Here’s the strike of DART on the asteroid Didymos on radar:
ATLAS observations of the DART spacecraft impact at Didymos! pic.twitter.com/26IKwB9VSo
— ATLAS Project (@fallingstarIfA) September 27, 2022
Dr. Philllips of Spaceweather.com comments:
This was the result of the 1,340-pound spacecraft plunging into Dimorphos at 14,000 mph. Most of the debris is probably asteroid dust, but some of DART may be in there, too. A similar video was recorded by the 1-meter Lesedi telescope in South Africa.
Sometimes staring at the trees just yields trees, so here’s a chart, as fragmentary and with some low-confidence data, that might give the reader some thought:
This chart shows, for all incumbent GOP Senators running for reelection for which there's current poll data available, their margin of victory in 2022 2016 in the red bar, and their current lead, according to pollsters, in the blue bar.
Yes, Johnson's lead is currently 0.
The most doubtful data is Indiana ("Internet poll" of the challenger) and Iowa ("commissioned by the challenger").
But what this small, but significant data sample indicates is that the independent voters are abhorring the Republicans. No doubt there are moderate Republicans who finally cannot vote for their own people, too, as those candidates are either too extreme, or are exhibiting unacceptable behaviors, such as Grassley of Iowa or Johnson of Wisconsin. But I suspect that mostly its the independents who find Republican philosophy and behaviors repellent.
And this leaning away from what passes for Republicans indicates a repudiation of the politics that, in many case, these political newcomers have brought with them: rank anti-abortionism, election-denying, already exhibited in the primaries, and a thirst for conspiracy rumors that support their most desperate wishes - rather than the ability to digest reality as it presents itself.
In some ways, this is a repudiation of their philosophy, which is a collage of anti-science, anti-experts, and a preference for irrationality, whether it be for that of Biblical literalism that often seems conveniently discarded, or the QAnon litany of nuttiness that appeals to those who find social media addictive and bizarre theories appealing.
Lee may be the most terrifying case for Republicans. A lead in excess of forty points has evaporated to two, and there's still more than a month left for Utah voters to learn what has disgusted their fellow voters about Senator Lee (R).
But any of the samples in this graph could suffer Lee's fate, because, not displayed here, none of the incumbents have reached the 50% level of support. They're still vulnerable if enough of the undecided voters decide to break to the left.
This may be one of the most important results of the upcoming election. Not that these incumbents lose or win, but that these GOPers lost this much support, even in Republican safe states such as Utah, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. It really makes me wonder about those states that are unpolled, such as the Dakotas and Alabama.
The death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, and its effect on the citizenry, may yet lead to the downfall of the regime, and even possibly to a new liberal democracy – one which may still be hostile to the United States, but still a step up from the theocracy.
But I expect that here in the United States the GOP will, if that happens, file a claim that it was their action of shit-canning the JCPOA, aka Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, that brought Iran’s government to its knees.
I’ll be rejecting that claim, though. While the economic circumstances of Iran are certainly stressful, they were when the JCPOA was in force as well, and, at best, they are merely a contributing factor.
The real factor is no secret: it’s the death of a young, vulnerable women while in the custody of the morality police, a group that, historically speaking, rarely has a reputation for distinguished members. The circumstances, possibly exacerbated by her ethnicity of being Kurdish, function to focus on the arbitrary nature of theocracy, those unsightly creatures that benefit from it, much to the disadvantage of everyone not in favor.
And I don’t think the GOP’s actions vis a vis the JCPOA really had much to do with it at all.
On the matter of Federal District Court Judge Cannon’s handling of the Mar-a-Lago case, the ruling of the US Court Of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit came down as hoped for by lawyers liberal and conservative – and in a hurry:
The ruling Wednesday evening by a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to slap a partial stay on a lower court’s ruling that froze the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation should surprise nobody.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon was a hot mess, as we and others detailed when she handed it down, and the grounds for an almost-inevitable appellate court intervention were obvious at the time. That said, the 29-page opinion is important in a number of respects.
For one thing, its unanimity and speed emphasize the fact that Judge Cannon’s interference in the Justice Department’s investigation was a gross impropriety, not a plausible legal position. That two of the panel members were, like Judge Cannon, appointed by President Trump further emphasizes that this is a matter of professionalism, not a matter of ideology or the sort of judicial philosophy that reasonably separates conservative from liberal jurists.
So too does the fact that the court ruled within 24 hours of the government’s final brief—and wrote in a per curiam opinion, that is, in the voice of the court itself, not of its individual judges. In short, giving the government relief from Judge Cannon’s injunction was a very easy call—one that required neither time nor any significant deliberation. Rather, the rate-limiting step in issuing this opinion was the speed with which judges of diverse political stripes could type. [Quinta Jurecic, Lawfare]
This is the kind of treatment that results in judges not making their way up the ladder, and Cannon will be looking at many years of sitting behind the relatively lowly, dusty desk of a US District Judge for years to come, especially if Chief Executives unsympathetic to her actions are elected to the Presidency. Or if Democrats capture the Senate, as I expect, for several cycles, because they’ll remember this partisan decision.
I will look for her to resign if Joe Biden, or an allied Democrat, wins the Presidency in 2024.
Finding the history of cryptocurrencies and spinoff products a little cloudy? WaPo has a useful timeline here.
The James Webb Space Telescope turns its attention to Neptune, right in our own extended neighborhood:
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Yes, Neptune has rings, more visible in this infrared view than in the visible spectrum. The big star to the upper left is actually Neptune’s moon Triton, and the other stars are other moons. I particularly liked this:
Neptune’s 164-year orbit means its northern pole, at the top of this image, is just out of view for astronomers, but the Webb images hint at an intriguing brightness in that area. A previously-known vortex at the southern pole is evident in Webb’s view, but for the first time Webb has revealed a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding it.
It’s always good to have a bit of mystery to pursue.
Our latest plate of news, steaming and really overflowing, stop being generous Mom:
Or could it be?
A walk down memory lane tells us that Moran won his seat in 2016 by a full 30 points. Assuming Emerson got this poll right, that implies Moran has lost 18 points worth of support, and Emerson advertises a “Credibility Interval”, similar to margin of error, of ±3 points. Yes, Holland is potentially 9 to 15 points down, and, on the low end, that’s significant. Then note that Moran is not yet over 50%, the critical point at which the #2 contender has to start persuading voters to change their minds, rather than just persuade the undecided to pick the #2. 18% are undecided, enough to take Holland over the top.And there’s two more Kansas factors to consider, with information also from Emerson’s poll. First, Governor Kelly (D) is leading in her reelection effort by four points. In Republican Kansas, this is a huge margin for her to hold. Can her example of a competent Democratic help Holland? Second, Governor Kelly’s opponent from four years ago, extremist Kris Kobach, is running for his old position of AG. Yes, he leads the race against his Democratic opponent – but it’s only a two point lead! Could Kobach drag down Moran? It seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened in American politics.
All that said, I’d be shocked if Moran lost. But Holland, if he’s an adept campaigner and doesn’t hesitate to use Moran’s liabilities against him, has a chance to turn this around. It’s slender, but it’s there. Let Moran stick his foot in his mouth, and this race could be the sleeper of the season.
The previous soup bowl of news is here.
There’s been a bit of a premature conclusion by liberals, and maybe conservatives as well, concerning the former President’s recent statement on declassifying documents. First, a transcript:
“There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it,” he told Hannity. “You’re the president of the United States. You can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it.” [yahoo! news]
My bold. Steve Benen accepts that’s what Trump meant:
To be sure, it’s easy to laugh at the idea that a president has a telepathic declassification ability. Indeed, people probably should laugh because this is deeply foolish, even by Trump standards.
Jim Underdown, a Center for Inquiry guy, takes it quite seriously, as only a skeptic can:
This is, of course, tantamount to the ex-president claiming that the declassification process can be executed via telepathy– which puts him squarely into my world.
Our Center for Inquiry Investigations Group has tested many alleged “telepaths” over the years for our CFIIG $250,000 Paranormal Challenge. Consider us available as expert witnesses for any trials where this claim might arise.
One of my few shots of a lupine this year.
But how is telepathy usually defined? It’s all about communication without any of the intervening modalities, whether they be talking, writing, using sign language, or raising an eyebrow. Instead, through the power of your brain, you communicate with someone else.
And Trump makes no mention of communications. None. All he’s saying, as ridiculous as it is, is that if he muses that a document should be declassified, then it is.
And there’s a subtlety, a nuance here, which maybe I’m imagining, but this subtlety ties in with his possible religious ideas. Remember, being brought up in the church run by Norman Vincent Peale means his idol may be money.
And, if he thinks he’s high up in the hierarchy of dollar worshipers, perhaps he thinks that just thinking an order is as good as executing it like a plebe would have to do. What we may be dealing with here is a minor case of God complex.
And that may explain his odd, arrogant behaviors.
Let the murders begin! No? Ah, then back to my bed. Only one thing gets me out of bed, you see.
If you are a fan of the TV series Downton Abbey, then Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022), sequel to Downton Abbey (2019), may be particularly interesting, as various characters are making major moves – or having the hand of fate come down on their heads.
But for those of us not intimate with the Crawley’s and their servants, this gentle story of an unexpected gift, paralleled with a story of the making of a film on the property., can be confusing, even if it does have a few sharp lines that provokes amusement.
It’s mostly constructed to move along the story of this extended family, and, between the lines, to hint at the importance of roles in society, and the how the proper fulfillment of those roles is the duty of members of society.
No matter the personal cost.
Not being a fan, I certainly didn’t fall in love with it. The segues were abrupt, but that may have been a positive in requiring the audience to pay attention. But it’s certainly not going to stick in my memory and make me think.
Much.
The fickle dodgeball of fate begins here. It’s bouncing down a yellowed brick road. The defiled metaphors could continue, so feel grateful that the dinner bell is ringing. Now for the news:
If you want to follow the deflating ball of stale news, click here.
The headlines, “Putin faces fury in Russia over military mobilization and prisoner swap,” in WaPo, or “Long lines of traffic seen at some of Russia’s land borders,” in CNN, tell an important story.
And, perhaps, signals an imminent, metaphorical Earth-shaking event.
Ever since Russia began what I, and many others, call Putin’s War, or the invasion and attempted annexation of Ukraine, Russia has been involuntarily exposing its military, government, and society’s weaknesses.
Militarily, rather than running at least eastern Ukraine over in a couple of weeks, as expected, it took some of the far east Ukraine, deliberately ravaged and depopulated it, if reports are to be believed, but Ukraine halted the advances quite quickly, and negotiated for advanced weapons to be delivered in quantity by the West. Ukrainians have, briefly, fought bravely, fought effectively, and have fought to win. Reports on Russian tactics, command structures, military morale, weapons of all sorts, indeed nearly everything, excepting perhaps their artillery, is that it’s inferior to Ukrainian and Western counterparts. The worm of corruption has devastated the Russian military.
In the government, we have learned that it’s basically a strongman government, and when the strongman arrogantly believes they can step outside of their personal expertise and do more than high level direction, it’s a disaster. Putin’s implicitly condemning fellow strongmen China’s Xi, Turkey’s Erdogan, Hungary’s Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Muhammed bin Salman, Brazil’s Bolsonaro, and several others through his failures, and encouraged liberal democracies menaced by these countries to defend themselves.
Societally, the inability of the Russian society to remove an obviously dangerous man reveals a lack of backbone that is not so much a failing as an inherited condition. From centuries of living under the God-sanctioned Tsars to the self-righteous Soviets, Russians aren’t really equipped to remove a leader quickly.
Morning Glory.
It takes a fucking disaster. Think of the starving Russian masses who finally went against God, forced out the Tsar, and along with that doomed family the institutionalized corruption of a Russian monarchy. Or the Soviets, when the common Soviet citizen, who did not see a future for themselves that gave them the right to decide how to approach that future, who faced empty shelves and, again, corruption, and found that drinking themselves into a stupor didn’t resolve the problem, finally took it upon themselves to replace Gorbachev with Yeltsin, and to pull back from the Soviet model.
A night or two ago, Putin gave a speech that sounded like a threat to me. A threat to use nuclear weapons if he’s denied his victory. As much as Western countries have to worry about that, if Russians heard that speech then they have to worry, too.
Because many of them know American, British, and French nuclear weapons are pointed at strategic targets throughout Russia.
So when you read
Social media video from Russia’s land borders with several countries shows long lines of traffic trying to leave the country on the day after President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization.”
There were queues at border crossings into Kazakhstan, Georgia and Mongolia. One video showed dozens of vehicles lining up at the Zemo Larsi/Verkhny Lars checkpoint on the Georgia-Russia border overnight Wednesday. That line appears to have grown longer Thursday. One video showed a long queue stretching into the mountains behind the crossing, with a man commenting that it was five to six kilometers long. [CNN]
These Russians aren’t just trying to avoid military service. They’re trying to get out of the line of fire.
Fear leads to anger, to rage. It can lead to violence.
As women hugged their husbands and young men boarded buses to leave for 15 days of training before potentially being deployed to Russia’s stumbling war effort in Ukraine, there were signs of mounting public anger. [WaPo]
Here we see Russians are about to be sacrificed, as if sheer numbers will do them any good in Ukraine. Just toss them in the hopper. There must families that are positively frantic. Just about all of those affected have become violently anti-Putin.
From the beginning, I’ve speculated that Putin’s War wasn’t ending until Putin is ended. The question is whether the Russian public is desperate enough to do it, and if his personal defenses are strong enough to withstand an attack. On those two matters, I think it’ll take a breakdown in the military or his personal guard to get to him.
As is usual with such situations. There are exceptions, such as Archduke Ferdinand’s incendiary assassination. But quite often the dictator is killed by someone he thought he could trust.
And what is the impact on American politics, if & when Putin goes down?
Tucker Carlson
Anyone positively associated with Putin will become damaged goods. This includes Senator Rand (R-KY), currently running for reelection, who has sought to delay several legislative bills concerning relief and arms to Ukraine. Senator Johnson (R) thought Russian election interference was no big deal, and is also running for reelection. Tucker Carlson of Fox News has reportedly said positive things about Russia, but I don’t watch Fox News and have to rely on second hand news. Senator Cruz (R-TX) once had the poor taste to suggest the American military could not keep up with the Russian military. He’s not up for reelection this cycle. That’s fortunate for him, not so much his fellow Texans.
Those Senatorial and House candidates, incumbent or not, who’ve allied themselves, even informally, with the strongman model of government, or Putin’s government in particular, may face additional headwinds over the next few weeks. Especially if Putin’s removed or killed.
In tight races like we often see, those headwinds could be decisive. If Putin goes down, he’ll not only drag down his cronies in Russia, but his American allies as well. Even Trump may be affected, although honestly I’m not sure what happens in Trump’s case.
And all of these collapses and reversals may result in the strongman model of government being discredited, and returning to the age old question of how to perform governance that the people will accept.
A problem of critical importance to both Republicans and Democrats.
Well, while the full consequences of the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision, which involves the high school football coach who prayed on the field, have yet to be felt, I admit to feeling foolish in not anticipating the following events, helpfully summarized by Jeff Dellinger at CFI’s The Morning Heresy:
Imagine suing a school district to get your job “back” (despite, it should be noted, not actually being fired), taking your case all the way to the Supreme Court—blowing a big chunk out of the wall between church and state in the process—winning, getting reinstated, and then… just never showing up for work.
Or, rather than imagine it, you could read the Seattle Times update on the coach at the Center of SCOTUS’s Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision.
[T]he school district has been flummoxed about what’s happened since. They complied by offering to reinstate him, they say, and now the football season is in full swing. But Kennedy is nowhere near the sidelines … “He’s had the paperwork for his reinstatement since August 8th, and we haven’t gotten so much as a phone call,” says Karen Bevers, spokesperson for Bremerton schools.
It seems coaching high school football just can’t compete with becoming a celebrity on the Religious Liberty Grievances and Victimhood circuit:
[A]s the Bremerton Knights were prepping for the season in August, Kennedy was up in Alaska, meeting with former Vice President Mike Pence and evangelist Franklin Graham. On the eve of the first game, which the Knights won, Kennedy was in Milwaukee being presented with an engraved .22-caliber rifle at an American Legion convention.
The weekend of the second game, which the Knights also won, Kennedy appeared with former President Donald Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. He saw Trump get a religious award from a group called the American Cornerstone Institute.
Nice work if you can get it. Especially if you don’t have to do any work.
In other words, it would not be uncharitable to observe Coach Kennedy has had his head turned by attention, celebrity, and I suspect potential riches that could be his, if only he can find a way to cash in.
An earnest man would have simply shrugged off the invites and gotten on with the coaching. The example he is setting here, though, is … execrable.
Does he even know about false idols?
If I weren’t agnostic, I’d be writing nifty phrases like “Kennedy’s not being dragged down to Hell, he’s in a full blown sprint down the path,” but, not being a believer, I’ll just skip it.
Time-domain astronomy:
Time-domain astronomy is the study of how astronomical objects change with time. Though the study may be said to begin with Galileo’s Letters on Sunspots, the term now refers especially to variable objects beyond the Solar System. This may be due to movement or changes in the object itself. Common targets included are supernovae, pulsating stars, novas, flare stars, blazars and active galactic nuclei. Visible light time domain studies include OGLE, HAT-South, PanSTARRS, SkyMapper, ASAS, WASP, CRTS, and in a near future the LSST at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. [Wikipedia]
Noted in “The time-lapse telescope that will transform our view of the universe,” Stuart Clark, NewScientist (3 September 2022, paywall):
All-in-all, this represents a coming of age for a discipline called time-domain astronomy, which seeks to understand how celestial objects change with time. “It is going to be a giant leap,” says Mario Jurić, director of the Institute for Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology (DIRAC Institute) at the University of Washington in Seattle, who is a data management project scientist for the LSST. “We’re going to see 10 per cent of everything that’s in the Milky Way with this one machine.” That accounts for around 20 billion stars, and because of Rubin’s light-gathering power and speed, it will detect even slight changes in the brightness and position of objects.
One may think of science as bounded by quantum mechanics (subsuming chemistry, if you will), the study of the smallest objects and phenomena, at one end of the spectrum, and astronomy, the study of the largest. It’s crude, yes, and astronomy is a result of quantum mechanics – or so I surmise – but the point here is that both ends of the spectrum are difficult enough to study in terms of process and transformation that they often require special observational aids tuned to their needs. Quantum mechanic scientists employ cameras and other detectors sampling the data stream in very small time chunks; astronomers must build telescopes, but have had trouble continuously monitoring their subjects.
Time-domain astronomy is a bid to remedy this serious problem.
An opinion that sparks this sort of response seems likely to be a target of lawyers and satirists:
On Sept. 16, the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion in NetChoice v. Paxton, upholding the controversial Texas law that limits the ability of large social media platforms to moderate content and also imposes disclosure and appeal requirements on them. The Fifth Circuit had previously stayed a district court injunction against the law, but the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to vacate the stay. The opinion opens up a stark circuit split with the Eleventh Circuit, which had ruled that a Florida law that also imposed content moderation restrictions on platforms violated the First Amendment. Unless the platforms get another stay pending rehearing en banc by the Fifth Circuit or review by the Supreme Court, the Texas law will go into effect, with potentially massive consequences for how the major social media companies moderate their platforms.
The initial reaction to the decision among policy experts and legal scholars has been, to put it mildly, harsh. It’s been called “legally bonkers,” a “troll to get SCOTUS to grant cert,” an “angrily incoherent First Amendment decision,” and “the single dumbest court ruling I’ve seen in a long, long time.” As someone who has argued for the constitutionality (and indeed desirability) of some government regulation of platform content moderation, I was hoping that the first judicial decision upholding such regulation would be a thoughtful and measured approach to what is indisputably a hard, even wicked, problem.
Unfortunately, the Fifth Circuit’s decision, written by Judge Andrew Oldham, is decidedly not that. Although not without its good points, it is largely a crude hack-and-slash job that misstates the facts and the law and ignores the proper role of an intermediate court, all in a sneering tone that pretends that those who disagree with it are either stupid or evil. It’s an extreme example of First Amendment absolutism: the insistence that the First Amendment has either nothing to do with content moderation or that it provides maximum constitutional protections to such practices. The opinion deserves to be swiftly overruled, either by the full Fifth Circuit or by the Supreme Court. [“The Fifth Circuit’s Social Media Decision: A Dangerous Example of First Amendment Absolutism,” Professor Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Lawfare]
Did the judge’s hair fall out upon reading the responses? Stay tuned.
It’s good to see some good news from time to time, isn’t it?
Five patients with hard-to-treat lupus entered remission after scientists tweaked their immune cells using a technique normally used to treat cancer. After the one-time therapy, all five patients with the autoimmune disease stopped their standard treatments and haven’t had a relapse.
This treatment, known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, needs to be tested in larger groups of lupus patients before it can be approved for widespread use. But if the results hold up in larger trials, the therapy could someday offer relief to people with moderate to severe lupus.
“For them, this is really a breakthrough,” said Dr. Georg Schett, director of rheumatology and immunology at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. Schett is the senior author of a new report describing the small trial, which was published Thursday (Sept. 15) in the journal Nature Medicine(opens in new tab).
“It’s a single shot of CAR T cells and patients stop all treatments,” Schett told Live Science. “We were really surprised [at] how good this effect is.” [Live Science]
That’s fascinating, especially as I have gout, another autoimmune system disorder, at least according to my former rheumatologist, who told me she had determined that it’s genetic, but what if it isn’t? Would a similar treatment work for all us gout-sufferers? Actually, I’m fortunate in tolerating allopurinol just fine, and haven’t had an attack, or whatever it is it’s called, in a decade or more. But if a simple shot eliminated the need for allopurinol, I’d take it.
I see Wikipedia doesn’t mention the auto-immune part. Perhaps I confabulate.
I saw this yesterday as I bleared about getting the neighbor’s paper and thought it was neat.
That’s not an optical illusion, that’s a hole in the middle. Too bad the sun didn’t illuminate it.
Did I say something about snow? I hope not. Here’s some real news. I hope you like it.
I don’t need to write a ton here. I just want to direct you to this piece in the Wall Street Journal. Blake Masters is losing Arizona, and it should be winnable.
But the reality is that Peter Thiel and Donald Trump went to bat for Masters in a crowded primary, poured millions in to get him the nomination, and they’ve abandoned him since. Thiel, only under pressure from Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell, is allegedly going to commit more money.
I personally think Erickson’s optimism concerning Arizona is unwarranted, as illustrated in this post. But the title of his post is important: Grifting to Loss.
The power structure that has evolved atop the Republican Party since the ascension of Trump appears to be focused on eliciting donations, not on winning elections. This is a bit odd for me to write, since the Gingrich Doctrine calls for winning in any way possible, not through the usual democratic means of persuasion and competency. But then, Trump is not a Gingrich disciple; he’s a grifter.
And it’s important to remember that grifters are rarely, if ever, long-term project builders and servants to the public good. It’s all about getting while the getting is good. The transformation of the Republican Party from a responsible governance institution into a Win by any means! institution has led, inevitably, to what Erickson condemns.
In Alaska the fourth qualifier for the Senate general election seat, Buzz Kelley, has “unofficially withdrew,” leaving Senator Murkowski (R), Kelly Tshibaka (R), and Patricia Chesbro (D) in the RCV (ranked choice voting) contest. In the nonpartisan primary, Kelley only drew 2.1% of the votes, which makes his withdrawal of minor significance. Chesbro, the Democrat, only drew 6.8%, so it appears this will be a battle between the moderate Murkowski and Tshibaka, herself somewhat of a moderate, according to her summation by On The Issues to the reader’s right. But she’s been endorsed by the former President.
On The Issues summation of Senator John Boozman (R-AR).
In Arkansas, Talk Business & Politics (TB&P), unknown to FiveThirtyEight, conducted a poll of voters and says incumbent Senator Boozman (R) leads challenger Natalie James (D), 43.5% – 30.5%. While the double digit lead is not surprising, there is some surprise, on my part, at the actual numbers: the incumbent’s failure to surmount the 50% marker suggests that quite a few Arkansas voters are troubled by the incumbent. They may be working their way through the intellectual and emotional challenges of voting for a Democrat who is not against abortion. Boozman cannot credibly claim to be a moderate, now can he? I still don’t think James can upset Boozman – but she may give him a scare. TB&P provides an extended, useful analysis that notes James has failed, so far, to attract the black vote, and women voters are far more undecided than male voters. She has a very tall mountain to surmount, but at least she only has to climb the undecided mountain. The Boozman voter mountain would be far more difficult.
Previous, outdated news has been hoarded here. Watch out for mantraps.
Commemorative cryptocurrencies is the puzzling phrase that covers for Just Another Ripoff, so far as I can see. Long-time readers should be unsurprised at my attitude, as I’ve yet to see any real unique utility to them. For example, the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II has resulted in this sort of thing:
In the days following the queen’s passing, more than 40 types of meme coins were minted, industry data and media reports show. These virtual forms of currency are often created by anonymous people with access to coin-creating websites — and an idea for a clever name. And they are notorious for wild swings in value.
That includes Queen Elizabeth Inu coin, which broadly honors her deathand is built and available on various cryptocurrency platforms. The coin is currently priced around $0.000003, after a nearly 30,000 percent surge and drop from where it started. There’s also Long Live the Queen, a coin that lost steam within hours of minting. [WaPo]
And there’s an NFT (non-fungible token) for her as well. But –
Ethan McMahon, an economist for the crypto research firm Chainalysis, said interest in web3 products relating to the queen have garnered less interest than he expected. For example, the NFT called RIP The Queen, which came out shortly after her death, had 1,817 people purchase it the first day, Chainalysis data showed. As of Thursday morning, it fell to one. This comes as transactions on leading NFT marketplaces hit historic lows.
It may only be that McMahon & colleagues overestimated the response, but it may also mean that folks, having had their fingers burned, or, better yet, only those of their friends or those they read about, are figuring out that one has to tread very carefully in this arena.
Or don’t bother at all, because … there’s nothing essential to cryptocurrencies.
In view of that statement, I’ve been wrestling with whether the following statement is really sensible – or a cry for help from an industry that, so far, has not proven it’s worthy of help from a government that it was specifically and categorically developed to evade:
Despite that, crypto critics, analysts and experts agree the government needs to step in and regulate, especially given scams that have happened recently. In November, creators of the Squid Game memecoin let it rise in value over 11 days to $2,860 and then left the project, driving its price down to nearly zero and walking away with $3.3 million in investors’ funds.
And why? The fact that someone gets hurt doesn’t mean we need to rush forth and fix it, because that implies what’s to be fixed is worth it. And that’s not yet obvious, now is it? I’m still stumped as to what unique utility cryptocurrencies fulfill. I’ve already rejected the inflation argument. It consumes energy like mad, and it gives scammers unique opportunities to transfer wealth from the wealthy, the middle class, and even the moderately poor to the pockets of the scammers.
And what does a fix get us? Another barnacle, this one of dubious societal value?
I’d like to see the Feds debate that question, rather than rush forth to show their leadership without discussing it.
When failing to comb one’s hair has a serious impact on gravitas, and that’s what this dude is all about.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) is a retread of the story of one of the most popular antagonists in the original Star Trek TV series: Khan Noonien Singh of the Botany Bay, a space ship containing genetically enhanced humans, cryogenically imprisoned. In the original, the Botany Bay is encountered by the Enterprise, but in this new version, some other ship encountered the Botany Bay, unfroze Khan, and he escaped and disappeared.
And then reappears as a Star Fleet officer, bent on revenge, and, baby, he’s a damn good avenging angel. It doesn’t matter who the target is, human, klingon, vulcan, whathaveyou, they get mowed down by Khan with no mercy.
Even as Kirk is getting the squeeze from a Star Fleet admiral who’s convinced the only way to beat the klingons is by breaking the rules.
The overwhelming capacity of weapons to alter the basis of morality systems is a theme too little visited by most any commercial dramatic production, probably because questions about the fundamental processes of how societies interact are dicey to depict and liable to attract the kind of criticism that might result in a degradation of profits. And given how much money has to be poured into productions of this category, that’s not an attractive option for a Hollywood producer.
But productions that don’t recognize and treat these questions run the risk of seeming hollow.
And so it is with this Star Trek alternate approach. How does the potential for destruction in these weapons modify our approach to societal interactions? We’re spending a lot of time watching Kirk and Spock trying to off, and then not off, Khan, but we’re distracted by Khan’s blood, in the end, and don’t get to explore these questions.
The movie itself is OK, but has that feel of a movie made to make money and not explore any final frontiers. And I’ve never bought Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, anyways.
Purblind:
- having greatly reduced vision
Noted in “New revelations show Biden was right: Trump does threaten democracy,” Max Boot, WaPo:
Trump accuses Biden not just of hateful rhetoric but also of “weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI like never, ever before, and raiding and breaking into the homes of their political opponents.” There is no acknowledgment from Trump, or his purblind defenders, that the FBI only searched Mar-a-Lago because he refused to turn over classified material that might endanger national security. The court-ordered search on Aug. 8 unearthed more than 100 classified documents — including, reportedly, top-secret information about another nation’s nuclear arsenal.
If you’re not sure which way the election will break come November, here’s a couple of graphs to consider. I don’t know why Gallup doesn’t do this as a graphical time series, but I’ve done it for you; go to the link for table format or to retrieve all the data they have available, as I limited the data to last December to August.
It's apparent that the Republicans have suffered a collapse of support not seen by the Democrats, and the jump in Independents tells us where those former Republicans went. But are those folks who now consider themselves Independents still voting Republican?
No, it seems the presence of numerous extremists among Republican candidates, not to mention the fourth-raters who've flooded the primaries, have alienated some more of the Republican moderates, as well as persuading previously Republican-leaning independents to be willing to vote Democratic, at least for this cycle.
I continue to believe the Democrats, with some careful messaging and hard work, can pick up, net, anywhere from two to eight Senate seats. The House, where gerrymandering is a usable tool, may not see much of a Democratic uptick, or may even seen Democratic losses. Ironically, while Democrats would lose political power in Congress, Republicans would lose something far more important in this scenario: the lesson that they are under the control of fourth-raters who literally have no strategy for governance; they seem to believe that a seat won is the goal, not implementing wise governing policies. Names such as Jordan, Gaetz, Greene, Gosar, Gohmert, Boebert, Cawthorn, and so many others should not be considered to be leading lights, but instead leading contenders for the metaphorical trebuchet.
Gerrymandering protects the incompetent, the extremist, the politician in it for the power of the position.
But, to get back to the point of these graphs, it appears the rightward surge of the Republican Party is fueling an opposite reaction of moderate conservatives considering voting Democratic. That Red Wave is threatening to turn Blue.
Just another entry in a long dynasty. Like dinosaurs, but less graceful.
The previous flight of outdated information is here.
This put a smile on my face.
In Papua New Guinea, where [Queen Elizabeth II] was known as “Mama Belong Big Family” and “Missis Kwin,” Prime Minister James Marape’s heartfelt eulogy hinted at difficult times ahead. [WaPo]
I’m not laughing, it’s just such a claim of ownership, by the New Guineans of the late Queen. Which, I know, some would say is backwards. But that’s how it comes out.
In the abortion issue there’s a painful asymmetry that anti-abortionists have to be careful to skirt, and even throw a skirt over. It’s this.
If pro-choice laws are advanced, no one is forced to do anything personally. Your religion prohibits abortion? Then don’t have one.
If pro-life laws are advanced, then the burden of bearing a pregnancy and what eventually becomes a child is on the pregnant women, with no options for termination. In some cases, even existential disaster is not considered good enough.
And this is another crack in the wall of anti-abortion reasoning, in fact a crack so important that it must be papered over, like Erick Erickson does here:
I understand the argument of leaving this to the states, but Democrats have already said if they get back the Senate with a few more seats, they will scrap the filibuster to impose abortion on demand. The GOP needs a response.
Bold mine. It looks like an awkward word choice made in the heat of the moment, but consider this: any other word choice renders Erickson’s argument too transparent. Another word choice runs the danger of clarifying, rather than confusing, the above asymmetry. The argument that abortion on demand is imposed is specious; the proper verb is permit.
His word choice here makes it sound like the discussion is about involuntary abortion, which is not the case in the least.
The fact that a close examination of this point causes this particular argument to collapse into incoherence suggests his entire side is incoherent. That is, applying the epithet baby-killers, as he has done in the past, to women who simply want to survive their pregnancy is a painfully mistaken, if not deliberately dishonest choice.
And that’s why it pays to closely examine the wording of arguments.
