Unsightly Mental Blemishes

A reader remarks on the GOP members of Congress in response to Senator Tuberville’s pursuit of the title The Clown of the Senate:

There is no shortage of idiots in Congress. How so many graduated law school and passed the Bar is a mystery.

Indeed. And although the dis-esteemed Tuberville does not have academic achievements beyond being a football coach, Senator Sasse (R-NE) is a former University president. Senator Hawley (R-MO) is a former University professor. Senator Cassidy (R-LA) is an MD.

It leaves me wondering: did these people benefit from ‘legacies’, did they buy their honors, or are the institutions actually in such bad shape that people like Hawley and Rep Gaetz (R-FL) (Florida State U Law School) can get through?

Or is there a disconnect between academic achievement and provincialism? Does the former not erase the latter?

I see Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is unwilling to concede the race for the title of Clown Of The Senate. Here he’s seen trying to present a critique of the Covid-19 relief bill (American Rescue Plan):

why are they like this pic.twitter.com/QGYOQrJX1l

— Elizabeth Pancotti (@ENPancotti) March 3, 2021

Yes, that does say “Thickness of a $1 bill: ...”, followed by a bunch of math.

Because, heaven knows, this is a relevant metric when evaluating a proposed piece of legislation. Especially legislation designed to bring relief to a large proportion of America suffering due to a national emergency.

Of Wisconsin, you ding-bat.

It’s another example of ideology over competency, and how that damages the nation. Do better next time, Wisconsin. Johnson’s beyond help, I fear.

The legendary Bruce Schneier doesn’t see much happiness for the customers of the software industry unless government steps in:

The only way to force companies to provide safety and security features for customers and users is with government intervention. Companies need to pay the true costs of their insecurities, through a combination of laws, regulations, and legal liability. Governments routinely legislate safety — pollution standards, automobile seat belts, lead-free gasoline, food service regulations. We need to do the same with cybersecurity: the federal government should set minimum security standards for software and software development.

In today’s underregulated markets, it’s just too easy for software companies like SolarWinds to save money by skimping on security and to hope for the best. That’s a rational decision in today’s free-market world, and the only way to change that is to change the economic incentives.

Which aligns with my long-held view that software should always have a substantial warranty on it, and that the old “this software is not warranted for any particular use” was a scam and should have been made illegal. If we’re going to run a capitalist economy, then it’s necessary that costs of insecurity flow to the responsible party where possible – and while out ‘n out malefactors are not always found and prosecuted, and often can’t pay the piper, the companies selling insecure software can pay for it.

And, because they want bigger profits, they have a motivation to fix their damn software. No surprise here, right?

The question is how far are we going to have to go to create secure software, because products are delivered on the shoulders of other products: operating systems, compilers, software libraries proprietary and free, and all vulnerable to insecurities. As I’ve mentioned before, we need a software equivalent to Underwriters Laboratories (UL), which tests consumer hardware, such as can openers, for safety issues.

On the other hand, it strikes me that I may be pushing the UL analogy too far. After all, UL works on assuring bad designs don’t make it out into the world, while the software problem involves malevolent outside forces attempting to take advantage of mistakes in software design.

There is a difference, and it may affect how we should approach the problem. For example, perhaps these same companies should be permitted to sue the people taking advantage of software flaws, and, if successful, perhaps attach some percent of their incomes for the rest of their lives.

That might get their attention.

In any case, motivation of those producing the software is the key here. As Schneier points out, there’s currently little motivation for producing secure software; time to market and gimmick gimmick gimmick are the leading lights of the software producers. This has to change.

From last night’s Colbert, it’s John Batiste:

Erick Erickson, who I will refrain from saying is my favorite far-right extremist, has an actually interesting piece on critical theory and its interaction with the “American church,” by which I suspect he means mostly Protestant fundamentalist denominations. I don’t know enough about critical theory to say whether or not his summation is accurate, but it seems congruent with Andrew Sullivan’s frequent observations on it – so that’s a point in its favor.

But I wasn’t going to comment on it until I ran across this little gem:

Critical theory has invaded the church — a post-modern Marxist theory that believes there are oppressors and oppressed and that reality is constructed through language, not objective reality. It is trying to speak into and explain the world and theology to a people who worship absolute, objective truth.

Critical theorists cannot actually, truly understand, interpret, or follow the God of all Creation because that God calls Himself the way, the truth, and life. He is objective reality. Critical theorists will scream about me saying this, but a theory that cannot acknowledge absolute, objective truth is a theory that cannot explain or orbit around Christ.

I fear this is an objective reality for which there’s no objective evidence, at least that I’ve never heard of. In fact, the claim of objective reality has at least a shadow of blasphemy about it, for faith, the keystone of the Christian edifice, is the belief in something for which there’s no dispositive evidence, technically speaking, although I would go further and say there’s very little evidence at all. I generally agree that the existence of the Universe may point to a Divine, but that leaves open the question of the origin of a Divine for which, again, there’s little other evidence.

But my feeling is that Erickson’s also trying to bail out a sinking boat. The conservative movement has been the origin of science denial, of racism, and of the January 6th Insurrection. These are not inconsiderable, and I suspect that certain members must be looking at the results of these positions and incidents and begun wondering about walking away, not only from the movement, but from the evangelical movement.

An idol if I ever saw one.

Because science has that shiny little ornament hanging on it called evidence. Science, as the study of reality, has a lot going for it: objective evidence, self-examination, self-correction, a past and future filled with positives, such as curing the ill, technology, and enabling exploration. And while there’s no denying that many of its practitioners have their distressing flaws, such as racism, misogyny, egotism, fraud, and narcissism, science emerges, time and again, from the shadow of those flawed figures, corrects itself if necessary, and continues onward.

Flinging faith against science is becoming a more and more difficult proposition, as science racks up achievements and victories, while Christian faith has led so many astray of late that the younger generations are failing to sign up for religions, stable or new. So what to do?

Declare your Divine is an objective reality. Never mind it won’t come down to boom its commands, plead its case, or stand by with a sneer on its face. No fingerprints are found. no objectively identified miracles. But it’s a matter of propaganda, truth be told: use the same words as those of that malignant idol, Science, and apply them to the Faith, and hope the faithful never notice.

I wonder how well it works.

Having received and torn into the three-layer packaging for a book today, I am now ready to submit a new phrase to the quantum lexicon:

Quantum Packaging: Packaging so tough that the basic probability function concerning the identity of the book so packaged never collapses.

Unless it meets a Wustof knife.

Certain conservative atheists are all excited about some of the results of CPAC:

For those who shit on my efforts to secularize the right, you can apologize anytime. Also, you're welcome.

How would you like a choice of secular parties to vote for? Coming soon, thanks to AFL. https://t.co/CdWDrpS9QP

— David Silverman (@MrAtheistPants) February 28, 2021

I’ve never heard of Silverman, who apparently is a conservative atheist, but it’s not hard to see how years of hard work – or at least hard wishing – can make it easy to misinterpret the results. People see what they want to see, not what is there. I include myself as an occasional member of that group.

So how is Silverman wrong? This is not a straw poll of the conservatives, the Republicans, or the base.

It’s a straw poll of the attendees of CPAC, and to a poll professional, which I am not, I am quite sure they’d note this is not a random, representative example of anything at all. This is a self-selecting group within the stratified hierarchy of the conservative movement. In fact, it’s probably near the top of the movement.

In fact, a liberal reading of those stats would suggest this: CPAC, being a gathering of conservative/Trumpist leaders, have placed abortion down at the bottom of the straw poll, which reveals them to be deeply out of touch with their base, which remains strongly anti-abortion.

Now, is there any repercussions for telling the truth? How many of the base pay attention to such trivia as straw polls at CPAC? It’s hard to say, actually. The aliens (to sober governance) now infesting CPAC are relatively new to the game, and they may not realize how important it is to posture properly to keep the base happy; indeed, the lack of imposition of anti-abortion laws on the nation may have contributed to the failure of the traditional Republican leadership, who’d been stringing the anti-abortion forces along for decades.

It’s something to keep an eye on.

(For those wondering, I picked up this Tweet and a link for a future post from this Friendly Atheist post by Hemant Mehta. Mehta and his crowd are a bit repetitive and abrasive – like me, come to think of it – but I do appreciate their work on collecting information such as this.)

I’ve been remiss in checking in on Retraction Watch, but was pointed that way by Paul Fidalgo’s blog this afternoon. This is from the abstract of a paper that has gained an Expression of Concern, which Retraction Watch covers here:

Current practices in allopathic medicine measure different types of energy in the human body by using quantum field dynamics involved in nuclear medicine, radiology, and imaging diagnostics.

Red flag #1: Someone mentioning “allopathic medicine,” which means evidence-based or science-based medicine, immediately gets my attention, because it can be considered a denigrative term in some contexts. If evidence must be denigrated, it’s a big signal that someone’s terrified of actually having their work examined.

Once diagnosed, current treatments revert to biochemistry instead of using biophysics therapies to treat the disturbances in subtle energies detected and used for diagnostics. Quantum physics teaches us there is no difference between energy and matter.

Red flag #2: No, quantum physics does not. You bang your nose into matter, and while you may burn your nose on energy, given enough power, you don’t bang it. E=mc² doesn’t make the two equivalent, it merely shows that the two are mutually convertible, with enough struggle. That’s why there’s a c² term.

All systems in the human being, from the atomic to the molecular level, are constantly in motion-creating resonance. This resonance is important to understanding how subtle energy directs and maintains health and wellness in the human being. Energy medicine (EM), whether human touch or device-based, is the use of known subtle energy fields to therapeutically assess and treat energetic imbalances, bringing the body’s systems back to homeostasis (balance).

Red flag #3: Energy Medicine is not something I’ve heard of, and that’s a red flag all on its own. No, it’s not radiology, which may sound like it. If you feel like you’re moderately well-read in the medical field and you run across a broad term like this that you don’t recognize, go look it up and expect it’ll be bullshit. If context suggests it’s a narrow term then it’s far more likely that I’m ignorant of it, but when it’s broad based, ignorance is a less likely hypothesis.

“Christina Ross, PhD, is a Board Certified Polarity Practitioner (BCPP), Registered Polarity Educator (RPE), and Certified Energy Medicine Practitioner (CEMP), who has earned bachelor’s degrees in both psychology and physics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She earned her PhD in Energy Medicine from Akamai University, with a research appointment to the Wake Forest School of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), through the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine (WFCIM).” [E-Wellness Solutions]

Red flags #4-7 come popping right up. I’ve never heard of any of these specialties, and Akamai University, which has no accreditation to speak of, handing out Ph.D.s is about as valuable as a five year old holding forth on -ahem- quantum physics.

Ya gotta wonder about the journal that published it, Global Advances in Health and Medicine. Or maybe just disregard it completely.

There, a healthy laugh at some horseshit masquerading as science.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) continues his quest to be the laughingstock of the Senate:

Teaching children moral values by “putting God and prayer back in school,” … were among the educational priorities Republican Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville cited during his first speech on the Senate floor.  [AL.com]

Of course, the media focus I’ve seen on this assertion, of which he said little more, is on how the Constitution and SCOTUS forbid it. Yes, it would help if Tuberville had a clue as to the nature of our democracy.

But that is not the most important facet of this speech.

Returning prayer to public school was a rallying cry of the right at one time, before it was effectively repulsed. But here’s the thing: a public school is a government institution. Even though they are locally controlled, the Federal Government exercises a degree of control over them.

And, for the conservative reader who thinks Tuberville is enunciating a good thing, here’s a question: Do you really want a government, possibly controlled by your political, or even religious, opponents, dictating the prayers of your children, from time to even – perhaps – content?

Let that sink in for a moment. I’ll wait.

This is why Tuberville’s suggestion is the nightmare of every American, whether they’re atheist, agnostics, or consider themselves deeply religious. That’s why the Establishment Clause is the best thing about the Constitution, again for every brand of American. So long as religion remains a distributed institution, free of government control, it can do what it does best – serve the spiritual needs of its adherents, no matter how silly. But, when its adherents seek political power on religious grounds, then every American who is not part of whatever little sect has gained control of the Department of Education – or maybe the Department of Moral Values – loses control of building their children’s moral character.

And that’s why Tuberville’s statement is such a clownish thing to do. For anyone who takes a moment to think, it becomes clear that this is no one’s preference, except for the power hungry who don’t think – or don’t think others think.

That uncomfortable feeling right before the troll eats you –

The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) is a surprisingly charming story of the Land of Oz, featuring all manner of creatures: intelligent goats, Woozies, Munchkins, and much more of a magical nature. In this tale, we follow the travails of Ojo and Unc Nunkie, a Munchkin and his guardian, who find themselves hungry and resolve to travel to the Emerald City, where there is no hunger. Along the way they meet several odd characters before finding themselves turned into stone; the actual reason for this is obscure, as apparently the film was damaged at this juncture.

Into this terrible event enters the Patchwork Girl, assembled by the wife of the Crooked Magician to his specifications, in order to fetch materials for reversing the accident that has befallen Ojo, Unc Nunkie, and others. Fearless in the face of whimsical Alice In Wonderland like forces, she and an assistant manage to find the fabled ingredients, escape the constrictions of Ozma, and deliver them back to the Crooked Magician.

But just how crooked is he?

A silent effort, the dialog boards are appropriately timed, more or less, and the characters are often quite charming, especially the Woozy. This may not change your life, but it’s fun to see another creation of L. Frank Baum, especially as this is a creation of the author’s own production company.

Perhaps a little confusing, but still a needle under the nail.

Last Fall I covered an observation brought up by health watchers:

Both locally and nationally there have been great concerns expressed about fall, winter, and the flu season that usually accompanies them, as having both flu and Covid-19 would be truly miserable, tough on the hospital facilities, and, incidentally, quite dangerous. But flu is spread through the air, much like coronavirus, and if we’re social distancing, that might put a dent in this season.

And, indeed, the flu season has been minuscule this season, as the AP reports:

February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year.

Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.

Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say.

While there’s also speculation that Covid-19 has physically pushed aside the flu, my suspicion is that we’ve been forced into living a more antiseptic life, and we’re reaping the consequences: fewer bugs to which we’re vulnerable are reaching us.

How that’ll play out next winter depends on how we weigh the benefits of socializing vs the negatives of the flu. But at least this burden on our health system has been alleviated, and is proof of the worth of social distancing and masking.

Or, in other words, We’re just so self-centered and self-important that we’ll blow up the system that gave us power in order to keep power:

A Republican lawmaker wants to allow the Arizona Legislature to overturn the results of a presidential election, even after the count is formally certified by the governor and secretary of state — and even after Congress counts the state’s electors.

The proposal by Rep. Shawnna Bolick of Phoenix contains a series of provisions designed to make it easier for those unhappy with elections to go to court.

Included would be allowing challengers to demand a jury trial and, more to the point, barring a trial judge or an appellate court from throwing out the case, even for lack of evidence, before the jurors get to rule.

That would affect the rules of court procedures that are set up and overseen by the Arizona Supreme Court, on which her husband, Clint Bolick, serves.

But the most sweeping provision would say that, regardless of any other law, the Legislature retains ultimate authority in deciding who the state’s presidential electors are.

And it would spell out that lawmakers, by a simple majority, could revoke the formal certification of the election results and substitute their own decision at any time right up to the day a new president is inaugurated. [tuscon.com]

Perhaps that should be rephrased Voters are just too stupid for words and we’re going to take away their rights if we deem them to make an irresponsible decision!

Yes, King George Queen Shawnna!

I hope – I don’t live in Arizona, nor know anyone currently living there, so I can’t really guess – that local voters will take one look at this proposal to deprive them of their fundamental right to choose their leaders and boost them right out of their seats – not just Bolick, but each and every Republican who votes for or even makes approving noises about this proposed legislation.

And where did this particular idiot grow up, anyway?

Back in 2017, someone came up with an idea for getting rid of the Electoral College without getting rid of the Electoral College:

If you haven’t heard about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, it’s a way to get around the requirement to amend the Constitution in order to abolish the Electoral College. Instead, once the winner of the national popular vote is known, states that are part of this Compact will automatically allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner.

It would appear that alarm is finally stirring in the shrinking Republican ranks:

The North Dakota state senate has passed a bill that would prohibit any state or local official from releasing presidential vote results until after the electoral college has voted, only the percentages of votes received.https://t.co/cGCxtikqiJ

(deleted prev tweet to fix) pic.twitter.com/Fhs6Onl9cC

— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) February 26, 2021

That’s an interesting approach to negating working around the Electoral College. It’s one thing to have a secret ballot, it’s quite another to keep the results secret. Goodness, the paranoid might think there’s a fix going in!

And while I’m not particularly worried about North Dakota, the influence of which on Presidential results, with three electoral votes currently, is minimal, there may be more to worry about with more populous Republican States which may decide to take the same strategy. For example, Texas has thirty eight electoral votes pending last year’s Census results, and if it were to withhold its results, then the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact may come to nothing.

But the blowback could be something fierce. Along with the paranoid, who will have legitimate reason to question the voting results for their State, how will the losing candidates know if they have a reason to file for a recount? If candidates are notified of final vote totals prior to the state-level counting, which generally happens by early December, how can anyone seriously expect results will not be leaked? All it takes is, say, the New York Post waving dollars around and some staffer – say, a Trump aide hungry for money – will anonymously upchuck that information.

And the lack of transparency will infuriate groups on both the left and the right.

I expect this will become law, and then North Dakota will spend a lot of coin defending it in Court. And losing.

I’m the girlfriend not mentioned in this review! Help me!

Jigsaw (1949) is a salutary tale of corruption and crime in the big city. Crusading reporter and columnist Charles Riggs fixates on the apparent suicide of a small-time printer, writing about it and the man’s links to white supremacist literature.

Then Riggs turns up dead.

Riggs was prominent enough that his murder may merit a special investigation. Assistant District Attorney Howard Malloy happened to know Riggs, and is investigating his death when he runs across a banner for The Crusaders, matching one of the effects of Riggs. Investigating, he discovers it is run by The Angel, a man who helps people in need.

If, perhaps, for a price.

That’s how The Angel operates, and right before Malloy’s eyes Angel makes a phone call, suggesting to someone unknown that Malloy might make a fine special prosecutor. But events become tangled when Malloy runs across Barbara Whitfield, singer and mob dolly, who also seeks to compromise Malloy. Then it’s onward to a party hosted by Mrs. Hartley, whose late husband was a judge, leaving her in a social position of some prominence, and now the suspects in Riggs’ murder are coming thick and fast. Can he even keep track of them? Is the fool really a fool?

And, ticking in the background, is the velvet fist that is The Crusaders, the nationalist smile on the bully boys’ face, xenophobia and power-lust rampant. It functions as a reminder that xenophobia is always a lever for forcing people to do what they shouldn’t.

Which makes the unplanned theft of Crusader plans a real problem for someone, and they respond in the only way they know how.

Tightly plotted, Jigsaw suffers from its black and white characters: either they’re good or they’re bad, with no in-between. It would have benefited from Malloy assessing the offerings of corruption, feeling the temptations of a comfortable, mob-supported position. This lack makes Jigsaw, for all that it was well put together, unmemorable, as I, having seen it only a few days ago, had to look it up to remember the plot. It’s the tension between Easy Street and moral imperatives which brings us memorable characters and stories, particularly those which presage societal changes. That lack made it another B-List movie, which is too bad.

But it was a fun way to while away an hour.

This is from an interview with Harvard sstronomy professor and department chair Avi Loeb, in which he advocates for the importance of anomalies:

I remember attending a seminar at Harvard about ‘Oumuamua and a colleague of mine was commenting to me: “This object ‘Oumuamua is so weird, I wish it never existed.” I was appalled by this because it is completely contradictory to the nature of science, where you’re supposed to search for anomalies because that’s the only way in which you make discoveries. If everything conforms with what you thought, if the future is the same as the past, then, frankly, I would retire very early. You don’t learn anything new. [“Avi Loeb interview: Could ‘Oumuamua be alien technology after all?” Leah Crane, NewScientist (13 February 2021)]

The anonymous colleague speaks to the humanity integral to scientists, doesn’t it? They’re not unemotional automatons, but people who are sometimes caught at a vulnerable moment. This colleague may have been building an elegant theory about the limits on the configurations of astronomical objects, and ‘Oumuamua more or less blew it out of the water. Or he may have just been expressing frustration at the unusual characteristics of ‘Oumuamua.

Which is not to dispute the importance of anomalies. They are, of course, of paramount importance; the resolution of same can lead to Nobel Prizes for physical scientists, or at least to the solution of irritating bugs for us software engineers. I suspect all good scientists love a good anomaly, at least on their non-bad days.

In this interview Loeb defended his suggestion that ‘Oumuamua might be an artifact of an alien civilization, based on its novel shape and how its trajectory didn’t precisely follow that projected by standard physics theories. This certainly makes some sense, at least in the absence of a credible theory for the natural formation of objects exhibiting what we seemed to be seeing from scans of ‘Oumuamua.

And, yes, I have fantasies that we’d actually gotten a good, closeup visual on ‘Oumuamua.

Travelator:

You are in a bit of a rush to catch your plane, which is leaving from a remote gate in the terminal. Some stretches of the terminal have moving walkways, or travelators, and others are carpeted. You always walk at the same speed, but travelators obviously boost this. [“#100 Late for the gate,” Rob Eastaway, NewScientist (13 February 2021)]

I’m not talking computer networks, either, but the far more difficult to evaluate biological, or ecological networks. How are they best evaluated? Consider this comment on a fishery:

Sustainability also often fails to take into account wider ecological factors. The langoustine fishery in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, for example, is sustainable, but only because so many other species have been fished to extinction and the langoustines no longer have any natural predators, says [Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver]. [“Is there any type of fish you can actually eat sustainably?” Graham Lawton, NewScientist (13 February 2021, paywall)]

This strikes me as an example of mistaken metrics. Sure, the one fishery is doing great – at the expense of all the rest. Omit that latter information, though, and the advocate for higher fish limits may win his goal, but at the expense of critical intellectual honesty.

Pauly illuminates another problem, this having to do with proxies:

You also have to consider that fishing vessels are more powerful than they once were, says Pauly. “Even though the biomass has declined, they are able to compensate by finding the few fish that remain, and being able to operate where old trawlers would not be able to,” he says. “The fact that our trawlers maintain catches is not an indication that abundance has remained the same.”

In this case, the proxy is the size of the catch indicating the size, or health, of the population. It’s flawed because the operationality of gathering that data has changed. Again, those trying to make a point in an argument that omits this key information are committing a type of intellectual fraud, if they do so deliberately.

My current preference for a measurement of the health of the oceanic network is biomass as it changes over time, along with some sort of measure of diversity, undefined. This, of course, is damn near impossible to measure:

“Many countries do not have research ships to go to sea and monitor the stocks,” says Manuel Barange, director of the FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division. Even when they do, the science is challenging. It requires an estimate of the total biomass of a species within a huge geographical area, and then an assessment of whether that is enough to support the maximum sustainable yield. The margin for error is so large that a stock is considered sustainable even if it is 20 per cent lower than needed for the maximum sustainable yield.

Competition and evolution mean, of course, that fisheries will go up and down and extinct without human interference. These facts make the jobs of ecologist and environmentalist a little more tricky, as the argument cannot be “Oh it’s way down;” the argument must be formulated in terms of long-term human impact of the diminution of a fishery.

Regardless, we rarely eat fish here, with just an occasional visit to the fish ‘n chips joint down the street. As their chips are quite average at best, we have to be in the mood for the battered, deep-fried fish in order to go. I’m fortunate in that I generally don’t like fish at all, so I’m not tempted to indulge; my Arts Editor likes the occasional bit of salmon. Oh, and there’s that dratted fish oil pill that, upon digestion, issues minty-fresh burps. Repulsive.

A flight of fancy:

This has been causing bewilderment. It showed up at the CPAC meeting this weekend, reportedly:

Yep, that’s a statue of former President Trump. Assuming this isn’t a really cool hoax, it’s worth taking a quick moment to understand the elements of this statue.

First, it’s a bit bigger, I think, than life-size, emphasizing Trump’s dominance of the conservative scene these days, and playing to his fantasies concerning superiority. At 6’4″, he’s accustomed to being the biggest guy in the room, especially at his age.

But it does have a goofy grin. I look forward to hearing readers’ commentary on that. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the marketing and charisma chops that some believe he has.

It’s made to look like it’s made of gold. It’s easy enough to write that off as a tribute to his well-known love of wealth, but I think exploring this aspect will add some insight. Readers will recall that Trump grew up in the  prosperity church of Norman Vincent Peale, and that his key constituency is the evangelical community, which contains much or all of the prosperity church community. In prosperity churches, the more wealth you have, the higher your social prestige, so this is just what you think it is: a signal to that community that Trump is so fabulously rich that he might as well be a Saint and sup next to old St. Pete.

Seriously.

Next, we get to what some observers interpret as shorts, but I think is underwear. This flaunting of male sexuality is, according to those studying Christian Nationalism, typical of the specimen, clinging to a sexual stereotype from the 1950s: Him big he-man. Nevermind that he skipped military service, of course. His sexual depravities have only reinforced his position with the Christian Nationalists.

And, finally, those anomalous sandals. Has there ever been a picture of Trump in sandals? Well, I do not have exhaustive knowledge of him and his footwear, but it seems unlikely.

But they do remind me of a movie: The Ten Commandments (1956). This is the archetypcal Hollywood Christian historical blockbuster, and a very good movie – I’ve watched it several times, although not since I started writing movie reviews. And what’s the common footwear in that movie? Sandals. I believe these are a reference to the religious history of Christian Nationalism, no matter how blurry a reference that might be for a prosperity church member to make. It’s a reminder of the tie between Donald Trump and God that has been alleged by the more desperate of the power-hungry.

This is all about reinforcing the bond between Trump and his most fervent admirers, the marks that he’s conned, is conning, and will continue to con for the foreseeable future. It’ll be interesting to hear how much of a legend the statue becomes post-CPAC.

For the LotR geek in me.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on President Trump regarding the January 6th Insurrection:

There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. [The Hill, February 13th]

And yesterday?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he would “absolutely” support former President Donald Trump if he won the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. [NBC News]

Just excess partisan loyalty?

“My point is what happened in the past is not something relevant now. We’re moving forward,” McConnell told Fox News in response to a clip of his scathing speech last month that torched Trump for feeding “lies” to the mob of insurrectionists and “provoked” them to attack the Capitol. [TPM]

It may be amazing, but, keeping in mind that analyzing the past to forecast the future leads to that hated, by Republicans, term expertise, it’s not shocking. McConnell realizes that if he acknowledged that yesterday matters, then he’d be admitting that hobgoblin of people who know how to get things done, and he can’t have that.

Because he, and his ilk, don’t know how. Indeed, they preach that their voters and allies are perfectly OK; by admitting experts who would change things, they would be telling those constituents that change was coming.

And that’s not really acceptable for those old, conservative voters.

Sure, McConnell is also trying to thread a needle of disliking Trump while remaining attractive to the Trump cult, but whether or not he can make it work depends on how Trump treats McConnell.

All in all, it’s too bad. McConnell had initially said the right thing, but now he’s fallen back in the ditch. This transactional way of doing things works OK in the private sector, so long as the transactions are positive, but refusing to learn from history marks people doomed to failure. That’s where McConnell is heading, and I don’t think he can change course.

These Gods are Art Deco. How about your’s?

She (1935) is an early adaptation of the novel of the same name by H. Rider Haggard. She is hundreds of years old, lonely for him. He, Leo Vincey, is a continent or more away, but once told the flame of Life is flickering in the Arctic wastelands, he and his late uncle’s assistant, Professor Holly, are on their way to investigate, or at least to warm their hands – so to speak. Thus begins the adventure, leading through the tundra, introducing us to the Siberian natives before the Soviets took over – and another culture. Soon, her power will draw Vincey, the descendant of her late husband, to her. Or is he -?

The theme of this movie is the folly of grasping after what will burn our fingers. Literally, in fact: the late uncle dies from radiation poisoning. On the adventurers’ way, they run across a wayward Englishman named Tugmore and his adopted adult daughter, Tanya, sheltering from the winter’s cold. Convinced to guide Vincey and Holly into the mountains where an old journal claims the Flame exists by promises of gold, Tugmore’s aggressive but short-sighted pursuit of the yellow metal brings death down upon him, even as he stares at his fortune. In the caves of the savages, Holly nearly loses his life to an obtuse curiosity, his grasping after knowledge, assuming his learned position will protect him from consequences, nearly his undoing. Vincey’s driving ambition and desperate need keep him lurching forward, always open to the new experience. Tanya provides the voice of sanity, which, in this swirl of madness, makes her the leading lady in a drama which will bring her career to an abrupt end.

But, in the end, She herself succumbs to her grasping ways. Seeing a new start in the descendant of her old love, or perhaps a way to prove she isn’t mad, She seeks to overcome his hesitancy and affections for other women by bathing, once again, in the light of Flame of Life, thus proving its virtue and safety.

This doesn’t go so well.

It’s all a bit silly, as everyone’s motivations are unnuanced. We see the scientist driven by, well, science, the adventurer after a fortune, unalloyed autocracy, the faithful high priest. Why can’t Tanya show at least some curiosity about eternal life? Vincey lose his curiosity for a moment? Tugmore consider donating to a fund for cold Siberian natives?

But there’s no time for boredom, on the other hand. If someone’s not in imminent danger of dying, just wait a moment, it’ll come. Throw in some fairly nice sets for the era, excellent cinematography, mediocre audio, and you won’t come away changed by the experience, but you may be entertained.

Brad Heath:

Ex-girlfriends are hands-down the government’s most indispensable crime-fighting technique.

Motivation?