Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Paul Fidalgo of the free-thinkers’ site Center For Inquiry, and a Master of Snark:

Ronald F. Inglehart writes at Foreign Affairs about a huge global decline in religion since 2007. “As unexpected as it may seem, countries that are less religious actually tend to be less corrupt and have lower murder rates than more religious ones.” That is not unexpected.

I’m sure I’d like to rant about this a bit, but I’m too muzzy this morning.

Some people think for themselves, and some people think about themselves – only. Here’s a sadly preventable tragedy, which may still be ongoing:

Only about 65 close family members and friends were on the guest list for a bride and groom’s rustic wedding celebration in a small Maine town in early August.

But the nuptials began an outbreak now traced to more than 175 reported novel coronavirus infections and also to the deaths of seven people, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

The cluster of coronavirus infections that originated from the Big Moose Inn outside Millinocket on Aug. 7 continues to grow in Maine, state health officials said, after guests flouted social distancing and mask guidelines. Now people who have no association with the party have died, including six residents of the Maplecrest Rehabilitation and Living Center in Madison, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said in a news briefing Tuesday. [WaPo]

And the most responsible?

It appears that the RNC back a few weeks ago generated little more than a small bounce for President Trump, as this Gallup poll suggests:

Maybe having your prospective daughter in law scream into a microphone isn’t inspirational after all?

After the big drop off between June and July, Trump has only gained a little bit of approval back. This correlates with FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate polling:

I interpret the slight narrowing as an incumbency effect: folks, particularly those who voted for Trump in 2016, don’t really want to believe in the magnitude of their error. Add in some campaign advertising, and even his recent debacles don’t move the needle. Such is the power of a cult over the minds of its followers.

But this poll for Minnesota from ABC News/WaPo is so shocking that I don’t really believe it:

The image is from the ABC News/WaPo press release.

But, sure, let’s go with it. The state has seen a great deal of chaos over the last 9 months, and much of it associates with President Trump, whether or not that’s a fair assessment. We may be seeing reactions to the latest revelations, such as Woodward’s latest book & tapes, as well as the anonymously sources reports of his disdain for the military.

This could be a move towards a 20 point avalanche for Joe Biden, who I suspect many consider a representative of a more sane era, when serious people ran the government, generally told the truth, and offered civil service leadership. Trump may, indeed, be wasting money in Minnesota, if, in fact, the Trump Campaign ad buys are in earnest.

But it does raise the question of Wisconsin. While our neighbor’s composition is certainly different from Minnesota’s, it’s not all that different – mostly white, with cosmopolitan as well as rural areas. So why are Biden and Trump within – barely – the margin of error? Or is the error “the other way” and Biden is, in reality, up by 8 points?

The anticipation between Election Night and the day the counting process is finished will be a killer, I tell ya!

Scientific American – which I do not read – is offering up some advice:

Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly.

The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating example is his dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives by the middle of September. He has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges. That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment. These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous and more equitable future.

Remember Hurricane Harvey, which poured record amounts of rain on a suburb of Houston because it moved slowly? It appears Hurricane Sally may do the same thing:

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI):

.@realDonaldTrump is the most transparent president in history. pic.twitter.com/NSRohCgh4K

— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) September 15, 2020

And how many Congressional subpoenas has Trump and his cronies ignored and delayed and disputed?

I find it a little jarring to have come up with a thought that I figure hasn’t been discussed much, sit on it for a while, consider incorporating into a story, and then have someone else pop out an entire book on the subject.

Such are the wages of sloth, eh?

As very imperfect as our American system may be, it is at least nominally grounded in the idea of merit: that those who do better, whether they work harder or more cleverly, providing more value than their competitors, end up with greater rewards. My highly informal understanding of history tells me that this system succeeded the prior system of mercantilism, a system in which yesterday’s winners would automatically be tomorrow’s winners in the arena of commerce; people born at the bottom of the heap stayed there, and those born at the top stayed there.

Right up until the folks with the pitchforks and bad tempers showed up.

But something I’ve never seen discussed – until last night, at least – is the down side of meritocracy: the losers of the great economic competition.

Certainly, some folks don’t mind being a little frog in the pond, regardless of size. To some extent, religion can function to ameliorate feelings of inadequacy, particular in mainline sects which emphasize unconditional love from the Divine. Indeed, speaking as an agnostic, this may be one of the more important, if underappreciated, benefits to religion – although, since it’s an evolved rather than designed part of religion, it is also … vulnerable to manipulation.

I ran across this last night reading the latest missive from Andrew Sullivan. He, in turn, is reviewing, or perhaps riffing on, a new book by school teacher, researcher, and former blogger Frederik DeBoer, The Cult of Smart. I don’t have it yet, and I’m all excited to write about it, so I’ll let Sullivan give an introduction, rather than more properly wait around:

There aren’t many books out there these days by revolutionary communists who are into the genetics of intelligence. But then there aren’t many writers like Freddie DeBoer. He’s an insistently quirky thinker who has managed to resist the snark, cynicism and moral preening of so many others in his generation — and write from his often-broken heart. And the core of his new book, “The Cult of Smart,” is a moral case for those with less natural intelligence than others — the ultimate losers in our democratic meritocracy, a system both the mainstream right and left have defended for decades now, and that, DeBoer argues, gives short shrift to far too many.

This isn’t a merely abstract question for him. He has grappled with it directly. As a school teacher he encountered the simple, unavoidable fact that some humans are more academically gifted than others, and there’s nothing much anyone can do about it. He recalls his effort to teach long division to a boy who had managed to come a long way socially (he’d gone from being a hell-raiser to a good student) but who still struggled with something as elemental as long division: “At one point he broke into tears, as he had several times before … I exhaled slowly and felt myself give up, though of course I would never tell him so. I tried to console him, once again, and he said, ‘I just can’t do it.’ And it struck me, with unusual force, that he was right.”

I, very briefly, worked as a GED tutor in a group situation, and one of the adult students really seemed to be innumerate. He had learned some tricks to get by, but doing anything beyond addition and subtraction seemed to leave him completely baffled, at least until he reverted to his tricks. My point?

In a society based on competition, there are inevitably losers. And some won’t accept it.

So let’s do a reset. Let’s review societies, in the abstract.

What is the purpose of societies? Societies, at their most basic, and like most human organizations, exist in order to continue existing. That is, in order to accomplish any higher order goals, they must continue to exist.

Because of this, they must take care of their members. I use the phrase take care of in a rough sense: existential protection from threats both natural and human-based, i.e., aggression; provision of leadership or equivalent coordination service; guides to behaviors in order to secure the society from self-destruction; etc.

Within this web of responsibilities there are many approaches to implementation, such as capitalism, communism, monarchies, etc etc, each based on its own set of principles. In an ideal world – which we’re not – members of societies could and would move between them in accordance to their perceptions of how they meet their needs. By their feet, societies would live and die. Because of the messiness of human nature and the limitations of geography, emigration does not happen to that extent.

And so when American society chooses a meritocracy, and as DeBoer and Sullivan are pointing out, not taking good care of everyone, we can start to see how unfettered capitalism and its companion, meritocracy, besides their fault of often leading to monopolies, also cause American society to falter and fail at one of its most important tasks: taking care of all of those it claims.

Now, Sullivan and, apparently, DeBoer use this to beat up on Sullivan’s current preoccupation, the politically far left approach to reality called critical theory, and is propensity of ignoring genetic realities in favor of a tabula rasa approach to humanity, but that doesn’t interest me here.

What does interest me, without any real facts but just impressions of the third-raters who make up the GOP these days, is how those who have lost out badly in the meritocratic scheme of society are distributed across the political spectrum. I shan’t go into it, but it does seem to call out for someone to look at it: properly embittered, fed false information, told their failures is a scheme by others, rather than their own failings. It’s a fascinating hypothesis, and yet I hope it’s false.

Back to DeBoer and my ad hoc theory of society, it’s an interesting approach to justifying a number of projects currently considered anathema by the conservative side of the country, such as single payer healthcare, UBI, and etc – although the two I mention are not necessarily bugaboos of the entire conservative movement, but of conservative leaders who, for reasons of self-interest or rigid ideology, reject them. The increasing popularity of the ACA, and some comments I’ve seen online concerning UBI from rural Americans, suggest more flexibility in these areas than conservative leaders might care to admit. I mention them to suggest change, given the proper argument and setting such as this provided by DeBoer, may be a lot closer than we think – and more acceptable than might be thought of at one time.

The trick, I think, is not to confuse the primary system chosen by society for the complete ends of society itself. That may be the key intellectual error of American society and its leaders.

I generally don’t pay a lot of attention to The Daily Kos, but I do find their campaign coverage, which includes reports on public polling, interesting, because while the numbers are sometimes their own numbers – through the Civiqs polls – more usually they’re citing other polls, so I feel that I’m getting something from outside of the progressive epistemic bubble, a bubble which is not nearly as water-tight as the right wing bubble, and certainly not as irrational, but is occasionally even more irritating.

But something I see nowhere else is their analysis of campaign ad spending. I may have mentioned this before, but it’s worth noting that they – by whom I mean Kerry Eleveld of the Daily Kos Staff – seem puzzled by the irrational approach that a Trump Campaign Organization, which by all rights should have money coming out of its ears, is spending in these critical weeks:

I quit reading Two Lumps years ago, but my Arts Editor pointed me at this example today, which made me laugh.

Some lovely delicateness.

Some professions love their amateurs. Astronomers, for instance, are dependent on the efforts of amateurs to pick up on new heavenly bodies, for example, and to process images.

Not so much bio-statisticians, though. Here’s a gracious, but I think quite irritated, Jacques Raubenheimer of the University of Sydney, writing at The Conversation about analysis of Covid-19 in real-time:

5. Yes, the data are messy, incomplete and may change

Some social media users get angry when the statistics are adjusted, fuelling conspiracy theories.

But few realise how mammoth, chaotic and complex the task is of tracking statistics on a disease like this.

Countries and even states may count cases and deaths differently. It also takes time to gather the data, meaning retrospective adjustments are made.

We’ll only know the true figures for this pandemic in retrospect. Equally so, early models were not necessarily wrong because the modellers were deceitful, but because they had insufficient data to work from.

Welcome to the world of data management, data cleaning and data modelling, which many armchair statisticians don’t always appreciate. Until now.

It’s short and to the point. I appreciated point #1 a lot, as I’d deduced it but wondered if I had it right:

1. It’s the infection rate that’s scary, not the death rate

Which is not to say the death rate’s not scary, but it’s not a measurement of potential disaster. There are a lot of diseases that have high fatality rates, but because the infection rate is low, even without social mitigation measures, they don’t mean that much. If you catch it, we’re sorry you’re dying, but the rest of society is not at risk.

But epidemiologists worry about those diseases picking up a mutation or three that increases the infection rate.

Add to that the lack of medical resources when it comes to epidemics, and that’s why the medics have permanent scrunches in their brows – putting those two together means the death rate goes up. And, while I knew this in the back of my mind, I appreciate the reminder:

Flu’s R₀ is about 1.3. Although COVID-19 estimates vary, its R₀ sits around a median of 2.8. Because of the way infections grow exponentially (see below), the jump from 1.3 to 2.8 means COVID-19 is vastly more infectious than flu.

It’s a bit like that old brain-teaser about algae doubling every day, or the one about doubling the number of grains of rice on each successive square of a chessboard – it does up much faster than human intuition would guess.

I liked this article – well-organized, succinct, and politely pissed off at the people who only think they know what they’re doing.

Venus, inhospitable with a very slow rotation, heavy cloud cover, and high temperatures, just might be … harboring life:

A team of astronomers announced today (Sept. 14) that it has spotted the chemical fingerprint of phosphine, which scientists have suggested may be tied to life, in the clouds of the second rock from the sun. The finding is no guarantee that life exists on Venus, but researchers say it’s a tantalizing find that emphasizes the need for more missions to the hot, gassy planet next door.

“The interpretation that it’s potentially due to life, I think, is probably not the first thing I would go for,” Victoria Meadows, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the new research, told Space.com.

But it is an intriguing detection, she said, and one that emphasizes how we overlook our neighbor. “We have some explaining to do,” she continued. “This discovery especially is just another reminder of how much more we have yet to learn about Venus.”

The new research builds on the idea that, although the surface of Venus endures broiling temperatures and crushing pressures, conditions are much less harsh high up in the clouds. And scientists have realized that Earth’s own atmosphere is full of tiny life. Suddenly, microbes in the sweet spot of Venus’s atmosphere, where temperatures and pressures mimic those on Earth, don’t seem quite so outlandish. [Space.com]

Native bacteria? Seeded from elsewhere? Will we survive long enough to decisively figure out this mystery?

Venus has long been a mystery.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about the market overall, mostly because I shouldn’t be advising anyone – please don’t take this as advice – and partly because I’ve been mystified by what’s going on – please see digression #1, above.

So what has been going on? Here’s the DJIA over the last six months:

It recently hit a local high, and then took a bit of a plunge, before recovering slightly on Friday.

I tend to see the market as relentlessly forward looking, projecting confidence in the future by inflating prices, and concern about the future by deflating prices. Sometimes stocks “get ahead of themselves,” and we’ll see a drop in the middle of a boom – that’s the nature of the beast.

But it’s important to note that the market, more and more, is controlled not only by investor expectations, but by computer algorithms as well. We can, for fun, split the investors into three groups, based on my scanty knowledge of investment technology these days, but extrapolating from what little I do know and how people use new technologies.

1. Traditional investors, such as myself. We invest for the long term, and computers are used for little more than implementing how stocks are bought, held for a while, and sold, as well as trivial portfolio management. The computers are a necessary convenience, but not an active assistant in shaping investing tactics and strategies.
2. Short-term Investors who use first generation computer algorithms to shape their strategies. These algorithms, which no doubt are being driven into obsolescence, are the result of investors and programmers teaming up to create algorithms that survey market conditions and data about the business world, ranging from numerical results to analysis of news articles, and, making mechanical predictions, execute trades in response. Successful systems include, if I’ve heard rightly, the conservative Mercer family, who made a fortune in this arena.
3. Short-term Investors who use second generation computer algorithms, or ML (machine learning) systems. These systems learn the rhythms of the stock market using advanced ML, again using numerical results and semantic analysis of news articles. The trick is in the ML algorithms, which will typically see patterns missed by human analysts.

Now, I just wrote that down to point out that all three of these groups are in a situation new to them: the Covid-19 pandemic, including the governmental response, followed by the well-known economic downturn.

Now, to my naive mind, any sober adult who’s been following the situation should be well aware that we’re not yet at the terminus of the pandemic. Neither effective vaccines nor treatments have been identified, although they may be in the pipeline. But how are algorithms and ML systems to know and evaluate this information? That is, how can they project and trade in such a way as to leave investors, ummm, happy?

Yeah. The first generation algorithms are not going to do well, as they’re essentially static.

The ML systems will also not do well, because they don’t have a comparable situation to learn from.

For that matter, investors who do not take advantage of the two generations of computer support may also do poorly, because they don’t know how this is all going to work out, either.

I’ve been viewing the market results as driven by short-term traders, mostly via computer algorithms, who do not know how to properly evaluate the markets and the economy. It’s like a long sugar-rush, and I worry what will happen when some of these highly valued companies fail to deliver results promised in their stock prices. I suspect a lot of people will get hurt.

But even more, when these computers semantically analyse these news releases, what the hell are they doing with those from President Trump? The man lies compulsively, but I must confess that I do not know how ML systems deal with information that is almost certainly false – but comes from a source that can almost uniquely move the markets.

I’m left wondering if the markets have been pushed higher simply because the underlying agents simply don’t know how to properly manage information deriving from President Trump.

And that’s scaring me.

A reader reacts to the wildfires on the West Coast, which I publish mostly in the spirit of a PSA:

Or that darn “No, Cali isn’t horribly mismanaging their timber resources, and have been doing it for decades” conspiracy. Which actually hits closer to the truth. I think I may have mentioned the book “The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise” by local author and former UofM professor Dr. Jim Bowyer. A longtime professor of Forestry and Resource management at the U. You should read it. This is a quote from it talking about Cali’s forestry practices and where that’s gotten them:

“One of Knudson’s most intersting revelations focused on California’s timber supplies. He observed that in the mid 1950’s California was self-sufficient in wood, but that by early in the 21st century, driven by aggressive efforts to protect its envioronment, the state imported 80 percent of what it used. At that point, forest harvest levels within the state were less than 30 percent of what they had been a half century earlier. despite the reality that consumption of wood in California was rising steadily and the fact that annual growth in California’s forests was more than double the annual rate of removals and mortality. In 2013, harvest levels remained about the same as in 2002, while net annual growth was estimated to be 4.5 times greater than annual removals. Knudson noted that the dramatic shift, from self sufficient to massive net importer, the result of environmental lawsuits, public opinion, and increasingly strict regulations, had the effect of simply shifting the environmental impacts to Canada. In fact, logging to supply wood for California consumption not only shifted to Canada, but also to other regions. Foreign imports of wood (primarily from Canada) increased by over 40 percent from the mid 1990s through 2008, while imports from other states increased by 90 percent during that period.

As with other environmentally inspired initiatives, there is no record of any discussion in the course of court deliberations, legislative hearings, or development of state agency regulations regarding where wood to supply California’s consumption might come from if not from withing the borders of the state.

Actions to “protect” California’s forests had at least two unintended consequences:

1.) Aggressive curtailment of harvests in California forests contributed to increases in the volume of woody biomass in the state’s forests that had been building up over a number of decades, a process that continues today. Biomass stocks are currently estimated to be far above historic levels, a situation that greatly increases the odds of disease, insect infestation and catastrophic fire events.

2.) Ever intensifying forest practice regulations, especially as a result of rule amendments in the early 1990s resulted in cost increases in developing timper harverst plans of up to 1,000 percent (an average of $30,000 by 200f as compared to $2,500 30 years earlier). Consequently many California timberland owners opted to sell their land for higher returns, frequently resulting in conversion of forested land to housing. In the words of a team of investigators that examined forest trends, “California’s increasingly strickt environmental regulations of forestland are, in many cases, having precisely the opposit effect from which was intended.”

I know a couple of other people with degrees in Forestry and they’ll say the same thing. So do people from the forest service. Unfortunately Cali will probably burn until there’s nothing left to burn anymore. Perhaps at that time they’ll listen to the scientists and not the politicians and implement an intelligent policy. History says that odds are against that though.

And I have no contacts within Forestry, nor expertise, nor time to develop same. Which means I cannot comment from either expertise nor even interested amateur status. That suggests I keep my mouth shut, or try to find another way to comment. The prospects of the latter are slim: an observation that among my pop-sci readings, primarily NewScientist, I have not read a single suggestion of mismanagement of the forests of the West Coast; however, they are a UK-based, not US, publication, so the expectation of reporting in depth on the wildfires is lower.

Yesterday, WaPo published an opinion column on the same idea, which I’m going to cite, not to boost or disparage my reader’s ideas, but to illustrate an unconnected fact on the ground:

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. Kevin Drum notes some real world examples:

Down in the southern hemisphere, where winter flu season started several months ago and is now over, there hasn’t been a winter flu season. Literally. Here’s an excerpt from some charts originally published by the Economist:

That’s pretty remarkable, and it looks the same in other southern hemisphere countries too. Presumably this means that if we get our act together and persuade everyone to wear their damn masks and stay six feet apart, we could have a very light flu season too. That would be a huge win since epidemiologists are universally worried about the possibility of both flu and COVID-19 coinciding later in the year.

Here’s hoping the warning birds have added in the contingency that if everyone wears their masks and social distances, the flu season could be miniscule.

And if people keep going to political rallies sans masks, they can get the flu and do the normal miserable illness thing. And possibly die.

WaPo has a fascinating radar image of the Creek Fire in California:

A three-dimensional radar rendering of the Creek Fire at peak depth. (Neil Lareau/University of Nevada Reno)

More than 3.1 million acres have burned in California this year, part of a record fire season that still has four months to go. A suffocating cloud of smoke has veiled the West Coast for days, extending more than a thousand miles above the Pacific. And the extreme fire behavior that’s been witnessed this year hasn’t just been wild — it’s virtually unprecedented in scope and scale.

Fire tornadoes have spun up by the handful in at least three big wildfires in the past three weeks, based on radar data. Giant clouds of ash and smoke have generated lightning. Multiple fires have gone from a few acres to more than 100,000 acres in size in a day, while advancing as many as 25 miles in a single night. And wildfire plumes have soared up to 10 miles high, above the cruising altitude of commercial jets.

Anthropogenic climate change has been a long running thread on this blog, and I think we’re transitioning from It’s here in a nuanced way to It’s here and slapping us in the face.

From multiple yearly heat records to derechos to melting ice caps to an appalling wildfire season this year, it sure seems like we’re seeing more and more extreme weather events. Even the abnormally warm winters we’re often seeing here in Minnesota qualifies as worrisome weather events, because the result is our micro-climate creeping northwards. I’m wondering how our farmers are going to adapt to the changing conditions, whether or not it’ll be necessary to change crops – or modify our current crops to better tolerate to the warming climate.

And this means we’re on the long, long water slide of rising average temperatures – please excuse the mixed metaphor – no way to claw ourselves back, or so the theories go, the only question is when will we build the communal will to seriously invest in stopping the dangerous emissions.

And, back to today’s news, here’s Professor Neil Lareau’s radar animation:

Looking back at the #CreekFire's big run up to Mammoth Pool: Here is a radar animation of the explosive #pyroCb plume development. This plume was massive, producing multiple pushes above 12 Km. #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/lHK8Sud7jd

— Neil Lareau (@nplareau) September 9, 2020

I admit to being fascinated, I just wish it was over something less horrid.

It just occurred to me: if President Trump, as many suspect, is a compromised President, what happens to him if he loses the election?

Does his status with his masters transform from asset to debt?

And what happens to debts in the international adversary business?

A nice splotch of color.

If you’ve been seeing those eerie orangish photos of those parts of the West Coast impacted by the wildfires, the folks at Spaceweather.com have unexpectedly provided an explanation of which I was unaware:

In the way it responds to smoke, San Francisco is special. The city’s marine layer buffers smoke, holding it high above the ground. Tiny smoke particles scatter blue light before it can reach the city streets, allowing only reds to pass. The result: Mars on Earth. Let’s hope it ends soon.

It’s creepy and horridly beautiful at the same time.

Source: Techeblog

Are you the cute police captain or the cute detective fiction writer?

The Devil Plays (1931) is a whodunit awash in people that look alike and, to some extent, act alike. Someone is poisoned at an overnight dinner party, a detective fiction writer helps the prickly police while politely lusting after one of his fellow suspects, there’s money for a tea room, and, oh, I don’t care. That’s how I felt at the end.

At least it’s not too long. But that’s hardly an excuse for sitting through it.

It’s no surprise that the longer the American public is exposed to President Trump, the more they dislike him – even if his base continues to back him. But I wonder if this remark suggests an unexpected problem for Trump’s campaign:

The person familiar with senior-level Trump campaign discussions said the Democratic assumptions were accurate, and that Republicans expect most of their voters will vote later in the cycle.

“Our people overwhelmingly want to vote in person, while you’re going to see a lot of Democrats vote by mail,” said Mike Reed, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. [WaPo]

In practical terms, this means Biden voters will make their decision early, and hypothetically will not be changing their minds. But Trump voters?

They’ll have more time for more exposure to Trump’s moral decadence, his incoherent pronouncements, and any more – exhausting – scandals. Which means the potential for changing their minds is far greater than it is the other way around.

Look, I know at this point, most everyone should have their minds made up. But there may be migration at the margins, and every voter that either changes to Biden, or West, or decides to sit this one out, makes it a little easier to tell Trump, when he sputters about voting fraud, to shut up and begin his march to the Ninth Circle of Hell.

The one reserved for Treachery. And, judging from ThoughtCo’s page on Dante’s The Divine Comedy, he’ll be heading for round #2, Antenora.

Everyone welcome Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) to the contest!

The President’s right. They’re coming after him because he’s fighting for us.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) September 10, 2020

Ass-kissing, divisiveness, and conservative victimhood in two quick sentences!

The saddest thing about any man is that he be ignorant, and the most exciting thing is that he knows.

Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, King of Wessex from 871 to c. 886 CE and King of the Anglo-Saxons from c. 886 to 899 CE.

Noted in an episode of Tasting History.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had a brief period in which right-wing punditry celebrated Florida’s relatively low Covid-19 infection rate earlier this year. Then, tragically, his state leapt to the top of the infection lists, and his refusal to follow expert advice, and the possibility that numbers were being manipulated, exposed him as another Republican incompetent, despite his Harvard Law School degree.

But he’s not letting that stop him from trying to prop up his political patron, President Trump. Florida is easily one of the most competitive States this cycle, as it is often is, and with the black community an anchor for the Biden campaign, Republicans are frantic to split it. One tactic is the attempt to put rapper Republican Kanye West on the ballot in a number of states. But another is  DeSantis’ nomination of immigrant Jamaican American Judge Renatha Francis to the Florida Supreme Court, which would make her the only black immigrant woman on the Court. There’s only one little problem with his nomination, which is part of the ploy:

The court ruled on Aug. 27 that Francis is not qualified because she has not been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years, a constitutional requirement, and concluded that the governor violated the Constitution by attempting to prospectively appoint someone who was not eligible to hold the job. Francis will not have been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years until Sept. 24 and only then is she eligible to serve on the state’s highest court. He appointed her on May 26. [Miami Herald]

So will DeSantis appoint someone else from the list of judges he’s constrained to select from, a list that mysteriously and improperly had Francis’ name on it?

The high stakes legal battle continued into this week as the court gave the governor until Wednesday to answer why it should not order him to immediately appoint someone who was qualified. The governor had asked the court to reconsider the ruling but the court rejected that request and, in a unanimous ruling late Tuesday, said that the petitioner, state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, could amend her lawsuit to recommend a remedy for the governor to choose another candidate.

Rep Thompson may have saved the State from costly embarrassment. Suppose Francis had been made a Supreme Court Justice, began participating in decisions – and then someone else sued, citing Francis’ ineligibility, when a decision went the wrong way?

What happens to those decisions?

What happens to Judge Francis? Is this a sophisticated attempt to oust her from her current position?

But Thompson, herself Black, has put her fellow Black Democrat community leaders in a bind, because they badly want that seat:

Francis, who is Black, also attended [DeSantis’ tiz-fit], surrounded by Black legislators and local elected officials from Broward County, most of them Democrats. They used the event to urge Thompson, of Windemere, to withdraw the lawsuit.

“Given the current setup of the court’s position, we risk losing the chance to have a Black justice on the Supreme Court,’’ said state Rep. Dotie Joseph, a North Miami Democrat and a lawyer. “Please drop this lawsuit. And instead, direct our energies on bringing forth real reform on things that we can agree on, like criminal justice reform in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.“

No, no, no! I sympathize with their position, but they shouldn’t be advocating for breaking the law. At this point, DeSantis is holding a hammer and these leaders need to decide which finger they least want to keep, because he’s going to crush one of them.

I suggest they stop urging Thompson to withdraw her suit and accept that Judge Francis is not yet qualified for the Florida Supreme Court. In the face of dubious Republican behaviors, having a reputation for being law-abiding is not a bad rep at all. Communicate to the community members the importance of following the law, and to remember, when entering the ballot booth, that it was DeSantis that tried to lure the Black Democrats into committing a crime, and not allow that to split the community.

And then, in 2022, go out and win the gubernatorial election. Elections have consequences, and this is one of them. Stop barking for an illegal position and remember that DeSantis is Trump’s closest political ally, and thus, by Clyburn’s Dictum, no friend to the Black community. And don’t let this carrot, this poisoned apple, this ploy, lure people into voting Trump just because they didn’t get their Judge onto the Supreme Court. It would be only a symbolic victory, and this nation cannot stand another symbolic victory.