed. An incumbent exhibiting any violation of “the rules” instantly becomes vulnerable to being primaried by some bozo who has no problem backing every single one those rules, whether they personally believe in them or not.

And why does that work?

Because the idea of honor has been banished in favor of Gingrich’s Dictum: Win at any cost. The primaries, as I noted, are already a circus, to the extent that Democrats have been over-performing using Republican admissions and accusations.

But it’s important to extend those “rules” to understand why Republicans don’t seem to understand how America works anymore. Anyone paying attention knows that many Republicans continue to talk about and put forward laws restricting abortion now that Dobbs‘ has overturned Roe. They didn’t get it, pundit and candidate alike, in the 2022 election, and as a result, it’s fairly argued, the Democrats lost just a few seats, instead of the projected sixty, in the House, and shocked the political world by picking up an empty seat in the Senate, shifting the balance of power further to the Democrats.

Yet, local and national Republican legislators openly discuss and put forward proposals to restrict abortion.

When you’re a fourth-rater, yeah, that’s what you do. Persuasive arguments? Nyah. Watch the polls and see how their keystone issue of abortion is going for them:

Gallup

Not at all persuasive. And are they paying attention? No. The Republican epistemic bubble, reinforced by their default labeling of anything anti-Republican as evil, prevents them learning that their positions are not respected. Oh, not all Republicans, but the elected officials, those that Erick Erickson, conservative/extremist pundit, actually has to yell at, don’t seem to get it.

The “rules,” along with a healthy dose of profound arrogance, leads them to think that by achieving a law, they’ve won. They’ll have gained the Promised Land and it’ll never be taken away.

But it doesn’t work that way. If you can’t persuade through argument, and people refuse to be ashamed in the face of vulnerable women dying, well, that poll is a predictor that any abortion-restriction laws that are passed will be prime targets for repeal when the women of America get their act together and bounce the anti-abortion partisans out on their heads. It may take a while, but it will happen. Bloody death trumps bad reasoning, even with a possibly non-existent God being invoked, mistakenly, by everyone.

So the entire House mess, led by McCarthy, is actually easy to understand how it arises from the toxic team politics of the Republican Party – and why the current iteration of the Republicans is doomed to implode, eventually.

Droughts are not abnormal, but the drought afflicting Tunisia seems to have graduated to extreme status:

Tunisia is cutting off water supplies to citizens for seven hours a night. The extreme measure is a response to the country’s worst drought on record.

The water will be cut off daily from 9pm until 4am, with immediate effect, state water distribution company SONEDE said in a statement on Friday.

The country’s agriculture ministry earlier introduced a quota system for drinking water and banned its use in agriculture until 30 September.

Tunisia is battling with a drought that is now in its fourth year. [euronews.green]

Tunisia is a North African nation, sandwiched between Algeria and Libya, with a goodly shoreline onto the Med. The land of Italy and Europe beckons:

Source: Operation World

And this should come as no surprise:

The new decision threatens to fuel social tension in a country whose people suffer from poor public services, high inflation and a weak economy.

Farmers have also been urged to stop irrigating vegetable fields with water from dams and in some cases face limits.

Tunisia already has food supply problems due to high global prices and the government’s own financial difficulties, which have reduced its capacity to buy imported food and subsidise farms at home.

The drought has pushed up fodder prices, contributing to a crisis for Tunisia’s dairy industry as farmers sell off herds they can no longer afford to keep, leaving supermarket shelves empty of milk and butter.

Soon, farmlands will become empty. People are already leaving, and until the new carrying capacity is reached, or the weather changes and brings rain, they will continue to leave.

I hope this isn’t the future for much of the world, but I fear it may be.

A problem with something like the Conservative Movement, which emphasizes hierarchy and loyalty, is that true leadership and wisdom is harder to exercise and have recognized. Consider this:

With little fanfare, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday allowing residents to carry a concealed loaded weapon without a permit.

DeSantis signed the bill in a nonpublic event in his office with only bill sponsors, legislative leaders and gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, in attendance. [NBC News]

In the wake of the recent Nashville shooting, in which 3 children and 3 adults died, along with the shooter Audrey Hale, it’s no surprise that Governor DeSantis (R-FL) decided to avoid the spotlight:

It was a notable departure for a governor who regularly holds splashy news conferences and bill-signing ceremonies.

But this could have been a moment for DeSantis to show some leadership. He could have vetoed the bill and used that moment to deliver a speech that explains why more guns does not equal more safety, that mankind is an animal that can be rational, but is not a rational animal, and a dozen more reasons to explain why it’s bad policy to assume the Second Amendment is an unlimited right.

Good leaders do not simply echo everyone else. Those are just sheep, not leaders. No, good leaders jump up and use their podiums to explain why the crowd is wrong, and to propose a better way.

But the hierarchy and loyalty, not just to other personalities but to ideologies and tenets as well, implicit in the Conservative Movement, its absurd belief that unlimited gun rights makes more sense than a safe society in this case, make the truly ambitious politician’s plans difficult to impossible to execute. If they don’t hew to the ideological line, their ideas aren’t examined and weighed carefully.

No, instead they are chased away by the enraged partisans who place loyalty over thoughtfulness.

And that’s part of the reason the Conservative Movement is a crippled movement, an example of how not to structure an institution to those who acknowledge man’s need to be humble.

From ICT comes news of a cessation of arrogance at the Vatican:

The Vatican on Thursday responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today.

A Vatican statement said the papal bulls, or decrees, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.

I don’t know how many people would have agreed with me at the time, but I recall learning, as a teenager, that Pope Alexander VI, in 1493, assigned newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal:

The Papal Bull “Inter Caetera,” issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year. It established a demarcation line one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands and assigned Spain the exclusive right to acquire territorial possessions and to trade in all lands west of that line. All others were forbidden to approach the lands west of the line without special license from the rulers of Spain. This effectively gave Spain a monopoly on the lands in the New World. [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History]

Rather the height of arrogancy, in my young eyes, and these older eyes find little with which to disagree.

I must admit to some amusement at this part of the ICT article – a little tap dance from a Jesuit, I think:

Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian Jesuit whose office co-authored the statement, stressed that the original bulls had long ago been abrogated and that the use of the term “doctrine” — which in this case is a legal term, not a religious one — had led to centuries of confusion about the church’s role.

The original bulls, he said, “are being treated as if they were teaching, magisterial or doctrinal documents, and they are an ad hoc political move. And I think to solemnly repudiate an ad hoc political move is to generate more confusion than clarity.”

He stressed that the statement wasn’t just about setting the historical record straight, but “to discover, identify, analyze and try to overcome what we can only call the enduring effects of colonialism today.”

No, no, you were all confused for centuries!

In the end, this was all about worldly greed, a world in which might made right – and that message came about from the supposed center of Western Civilization, the leading moral light. It was appalling.

It snowed last night.

And a reminder that summer is nearby.

Reading Erick Erickson’s stuff is always a bit of a trip because his viewpoint and consequential conclusions are often skewed – and, when it’s not, you wonder why. But today, this might take the cake:

There is the camp that says this is designed to bolster Donald Trump’s nomination so they can beat him. Some of you are probably in that camp. You think the Democrats calculate that by indicting Trump, they’ll help him in the GOP primary. They think they can beat him in the general, and this indictment might push him across the finish line as the GOP nominee.

Perhaps.

But the camp I’m in is that Alvin Bragg represents a wing of the Democrat Party that is on the short bus of the party. He’s not very bright. I suspect the grand jurors are just rabid progressives, too, and they are all in the wing of “let’s put the SOB behind bars.” They hate him. They call him vulgarities instead of the President. They just want him in prison, and they’ll do anything to get him there.

They are not smart enough to consider the ramifications and too blinded by rage against Trump to care.

And on and on. Significantly, Erickson, a lawyer specializing in elections at one time himself, never gives Bragg the benefit of the doubt, namely that maybe Bragg is just doing his job. The fact that a job is high-profile and may have a political facet doesn’t mean the person in that job has absolute discretion in doing that job.

The fact of the matter is that a grand jury listened to testimony and returned indictments – more than thirty, according to this CNN/Politics article. This should be a hint that there’s a fire going on. Add in the fact that Bragg’s political career would be significantly damaged by a failed prosecution and so he’d best be very sure, and yet here we are, and I found Erickson’s political calculations reprehensible.

But it’s true, his blog was called Confessions of a Political Junkie (now, in support of his radio show, it’s called the Erick Erickson Show). But it seems to be the only prism he has, this political prism, along with the occasional God is in control prism for those days when events are unpredictable.

And this is what makes him, as a pundit, an entertaining failure. I mean, he’s no doubt fun on the radio, and judging from the content of his blog, his listeners will be hearing what makes them feel good.

But if it leads to such mistakes as predicting the 2022 election to be a blow out, rather than the split-decision it turned out to be, well, that’s failure. And Erickson really piles them up.

But, as a prominent pundit, he’s certainly a window on extremist thinking.

Integument:

1. a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind.
2. any covering, coating, enclosure, etc. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Scientists say your idea of how the T. rex looked is probably wrong,” Dino Grandoni, WaPo:

But [Auburn University paleontologist Thomas] Cullen, one of the new study’s co-authors, said there is no strong evidence in the skulls of living animals that the wrinkle pattern precludes the presence of lips. “Simply put, the wrinkled texture along the upper jaws,” he said, “does not appear to be strongly correlated to lips one way or another.”

[Carthage College paleontologist Thomas] Carr is confident the debate will be settled someday. “What we need is a fossil of a mummy tyrannosaur that preserves the integument of the face,” he said.

I see Senator Tuberville (R-AL) has quietly joined the House Republicans in advocating, and implementing, nutty political strategies in order to achieve unpopular political goals:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went on offense Tuesday against one Republican senator’s blockade of 160 senior military promotions, cautioning that delaying the moves will harm national security.

Austin delivered the warning at a Senate Armed Services hearing Tuesday, where he made the case for the Pentagon’s annual defense budget. The defense chief was asked about Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s temporary hold, which is based on new policies aimed at shoring up troops’ access to abortions, and pleaded with the Republican to change course.

Without naming the Alabama senator or citing the abortion policy, Austin called the impact of delaying routine military promotions “absolutely critical” as dozens, potentially hundreds, of general and flag officer picks pile up. He cited a number of tense global situations, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Iran. [Politico]

Tuberville’s anti-abortion maneuver won’t hurt him personally, as Alabama appears to be firmly in the grip of the GOP, but for other members of Congress up for reelection in swing districts, it could be problematic. Threatening national security over a domestic political issue in which most of the national electorate disagrees with Tuberville will do nothing to endear his GOP colleagues to local voters.

The GOP’s forest of prosperity.

Add in their clown car affair with raising the the national debt limit, an irrational resistance to raising taxes, and the general adherence to the Gingrich Doctrine of never giving Democrats a win – in case you’re wondering, it’s the Democrats who are currently occupying the position of ‘mostly sane’ – and the general 4th rate personalities now being put up for election, and the 2024 election is looking dreary indeed for the Republicans.

An object lesson in not opening your shirt.

Black Adam (2022) is one of those movies that’s not quite a credit card movie: it starts out in a hole, but doesn’t quite start digging deeper; instead, it improves.

Slightly.

Oh, so slightly.

Black Adam, aka Teth Adam, is the former and future protector of the fictional country of Kahndaq, a Middle Eastern country that has suffered various governmental plagues, from monarchies to autocracies to anarchies, none of them pleasant. But in this slightly futuristic world there’s an archaeologist who has tired of it all, and has found the key to Black Adam, and now need only find her way to him. Son and brother in tow. Along with this mysterious other guy.

Too bad Adam’s under a mountain.

And he’s a popular guy, at least for a God-like creature who can’t be beat. Except for the occasional blob of Eternium, he just rolls through everything. Anyways, an aspirational monarch is looking for power, as is the self-righteous League of Justice, a bunch of killjoys who forgot to take their chemistry shots before coming on stage.

Anyways, various adventures and CGI explosions ensue once the thoroughly joyless Adam is found; my Arts Editor remarked What fun is this if no one can beat him? And, indeed, it was only stubbornness that got us to the end of this movie.

If you’re heavily into the D. C. Comics Universe, then perhaps you should see this. Maybe. At three in the morning, after drinking heavily.

Otherwise, don’t bother. Duane Johnson’s talents lie in some other place than God-like invincibility.

I see the extreme loyalty demanded of the GOP representatives who’ve been melded to the former President’s shirt-tails by their own extremism and incompetence has led to the next logical step of toxic team politics:

Top House Republicans said in a letter Saturday that they’re considering legislation to “protect” current and former presidents from “politically motivated prosecutions” in response to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into former President Trump.

Why it matters: The letter is the latest volley in their back-and-forth with Bragg, who has refused to comply with their request for records related to his probe. Republicans have attempted to paint Bragg’s actions — which could result in a historic indictment of Trump — as an abuse of prosecutorial authority. [Axios]

Which is damn silly for anyone who cares about having a lawful society. But when the guy who delivered you a job with prestige calls in the favor, you have to answer.

Don’t you? Depends on your chutzpah, not to mention the threats you’ve received, maybe, which is in itself an important consideration.

This is a predictable attempt by the Republican House “leaders” to legitimize their exceptionally poor showing, so far, in the current session of Congress. Don’t look for them to moderate their stances, because they perceive their extremism as the reason they’re in Congress – rather than the toxic team politics upon which I’ve harped for so long.

It’s up to the voters to kick them out.

The musical dance scene was particularly disturbing.

The Walking Dead (1936) chronicles the classic revenge from beyond the grave tale. John Ellman, a poor man walking about an unnamed contemporary American city, happens to stumble into a fresh murder scene, is accused of the shooting, and, as the research lab assistants who initially accused him dither in fear, is executed.

So who did it? A city-wide conspiracy of business leaders. The worship of money and power is without bounds, and the death of Ellman is meaningless to them.

Until the head of the research lab decides to try out his untested revivification methods on Ellman, at the urging of his guilt-stricken assistants. Soon enough, he’s strolling about, playing the piano, and, when justice fails, taking his revenge on both the hired hands and those who paid those hands to kill them.

Is this memorable? No, not really. Plot holes include the question of why a revivified guy can outmuscle the original muscle that killed him. Nor is Ellman all that charming.

But it’s not a bad little movie, either. It comes off as a B-list horror flick, and I suspect that was the extent of the ambition of the movie makers. But the idea that arrogant murderers can be tripped up by the lowest of the low is a quintessentially American idea, the underdog leaping at the throat of its enemy.

So if you’re a Boris Karloff completist, this particular entry in his canon won’t hurt you to watch, unlike some.