Category Archives: Uncategorized

I found this oddly relaxing. I think it’s the frenzy of the string player contrasted with the ood player’s minimal movements.

Some lovely lupines and irises that I hadn’t gotten around to publishing.

Recently, a third mass grave of skeletal remains, 182 in number, alleged to be that of Indigenous children, was discovered in Canada in British Columbia, on the grounds of the former St. Eugene’s Mission School, a residential school operated by the Catholic hierarchy. The prior two discoveries, of 215 bodies at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia last week, and 751 bodies of probable Indigenous children in former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in late June, had sparked anger among the First Nation tribes, and this latest discovery has only soured some people:

Since the first graves were discovered, more than a half-dozen churches across the country, including a number on Indigenous land, have been vandalized or burned. Authorities have cast the fires as suspicious.

“This is not the way to go,” he said. “The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop.”

“Hate-inspired violence, burning down faith communities, targeting them with these acts of violence and intimidation is not reconciliation,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told reporters as he toured the charred remains of a century-old church in the town of Morinville.

Bellegarde, the First Nations chief, urged restraint.

“I can understand the frustration and the anger and the hurt and the pain,” he said. “But to burn things down is not our way.” [WaPo]

But I find it hard not to sympathize with the First Nations members who may be involved.

The actions of the Canadian government of the era and, more importantly, the Catholic hierarchy was atrocious. But the government agency is transitory and changes as understandings change; the Catholic Church subscribes to a moral system that is universal, doesn’t change, and is supposedly the rules put forth by a Divine creature.

This result, an evil to the grieving First Nations, is yet another blow to a Catholic Church which has lost prestige in Europe and North America due to a moral system which gives little practical reason to sympathize with it, has protected pedophiles in its own ranks.

The article states that there’s been no formal apology as of yet:

Pope Francis, who has expressed sorrow over the graves but stopped short of apologizing for the Catholic Church’s role, has agreed to meet with residential school survivors. The Canadian government and some Catholic groups, as well as the country’s Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches, which also ran the schools, have apologized for their roles in the abuse.

And if none comes, I suspect the Catholic Church in Canada will take another long step towards irrelevance. Does it realize that, much like its structures, it’s on fire? Pretending to some sort of moral perfection is a hubris which it cannot risk, because the world has taken long strides away from such positions. Today, recognition of past mistakes and institutional fallibility is part of what makes these institutions plausible players on the national stage, whether it’s here in the United States or in Canada.

The situation of the Nile River and Egypt, Sudan, and, most importantly, Ethiopia continues to deteriorate. AL-Monitor reports:

Egypt has so far played the Nile Dam dispute with Ethiopia straight by the diplomatic book, seeking a solution via mediated negotiation, working with and through trusted partners and institutions such as the United States, the World Bank and the African Union.

Egypt depends on the Nile, which originates in Ethiopia, for more than 90% of its water needs. Ethiopia’s decision to proceed with the second filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) this month, without an agreement on management of the downstream flow of the Nile waters, could reduce the flow of water to both Egypt and Sudan.

Eleven countries share water from the Nile Basin. The major chokepoint is the Blue Nile tributary in Ethiopia, where the GERD is being built.

The current crisis is not just about this month’s second filling of the dam, which may be less impactful than expected, because the GERD is still in development.

For Cairo and fellow Nile-dependent neighbor Khartoum [capitol of Sudan], this is a top-tier and existential national security matter. Without an agreement on the allocation of the Nile waters, Egypt and Sudan anticipate an endless cycle of uncertainty about the flow of the vital Nile waters to their countries.

[Bold mine.]

Critically:

Egyptian Ambassador to the United States Motaz Zahran wrote in April, “At stake is the future of the Nile, a lifeline for millions of Egyptians and Sudanese,” adding that “the GERD could inflict incalculable socioeconomic and environmental harm downstream in Egypt and Sudan.”

And is there a reason that Sudan and Egypt would put up with this uncertainty? Neither is notoriously pacifist countries; nor is Ethiopia.

Certain war-gaming departments at the countries in question, as well as many others, have doubtless been running simulations of the situation. Why?

Just to the east of the Nile is the town of Suez, marking the southern end of the Suez Canal. Remember the international hubbub when the Ever Given got itself stuck in the Canal earlier this year? An airstrike on the Canal by Ethiopia wouldn’t just impact Egypt, it’d impact much of the world, economically.

There may be nothing us little people can do to avert such a war, but at least we can prepare for any impact it might have on you.

Don’t be surprised if a war breaks out in this area in the next three years.

The Empress’ hair was kinda nice, but this poster is better.

It’s … it’s … Atragon (1963). Whee.

This is not a plot free movie, but it’s not something to get the audience fired up. There’s a missing Japanese submarine captain, his long-retired Admiral, the captain’s daughter, the usual gaggle of reporters, the evil Mu Empire and their God-creature Manda, which is unusually ineffectual. The submarine captain has his brand-new, self-developed submarine, which might be named Atragon, which not only cruises the ocean’s depths, equipped with a freeze ray, but also, ah, flies.

And it’s all very awful.

Retraction Watch notes the retraction of a paper “… claiming two deaths from COVID-19 vaccination for every three prevented cases,” and the defense of the authors, lead by Harald Walach:

We are happy to concede that the data we used – the large Israeli field study to gauge the number needed to vaccinate and the LAREB data to estimate side-effects and harms – are far from perfect, and we said so in our paper. But we did not use them incorrectly. We used imperfect data correctly. We are not responsible for the validity and correctness of the data, but for the correctness of the analysis. We contend that our analysis was correct. We agree with LAREB that their data is not good enough. But this is not our fault, nor can one deduce incorrect use of data or incorrect analysis.

The title of this paper?

The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy

And my point is that if you’re writing a paper that recommends a course of action, of course you’re responsible for using data that meets adequate standards of dependability and applicability. Shrugging those responsibilities off on someone else also means losing the moral authority to recommend a change in the course of action.

Especially when the analysis conclusion is sending up red flags such as these.

This is the scene where we play Who’s that chambermaid?

Gaslight (1944) is what might be called a sneaky, artless story, wandering about at random as an insistent sense of malevolence overtakes the audience, until an abrupt exponential sense of anxiety impinges on their otherwise amiable sense of placid activities. The young Paula Alquist is bereft of family, the last of it, her world-famous opera singer Aunt Alice, murdered by an unknown assailant in her townhouse, her sad body found in the flickering gaslight of 1800s London.

But Paula doesn’t live there any more. She lives in Europe, where ten or more years later, Paula meets an attractive stranger. A whirlwind romance follows, and marriage, and then the newly minted husband mentions a new destination, a home, where he knows of an empty townhouse.

Paula agrees, albeit reluctantly.

Once there, her husband, a composer, withdraws nightly to a separate residence to work on his music. This does not leave the days open for exploring London or exchanging visits, though, because Paula is exhibiting symptoms of mental illness: noises from the closed-off uppermost floor that only she can hear, events and appointments forgotten, a most unattractive worry that she’s taking leave of her senses.

And a husband with a volcanic temper.

But the plot really tightens up when a policeman, seeing in Paula her Aunt Alice, takes an interest – especially as the murder of Alice remains unresolved. Apple carts are upset, tempers dislodged, and eventually all is revealed, with the husband tied up, begging his wife to release him so that he may flee the nefarious powers that pursue him.

But she has a knife, and a murderous lust in her eyes. Much like the plot itself, there are unseen currents buffeting her reason, and the tricky riptides caused by mendacity are swirling about in vicious anticipation of yet another victim. But who will mendacity claim and carry away this time?

There is deception everywhere, from pacing to personality, and, at first, it’s so well done as to leave the audience wondering why they are watching. But the little glitches begin to accumulate, and by the end the seat of their chairs are all that’s left of the audience’s contact with reality.

Recommended.

This time lapse video of the heat dome of the west coat of the North American continent is weirdly beautiful.

I don't usually post imagery of high pressure systems because they're typically less visual 👀 than storms… but this über #ridge aloft has been the product of an epic case of "anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking" 🤓 and is responsible for the historic heat 🌡️ pic.twitter.com/6hLRMnVY2r

— Stu Ostro (@StuOstro) June 28, 2021

More on the upcoming hurricane season here.

Abjure:

verb (used with object), ab·jured, ab·jur·ing.

1. to renounce, repudiate, or retract, especially with formal solemnity; recant:
   to abjure one’s errors.
2. to renounce or give up under oath; forswear:
   to abjure allegiance.
3. to avoid or shun. [Dictionary.com]

I don’t believe I’ve ever used that word. Noted in “As insurrectionists turn into snitches for federal prosecutors, circle tightens around conspirators,” David Neiwert, Daily Kos:

Another indictee—Thomas Robertson, then an active officer with the Rocky Mount, Virginia, police department, who entered the Capitol with a colleague and later boasted about it to his colleagues on Facebook, claiming he had broken no laws—who had been granted pretrial release now faces a revocation of that release this week after FBI agents discovered that he has purchased an arsenal of over 30 guns and a stockpile of ammunition in the weeks after his arrest, and despite release conditions requiring him to abjure all weapons. Robertson and his colleague, Jacob Fracker, were both fired from the police force after their arrests.

A good splash of color.

Amardeo Sarma and Anna Veronika Wendland publish an article in Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2021) on the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the consequent Fukushima nuclear accident, but before reading on, try to remember the number of deaths resultant of the radiation of Fukushima. Tens? Hundreds? Worse?

Myths Surrounding Casualties and Their Causes

The molten fuel mass in units 1 to 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant dripped in whole or in part from the damaged reactor pressure vessels onto the floor of the primary containment. There, it ate into the concrete structures and solidified. Thus most of the reactor inventory was held inside the containments, but leakage could no longer be prevented due to the earthquake and explosion damage and the late initiation of pressure relief. Controlled but unfiltered ventings also released large quantities of volatile radionuclides.

The full release of iodine-131, caesium-137, and cesium-134 is estimated at 3.7 x 10¹⁷ becquerels (Bq) of iodine equivalent, about one-tenth of the release in the Chernobyl accident. Nevertheless, like Chernobyl, Fukushima was classified at Level 7 (release >5 x 10¹⁶ Bq) on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). Unlike with Chernobyl, no one at the power plant died from radiation over-exposure. As of October 2011, a total of 388 people received radiation doses above the 20 millisieverts (mSv) permitted annually for occupationally exposed persons. Fourteen people received more than 100 mSv. To date, there is one case of fatal lung cancer that has been officially recognized as an occupational disease, but it is implausible to have resulted from the accident itself (GRS 2016).

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) estimated that the expected number of premature deaths from cancer among nuclear workers would be so small as to be statistically insignificant. No casualties were expected among the civilian population that was evacuated in time (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation 2014).

The nuclear accident itself did not cause any direct radiation-related deaths. Instead, the fatalities at and close to the nuclear power plant’s site are due to the earthquake and tsunami and the evacuation measures taken after the nuclear accident.

Of course, there are disagreements:

After the accident, a publication by Mark Z. Jacobson, a renewable energy researcher and staunch opponent of nuclear power, caused a stir. He claimed that there were about 130 (between fifteen and 1,100) cancer-related deaths and 180 (between twenty-four and 1,800) cancer-related illnesses due to Fukushima (Hoeve and Jacobson 2012). His paper is also based on the controversial LNT [linear no-threshold, a mathematical risk model that has been used since the 1920s to predict the effects of radiation] model. Even the smallest increases in radiation dose in remote regions of the world, such as the west coast of the United States, were included in the calculations.

But even those numbers pale compared to deaths from just about all other uses of technology by humans. Mark Lynas calls the publication “junk science”:

In this deeply flawed paper, he succeeds only in illustrating some of the absurdities in current radiological protection models, and that one thing we know for sure—even if those absurdities are ignored—is that the evacuation killed more people than the accident. (Lynas 2012)

Mark Lynas appears to be a journalist and environmentalist.

It’s an interesting investigation into possible hysterical overreaction to what might be characterized as a design mostly resilient to disaster, a reaction which eventually led to Germany shutting down its nuclear energy industry – contributing a great deal more CO₂ and other climate warming gases to the atmosphere.

Kansas is off & running in the anti-vote race:

The League of Women Voters of Kansas and other nonprofits are suspending voter registration drives for fear of criminal prosecution under a new state law.

The groups filed a lawsuit over new election-related restrictions enacted by the Legislature this session, and a judge has yet to act on a request for a temporary injunction to block enforcement of the laws until the case is resolved. One of the provisions makes it a crime to engage in activity that “gives the appearance of being an election official.”

Without clarity from the court, the organizations argue in court filings, there is a “serious risk” that someone will mistake people who are knowledgeable about voter registration as election officials.

Jacqueline Lightcap, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Kansas, says she has asked the organization’s nine local leaders to temporarily suspend their voter education and registration efforts.  [Kansas Reflector]

Perhaps I’m just naive – yeah, we’ll go with that – but how about these folks wear T-shirts that state,

NO, I’M NOT AN ELECTION OFFICIAL.

And/or

FILE A COMPLAINT THAT I’M AN ELECTION OFFICIAL AND I’LL HAVE YOU IN CRIMINAL COURT FOR FALSELY REPORTING A CRIME.

And then run your damn event. Any whining from legislators about the event, pray for it? The reply, broadcast in news reports, should be:

I’LL HAVE YOU IN COURT FOR FALSELY ACCUSING ME OF BEING AN ELECTION OFFICIAL.

And when they scream that No, I didn’t say that you were!, the reply is a sweet smile and

THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY POINT, YOU FOURTH-RATE NUMB NUTS!

Gah. I’m feeling churlish this morning. Helluva way to start a vacation. Next comes the deep cleaning of the bathroom. Whee.

I bought a belt last night. Is this waste necessary?

My Arts Editor suggests the plastic be replaced with hemp. I was thinking the belt’s back could be imprinted with the UPC, and the store could provide a website that only needs a UPC to bring up the price. Or better yet just a picture.

Maybe I should buy a Dockers‘ product a day, taking pictures and sending them to their marketing department. When I reach the size of a small house, i notify the local newspaper, the StarTribune, to come out and do a story associating Dockers with annoying waste.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Max Boot has a complaint:

I spent the first 29 years of my adult life as a Republican. But the day after the 2016 election, I re-registered as an independent. A couple of years later I wrote a book that reflected on my career as a conservative and admitted errors ranging from my support for the Iraq War to my willingness to overlook the GOP’s growing nuttiness. I admitted that I too bore some responsibility for President Donald Trump’s rise.

None of that has deterred some progressives from attacking me as a war criminal who should never be allowed to publish another word again. One scold wrote “Iraq-Raping Neocons Are Suddenly Posing As Woke Progressives To Gain Support.” Another kind soul wrote “Max Boot is very sorry for backing the GOP and the Iraq invasion. Why is he being praised for this?”

As you might imagine, this experience gives me additional sympathy for political defectors — whether they are moving from right to left or left to right — because I know that, either way, it’s not easy. You are likely to be reviled by old friends who can’t understand why you left and jeered by new allies who can’t understand why were ever on the “wrong” side to begin with. Both sides are likely to question your motives.

Sin, a word I use metaphorically and with some relish as an agnostic, comes in two main categories.

There are those sins that come from self-deviancy or weakness. By this, I mean that the acts involved are taken in conscious knowledge that they violate some moral or philosophical system to which we allegedly have some allegiance. That knowledge may be delayed, given the uneven nature of the human brain, but it is clear the violation is of the basis of our behavioral suite. Examples: the bribe was too tempting, the sexual opportunity “couldn’t” be passed up. Sins of the moment for the earnest.

But sins are necessarily public business, no matter how much we’d like to conceal them. This leads to the second category of sins relevant to this discussion: Sins of philosophy.

For our purposes, philosophy provides guidelines for behavior, whether the source is rational reasoning, irrational self-interest, or commands from the Divine. Communal philosophy holds communities together by providing shared guidelines for behavior that makes the actions of a community member roughly predictable as well as anodyne to the community. Being unpredictable need not always result in universal condemnation, but the results of the behaviors had best be positive for the community.

But usually deviations from communal philosophy is often perceived as a sin, if only by those doing the perceiving. In fact, that is often the case; deviants in this category do not perceive themselves as deviating. The tolerance required of a heterogeneous community such as the United States compounds the problem, reducing public discourse to cries of sinner and deviant, with little to no recourse to actual reason.

Long time readers know that I’ve written on occasion regarding redemption, Boot’s concern. Category 1 deviations are easily enough forgiven so long as the harm is not irremediable; while the irremediable harms are considerably more difficult to forgive. Redemption is what allows our society to succeed and excel, as minor deviations do not cripple a person’s prospects for life and invite destructive responses. However, theological deviations are an exception; punishments can be existentially and irrationally severe, and, even when survived, they are often life-changing.

Category 2 deviations, on the other hand, clashes of philosophy, are fundamentally different. Whether they result from different understandings of how society succeeds, or not, or come from deliberate choices, or are a result of the aforementioned tolerance required by heterogeneous societies, or are theologically based, they are based on some of the most fundamental assumptions concerning existence, or sometimes observations for the more careful temperaments, and individuals are rarely, if ever, disposed to be rid of these foundational elements of their lives.

Redemption requires remorse and a promise to change behavior; but behavior springs from philosophy, among other sources, and when the basic philosophy doesn’t change, there’s little reason to believe claims of remorse and for redemption.

Which brings me to the current situation in the United States. There are many philosophies extant in America, but I tend to break them into 3-4 categories: the theologically insane, meaning they believe in what I call arrant nonsense, such as the End Times being upon us; the theologically sane, meaning they believe in both God and rationality; the rationalists, who believe in rationality and science, which are more or less synonyms; and the ideologists. The last category consists of folks at the extreme ends of the political spectrum who have chosen to believe in non-theological tenets concerning the nature of reality, with great rigidity and fanaticism. Various elements of the trans-gender movement might be classed in this last category; on the right, there’s more a tendency to believe in God, although it’s worth noting that fascist tendencies needn’t be accompanied by religious inclinations – except that the fascist believes they have a Divine right to leadership.

No offense to anyone.

The believers in life being a power structure may find these natterings about philosophical categories to be superfluous, but I don’t agree. A philosophy built on misapprehensions concerning the nature of reality has, in my opinion, a greater chance of terminating in disaster than does that which is based on a good understanding of reality.

This means that the Republican Party, which appears to be built on the baseless suppositions of certain religious leaders, as well as the false beliefs of the leaders concerning their opponents politically, has good reason to fear the future: its foundation is crumbling in the light of reality, but it continues to obstinately plunge ahead with its ideology even as members become doubtful and leave it.

But how it got there, which I theorize elsewhere is due to a combination of team politics and religious zealotry, is another matter.

Insofar as Boot goes, he states he’s not religious and has changed parts of his philosophy. The insights concerning his former comrades are actually invaluable; I have no problem suggesting redemption is good. The haughty poseurs who, to borrow a phrase, think their shit don’t stink, need to remember that redemption is one of finest features this nation offers, and stop the political rivalry they engage in so mindlessly.

But for others? The question has no automatic answer for the ideologically fallen, liberal or conservative. As ever, redemption requires heart-felt change and self-analysis.

An early study of the responses to the Covid-19 pandemic seems to indicate that a strong initial response is better than a minimal notice response:

We compared COVID-19 deaths, gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and strictness of lockdown measures during the first 12 months of the pandemic for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries that aim for elimination or mitigation (figure). Although all indicators favour elimination, our analysis does not prove a causal connection between varying pandemic response strategies and the different outcome measures. COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population in OECD countries that opted for elimination (Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) have been about 25 times lower than in other OECD countries that favoured mitigation (figure). Mortality is a proxy for a country’s broader disease burden. For example, decision makers should also consider the increasing evidence of long-term morbidities after SARS-CoV-2 infection. [“SARS-CoV-2 elimination, not mitigation, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties,” Miquel Oliu-Barton, et al, The Lancet (Volume 397)]

In other words, trying to preserve your economy ended up damaging it more, while paying strong attention to the pandemic came out better. But there is a fly in the ointment, as NewScientist (19 June 2021) notes:

It is notable that the five elimination countries are island nations or South Korea, which has one tightly controlled land border. [Jeffrey Lazarus of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain] accepts that isolation could have something to do with their success. “It is easier to protect the borders of an island state, if you want to,” he says. But it isn’t impossible for other countries to police their borders. Denmark nearly qualified as an elimination country, says Lazarus, but struggled to control Danes living in Sweden from going back and forth over the Øresund Bridge.

The ability to police one’s borders is going to vary wildly based on location. The Rio Grande isn’t normally a big deal to cross; meanwhile, no one wants to go into the Demilitarize Zone between North and South Korea. Indeed, comparing countries is always problematic, at least in my mind. It’s gotta be hard to control for the varying circumstances.

cri de coeur:

An impassioned outcry, appeal, protest or entreaty. [Wiktionary]

Noted in “The Feminist vs. The Cancelers,” Cathy Young, Arc Digital:

[Chimamanda Ngozi] Adichie recently caused controversy with a long essay titled “It Is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts.” The piece is a cri de coeur against the self-righteous zealotry of current social justice politics, particularly online, and against what has come to be known as “cancel culture.” It is also a very personal story about being maligned by two fellow Nigerians, former students from her writing workshop, because of her disagreement with some aspects of the transgender rights movement. The former students, whom Adichie does not name but others have, are activist OluTimehin Adegbeye and activist/writer Akwaeke Emezi.

TPM reports on an effort to remove the statues of traitors and fools from the Capitol:

House Republicans on Tuesday viewed the chamber’s upcoming vote on legislation to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol as an opportunity to accuse Democrats of trying to “erase history” and boost their hysteria over so-called “Critical Race Theory.”

Amid throwing his support behind the bill, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gleefully remarked that the Confederate statues in the Capitol are “Democrats.”

“Let me state a simple fact,” McCarthy said. “All the statues being removed by this bill are statues of Democrats.”

Which is both true and, if not irrelevant, to the Democrats’ credit. Speaker Pelosi should have simply smiled and said,

I’m glad the Minority Leader agrees that it’s a good thing to not celebrate traitors and dunderheads, be they Democrats or Republicans, and, for that reason, I expect 100% cooperation from Republicans on this matter.

Sure, vote against the Speaker and find yourself in despicable company. It’s rather like a pin in chess.

Trocar:

A surgical instrument. It is used to evacuate body cavities of their contents, especially for purposes of embalming a corpse.
“The mortician made a cut into the lower intestine, inserted the trocar, and activated the suction.” [Urban Dictionary]

Noted in this Ask The Mortician video. The first mention of a trocar is at about 8:30.

… a bit of death and decay.

Just don’t get in their way.

Murderball (2005) isn’t a jaunt into a fevered, science-fictionish sport, but instead the nickname for quadriplegic rugby. This documentary delivers an intense, informative jolt of experience and emotion involving a game virtually without rules, its culture, and the quadriplegics who play it – from the novices who cannot believe that their tragic accident isn’t going to keep them out of competitive sports, to the top level competitors who train rigorously and compete in leagues in order to qualify for the Paralympics, all while having fun – hopefully.

Along the way we meet a number of them up close and personal, such as former top level competitor, now coach, Joe Soares, and the charismatic Mark Zupan. But it’s not just the game itself, but how they conduct their lives that we get to see.

And it’s fascinating. It’s hard to find mistakes in this documentary. Maybe it would have benefited from a bit more in-depth exploration, but honestly I think it’s one of the finer documentaries I’ve seen.

My Arts Editor and I enjoy watching a couple of shows concerning the narrowboats of Great Britain, namely Cruising the Cut and Travels by Narrowboat. In this particular episode, the narrowboater of Cruising the Cut interviews a couple who, along with being narrowboaters themselves, are also world-class pianists, and are seeking to create a new way to get your music.

We found it charming.

A few weeks ago I wrote on the mysterious matter of the public disappearance of former AG William Barr during the latter stages of the 2020 Presidential campaign, as well as its aftermath when he could have caused a lot of mischief, and it appears that my reading of the situation was right:

But Barr told me he had already concluded that it was highly unlikely that evidence existed that would tip the scales in the election. He had expected Trump to lose and therefore was not surprised by the outcome. He also knew that at some point, Trump was going to confront him about the allegations, and he wanted to be able to say that he had looked into them and that they were unfounded. So, in addition to giving prosecutors approval to open investigations into clear and credible allegations of substantial fraud, Barr began his own, unofficial inquiry into the major claims that the president and his allies were making.

“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr told me. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.” [Jonhathan Karl, The Atlantic]

He figured out he was allied with a bullshit artist and went to ground.

I’ve been watching the movements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as they’ve deliberated on a power grab in the form of a report on the Eucharist. As CNN/Politics reported last week:

By a vote of 168 to 55, with six abstentions, the bishops went forward with plans for a report on the meaning of the Eucharist in the church. The vote is part of a longer process, and a rebuke of Biden and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights is not assured. The report will be developed over the summer and presented for amendments and approval in November.

I’ve been avoiding an instant opinion on this matter, opting to see how things turned out, not to mention suffering from a lack of time. So far as I can tell, this is really about worldly power.

After all, holding power is, for most power-seekers, controlling the behavior of people, and this is all about control of an American President, as well as the American people – 50% of whom believe we are better off with liberal abortion rights rather than restrictions.

To excuse the bishops for reason of religion, then, is an intellectual error. While Stephen Jay Gould may have advanced a magisterial realms theory to keep religion separate from the worldly in theory, it was doomed from the start because religion is quite often the horse on which the power-seeker rides, the solar chariot from which fire is loosed on their foes. In simple and historical reality, the other-worldly seeks dominion over the worldly.

For those readers who wonder, the bishops seem to have backed down:

Days after a vote that triggered a tsunami of Catholic debate about Communion and politics, leading U.S. Catholic bishops working on an upcoming document about the sacrament are now de-emphasizing direct confrontation with President Biden or other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. …

“There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians. The intent is to present a clear understanding of the Church’s teachings to bring heightened awareness among the faithful of how the Eucharist can transform our lives and bring us closer to our creator and the life he wants for us,” the Q&A said. [WaPo]

At least until the next bulgy eyed moment.

Erick Erickson is worried that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is falling apart:

A number of friends of mine have crossed a line that I think they should not have crossed and I am extremely disappointed. Given that their actions are causing public news, I should write about it publicly so they can subtweet me.

Their guy lost the Southern Baptist Convention presidency. Instead of acting with grace in a church setting, they’ve acted now with partisanship as if the winners and losers are political figures to be slimed in a never ending campaign. The perpetual campaign in a church setting is staggeringly gross. That they are doing it with half-truths and distortions makes it worse. That they have not one ounce of humility left to consider the sins of their own actions makes it damnable.

On top of it all, Ed Litton, the winner, is to my left and I’d have voted for the other guy were I Baptist. But what they are doing to Litton, who is a good man even as we might disagree on things, is beyond the pale.

I have two reactions. First, why is he surprised? The evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, twice, for President. Perhaps the first time there was an excuse, but four years later the mendacious nature and inferior character of the candidate was quite obvious.

That they approved of that candidate, even under the guise of the Cyrus excuse, should have been a big, red flag that they approve of his behavior and morals. When they then act like the former President in their religious politics, there’s no surprise, at least for me. The SBC may shatter into a thousand pieces because of the intemperate embrace of the former President, and even now they seem to be squeezing that much harder. Thus, they become more and more easily dismissed as kooks and fools. The SBC may be cracking up.

The second point is this: Erickson’s entire final quoted paragraph embodies a very important lost point of American civilization: tolerance. He wouldn’t have voted for Litton, but he wouldn’t treat him that way. Down that path lies the salvation of American civilization: the recognition that deviation of opinion does not constitute an irredeemable rift between people. Infallibility is not a property that anyone, progressive or conservative or far-right extremists like those taking over the SBC and GOP, possess, and those who pretend otherwise are the enemies of American civilization.

I don’t think Erickson, who has equated abortion to baby-killing, would recognize that as an important point, but I think it’s pivotal, foundational.