Unsightly Mental Blemishes

I’d been surprised at the vehemence of Representative Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) probable opponent in the 2020 elections, Daniella Stella, who is reported to have lost her Twitter account permanently due to this:

Twitter permanently banned Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Republican opponent on Friday after she accused the Minnesota congresswoman of treason and wrote on the platform that Omar should be hanged.

Danielle Stella, a candidate hoping to challenge Omar for her Minnesota seat in the 2020 election, tweeted earlier this week, “If it is proven @IlhanMN passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged.”

The post that followed included a crude drawing of a body hanging from gallows with a link to a right-wing website on her belief that Omar should be hanged if a conspiracy that Omar provided sensitive intelligence to Qatar and Iran were true. [NBC News]

And then she’s all sweetness and light and reasonable when she gets bounced:

“Breathe, think this through, logically. To clarify, I said, ‘If it is proven ____ passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged,’ Stella wrote on Facebook, leaving a blank space where Omar’s Twitter handle had been. “Treason is the only thing mentioned in the constitution for the death penalty, punishable by hanging or firing squad. I believe all involved should be thoroughly investigated. I did not threaten anyone.”

Mmmmmmm. Never mind the picture of the gallows, eh? Still, unless she was really taking a deep drag of the conspiracy toke, it didn’t entirely make sense.

Then I decided to read Lawfare’s take on the strategy behind the writing of the Schiff report, aka the House Intel’s report on its investigation of Trump for the purposes of impeachment. This is important:

It might seem strange that the Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee wouldn’t take the opportunity to definitively rebut all these conspiracy theories. But doing so is a complicated proposition. One of [the two authors of this article,  Jurecic and Schulz] has written about the “cycle of distraction” created by House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member (then Chairman) Devin Nunes’s efforts to raise questions over alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process in the context of the Russia investigation. What was true then is true now: Nunes and his colleagues’ arguments are more about generating distrust and confusion than they are about exonerating the president or proving wrongdoing by his enemies. Focusing on debunking a specific claim risks playing into this dynamic by giving the falsehood additional attention that prolongs its lifespan in the news cycle.

What’s more, a debunking can also add to the confusion it seeks to clear: In order to explain why the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory is false, one needs to explain CrowdStrike, the Russian (not Ukrainian) national origin of the company’s co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch. One also needs to explain the nature of a physical versus a cloud-based server. And by the end of this process, the conversation has moved far from the core story about the president’s abuses of power in Ukraine. For House Democrats, there’s a risk that the long-winded explanation necessary to debunk the nonsense could lead members of the public to tune out impeachment because it’s “too complicated.”

There are other risks, too. Research suggests that the more a claim is repeated, the more likely people are to believe it, even in the context of a debunking.

Which brings it all together: Republican Stella, whether on her own initiative or on orders from on high, is just injecting a meme into the media ocean while playing li’l miss innocent.

It’s not exactly an honorable approach to campaigning, and the fact that Omar’s seat is considered quite safe should be an inducement for Stella to be more circumspect, not less – although during the Republican primary for the Jeff Sessions’ Senatorial seats one of the eventually failed Republican candidates, Rep Mo Brooks, was accused of being a Pelosi ally and a supporter of the Islamic State.

Restrained in their rhetoric, they are not.

My inclination, if I was on Twitter, would be to take Stella’s Tweet, change all the occurrences of Omar to Stella, and repost it. If she squawks, ask her why her ass is burning when she proclaimed such innocence before.

And then maybe extend it to other far-right GOPers. Just for giggles.

Or at least everyone should have known. In The New York Times Magazine is former InfoWars staffer Josh Owens:

[InfoWars host Alex] Jones told us to file a story that accused the police of harassment, lending credence to the theory that this community contained dangerous, potential terrorists. I knew this wasn’t the case according to the information we had. We all did. Days before, we spoke to the sheriff and the mayor of Deposit, N.Y., a nearby municipality. They both told us the people in Islamberg were kind, generous neighbors who welcomed the surrounding community into their homes, even celebrating holidays together.

The information did not meet our expectations, so we made it up, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears of Jones’s audience. We ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context to fit our narrative, posting headlines like:

Drone Investigates Islamic Training Center

Shariah Law Zones Confirmed in America

Infowars Reporters Stalked by Terrorism Task Force

Report: Obama’s Terror Cells in the U.S.

The Rumors Are True: Shariah Law Is Here!

It’s an fascinating article, and it’s also interesting in that Jones’ lawyer, in a divorce proceeding battle over kids, claimed the Jones persona and information site was nothing more than “entertainment.” Owens article puts a real dent in that assertion; it also suggests InfoWars is an early pioneer in the dubious, but pervasive, weaponizing of information in the digital age. For us old-timers, that would be propaganda, a practice best advanced by the Soviet Union and its successor, Russia.

If you were an audience for Jones and his InfoWars and took it at all seriously, well, welcome to the club, for I daresay that all of us, consumers and producers, have occasionally swallowed weaponized information – lies, half-lies, removal of context, other manipulations, etc – without realizing it. Some information sources try to catch, correct, and notify their audience of the mistakes made. Mainline media is best known for this. Others, like InfoWars, don’t consider standard journalistic practices, seeing this as all about making an ideological case, regardless of reality – or just making money.

How do your sources stack up?

 Snottites:

Fewer studies have investigated microbial communities growing on the walls of sulfidic caves. Among these, most of the studies investigated the geomicrobiology of snottites, which are extremely acidic biofilms clinging to overhanging gypsum cave walls or ceilings. [“Geomicrobiology of a seawater-influenced active sulfuric acid cave,” Ilenia M. D’Angeli and Daniele Ghezzi, PLoS One]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

On the day I join them, [Heidi] Aronson’s mission is to collect clear, teardrop-shaped secretions that hang from the walls and ceilings of the cave. Geologists call these snottites, and their resemblance to the dripping tip of a runny nose is uncanny. Because the snottites are full of bacteria and extremely acidic, Aronson hopes they will contain the sulphur producers.

Yep, that’s four WotD entries from one magazine article.

If you believe, as I do, that what roils America’s closest ally, Great Britain, should be of interest to Americans, then you may want to scope out Andrew Sullivan’s latest in his Intelligencer column. He dispenses with his usual tripartite diary entry to write an in-depth investigation into Britain’s current Prime Minister and one of Sullivan’s successors as President of the Oxford Union, the eponymous university’s legendary debating society, Boris Johnson, and it’s quite an interesting piece. At this point, he’s discussing the most recent polling as Britain approaches a new election, as Johnson promises Brexit will occur after the election:

So far, the gamble appears to be paying off. A huge poll of over 100,000 Brits by YouGov last month, using the same methods that had rightly predicted a hung Parliament in 2017, showed a possible Tory majority of 68 seats. In the poll, the Tories held on to their traditional base in the South but made striking gains in the North, turning long-held Labour seats into Tory ones overnight. It is the same dynamic that saw the Democrats lose the Rust Belt swing states in 2016. The poll shows Labour at 32 percent with the Lib Dems at 14, while the Tories have 43 percent support and the Brexit Party has collapsed to 3 percent. Boris’s strategy destroyed both the former U.K.
Independence Party and then the Brexit Party — the two parties of the far right. Divide and conquer was how Thatcher won three times in a row in parliamentary seats despite never having majority support in the country as a whole. If Boris wins, it will be by the same strategy.

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is the current leader of the Labour Party, the rival of Johnson’s Conservative Party. His positions include nationalizing various industries; Sullivan has previously reported that anti-Semitic rumors have followed Corbyn around. To my eye, he appears to be a firm believer in returning to a Golden Age which was only golden for those in charge. If he leads Labour into an abyss of public disapproval, he may be out on his ass.

Sullivan’s outlook on Johnson has certainly picked up over the last few months, going from “second-class mind” to a grudging admiration, but then Sullivan’s often able to see both sides of a coin at once – a capability only rarely seen in ideologues and even pundits.

But I remain concerned that this may weaken Europe as a whole with regards to Russian ambitions. Brexit may be necessary for the Brits to assess where they want to be in regards to their big neighbor across the Channel – in a few years, we may see a re-entry on terms deeply informed by their first wedding to, and divorce from, Europe. But how far will Russian ambitions advance in the meantime, especially with a Russia-friendly Trump still in the Oval Office?

Just about a year ago I ranted about a cashless food court at our local, and, might I irrelevantly add, quite vibrant mall. Well, I win.

There’s a sign at the entrance prominently noting they accept cash now – I should have grabbed a pic. They also changed their name to the far more Minnesota-nice-like Potluck, and – I think – now use independent vendors, rather than a single vendor operating multiple counters. Here’s an article on what was planned at the time they temporarily closed; on our walk-through yesterday we saw a Grand Ol’ Creamery counter (presumably associated with the eponymous store on Grand Ave in St. Paul), and counters selling specialty hummus, Nordic waffles, burgers, lobster, and a bar. And some place that slips my mind.

Arts Editor: Beautiful pen & ink work.

Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird (2013) is a documentary look into the origins, outlook, and production of the famed and recently passed cartoonist. If you’re a cartoonist or a fan, it’s certainly interesting, as Wilson comes off like several friends of my own: a gentleman with a distinctive and, in some ways, child-like take on life around him. He takes a moment to explain where some of his ideas come from: how adults look to children.

We are also shown how a cartoonist gets published, including a cattle-call (not their terminology) at The New Yorker (I think – my apologies if my memory slipped), the weekly cartoonist’s lunch, and that sort of thing.

And the fan interviews are fun as well, from his publishers at Playboy and other magazines, to a very young Stephen Colbert, to composer/performer Randy Newman, to Wilson’s various colleagues, as they let the audience in on the reactions of allied professionals to the man’s work. I was disappointed that Gary Larson didn’t show up, but perhaps he’s not a fan. The connection between Larson and Wilson in terms of shared themes and outlook appears to be obvious.

If Wilson and his work interest you, and you haven’t seen this, scurry right out and see this. I’m not a particular fan, but, post-viewing, some nascent urges to put together a cartoon series from years ago came surging back up.

I’m busy stamping them to death. Again.

What happens when water, dish soap, and dry ice are mixed together:

My Arts Editor was far too amused.

Subject line of email:

Let [name blurred out] know you are thinking of him on his birthday today!

Yeah, people thinking of me can leave me a little worried.

Or even better, as it appears in my gmail account:

Let [name blurred out] know you are thinking

Like a lead-in to a horror movie. Not a good horror movie, maybe, but still…

This made me laugh. Yes, it’s quite old.

Now I’m visualizing Arnie in Sleeper makeup.

Horses reigned supreme among Stone Age artists

Title of an article found in the print version of NewScientist (23 November 2019). I eagerly await my Arts Editor’s rendering of the concept of a horse with opposable thumbs. This isn’t it:

Source: www.bradshawfoundation.com via the Rock Art Blog, Peter Faris.

When the article hit the NewScientist website, it had been retitled, which they often do:

Stone Age artists were obsessed with horses and we don’t know why

Which isn’t nearly as much fun. I think.

biovermiculation:

A biovermiculation, frequently called bioverm,is a microbial community exhibiting a patterned growth within an extreme environment. Bioverms are of interest in overlapping natural-science disciplines such as geomicrobiology, speleology and astrobiology. [Quotes & Notes]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

The [cavern] adjoins a grey-black pool of water and the walls are covered with slimy, worm-like patterns called biovermiculations, created by slow-growing microbes.

Remembering the Wizard of Oz, where the Cowardly Lion flew into a windmill and was shredded by a chicken. He tasted so good!

We saw a TV version of Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973) the other night, and maybe they cut out the parts that would have made me sit up and take notice, but honestly it felt like nothing more than a framework for Allen to tell some dated jokes, make fun of some of the personalities of the day, and not really say much at all about the human condition.

Unless it has to do with sex and the inclination to take the fun out of life, then perhaps.

The eponymous character, Miles Monroe, was cryogenically preserved in 1970 after a simple operation goes tragically wrong, and is awakened hundreds of years in the future as a possible aid in the battle against the authoritarian government which substitutes hedonism for freedom. Monroe escapes when the safe house is raided by those government forces, more or less due to the farcical incompetency of the police forces, and from here he’s on a whirlwind tour of society as he masquerades as a robot, discovering veganism is no longer in vogue, sex happens via machine, and, well, it just sort of goes on and on.

It was only mildly interesting, but maybe it’ll appeal more to you.

As a software engineer, I occasionally get the uncomfortable task of investigating and remedying a corner case: a scenario unforeseen by the original designers, not easily remediable with a simple bug fix, sometimes requiring a complete redesign, sometimes fixable with a disreputable hack. Usually, it means the problem was not completely analyzed.

So I was fascinated by this WaPo article on the legal question of whether an American civil officer, moments before conviction occurs, can actually resign and evade all punishemtn, and the allied question: can a former American “civil officer,” such as the President, can be impeached?

Oh, what fun^[1]! They queried a collection of legal scholars and received a real mix of responses, from NO NO NO! to ummmm, yeah, maybe. Gotta love it. And while it seems a little mad to consider this possibility, I have to admit to being outraged at the Marc Rich pardon by Clinton; Bill himself later admitted to being mistaken. He really needed his hand slapped for that blunder.

Putting aside the insipidly foolish rants of Rep Gaetz^[2], we should expand our intellectual horizons and go a little further with this. My new concept is pre-impeachment. Analogous to the Gaetz suggestion, I suggest we also recognize the possibility that before someone attains status as a civil officer^[3], Congress should be able to preempt the campaigns of truly hated or feared rivals before they can even get started.

Recognize someone as a threat to the Nation? Or at least one helluva lot smarter than you? Then pre-impeach them! I detect a thriving new legal specialty in the making!

Or, we can just ignore Gaetz and the whole idea, and instead fix the Constitution. I suggest the following Amendment:

Upon the institution of the proceedings of Impeachment, the civil officer who is subject of the proceedings is deprived of the right of resignation; they may step away from their responsibilities, turning them over to the duly considered successor, at their option; but for purposes of punishment if a conviction is obtained, a resignation by the civil officer is not permitted.

See? Problem solved.

Quite honestly, pre- and post- impeachment seem quite Roman, and not in a good way.

¹ No, really, I’m not kidding. Exploring the weird outer reaches of a designed system teaches us more about the essential stability and correctness of a design than does the everyday boring stuff. Even if the latter is more important.

² He who suggests that President Obama should be impeached shouldn’t be throwing stones at glass figurines when your favored leader happens to a bloated, cannibalistic, unmoving toad who appears to more than deserve it. Reminding everyone that they can still impeach Trump even if he resigns is … really dumb.

³ A civil officer appears to be President, VP, but not a Senator, according to the Free Dictionary’s legal section on civil officers.

From a parking lot:

… and Stacey Newman is pointing and shouting:

Top Missouri GOP strategist Gregg Keller tweeted last month that he and former Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones “will not stop until Missouri is literally the Handmaids Tale.” Yes, that was a positive reference to the fictional series where women are enslaved, ceremonially raped and treated as breeding vessels. In real life, the GOP is attempting to reduce women to faceless handmaids without bodily autonomy.

[Missouri state health director Randall] Williams and the entire GOP entourage seem to have gone mad. [Kansas City Star]

And, as Newman points out, this is in the wake of …

In short order, Williams mandated that abortion patients have two medically unnecessary vaginal exams. A national public outcry, led by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, erupted. Abortion providers stopped performing the invasive exams, citing their oath to do no harm. Then Williams walked back his order to insist on one single vaginal exam, still cruel and invasive.

So a bunch of gibbering right wing freaks^[1] have climbed to the top of the Missouri GOP pyramid and are indulging in some mad fantasies. Welcome to the error of team politics, but fortunately that is a stricture which the GOP member may, as they mature from cultist to responsible member of the electorate, cast off at a time of their choosing.

That’s what Newman’s calling for, for the women of her party to quit following along in the steps of whoever’s on top, to evaluate, shake their heads, and say NO! Will this bit of bizarre ugliness awaken them? I hope so. Newman is doing the necessary work of revealing the freaks for what they are, and it’s up to the voters of Missouri to recognize that the madness must end at some point.

¹ I hasten to add that there are certain left-wingers engendering a similar response on my part, but it’s the GOP which has control of most of the State legislatures, and also seems to have the lead in spewing misogynistic, well, gibberish.

Abseil:

British
the practice of descending a steep slope by a rope secured from above and coiled around one’s body
The first time I went abseiling it was a weird feeling. [Collins Dictionary]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

Thanks to the rope-rigging skills of two Italian cavers, we abseil down, slippery with mud, into a long cavern.

In the era of digital communications, pointing at a pile of dusty law books when it comes to the law really isn’t enough, so when Georgia put its law books behind a paywall, that caused a bit of an uproar as non-profit Public.Resource.Org (PRO) paid to fetch it from LexisNexis, a for-profit company, and re-published it for free and without seeking permission to do so.

Georgia screamed foul and won the initial skirmish, but PRO won the appeal. Now it’s at SCOTUS, argued yesterday. Ars Technica picks up on the story:

You might think that PRO could just publish the un-annotated version of Georgia’s code. The problem, as PRO’s Supreme Court brief pointed out, is that Georgia doesn’t publish an un-annotated version. The annotated version is the only official version.

An obvious solution would be for Georgia and LexisNexis to separate the two works. Georgia could publish an official, un-annotated version of the state code that would be in the public domain. LexisNexis could independently produce and publish an annotated guide to the state code, keep the copyright, and charge customers for it. Indeed, Westlaw produces its own copyrighted annotation of the Georgia state code.

But the state of Georgia argues that the intermingling of statute and annotations is necessary to finance the creation of the annotations in the first place. LexisNexis covers the costs of producing the annotated code, then it recoups its investments by charging for copies of it. If the Supreme Court holds that the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is in the public domain, this business model wouldn’t work any more.

But intermingling copyrighted and public domain works creates headaches for third parties wanting to make use of the code.

Georgia’s position is that only the legally binding portions of the state code are public domain. But legal documents almost always contain a mix of binding and non-binding elements. If the Supreme Court buys Georgia’s argument, it will create a legal minefield for organizations like PRO, since the line between copyrightable and non-copyrightable content will get fuzzier. Anyone wanting to republish an official legal document will have to hire legal experts to go through the documents with a fine-tooth comb trying to determine which portions of the documents are in the public domain and which ones might not be.

PRO argues that the court should sidestep this whole thicket by declaring that state-published legal documents are always in the public domain, whether or not they’re legally binding.

The biggest obstacle to victory for PRO is a pair of 19th-century precedents that opened the door to copyright protections for some legal documents. In an 1834 ruling, the high court allowed a court reporter—a court employee who compiled judicial opinions and added his own annotations—to retain copyright protections for his contributions. The Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in an 1888 case.

The real hinge on this case, to my mind? The Georgia defense:

But the state of Georgia argues that the intermingling of statute and annotations is necessary to finance the creation of the annotations in the first place.

That’s a load of rot. That’s someone saying, Oh, no, in order to provide acceptable services, we’ll have to raise taxes! Wait, I have a better idea …

And now the citizens end up paying for it anyways, but in an unequal manner. Hell, I wonder if the State itself ends up paying for access to its own laws … !

This is what comes from an allergy to paying, upfront, for what the State needs to provide to its citizens, just because of an unhealthy fear of taxation.

It seems to me that, in order to accommodate the reasonable expectations of copyrights on the annotations, SCOTUS should order Georgia to quit being a pack of cheap bastards and publish the laws, sans annotations, for free on a website, and as a book at perhaps a nominal charge. In this case, keeping taxes low is nothing more than a political position, not a principled stand.

Primarily I like the visual contrast between the music and the costumes.

But honestly, I’m not much into the music. Repetitive, needs more creativity.

(From a friend’s FB posting.)

comproportionation:

A reaction in which an element in a higher oxidation state reacts with the same element in a lower oxidation state to give the element in an intermediate oxidation state. For example Ag²⁺(aq)+Ag(s) → 2Ag⁺(aq) It is the reverse of disproportionation.

Ag²⁺(aq)+Ag(s) → 2Ag⁺(aq)
[Oxford Reference]

Noted in “Why the hunt for alien life is under way far beneath Earth’s surface,” Donna Lu, NewScientist (16 November 2019, paywall):

Just as photosynthesis in effect reverses the chemistry of aerobic respiration, does anything make a living by turning hydrogen sulphide and sulphate back into pure sulphur? No such organisms, known as sulphur comproportionators, have ever been found. But in theory, at least, the answer is yes. “It’s likely that in 3 billion plus years of evolution and the right pressures, some species have developed the ability to do this,” says [Pennsylvania State University astrobiologist Jennifer] Macalady.

I’ve been listening, off and on, to the Judiciary Committee testimony today. It features four professors, three brought in by the Democrats and one by the Republicans, George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley. Skipping the whining from the Republicans, I couldn’t help but notice that Professor Turley raised two objections to the impeachment process so far, neither of which I found credible.

First, he says this is the fastest impeachment process on record. Unfortunately for him, some processes move slowly and some move quickly, like most such things, and one has to be the fastest. Without a credible reason for not moving quickly, the movement should be at the discretion of those who believe impeachment is appropriate. That it be quick is preferable because, if you believe impeachment is called for, in most cases, and certainly in this case, you also believe the President is doing continual and lasting damage to the country. I have no insight into the Professor’s mind, but it sounds like he sees this as a standard criminal proceeding in which the alleged criminal is now in custody and no longer engaged in the alleged criminal activity. That is not true in this case.

Second, he spent some time elaborating on the dangers of removing a President who is seen as incompetent only by one Party, which is my phraseology, not his; I suspect he’d prefer “narrow partisan basis“. He felt that if this was a go-forward basis for impeachment, then we’re headed for chaos when the President is a Democrat, as the Republicans will raise impeachment charges when they can. But this suffers from a fatal flaw: the voters hold the final power. If they perceive the impeachment was nothing more than a political lynching, then those who are not Party cultists will dump the party who perpetrated such an action on their heads.

The Republicans have been an extremist organization for more than the last three years, yet did they impeach and convict President Obama? They didn’t even try. Why? Because the independent voter who holds the balance of power in their collective hands would have seen it as nothing more than dirty politics, found those involved to be unworthy of their seats, and voted en masse against them. No doubt the Republicans realized that.

So I’m not taking Professor Turley too seriously. His objections and complaints are too easy to rebut in my mind.

Back in August, I suggested in a footnote in a post that something called Precision Messaging, involving the tailoring of political messages to recipients, should be outlawed:

Keeping up with Republican Representatives of dubious ethics, Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has changed his plea from not guilty to guilty in the matter of misuse of campaign funds, joining former Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) in the club of admitted felons. The San Diego Union-Tribune has the story:

After years of denials and claims he was the target of a political witch hunt, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday morning to plead guilty in a sweeping campaign finance investigation.

The announcement was posted on the U.S. District Court docket Monday morning, then KUSI aired an interview with Hunter in which he said he will plead guilty to one of the 60 criminal charges against him. He suggested that he is likely to spend time in custody.

“The plea I accepted is misuse of my own campaign funds, of which I pled guilty to only one count,” Hunter told the station. “I think it’s important that people know that I did make mistakes. I did not properly monitor or account for my campaign money. I justify my plea with the understanding that I am responsible for my own campaign and my own campaign money.”

And he suggests he’ll be resigning or not running for re-election. It’s important to note that the other 59 charges to which he didn’t plead guilty don’t become automatically moot, although he may have plea-bargained them away. The article goes on to chronicle his various alleged misdeeds, including extra-marital affairs funded with campaign funds.

It’d be interesting to see him run again, just to see if his constituents would continue to vote for him. He’s from a political family, so maybe they would. They have low standards, if true.

Wrapping up, the original three Representatives were the aforementioned Collins and Hunter, who ended up pleading guilty, and Rep Rod Blum (R-IA), who admitted to nothing but ignorance in a House Ethics investigation, and claimed he was the victim of a “crusade” by the left. Victimhood didn’t work for him as he lost his re-election bid in 2018, suggesting his constituents were fed up with him. He lost to Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) by 4 points; in his 2016 race he won by 8 points, suggesting a 12 point swing in support, fairly large for conservative Iowa.

So all three are, or will be soon, out of elective office.

The FBI is finally getting around to telling us:

Today: building a digital defense with your TV.

Yes, I said your TV. Specifically your smart TV…the one that is sitting in your living room right now. Or, the one that you plan to buy on super sale on Black Friday.

Smart TVs are called that because they connect to the Internet. They allow you to use popular streaming services and apps. Many also have microphones for those of us who are too lazy to actually to pick up the remote. Just shout at your set that you want to change the channel or turn up the volume and you are good to go.

A number of the newer TV’s also have built-in cameras. In some cases, the cameras are used for facial recognition so the TV knows who is watching and can suggest programming appropriately. There are also devices coming to market that allow you to video chat with grandma in 42” glory.

Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router.

Hackers can also take control of your unsecured TV. At the low end of the risk spectrum, they can change channels, play with the volume, and show your kids inappropriate videos. In a worst-case scenario, they can turn on your bedroom TV’s camera and microphone and silently cyberstalk you. [FBI/Portland]

We’ve been looking at getting an LG OLED television, but have been put off by the price, which we expect to come down, and the fact that it now has a microphone so that Alexa, the personal assistant from Amazon, can listen in on you.

And I’m feeling fairly sure that snipping the wires from the microphone to the main processor would be a messy, warranty-voiding task.

So, unless LG acknowledges that some folks just don’t want Alexa, an OLED TV from LG may not be in our future, despite its superior (last I checked) energy consumption and display characteristics. Trading our security for additional features which, frankly, we’re not interested in just isn’t a favorable trade.

In general, a microphone and speakers are a communications medium, not only for you to use, but sometimes even computers. Yep, I’ve read about it: Years ago, a computer that was completely off the Internet was nevertheless hacked by someone – and the owner of the computer believes it was via the microphone in the victim and the speakers of a computer in the same room that was connected to the Internet.

I never heard if he figured out the technical details or not. I mean, the one off the internet had to have a vulnerability already … yeah, easier not to have Alexa and her damn microphone.

Make that one of your rules of digital ruling: if there’s a microphone on some computing device, be suspicious that someone is monitoring you, even if it appears to be off. Even of your phone.

Bromide:

Bromide in literary usage means a phrase, cliché, or platitude that is trite or unoriginal. It can be intended to soothe or placate; it can suggest insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker. When hypostatized and embodied, in which the concept becomes a person, bromide can mean a commonplace or tiresome person, a bore. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Belligerents in the Persian Gulf are trying something new: diplomacy,” David Ignatius, WaPo: