Category Archives: Uncategorized

When it comes to nuclear arms, they’re just not that different from, say, artillery shells or 500 pound bombs: they have to be delivered to be effective. So this poster, reputedly from the British Ministry of Defense, is fascinating:

I’m sure analysts far brighter than I are chewing on these implications, but my mind is flooded regardless. Such things as these come to mind:

• Are we seeing the Russian nuclear strike force degrading with each hour? A nuclear missile sitting in a closet while its delivery system is used to disrupt and kill a few Ukrainians in Kyiv looks an awful lot like a lump of metal. Or does Russia have a vast oversupply of nuclear missile delivery systems?
• Was this a desperation move by officers tasked with the Ukraine mission?
• Or does President Putin know his nuclear force is diminishing?
• Does this say anything new about the Russian Army, or is there nothing left to say that’s new?
• While Putin qualifies as Russia’s super patriot in the minds of many, there are always citizens who are more patriotic than thou. How will they feel about this when the news gets out in Russia?
• Does this make it less likely that Russia will employ their nuclear strike force against Ukraine, or us, or China? Or more likely?

And are we nearing the conclusion of this bloody tragedy?

Triboluminescent:

The largest assemblage of extremely rare worked Neolithic rock crystal was uncovered by archaeologists from the University of Manchester at the monumental complex of Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire, England. More than 330 fragments of crystal were discovered during excavations at the nearly 6,000-year-old complex, which once featured a series of long earthen mounds and large timber buildings. Rock crystal is a form of nearly transparent quartz that was coveted by Neolithic people, who likely believed it had magical properties. “In the Neolithic period, there was no glass—or any other transparent solid material—so rock crystal would have been a really distinctive and notably different material,” says University of Manchester archaeologist Nick Overton. “Quartz crystals do a few really unusual things with light. They can be used to split white light into the visible spectrum and they are also triboluminescent, which means they emit a flash of light when struck with another stone or crystal.” [“Neolithic Crystal Age,” Jason Urbanus, Archaeology (November/December 2022) ]

As ever, Archaeology is one of the more gorgeous magazines out there.

Peter Olandt is one of the Daily Kos diarists who’ve been covering Putin’s War. This group has been fairly accurate in their prognoses of the Ukrainians and Russians, especially once it became clear that the Russians’ expectations of a one to two week war were so unrealistic as to indicate incompetence. So this off the cuff prediction is really interesting:

There will be no Russian army left in Ukraine by the end of winter. There may be no Russian army left period. Between the mass numbers of Russian soldiers dying from cold, and sudden breakthroughs by Ukraine caused by greater mobility, strategy, equipment, and depleted Russian units, we will finally see the full collapse of the Russian army many of us have been looking for.

I’ve mentioned, once or twice, that China has to be watching this conflict with great interest, as it tells them a lot of things: the military status of their Russian rival, the willingness of the Western powers to stand with countries and territories that may not be essential to Western security, the capability of a fellow autocracy’s military as a lead to their own military’s ability.

And while the obvious target in China’s viewfinder has to be Taiwan, the next target might be, of all countries, Russia. They share a border, over which there has been periodic conflict, and Russia has been considered an influential power, rivaling China’s influence. Both are old, old powers, full of pride and ambition.

So if China has a chance to gain at Russia’s expense, we may see that happen. We’ve seen Russia fruitlessly wave the nuclear dagger about, and China may decide that Russia doesn’t dare use it.

Will anything come of these speculations? Probably not. But if Russia’s entire military, excepting the nuclear arm, is seriously depleted by their Ukrainian adventure, it’s going to be a temptation for China to take some territory they may have been coveting.

Think that sounds nutty? Compare that to Japan maybe putting a military force on the long disputed Kuril Islands. Now that would be nutty.

UPDATE: The protests in China over Covid-19 restrictions, exacerbated with China refusing to use Western vaccines, may act to stop any Chinese aggression – or it may increase the odds of aggression. Why? As a way to distract protesters and silent supporters.

November 9th, to be precise:

The cryptocurrency market has fallen by about two-thirds from its peak to $1.07 trillion. [Reuters]

I gotta wonder where that “lost” money went.

A few months ago we watched the trio of movies that make up Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, these being The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). It’s a bit of a puzzle when it comes to reviewing, isn’t it, because it’s not clear as to what the focus of any review should be.

For the hobbit purist, the deviations from the original may seem the natural focus, and there are substantial deviations, including the prefixing of an introduction to Middle Earth at the beginning of An Unexpected Journey, the disappointing scanting of the dwarves’ imprisonment in the castle of the Wood-elves of Mirkwood, and the addition of an inter-race romantic subplot, in The Desolation of Smaug, and the explicit and grisly deaths of Thorin Oakenshield and his nephews, Kili and Fili, at (and in) The Battle of the Five Armies. With regards to the last item, in the book, Bilbo suffers an injury early on that renders him unconscious, and he returns to his senses barely in time to bid Thorin farewell, while Kili and Fili are already dead. The movie version of their deaths is wholly invented.

The outrage of the purist could be palpable and understandable.

But, at least in this reader’s estimation, the story delineated in The Hobbit, that is, the book, is imperfect. The plethora of dwarves leads to a lack of strong characterization of most of them. It’s true that the obesity of Bombur, and sometimes the counsel of Balin, distinguished them, and, of course, Thorin, as heir to an unavailable throne, and later a dwarf driven to the edge of insanity by his pecuniary lust, have some attainments of individual existence. But what of Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Fili, Kili, Dori, and a few others? In case my reader wonders, yes, I had to look some of those names up. That I had to attests to their annoying anonymity.

In general, the book reads like, well, the author is learning the art of story-telling. I can’t help but wonder if a more mature Tolkien might have assigned each of the dwarves a theme or character flaw, and used the battle as a way to winnow out those carrying an inferior theme – or have them discard or repair their flaw or theme.

Which is not to condemn The Hobbit. There is much to laud as well, such as the moral dilemma Bilbo faces when he finds the Arkenstone, the ultimate treasure of the dwarves, among the hoard of the late dragon Smaug, or the entire creepy sequence in Mirkwood, from entry to exit. It’s a book worth reading, particularly if you can assume the mindset of a child, eager for adventure.

Another option is to consider the movie trilogy in isolation, as a standalone artistic achievement. A quick appraisal of these many hours of action is a challenge, but I would note that the problem of the dwarves from the book remains a glaring problem in these movies; the aforementioned romantic subplot, which results in the graphic death of Kili in front of the elf Tauriel, left me wondering as to the point of the subplot in the first place.

On the other hand, the special effects are generally spectacular and occasionally funny, such as the death of the Great Goblin. The special effects are a signature of Peter Jackson’s, and occasionally work against the story-telling, reducing some of his work in the earlier Lord Of The Rings trilogy to little more than Let’s go kill some orcs! A similar observation applies here.

The acting is generally top-notch, but some of the details, such as discovering the Elves have a class system, was disappointing. Perhaps Jackson derives this from other material, such as The Silmarillion, which I’ve read but do not recall; I cannot say.

Generally, these three movies do not disappoint.

But I think, at least from a theoretic point of view, what interests me is the change to point of view from book to movies.

The Hobbit is told nearly entirely from the point of view of Bilbo, the hobbit. From the visit of Gandalf to Bilbo’s home, called Bag End and kicking off the tale, throughout their journey through the caves held by the goblins, in and out of the dungeons of the Wood-elves, into the nest of the malevolent worm Smaug, to Bilbo’s return to Hobbiton, interrupting one of the greatest injustices of the age, all we see and hear are what Bilbo sees and hears, with the exception, as I recall, of the minor, if critical, incident in which Bard of Lake-town battles Smaug.

This decision serves to concentrate the ties of empathy between the reader and Bilbo. Yes, there are similar ties organically built between the reader and Gandalf, and perhaps to Thorin Oakinshield, and even Bard of Lake-town.

But Bilbo’s role as the otherwise exclusive point of view permits the reader to learn as Bilbo does. His existence in isolated Hobbiton serves to place him nearly on the same level as the reader new to the book, learning about the wonders and friendships of wizards, dwarves, and proud elves, as well as the dangers of trolls, goblins, and orcs, all in concert with the reader, and the reader with Bilbo.

The movies make a different choice. For the audience member unfamiliar with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, in book or movie form, these new points of views potentially can be confusing, as Gandalf the Grey hares off^[apology] with fellow wizard Radagast the Brown to investigate the contents of the tombs of the Nazgûl; Tauriel and Legolas, the latter of whom is in LOTR but not the original The Hobbit, have a colloquy concerning a possible romance; the ever mysterious Elrond pops up; and during the climactic battle, keeping track of all the characters and their survival or deaths becomes quite a chore.

Not that this is a bad choice! Confinement to a single point of view does threaten to make the story difficult to comprehend, and necessarily constrains drama to that which affects, in this story, Bilbo.

In the end, it’s more the stuff of spirited discussion, rather than condemnatory or adulatory conclusions, and perhaps more of interest to professional story tellers and unqualified speculators such as myself, than to an audience eager to experience a land of good and evil.

In the end, if you’ve read and approved of the book, see the movies. You can compare your judgments to that of Jackson and his collaborators, who are not an inconsiderable lot in themselves. I think the movies might have done well to have more humor than they do, but admittedly it’s a grim story if you’re a dwarf, or an elf, or a goblin of Middle-Earth, particularly at the clash of the Five Armies.

^apology I do apologize for that quip. If you’re puzzled at the phrase, it means to run rapidly and/or wildly, and if you remain puzzled, see the movies and use your imagination.

Cryptocurrency has achieved some popularity in the Middle East, but the FTX debacle has spurred concern about legitimizing a currency which, traditionally, has spurned such calls as unnecessary. Here’s one call for crypto regulation in the Middle East, detailed by Cointelgraph:

A new blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused association has been launched within Abu Dhabi’s free economic zone that aims to further the development of blockchain and crypto ecosystems across the Middle Eastern, North Africa, and Asian regions.

The Middle East, Africa & Asia Crypto & Blockchain Association (MEAACBA) was officially launched on Nov. 8 in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), a free economic zone based in the center of the city subject to its own set of civil and commercial laws. The zone was designed to further the growth of fintech companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The nonprofit organization will aim to facilitate regulatory solutions, create commercial opportunities and invest in education to support industry growth, according to its website.

It’s one thing to see users finding new uses for a project unenvisioned by the project creators/sustainers. It’s a bit of a ephemeral boost to the ego.

But it’s quite another to see organizations forming to build exactly what the creators were trying to avoid: government oversight and manipulation. But this is not happening just in the Middle East:

I was a little surprised by this from Brian Katulis on The Liberal Patriot:

Two main wildcards exist for those who are open to an argument for building back U.S. politics of national security from the center.

First are the open questions of who will emerge as the leading voices in Congress on national security in both parties.  The GOP remains in disarray after the surprising setback it suffered in these midterms. Inside of the Democratic Party, there are loud voices who like to pretend the positions they espouse on foreign policy have more public support than they actually do.  Yet the American public supports a more balanced foreign policy agenda than these fringe voices seem to recognize.

It sounds like a nice bit of patter until you think about it a bit. So the American public supports a middle of the road foreign policy.

So what?

The American public supported isolationism in the late 1930s, and that got them a metaphorical smoking hole where the US Pacific Fleet was docked on December 7th, 1941, and our closest ally, Great Britain, teetering on the edge of oblivion.

While it’s important to understand the aggregate American public position on foreign policy, it’s not in order to conform to it, but to understand the deficiencies of the public’s understanding in order to correct them. For me, we elect the President to represent the nation to other nations, and that includes becoming and/or hiring experts on what can be done, in combination with what we think is best for us as a nation.

And not relying on the provincial attitudes of the common citizen, who knows little of other nations, even in the Era of the Internet.

“Now, I know you want a relic from the Event Horizon, you can feel it down in your soooouuuuul, you just have to have one! Brothers, sister, predators, it’ll make you one of us to have a bit of this famous ship of Christ in your living room! So here’s the first piece we have, and it’s … the … ship’s STEERING WHEEL! Imagine how the neighborhood will talk about you once you reveal this is in your living room, with the victims’ blood still on it! Who’ll start the bidding at $24.99?” They should have gotten Drew Carey to run the auction, instead.

Event Horizon (1997) is, I suppose, an infuriating story for science fiction fans. It gets off to a fine start, as spaceship Lewis & Clark gets underway to rescue a ship, Event Horizon, that’s been missing for seven years that’s suddenly popped up in orbit around Neptune. The science sounds good, rescue ship is suitably worn, rescue crew interactions are mostly believable, although the eccentricities seem a bit exaggerated, but the idea that the designer of the Event Horizon didn’t go with the ship – especially with his wife aboard – seems really odd.

Designer, you say? But yes; it’s revealed that Event Horizon is more than a whimsical name. The ship was designed to be the first interstellar exploration ship, and to do so, it creates a temporary, artificial black hole, and uses its event horizon to make the leap to its target star system.

All well and good. After all, a good star drive is one of the accepted exceptions to real physics allowed in science fiction.

But … it turns out the path opened by Event Horizon is the one to Hell. Just about literally. Yep, use your reverberating bass mind voice for that one. One by one, crew members experience terrible things in their heads, so frightening they become catatonic, and then one of them is taken over.

And let me say, Bah. My Arts Editor and I were involved in multiple incidents of eyeball-rolling, because an interesting story about rescuing explorers had become just another religio-jump-scare movie, with demons and evil and all that unexplained trash, including a space captain who happens to speak Latin at moments of supreme stress.

Might as well encounter Jason in Space. (“Jasons In Space”? Anyone care to describe what was in your mind when you read that?)

So this was off to a fine start, and abruptly jumped into the metaphorical La Brea Tarpits for an informal wrestle with a sabre-tooth tiger and the lead monster from Alien. Unrecommendable, really. And too bad.

A congratulatory bouquet to the victors!

The first half of the ruin of extremists in the United States has now been completed by Rep Mary Peltola (D-AK) and Senator Murkowski (R^moderate-AK), as each is projected by CNN and Ballotpedia to have won their reelection contests.

In Rep Peltola’s case, she has defeated former Governor and VP candidate Sarah “quitter” Palin (R^extremist-AK) and Nicholas Begich (R-AK) in the ranked choice voting (RCV) contest, triumphing in the third round. Rep Peltola had assumed the late Rep Don Young’s (R-AK) seat on winning the special election for the seat just a few months ago. Keeping in mind that CNN still shows votes to be counted, how does Peltola’s victory compare to her previous victory?

The margin is significantly larger.

Peltola’s special election margin over Palin was 3 points.

CNN and Ballotpedia has her margin in the general election currently at nearly 10 points.

This suggests that either moderate voters skipped the special election, which is certainly possible, or the regular Republican voters have decided that Peltola is not a member of the Devil’s Party, or at least that the Devil’s Party isn’t so bad as a fully configured religious extremist.

It’s a trap!
(Apply metaphor as needed.)

And that would be a real problem for an Alaska Republican Party (ARP) that put forth said extremist as its most popular candidate. It suggests that the extremists currently in control of the Party in Alaska don’t know how to make their positions palatable, don’t understand the voters’ preferences, and that voters don’t care for their loyalty to the former President, a loyalty evident in ARP’s censure of a sitting Senator for voting for conviction of the then-President, and his endorsement of Palin in return. Have Alaska voters decided that the Trump brand is the brand of losers who don’t know how to govern, and the ARP is controlled by out of touch advocates of positions incompatible with the future? If Trump wins the nomination for the 2024 Presidential Election, is it possible that Alaska will go Democratic? I think so, although that depends on a number of factors. Stay tuned for a couple of years.

Moving on to the victory of moderate Senator Murkowski (R) over Trump-endorsee Kelly Tshibaka (R), for a race that was considered to be a nail biter by conservative news outlets who, in obeisance to the former President, were rooting for Tshibaka, Murkowski won by a comfortable 7+ points. Importantly, Murkowski not only was running without endorsement from the ARP, but had actually been censured by the ARP for voting to convict the former President in his second trial for the January 6th Insurrection, as well as voting to confirm U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as Department of Interior secretary. As Haaland is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, this censure may have served to alienate many indigenous Alaskan voters from Tshibaka, although I only speculate. Murkowski is well known for her devotion to indigenous Alaskan interests, so it may not have mattered.

Even more interestingly, the ARP also voted to censure Senate GOP leader Senator McConnell (R-KY) for his financial support of Murkowski. This is not important in the context of the election, except to signify the fury of the extremists at the proper functioning of a democracy, but McConnell’s investment on Murkowski’s behalf had multiple purposes: Frustrate Trump, who hates McConnell and had endorsed Tshibaka; preserve an ally for McConnell; and, most importantly, conserve a U.S. Senate seat for the Republican Party. In previous posts I’ve suggested Murkowski might consider starting a new political party of a moderate nature, or could go independent; McConnell’s investment should restrain such impulses on her part, which I think is a sad result, but very smart investment by McConnell.

These results should dismay the extremists who thought the “red wave,” which disappeared into the vortex of disaffected voters, would carry them into dominance. Other extremist news includes the 13 point defeat of former two-term governor of Maine Paul LePage (R), who characterized himself as, paraphrasing, “Trump before there was a Trump.” (I preferred Amanda Chase’s self-description of “Trump in heels,” which has a lovely, terrible visual.) This rejection of LePage’s radical politics is perhaps not as decisive as desired, but if the Maine Republican Party wants to return to governance, they’ll be well-advised to dump LePage and those who advance his causes.

While national Republicans continue to make radical noises, those states in which RCV is used should see moderates winning elections – and Republicans hating RCV. It’s the bane of extremists who find toxic team politics and first past the post voting to be far more favorable.

But I see RCV as a natural result of toxic team politics and the consequent election of incompetent, grandstanding extremists. Look for it to become ,ore popular with moderates of all stripes.

Copypasta:

A copypasta is a block of text that is copied and pasted across the Internet by individuals through online forums and social networking websites. Copypastas are said to be similar to spam as they are often used to annoy other users and disrupt online discourse. [Wikipedia]

Well. I wonder if the Flying Spaghetti Monster approves. Noted in “Twitter king Dril on Musk’s chaotic reign,” Taylor Lorenz, WaPo:

A lovely apple pie, before I baked it.

nom nom nom

Feel left out when red-shift is mentioned? Never had that fascination with star stuff? (Maybe that’s due to light pollution.) Click here to see a professional’s Map of the Universe^{tm [maybe]}.

I had not meant to add anything more to this thread, although a final sum up came to mind. But the Georgia runoff has its first poll, and it shows Senator Warnock (D) leading challenger Herschel Walker:

A new poll focusing on the Dec. 6 runoff between U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker shows a close race with challenges for both rivals as they rush to rebuild their coalitions.

The poll, commissioned by the AARP, pegged Warnock at 51% and Walker at 47% — within the margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Conducted by the bipartisan team of Fabrizio Ward & Impact Research, it’s the first major public poll since the Nov. 8 election ended with neither rival securing the majority vote needed for an outright victory. [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Technically, a dead heat. Still, Walker may have a lot of ground to make up in two weeks.

I’m a little puzzled over this statement by Erick Erickson:

People forget that Donald Trump won the GOP nomination with the smallest percentage of the vote any Republican nominee got through his party’s primaries. Trump got 44.95%. For reference, Romney got 52.1% of the GOP primary vote in 2012, and McCain got 46.7% in 2008. McCain was the second most divisive GOP nominee in the history of Republican primaries. Trump was the most divisive.

I’m not saying it’s insightful or unusual or poorly stated. But I have to wonder if it’s an accurate conclusion.

To me there’s an unstated assumption that “the Party” is malleable in its views and it allegiance to those views. Not infinitely malleable, but changeable by the various politicians running for the nomination, if they only know how.

But that’s not true, especially in this era of arrogance and disdain for compromise. Folks cling to their views with an apocalyptic certitude that I view with dismay and even disgust. Is Trump divisive within the Republicans? Or is he merely a reflection of a Party that is becoming less and less capable of compromise, of that necessary self-doubt that is the heritage, loathed as it might be, of every American who has read the Constitution?

Does Trump, McCain, and for that matter Dukakis cause the divisions, or are they the source of illumination of the abysses that riddle the parties, crevasses that are not bridged because of the pride of those on the heights?

Given Trump’s intra-party approval poll numbers, I actually find it hard to label him divisive in that context. Of course, such polls don’t accurately evaluate those folks who are former members of the Party, driven away by Trump, and so it does become a bit of a statistical mystery.

But it throws doubt on Erickson’s observation:

We should not memory hole the massive establishment rally to Trump when Cruz was the last man standing against him.

Even more importantly, it’s worth remembering that, from a cast of dubious and even repulsive characters (the “deep bench” of laughable reporting), probably the two most repulsive, the most shallow duo, ended up mano y mano.

Think about that.

And some find the S. S. Minnow.

In case you’re not intimate with the Hunter Biden saga that the House GOP now threatens, spittle everywhere, to investigate, and you don’t read Kevin Drum, here he is on the Hunter Biden affair:

It’s still 43 days until the new Congress starts up, but it’s never too early to take a deep dive into some the important issues Republicans will be addressing when January 3rd rolls around. And anyway, there’s only one, so it’s not like you have a ton of homework to do. The subject, of course, is Hunter Biden and his laptop. Here’s a detailed rundown of this sordid affair:

• Back in the day, Hunter did a lot of drugs and got himself enmeshed in a bunch of sleazy deals. Apparently he routinely promised people that his ties to “Dad” would be a big help to their cause.
• There is no evidence that Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s dealings or was ever involved in any of them.

Also, come on. Even if you’re a total partisan hack, this doesn’t really sound like Joe’s style, does it?

The news sources are obligated to cover real news. I’d recommend ignoring anything that’s merely political speculation. Here, for example, on a slightly different topic is Rep Chris Stewart (R-UT), in an interview with far-right pundit Glenn Beck:

.@RepChrisStewart tells me he believes the House GOP's investigation into the Biden family may leave the Senate "no choice" but to convict Biden: "There's actual evidence of conspiracy with companies that are directly tied to the [Chinese Communist Party]." pic.twitter.com/ZttVgGuvGJ

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) November 18, 2022

@RepChrisStewart tells me he believes the House GOP’s investigation into the Biden family may leave the Senate “no choice” but to convict Biden: “There’s actual evidence of conspiracy with companies that are directly tied to the [Chinese Communist Party].”

Has he brought this evidence forward? No. Either submit the evidence, or do the honorable thing and keep your trap shut. You occupy a position of responsibility, you’re not running a blog as your primary route of public expression.

We’ll be seeing if the House GOP can be responsible or just the center ring of the a circus.

I must say, it’s been interesting watching progressives speculate that Musk’s apparent mismanagement of his latest acquisition, Twitter, may not be a matter of gross incompetence, but of direction, such as this, from bluedogsd on Daily Kos:

I’m presenting a thesis:   Elon Musk is breaking Twitter as a co-opted asset for the Putin Oligarchy with the purpose of disrupting or damaging the best information coming out of Ukraine to the public that bolsters support in NATO and the west. 

Of course this thesis can and will never be proven but I want to make what I think is a compelling case.

There’s been a couple of other articles of the sort on Daily Kos, as well as an alternative hypothesis of Neoreactionarism, or what I’d term a weak-minded belief that a strong man leadership is better than democracy. The association of this juvenile philosophy with libertarianism seems a trifle odd, as most libertarians seem to appreciate the positives of democracy, at least as far as I could tell ten or more years ago.

That these hypotheses are coming from the left, rather than the right, strikes me as a trifle funny is because I remember accusations of the left being in league with the Soviet Union, which had, at its core, Russia, coming from the right decades ago.

That now the left can make similar accusations of, essentially, traitorous behavior by Musk and some of his fellow right-wing millionaires and billionaires, and have those theories at least considered, is a fascinating insight into the use of the East as The Other, the eternally menacing shadowy creatures with which we strip adversaries of their honor and even their humanity.

It doesn’t hurt that accusations against the left from decades ago were partially substantiated when Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, members of the Cambridge Five and known for their left-wing views, were revealed as Soviet spies. Will we eventually see right-wingers being bought and paid for by Russian paymasters?

And how many of us will be able to appreciate the historical parallel?

What does it say, not about the East, but about the West?

Happy birthday flowers for my Arts Editor:

Raw materials from Byerly’s, arrangements by Deb. Approval and Security by Froogs, Inc.

Always an important bit of knowledge: When a former lover disses you without fear:

The New York Post buried Trump's 2024 campaign launch on page 26: "Florida Man Makes Announcement." pic.twitter.com/EfWVQmNWyN

— Dylan Stableford (@stableford) November 16, 2022

From almost a month ago, prior to the FTX collapse:

A cryptocurrency platform in the United Arab Emirates announced today it will offer a card linked to cryptocurrencies.

The Dubai-based BitOasis and Mastercard will partner to offer “crypto card programs” that will use cryptocurrencies for everyday purchases. The cards will convert the crypto assets into fiat currency, such as US dollars or Emirati dirhams. BitOasis said in a statement that the cards will launch in early 2023.

“We continue to witness sustained demand amongst our customers for crypto to be integrated into, and relevant, for their daily lives,” said BitOasis CEO Ola Doudin. “Research tells us that 47% of the Middle East population now believe crypto is the future of money.” [AL-Monitor]

Given the description, deeply simplified I’m sure, this rather defeats one of the purposes of the blockchain: to record who bought what for how much.

Ronnagram:

“If we think about mass, instead of distance, the Earth weighs approximately six ronnagrams,” which is a six followed by 27 zeroes, Brown said. [“Earth now weighs six ronnagrams: New metric prefixes voted in,” Daniel Lawler, Phys.Org]

Quetta is another 3 zeroes, and ronto and quecto down at the other end of the spectrum, describing painfully small measurements. WaPo’s article, “The Earth now weighs 6 ronnagrams. What does that mean?” appears to be terminally confused about the difference between weight and mass:

<Insert pathetic Harry Potter joke here, then jump off Niagara Falls in a flowerpot as an apology.>

The Woman In Black (2012) seems like a movie out of its era, at least to these modern eyes. Set in Edwardian or late Victorian England, young and probationary lawyer Arthur Kipps is sent by his employer to Crythin Gifford in England to process the estate of client Alice Drablow, lately deceased. Mourning the loss of his own wife in childbirth four years earlier, Kipps discovers a village that is standoffish, but not for the usual reasons, whatever they may be, but because the children of the village are dying.

In droves, I mean. And it’s all by, well, it appears inadvertent suicide. No, don’t walk in the train tracks. No, don’t drink lye.

But he has a job, and no matter how hard the villagers try, Eel Marsh House, late home of Alice Drablow and intoxicator of my Arts Editor, will be processed. So Kipps digs in and starts reading.

And hearing the noises.

And seeing the mysterious, disappearing figures. Indeed, we’re almost overrun by the haunted house tropes. In fact, I began to muse on how to flip them on their heads, just for fun.

And that’s the problem here. Each scene, for all its earnestness, for all its unconscious dedication to the art form of the earnestly haunted house, inspired not shivering or thoughtfulness, but straight lines.

“And this is Arthur Kipps, seen here extinguishing the very idea of humor in England,” as Stephen Colbert might intone.

The problem is that a haunted house story needs some sort of underlying theme, a Don’t ever do this moment, and … It. Doesn’t. Have. That.

And that lack leads the mind to wander.

Back to the story, and skipping a great deal of it, eventually Kipps’ four year old son comes a-visiting (“Hey! Make him bait!”), and soon we have the woman in black, as well as Arthur’s dead wife, at the rail station, but, too bad for her kid and still-living husband, she’s just useless in the protection racket, so terrible things keep on happening.

And, yes, the future is bleak for this little village. But moreso for a movie that is ultimately far too earnest for the current era, an era that demands cleverness and insight, and the haunted house genre, in earnest mode, just doesn’t seem to be up for it here.

If you want recently done effective horror, see Get Out (2017). Horror is not my gig at all, but I liked Get Out.

Governor DeSantis (R-FL) may be considered a leading contender for attention in Florida, but fellow Republican Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) may be giving him a run for his money, if not in the most salubrious manner:

The GOP’s post-election finger-pointing intensified Tuesday, with two senators calling for an audit of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

During a tense, three-hour-long meeting of the Senate GOP Conference, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said there should be an independent review of how the party’s campaign arm spent its resources before falling short of its goal of winning the majority.

Scott responded in a statement issued after this story was first published Wednesday morning, describing taking over the committee two years ago and “immediately” learning that previous staffers had been paid “hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized and improper bonuses.”

Kevin McLaughlin, the executive director of the NRSC during the 2020 election cycle under then-Chairman Todd Young (R-Ind.), said in response: “This is what children do when they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They lash out. Obviously this is crazy and we welcome a full audit.” [Politico]

Some sort of corruption going on? Sure. But if it gets a Republican Senator marched off to jail, it may emphasize the point to many independents that the Republicans seem to be a different breed from the Democrats. Here we’re talking about Senators Young (R-IN) and Scott (R-FL), and if either broke the law, we may see a special election called for the guilty party.

What are the odds of a special election in Florida’s future due to corruption? Very small. The audit may detect misbehavior, but it may not rise to the level of actual criminality. Or a prosecutor might be overwhelmed by the position of whoever’s at fault.

But it’s worth contemplating. Even without criminal charges, the revelation may be enough to drive moderates away from the Republicans.

Erick Erickson is appalled at the behavior of the Republican leadership:

There was a time in Western Civilization when if the party screwed up as badly as the GOP screwed up last Tuesday, the people in charge would resign out of shame.

They have no sense of shame anymore. The grift is too strong.

Tom Emmers, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, thinks he deserves a promotion to House Republican Whip. In what world does the man deserve that after the GOP took a red wave and turned it into a bloodbath by suicide?

Kevin McCarthy wants to be Speaker. The man thought the GOP would get up to sixty seats.

And on top of it all, Ronna McDaniel wants to be RNC Chair again. What the actual hell is up with that?

But Erickson, so far as I can make out, seems to think this was a matter of tactics. It’s not; it’s a matter of a toxic culture within the Republican Party, where certain tenets, such as 2nd Amendment Rights are absolute, regulation and taxes are an unremitting evil which are used to hold down the little guy, abortion is outright evil (baby-killing in Erickson’s terms), and experience and competency in the area of governance, if not deeply suspicious, is of secondary or tertiary importance.

Being capable of the gun-rights polka, the anti-taxation jig, the anti-abortion waltz are the primary requirements of a Republican candidate, and after that it becomes a matter of proving just how extreme you can be, as Governor Stitt (R-OK) demonstrated as he tried to drag Oklahoma into theocracy over the last few years. The lack of interest in experience leads to candidate with, well, no experience, and it’s that lack of experience which leads candidates to shoot their mouths off irresponsibly.

That toxic team culture means that it’s going to be hell to reform the GOP, and Erickson does recognize the difficulty:

In Georgia, the Governor of Georgia has decided to gut the state GOP. Kemp is setting up a leadership PAC that will siphon off most of the GOP donors from the Georgia GOP. The Chairman of that state’s party found primary opponents for Kemp and several other statewide officials. The Chairman won’t resign, so the state Republican elected leader will destroy the party, and deservedly so. It must be burned down to save it.

But if Governor Kemp (R-GA), himself a shady character, as we may deduce from his failure to recuse (or resign!) when he was Secretary of State and running for Governor, doesn’t understand that reformation includes returning experience to primacy, and enabling dissent and discussion around what are now religious tenets, his accomplishment will be fleeting.

And the only reason the Republicans will continue to be competitive is a Democratic Party that has equal trouble resolving its mistakes, primarily its autocratic streak.

Car or stock.