Category Archives: Uncategorized

I hope everyone wore their name badges for this investigation. No exchanges! I mean it!

Topper Returns (1941) is a whimsical take on the murder mystery that is meant to charm the viewer, and partially gets there. Cosmo Topper, a shy and retiring banker who has the ability to speak to ghosts, is tapped by the ghost of a murdered young woman, Gail Richards, who was visiting a neighboring palatial estate, to find her murderer and bring them to justice. Forced to visit the site of the murder in the middle of the night – that would be her second story bedroom at said palatial estate – we’re quickly introduced to a complex setup of father in failing health, a just-arrived heiress-in-waiting who is days off from inheriting a fortune, the doctor in charge of the father, and various staff members.

Adding to this is Topper with ghost and the unfortunate character Rochester in tow, and then soon followed by Topper’s spacey, jealous wife with personal attendant, and then the cops show up, which are sadly represented by the usual, for the era, farcical detective.

Oh, and here’s the taxi driver, looking to get his fare paid after someone shot out the tire of his taxi while driving the young ladies to the estate. Oh, apparently he’s cute.

And then comes the stealing of the corpse for purposes unknown! And don’t forget the abusive seal!

The mechanism of a reluctant detective speaking to the ghost of the murdered has its merits, especially that of novelty, but Topper’s desire not to get involved seems a trifle shameless in view of the youth of the hapless victim; less sympathetic to the cause of plausibility is the revelation that ghosts can drink and metabolize alcohol.

Yeah, she’s drunk off her ass at one point. What?

Then we get hidden passageways and a spring-loaded chair, just to round out our collection of murder mystery icons, all before the murderer is finally revealed to all, the heiress disturbingly fails to be upset over the murder of her friend, Topper’s wife is in upper-class hysterics, and the seal tries to drown Rochester.

It’s all very silly, and some of it is disturbing or, if you’re so inclined, offensive. But if you’re not offended and you’re looking for that light-hearted murder mystery to get you through the insomnia, this may be the pick for you.

And here it is:

I’ve mentioned Professor Turchin, and his use of the Arabic term asabiya, a number of times over the year. Asabiya refers to

… a critical concept and term from Ibn Khaldun, meaning the “capacity of a social group for concerted collective action.”

Turchin noted that a key factor in the dissipation of asabiya, and in turn the dissolution of multi-state empires, is the defeat of an existential enemy, such as the final defeat of the Gauls leading to the drifting apart of the Roman Empire.

So I wonder if Professor Richardson has read Turchin:

In some ways, the collapse of the USSR thirty years ago helped to undermine the Cold War democracy that opposed it. In the past thirty years, we have torn ourselves apart as politicians adhering to an extreme ideology demonized their opponents. That demonization is escalating now as Republican radicals who were born after the collapse of the USSR and who therefore see their primary enemies as Democrats, are moving the Republican Party even further to the right. North Carolina representative Madison Cawthorn, for example, was born in 1995. [Letters from an American]

This description of internecine warfare by the elite sounds frighteningly like Turchin’s descriptions of agrarian societies tearing themselves into pieces.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is entering the sweepstakes:

How to steal an election: “Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results.”

The quote is from an article in The American Conservative on the Democratic win in the Presidential Election in Wisconsin. The significance of the statement is that Paul, despite the fact that, to the critical reader, this is basically a “so what” statement, there’s nothing skanky here unless the responsible officials then refused to send absentee ballots to Republican areas, which I suspect would be illegal and would get them sued, has issued it. What does that say about his opinion of his audience, his base?

It’s an insult: it’s written on the assumption that they aren’t critical readers. They’ll take this exercise in victimology, incorporate it into their psyche, and continue to be resentful. He’s basically adding a bit more cement to the concrete that is his base, and he doesn’t care if he is insulted over it, or not, just so long as his base swallows it.

And why is this important? 2022 is an election year for his Senate seat.

Paul doesn’t mind looking stupid to the rest of the world, not when he’s solidifying his chances for re-election.

Myrmecologist:

Myrmecology (/mɜːrmɪˈkɒlədʒi/; from Greek: μύρμηξ, myrmex, “ant” and λόγος, logos, “study”) is a branch of entomology focusing on the scientific study of ants. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Edward O. Wilson, Harvard naturalist often cited as heir to Darwin, dies at 92,” Patricia Sullivan, WaPo:

In high school, with the encouragement of a myrmecologist from the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, [Edward Wilson] set about realizing the goal of surveying all the ant species in Alabama. When the time came for college, his father was unemployed, so the young Wilson struck upon the idea of enlisting in the Army and using the GI Bill for his education. But his damaged eye caused him to fail his Army physical. Finally, he discovered that the University of Alabama admitted all White graduates of its high schools, and he raced through college in three years.

Worst. Toupee. Ever.

Who killed Roslyn? That’s the initial question in The Unsuspected (1947), a story that explores how the lust for prestige, wealth, and power drives people to commit crimes to slake those lusts.

Victor Grandison is a man of high taste, wealth, and prestige, an exemplar of everyone’s goal, at least in high society. A middle-aged lifelong bachelor, he’s surrounded by young, beautiful women, and the source of his wealth is as a radio-based storyteller, telling tales of murder to his huge audience, to which his advertisers gladly pay richly for access.

And then he comes home one night to discover his secretary, Roslyn, swinging from the chandelier.

And, as shocking as this is, this is the second death to afflict this household recently: his ward, Matilda, a young niece, is reported dead in the sinking of a ship en route to Portugal. In order to expunge the gloom certain to infect the house, Althea, Victor’s niece, throws a party, and it includes many of the top tier of society, including Police Detective Richard Donovan, who is also in charge of the investigation into the suicide.

And then who shows up at the party? Why, it’s Steve Howard, Matilda’s (the one who went down with the ship – the characters do get confusing) fiancee, an event to which everyone in the household responds, WHO?

Yeah, no one’s heard of him. Over the next day or so, the inevitable cries of gold-digger! are turned aside by Donovan’s report that Howard is, indeed, as rich as he claims, perhaps even as rich as the late heiress Matilda herself.

Aaaaaaand then … Matilda shows up.

And doesn’t remember Howard.

And now the fun really begins, as Donovan’s investigation reveals the suicide was really a murder. The masks are coming off, the plans are unraveling, and the bodies begin piling up, which, by default, eliminates each victim from the list of suspects.

A hard way to prove one’s innocence.

Will Howard and Matilda make it to the end of the story? How about the oh so wealthy Victor? Who hired the muscle? While some mysteries are cleared up early, others persist to the end – in a most enjoyable dénouement.

There are irritating elements to this story. Matilda is far too much of a wimp, barely able to stand on her own at one point – although, granted, she was poisoned at the time. But for a woman who survives a ship sinking, we expected more gumption from her. This deficiency is enhanced by the several other strong female characters: Snarky Althea, smoothly efficient radio producer Jane, even the constrained role of victim Roslyn portrayed her as vivacious in her few moments of life. My Arts Editor was quite unhappy with Matilda.

But this is a story that drew us in, and while it may not draw a recommended rating, it is certainly an underestimated gem of a murder mystery. If you’re a connoisseur of the genre, or a fan of Claude Rains, you will not regret seeing this.

Long time readers are well aware of my attitude of doubt towards cryptocurrencies. Not that I shan’t change my attitude should cryptocurrencies’ flaws and limitations be corrected, and an advantage to them emerges that justifies shifting to them from governmental currencies happens.

But the following is not encouraging. While I’ve verified WorldCoin exists, I am surprisingly uncomfortable at even visiting their website. I can be creeped out quite effectively at a remove or two from the primary source, thankyouverymuch:

Take Worldcoin, which at first glance seems like a serious company. It is the brainchild of Sam Altman, an influential Silicon Valley investor, who raised more than $25 million for the firm’s launch in October. The company admits that only 3 per cent of the world’s population currently uses a cryptocurrency, but aims to change that. How? Well, this is where it gets odd. Worldcoin will give “as many people as possible a share of a new currency”. Anyone who wants a Worldcoin can have one – as long as they are willing to look into “the Orb”.

That’s right, Worldcoin’s big technical advance is that it has created a shiny, silver ball about the size of a grapefruit called an Orb. You gaze into it, a camera inside takes a picture of your eyes and – poof! – now you have a Worldcoin in your app. Of course, the company also has a picture of your irises.

Like your fingerprint, each of your irises is a unique biometric attribute that can be used to identify you any time you look into a camera. On its website, Worldcoin has strange pictures of “Orb operators” asking people to gaze into shiny balls on a farm in Indonesia and on the streets of unnamed cities in Sudan and Kenya. The vibe is reminiscent of those edge-of-the seat moments in a horror film when something horrible is about to happen to the protagonist. You want to scream: “Don’t look into the Orb!” [“2021 was the year cryptocurrencies went completely off the rails,” Annalee Newitz, NewScientist (18 December 2021, paywall)]

Yes, that would be me, clutching at my eyes, running in circles with the hair afire. Not exactly the picture of sober assessment, is it?

Go ahead. Everyone go stare into their favorite silvery orb. And then think of ol’ Zuck, sucking your thoughts out for use in the Metaverse.

Wheee.

In news that doesn’t seem to make it onto the main stage at this theater, it’s weapons galore and how to dispose of them:

U.S. Navy ships this week seized approximately 1,400 AK-47 assault rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition from a stateless fishing vessel during a flag verification boarding in the North Arabian Sea on December 20, the Navy’s 5th Fleet said in a statement.

The U.S. Navy patrol coastal ships, USS Tempest (PC 2) and USS Typhoon (PC 5), found the weapons during a search conducted by embarked U.S. Coast Guard personnel in accordance with customary international law. The illicit weapons and ammunition were later transported to guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane (DDG 77) where they await final disposition.

The stateless vessel was assessed to have originated in Iran and transited international waters along a route historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to the Houthis in Yemen. The direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of weapons to the Houthis violates U.N. Security Council Resolutions and U.S. sanctions. [gCaptain]

For those weapons with an identifiable maker, I vote they be returned to that point of origin. Preferably, dropped from 50,000 ft.

As has been predicted by several commentators, it’s clear, in this secretly taken photograph, that the Jumanji franchise is actually owned by Santa Claus. Rumor has it that profits from the franchise saved Santa Claus Enterprises following the costs of legal troubles encountered when the Martians broke free of Santa Claus’ dominance and wreaked havoc on Easter Island. The role of the Holy Bunny in this incident remains obscure to this day. If you have more information, please don’t tell me, I prefer the mystery.

The jungle drums are beating in Jumanji (1995), summoning the insanely curious to a reckoning, a reckoning that will stretch out for years. Young boy Alan, son of a shoe factory owner, finds the game box labeled Jumanji buried in a forgotten graveyard. He takes it home, with scarce a thought for the crime of robbing the dead. There, with his friend, Sarah, they open the box to find a game board, complete with playing pieces, instructions, die, and a message window.

Within their first couple of turns, Alan has been sucked into the game board itself, while a hysterical Sarah is chased from the grand house by a collection of bats. We go on to learn that Alan isn’t heard from again, much to the sorrow of his parents. And Sarah?

Now it’s twenty six years later, and orphans Judy and Peter have moved in to the grand house, under the guidance of their Aunt Nora. Their parents recently died, and, in some shock from the event, they each exhibit some pathologies, even as Nora makes plans to open a B&B. Don’t trust Judy!

But the drums are banging again, and in rhythms I found quite pleasing. Soon, Judy and Peter find the source of the calling rhythms, and discover what was inevitable: a game of Jumanji, in progress, and they’re implicitly invited to be part of it. Curious or clumsy, soon the bones are rollin’, and the adventures are jumping. Encounters with monkeys and a lion are bad enough, but when a man, clad in skins and leaves as only a man of the jungle must be, emerges from nowhere, it’s all a bit much for the kids.

Meanwhile, the various creatures are not only crippling Aunt Nora’s efforts to rehabilitate the old lady, but are spreading chaos in the neighboring, dying New England town.

And … it’s Sarah’s turn. Where is Sarah? And who is this dude the elephant gun? Can I have one?

A story of rescue after rescue, physical, intellectual, and emotional, it’s all about the courage to stand up and do what’s right.

Even when you’ve won.

This is a lot of fun, and if you don’t love the rhino, you have no heart. I won’t recommend it, as it’s not quite aged as well as I’d hoped, but it’s still got that inspirational quality that made it so popular on initial release.

While nuclear power doesn’t scare the crap out of me, the fact that it’s not a renewable source of energy does concern me.

Or did.

A new material inspired by the fractal-like nature of blood vessels can absorb 20 times more uranium from seawater than previous approaches. The team behind the approach believes it could provide a reliable energy source that could last thousands of years at current rates of consumption.

Uranium is the most common fuel for nuclear power stations but it is a finite resource. Earth’s seas are estimated to contain some 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium, 500 times as much as is held in its land mass, but extracting it from water is more expensive than mining it from rock. …

Linsen Yang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his colleagues created a polymer membrane riddled with small channels that branch into even smaller tunnels just 300 to 500 nanometres across, mimicking the way that blood vessels bifurcate into ever-smaller passages within mammalian organs and limbs. The material was impregnated with a compound called amidoxime, which binds to uranium ions. [NewScientist (4 December 2021]

Obviously, a few small scale experiments aren’t going to prove that the lack of renewability isn’t important. But it’s a step along the path.

… and the Spirit of Christmas Present prepared to thrust old Scrooge into the brothel!

Scrooge (1935) is a rendition of the standard Dickens’ tale of the fun-hating misanthropist Ebenezer Scrooge, and his lesson, delivered from on-high, concerning the love for his fellow humans that he should bear, and how its absence has cost him, to his sorrow.

In terms of story, Scrooge shows a sad paucity of backbone, even more than is normal for this story, which has often been adapted for the movie screen. His late partner, Marley, speaks to him from the spirit world of his travails, and he’s immediately metaphorically face-down on the floor, shaking with obedience to every command.

Perhaps this is sensible for a man of the era, the 1840s, but I like my characters to have a bit of gumption, even in the face of supernatural power. Scrooge is the bully who tries to disappear when faced with the bigger bully. It’s dull and disappointing. It’s the character who clings bitterly to their conceits and preconceptions who teach us, ultimately, of how these are sins and not virtues.

But, in compensation, the visuals of this Scrooge are unexpectedly evocative, sometimes even stunning, despite the primitive technical capabilities available during the creation of this film. In particular, the scene in which his scavenged household goods are presented for valuation by a reseller by those who dared to appropriate them from the very room of Scrooge’s passing, the faces of these scavengers are presented to best advantage to show their indifference for the dead old Scrooge, and the poor way in which he died: friendless.

At an hour in length, this story almost hurries along, and yet it covers, effectively, the important points: the love Bob Cratchit for his son, Tiny Tim; the effect of Tim’s loss on Cratchit and his family; the affection, unforced, Scrooge’s nephew Fred has for his uncle, drawn in just a few strokes; and Scrooge’s past mistakes and where they may lead.

It’s not overwhelming, but it is cleverly done, and certainly family-suitable.

Fun with steam:

Selvage:

1. the edge of woven fabric finished so as to prevent raveling, often in a narrow tape effect, different from the body of the fabric.
2. any similar strip or part of surplus material, as at the side of wallpaper.
3. Also called margin. Philately. the surplus paper or margin around a sheet of stamps:
   The number of the plate block appears in the selvage.
4. a plate or surface through which a bolt of a lock passes. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in this video from Baumgartner Restoration, last year’s holiday season video, which also showcases a quite dry sense of humor:

The actual word selvage appears around the 50-55 second mark. BONUS: This year’s holiday season video!

Remember the tale of Taylor Energy, the owner of some Gulf of Mexico oil platforms that were destroyed by Hurricane Ivan and spewed an immense disaster, before being capped by li’l old Couvillion Group? Well, gCaptain notes that Taylor Energy is going under:

Louisiana oil and gas company Taylor Energy will be liquidated and required to turn over all its remaining assets to the United States to resolve its liability for an oil spill at its former Gulf of Mexico offshore oil production facility — the source of the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history which has been ongoing since 2004.

Under a proposed consent decree announced Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department, Taylor Energy will transfer to the Department of the Interior (DOI) a $432 million trust fund dedicated to plugging the subsea oil wells, permanently decommissioning the facility, and remediating contaminated soil. The consent decree further requires Taylor Energy to pay over $43 million for civil penalties, removal costs and natural resource damages.

The settlement comes after the U.S. filed a civil complaint against Taylor Energy in District Court in New Orleans in October 2020 seeking removal costs, civil penalties and natural resource damages under the Oil Pollution and Clean Water Acts arising from the discharge of oil from facility.

Not that Taylor Energy didn’t try, according to earlier reports, but they were inadequate to the task. Closure.

Erick Erickson is affecting^[1] rage at left-wing arrogance:

The prevailing thought on the right is that pandemic controls are about progressives wanting to control us. I think people who think this are wrong.

It was never about control. It was and remains about arrogance.

It was arrogant to think a virus, once released into the wild, could be controlled.

It was arrogance to think unelected bureaucrats and elected politicians could contain Americans in their houses in perpetuity.

Science, vaccines, bureaucracy all come in for his faux-spanking. Even stuff he’s making up:

Our leaders and public health officials promised us COVID Zero. They promised us a way out of the viral path. They could not deliver. They lack the humility to admit they were wrong.

The dangerous binary of the religious mind. Science investigating a new phenomenon promises nothing but to try; it discusses potentialities, hypothetical scenarios, techniques. Guarantees? Only to try.

And so I encounter this conclusion, the peak of societal irresponsibility:

The path forward is for Dr. Fauci, the President, and others, to admit we will never get to COVID Zero and must return to normal, each of us using our own risk assessments to move forward.

In short, the sooner the elite acknowledge they cannot control us to conform in a way to eradicate the virus, the sooner we can control the virus. Their control of us has never been about a desire to control us, but a desire to cover up their lack of control of a microbe. Science is their god and their god has failed them.

Shall we consider what would happen if we followed his advice?

IN CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES, meaning a substantial portion of the citizenry refusing to be vaccinated, or boostered, but instead demanding the use of ineffective medications or the intervention of deities, who appear uninterested in helping, along with the evolution of Covid-19 into variants, the medical profession would suffer an unprecedented exodus of personnel: doctors, nurses, and associated professionals involved in emergency and infectious diseases. This, in fact, appears to be underway already, as Ed Yong notes.

Some health-care workers have lost their jobs during the pandemic, while others have been forced to leave because they’ve contracted long COVID and can no longer work. But many choose to leave, including “people whom I thought would nurse patients until the day they died,” Amanda Bettencourt, the president-elect of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, told me. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the health-care sector has lost nearly half a million workers since February 2020. Morning Consult, a survey research company, says that 18 percent of health-care workers have quit since the pandemic began, while 12 percent have been laid off. [The Atlantic]

Overloaded by patients lead on to think they are experts in pandemics, or, worse, infected by the same against their will, these medical professionals would leave a sacred vocation that is already little more than skin deep on the body of the country, and substantially dependent on immigrants. Would the behavior of the irresponsible patients, already denying other sufferers medical treatment, discourage those critical immigrants from coming to America, knowing that a substantial portion of the populace is behaving in an effectively irresponsible manner?

FORTUNATELY, CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE. The emergency approval of Paxlovid, the Pfizer-created treatment for Covid-19, based on reported test results of

Pfizer’s pill was 89% effective in preventing hospitalization, according to final clinical trial data submitted by the company to the FDA earlier this month. [CNBC]

has the potential to return the United States to normal operating behavior, with the singular exception that exhibition of symptoms characteristic of Covid-19 should result in immediate visits to the doctor and, if warranted, consumption of this medicine. This, of course, applies to the great bulk of the population; there would, of course, be exceptions, but this is the normal course of our medical knowledge.

And, if & when this happens, I will look for Erickson to proclaim victory for his point of view, when in reality it loses. Science developed the medicines using science-based principles, and until it managed to do so, we took the recommended precautions, or we didn’t and sickened horribly, overloaded hospital facilities, and even died. We collectively rode the wave from ignorance to knowledge, skillfully or less so, and now Paxlovid will hopefully let us transition out of this altered way of living.

But, if it doesn’t, we can use our new skills to continue to survive, while science continues to work the problem. Erickson does not want science to win, because it’s a hole in the side of his own view of reality.

And it really is a pity. There is an element of arrogance to the left. If he connected the lack of public debate on the issue of transgenderism to how that deliberate lack violates the implicit mutual promises of the very core of our nation, its liberal democracy nature, as I do here, he could make some real progress in uncovering the flaws brought on by the arrogance of the know-it-alls in the progressive side of the spectrum.

He might even find a way to equate that to the failures of his comrades, who organized and lead the assault on the Capitol of January 6th, a day of treason. That I would be interested in reading. The betrayal, inadvertent as it may be, by both sides of the political spectrum has been disheartening and, really, discrediting of certain elements of both sides.

Perhaps, some day, he’ll do that.

¹ Meaning play-acting.

Damn, they never dust those secret passages!

The Canterville Ghost (1996) features a clash between the essence of Shakespeare, embodied in the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville, who met Shakespeare back in the day and has studied the man’s works ever since, and the essence of science, the arrogant physicist Harry Otis in command.

Between them is Otis’ daughter, Ginny, wife, Lucille, and the two sons, troublemakers. And don’t forget Mr. and Mrs. Umney, who, ummmm, run the English castle in which the Otises, Americans, will reside while the physicist, mysterious, is doing his research, unspecified. I mean, is this a sinecure or what?

The arrival of the Otises kicks off the fun, as the townspeople lay quiet bets as to whether the Otises will make it through the first night, or if it’ll be exit, stage left, between the moaning and squeaking and howling. They do make it through, but that means Ginny now has time to be bored, a boredom alleviated only when a handsome, teenaged duke, perhaps he’s just heir apparent, makes an appearance (love the car!). Captivated by Ginny, he knows and tolerates the ghost, which is more than can be said for dear old rationalist Dad, or Dr. Otis if you prefer, who believes that every squeak and squawk can be explained.

Which isn’t going to help him when Sir Simon makes his appearance. In fact, it’s so unhelpful that the Doctor and Lucille literally can’t see him. Which raises all sorts of questions concerning existence, or lack thereof, which the story promptly ignores.

Eventually, the tawdry and tragic story of Sir Simon comes out, with a bit of help from Shakespeare, and Ginny finds that she’s the key to Sir Simon’s rest – a bit of forgiveness and some advocacy to the latest revision of Charon, purely off-stage, and Sir Simon is released.

The strength of this movie lies not in the story, which, although it has some fun little quirks, such as a ghost that can itself be frightened, is basically rather weak-kneed in its obeisance to its tired supernatural and mythical tropes. The strength here lies in the performance of Patrick Stewart, in the role of Sir Simon, who brings his Shakespearean training and voice to bear on this tragic, mad ghost, who has not slept since his death at the hands of his in-laws. (Note to self: do not drive wife insane.) His commitment to a role that could have been painful makes the movie tolerable, especially as none of the other actors are execrable, although the role of Harry is, I fear, irredeemable; not the fault of the actor, Edward Wiley.

While skating near the side of the ice rink and almost into the frozen mud that lies waiting for the unwary, it never quite falls on its face, mostly because of the efforts of Stewart. It’s not a life changer, as the plot is too silly, but it can be a pleasant way to spend an hour or two.

Big Carnivore vs Three Stick Figures. Greeeeeat.

Early during the viewing of Jurassic Galaxy (2018) I had determined that the review would exclusively consist of

Dinosaurs! Yeah!

because Spaceship crashes on planet, Survivors of crew recover from the impact to discover themselves face to face with alien dinosaurs, followed by Frenzied munching of amateur actors by alien dinosaurs. I mean, even the title qualifies as wretched. It’s only one planet, for Big Carnivore’s sake!

And then the surviving Security guy, Marston, played by Eric Paul Erickson, came popping out, and, surprisingly – shockingly – he has what we like to call acting chops. And I’m not referring to his musculature, either. He knows how to act.

And then there’s this “lifer,” Flynn, played by Jonathan Nation, who has an unsettling resemblance to Mark Hamill. He’s clearly committed to his role, which is eventually blood sacrifice to the angry dinosaurs. I liked him. And then out came the fetchingly named Retch (Frankie Ray). We settled in to watch.

The special effects range from Wow, that’s beautiful to I think the dinosaurs must have invisible hoverboards, and the balance of the acting is OK to so-so. The science just sucks. And while the story could have used two or three more drafts, I have to admire its honesty. When a lot of storytellers would have made the effort to Save the leads, these storytellers didn’t.

The leads go down fighting to save the baby.

Look, parts of this are awful. Like, where are the herbivores? my Arts Editor asked. But I had to admire other parts of it, such as the sincere and even effective acting efforts.

They don’t save the story.

But they’re within viewing distance.

In response to a retirement interview with Dr. Francis Collins as head of the National Institutes of Health, Steve Benen soberly assesses failures in philosophy:

Senator Grassley (R-IA) had best stick to his assertions of being good physical shape, because his moral shape is, well, rather bent:

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans aren’t shy about laying out how they’d handle a nomination from Biden if they take the majority [in 2022]: They wouldn’t.

“You know what the rule is on that,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “You go back to 1886 and ever since then, when the Senate’s been of one party and the president’s been of another party, you didn’t confirm.”

There is no such rule.

Senate Republicans have invoked a number of what they call “rules” in recent years to explain, for example, refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, the now-attorney general who was Obama’s choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, or their rushing to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s choice to replace Ginsburg.

But the then-Democratic majority Senate voted to confirm President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Anthony Kennedy in 1988 and President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of David Souter in 1990 and Clarence Thomas in 1991, all while Grassley was in the Senate. Back then, the Judiciary Committee chairman was a senator from Delaware named Joe Biden.[CNN/Politics]

Senator Grassley, aged 83, is up for reelection in 2022 for another six year term. This out and out lie represents an opportunity for Democrat and Republican alike, if the latter assess that they dare, to take chunks out of the Senator’s campaign. Independent voters don’t like liars.

There’s little to stop whoever wins the Democratic nomination for the seat to use this as a weapon.

For the Republicans, this is a little more complex. If Grassley is endorsed by President Trump, and it would not be surprising if this happens, seeing that Grassley has been firmly wrapped around the former President’s knees in his sad-faced supplication to the head of the GOP, then the would-be nominee would be risking the wrath of Trump and the MAGA cult.

But the power & prestige of being a Senator might outweigh the risk, no?

And Grassley’s defense? No, it’s true, it’s true! is refuted by simple facts on the ground, as CNN provides a few. A complete statistical analysis would simply complete the unstoppable attack on him.

And I forgot and I was confused simply suggest either imminent dementia, intolerable in a Senator, or self-serving mendacity, similarly distasteful.

While the Republican candidates may be hesitant to use this spear on the old liar, I suspect the Democrats are busy, even now, planning the campaign messaging. Whether the Republican base will pay attention, I don’t know, but if Grassley survives the primary, then he should face an irate Independent segment of voters. It’s just part of the messaging.

A hoot:

Especially in view of this research finding from NewScientist (4 December 2021, paywall):

As many as seven in 10 cryptocurrency trades on the world’s most popular but unregulated exchanges may be people buying from themselves to artificially inflate prices, according to a new analysis.

A study of 29 cryptocurrency exchanges, where people buy and sell the virtual currencies, undertaken between July and November 2019 has found significant volumes of “wash trading” within cryptocurrencies. Wash trading is where an investor sells and buys the same asset to create artificial interest in an investment, often distorting the price.

The analysis looked at how four of the most popular cryptocurrencies – bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple – were traded on the exchanges. On the exchanges that are regulated, the researchers found little evidence of wash trading. However, on those that were unregulated, they found that wash trading is likely to be widespread.

That distortion makes forecasts of future value of these forms of cryptocurrencies more or less impossible in my book. It also suggests the unscrupulous are attracted to the unregulated nature of cryptocurrencies, the lack of governmental overview that appears to be a design characteristic of these digital artifacts.

Buyer beware.

Eyes up, dude. That volcano’s face isn’t down there!

Woman In The Woods (2020) is a PSA: It serves to remind us that when the gods engage in love, hatred, and whatever other emotions are peculiar to the divine class of beings, they act as grinding stones to the mere mortals that roam the world. Jason, whose father was Filipino and has recently passed away, decides to travel to The Philippines in search of that which haunted his father, who was forever regretful at leaving his homeland. A bit of a whiner, and with his father’s voice echoing – literally – in his head, Jason tentatively invades the forest, hoping to get its essence and, uh, get out.

But, instead, he encounters a woman. Clad in animal skins, an unfamiliar language, and an impenetrable attitude, an attitude not even pierced by the arrow hanging out of her hip, Jason is bewildered and, perhaps, a little frightened by her. But when she collapses, he scoops her up and hauls her off to the local witch doctor, or at least someone who knows how to pull out an arrow and see the impossible, whose name I forget. She tells him a tale of a local volcano god, at fierce odds with another god who killed her lover, and, maybe he should take this woman to the volcano.

Across the forbidding strait, of course. But we’re off on the adventure, from railcar to foot to boat, dodging gods and minions and the love-smitten. Will Jason get her up the volcano’s lip? Is that even his goal?

The whining bothered me, because whining bothers me. But the storytellers are admirable in the paucity of information they dispense, and the pace at which they do. The acting and story both feel organic, and at least one monster was both sublime, in the Burkean sense, and creepy creepy creepy.

I won’t quite recommend it, but it’s interesting and very good. If you’re in the mood for something a bit off-kilter, this is worth a go.

And remind me not to fall in love with any goddesses.

It’s rather like having a thief steal years off your life.

On December 9th, an acute remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability was reported in the Apache logging package Log4j 2 versions 2.14.1 and below (CVE-2021-44228).

Apache Log4j is the most popular java logging library with over 400,000 downloads from its GitHub project. It used by a vast number of companies worldwide, enabling logging in a wide set of popular applications.

Exploiting this vulnerability is simple and allows threat actors to control java-based web servers and launch remote code execution attacks.

The Log4j library is embedded in almost every Internet service or application we are familiar with, including Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, Minecraft and more.

At present most of the attacks focus on the use of a cryptocurrency mining at the expense of the victims, however under the auspices of the noise more advanced attackers may act aggressively against quality targets. [Check Point Blog]

[Bold mine]

Stealing CPU cycles to mine for the tokens specific to crypto – it reflects the greed associated with currency, at least to my mind.

Affinity maturation:

In immunology, affinity maturation is the process by which T_FH cell-activated B cells produce antibodies with increased affinity for antigen during the course of an immune response. With repeated exposures to the same antigen, a host will produce antibodies of successively greater affinities. A secondary response can elicit antibodies with several fold greater affinity than in a primary response. Affinity maturation primarily occurs on surface immunoglobulin of germinal center B cells and as a direct result of somatic hypermutation (SHM) and selection by T_FH cells. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Covid booster shots are pushing protection to unexpected heights,” Clare Wilson, NewScientist (4 December 2021):

Several other vaccines require three doses, such as the one against the liver infection hepatitis B. Giving sequential doses takes advantage of the fact that when we repeatedly encounter a pathogen or vaccine, our antibody-making cells undergo a process called “affinity maturation”.

Our antibodies are made by immune cells called B-cells, and during affinity maturation, these multiply within the body’s lymph nodes while undergoing mutations. Only the B-cells that make the best antibodies survive and replicate, so as a result, their progeny make ever-stronger antibodies. “With other infections, the third booster protects you for longer and also gives you antibodies that have higher affinity,” says [Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia, UK]

The outrage over Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) rejection of the Build Back Better legislation, President Biden’s (D) signature infrastructure proposal, has caused palpable outrage in the political world, not only for the rejection, but for his style of rejection.

After Democrats worked with Manchin in good faith for several months, he didn’t just kneecap them yesterday, he did so without class. Instead of picking up the phone and letting Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer know about his decision, Manchin waited until yesterday morning — less than an hour before his on-air appearance — to have an aide let party leaders know.

He then announced his opposition to the bill on Fox News — a network closely affiliated with Republican politics — after reportedly turning down a phone call from the White House. [Maddowblog]

In politics, style can be as important as substance – and nearly as meaningful. That Manchin rejected the latest may sound final, but it doesn’t have to be. It can simply be a message, to everyone, that the proposal isn’t acceptable. That message goes to the negotiating partner, to his constituents, to the Republicans, and it can be highly nuanced, depending on the politician. Manchin is not inexperienced, and one of his icons is reportedly the late Senator Byrd (D-WV), a well known veteran of the political scene, who had a reputation for bringing Federal money to West Virginia.

But the style of delivery of the message, on Fox News, is problematic. The right wing news outlet, well known for its support of President Trump and his lies, is an appalling outlet to use. Preferring it over a phone call from the White House, if true, is … insulting.

But does Manchin understand the fallout that may come of this maneuver? It was long understood before 2020 that Manchin had the potential to hold the balance of power in the Senate, so it’s no surprise that he’s the one with the hammer, but if he’s showing his true colors at this moment, he may find his influence in the Senate sharply limited after this incident. After all, who on the Democratic side of the aisle wants to work with a Democratic colleague who led the President on and on – and then announced his rejection of a signature chunk of legislation via a news outlet of problematic legitimacy? If Manchin has pet projects – and Senators often do – he may find himself stymied in his own ambitions.

A vengeful Senator might even find some manner, unknown to me, for putting a metaphorical knife into Manchin’s back.

Erick Erickson, as I’ve noticed is his habit of late, wants to read the total destruction of the Democrats into this incident:

The problem is people like Joe Manchin do not live in perpetual 2020 outrage. He lives in West Virginia and Build Back Better is not popular there. The Democrats tried to construct a package that could be passed by fifty senators and a tie breaking vote from the most unpopular Vice President in decades. They simple assumed a congressional majority meant they could do as they pleased, but congress is made up of individuals and individuals have individual agendas. The Democrats have gotten so used to mob politics, they forgot individuals and their agendas matter in Congress.

It was all terrible politics. One man did not stop the Biden agenda. Fifty-one individual senators did. The Democrats believed their press, believed in the righteousness of their cause, and believed they could ram through a social revolution without ever having to entertain the opinions of fifty senators with an “R” next to their names.

This was never going to work out well for them. That they staked all of Biden’s presidency to it was and is political malpractice. The Democrats have gotten really bad at politics. I can only conclude it is because they truly have forgotten they’re playing politics and really think they are trying to save a nation, as their press fans say. That may sound high minded. But a party the voters actually mostly rejected in 2020 can’t be the one to save the nation. And also, the nation doesn’t think it needs saving. It thinks it needs cheaper gas, cheaper groceries, and a return to normalcy.

While the popularity of the legislation in West Virginia is debatable – I’ve seen numbers as high as 60% in favor and as low as 38%, but nothing particularly recent – Erickson’s completely confused about who stopped the legislation. It was one Party plus one Senator. The words of Senator McConnell, wherein any victory for Democrats must be denied, regardless of the cost, seals the deal.

Kevin Drum is puzzled:

Manchin wanted a “clean” bill. That is, a bill that included a smaller number of program but funded them permanently. The irony is that this is literally what every single liberal analyst wanted too. Lefties and centrists all agreed that this would be best, since permanent programs can be designed better and are much harder for Republicans to cancel down the line.

And yet that was apparently never on the table. Why? Because analysts may have loved the idea but politicians hated it. It would have meant killing all but two or three programs, and it was impossible to get agreement within the Democratic caucus about which ones to keep. Everyone had their own pet program.

So there you have it. If we had done it Manchin’s way, we would have kept his vote and we probably would have gotten a better bill out of it. I wonder why this was so impossible?

Because getting everyone back on board takes time and resources. Something was hacked together that got approval from most Senators and House members – you don’t throw away that effort because of one Senator.

Except maybe they should have.

Politico reports a counter-offer from Manchin:

Joe Manchin has some advice for fellow Democrats: rebuild Build Back Better and you might still get my vote.

One day after sinking President Joe Biden’s signature social and climate spending legislation, Manchin (D-W.Va.) laid out a path forward that could take months and still fail. He wants the legislation to go through Senate committees and focus on rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts. He also wants Democrats to stop trying to force him into compliance.

“I knew what they could and could not do. They just never realized it, because they figure surely to God we can move one person. Surely, we can badger and beat one person up,” Manchin said on West Virginia MetroNews, his first response to the blowback he’s taken from the White House and Democrats for tanking Biden’s signature legislation.

My guess is that something will get passed in late January, or nothing will. Much later than that and Senators will be tied up in the politics and schedules of re-election campaigns, and while any given Senator running for re-election is unlikely to be unseated, in view of the advantage of incumbency, they do have to make the effort or risk an upset.

So this legislation will simply melt away if we get into February or March. If that happens, Manchin’s reputation with his fellow Democrats may also swirl down the drain – thus making his influence nearly zero within his own Party.

Here’s the barely-not-zero percent wildcard possibility: Support for Build Back Better from a Republican Senator.

Suppose a Republican Senator looking at re-election chances that are trending poorly decides they need a boost. While it’s easy enough to attempt to horn in on claiming the benefits of a bill that they didn’t actually vote for, which has been documented by House Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and others, actually voting for a bill that brings benefits to one’s state will greatly solidify those claims – not to mention solidify the reputation with voters for being sensible.

I don’t expect this to happen, as most GOP Senators are too limited to think of such a possibility, but it’s not completely outside of the realm of possibility. That is, it has one toe still in the circle, but only one.

But if that Senator bore a grudge against Senator Manchin, too ….