Unsightly Mental Blemishes

We seem to have a problem, Cap’n!

Don’t suck on it too hard, sir!

Invidious:

(of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others.
‘she’d put herself in an invidious position’ [Oxford Dictionaries]

Seen in the recent Federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion regarding the Trump Administration’s “Muslim ban” Executive Order:

Invidious discrimination that is shrouded in layers of legality is no less an insult to our Constitution than naked invidious discrimination. We have matured from the lessons learned by past experiences documented, for example, in Dred Scott and Korematsu. But we again encounter the affront of invidious discrimination—this time layered under the guise of a President’s claim of unfettered congressionally delegated authority to control immigration and his proclamation that national security requires his exercise of that authority to deny entry to a class of aliens defined solely by their nation of origin. Laid bare, this Executive Order is no more than what the President promised before and after his election: naked invidious discrimination against Muslims. Such discrimination contravenes the authority Congress delegated to the President in the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Immigration Act”), 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq., and it is unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.

Politico is reporting that, if Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) decides to retire, Mitt Romney is not going to run to replace him:

On Wednesday the website UtahPolicy floated the likelihood that the 83-year old Utah Republican would retire and Romney would run to replace him. That prompted pushback from the GOP’s most senior senator, who is also in the line of presidential succession.

“I’ve talked to Mitt Romney. He’s not going to run for this seat. I would be glad for him if he would,” Hatch told reporters.

The Democratic presence in Utah is fairly small, as Clinton was walloped, winning only 27.5% of Utah voters (most of the rest went for either of the Republicans in the race, Trump and McMullin). Similarly, all the Senators and Representatives to Congress from Utah are also Republicans.

So is it too bad? His Presidential campaign was not a thing of beauty, as he was caught spouting off embarrassing GOP kant regarding the how welfare recipients will always vote. But I also recall that he was also the successful governor of Massachusetts, and his father the successful governor of Michigan. What does this mean to me? It means there’s a possibility that Mitt, for all his privilege & wealth, may have a clue there’s more to running a government than reading fringe websites and thinking there’s valuable information to be found there, or just apply principles learned in business and away you go.

He may have an idea of how to be responsible & successful at governance.

So, in the absence of a candidate obviously cognizant of the requirements of good government, there has to be some regret that someone who might have a smidgen of an idea of how to govern has decided not to run. And wonder at just which flake the GOP will choose to run to succeed Hatch.

Like most folks (I hope!), I diversify my sources of advice and ideas when it comes to investments. My first source is my financial advisor; my third source is my random readings, where I keep a weather eye out for ideas, whether it’s new science with commercial possibilities or pure commercial news and rumors.

And that second source I so blithely skipped over? The Motley Fool.

I ran into TMF many years ago, back near the start of their site. I stuck around for several reasons (and I apologize for the mix of tenses):

1. They didn’t seem to hype stocks. They certainly had their recommendations & favorites, but they also had criteria, publicly shared and understandable, for holding and folding – and they took it seriously. It seemed – and seems – far more reasonable than other stockpickers who seem to pull predictions out of their asses. Indeed, they built philosophies of investing – and subjected them to actual analyses to evaluate their potential for successful prediction.
2. Unlike most competing agencies, they were – and still are – advocates of the long view of investing. They are buy and hold investors, with time horizons, for the most part, at a minimum of five years, and in some cases far longer. Not that they don’t sometimes point at short-term opportunities, but they approach such opportunities with both practical and philosophical caution.
3. Related to the previous point, they were unreformed contrarians. The wisdom on the street didn’t impress them. Technical investing, based on possibly meaningless patterns in buy and sell orders? They ridiculed it. They preferred to assess fundamentals, both in terms of how the businesses were run, and the markets they were in. They pointed out that while you might get lucky in short-term investing, the brokers you’re using don’t need luck – all they need is you to try your luck, and the brokers make their money on the fees charged for making the trades. Why pay fees for many, many buys & sells when you can buy and hold – and avoid the fees (and taxes on short-term gains is higher than long-term gains)? Issues such as these, where they raised questions about dominant trends and suggested answers that could be considered at leisure, made them quite attractive.

TMF currently has, I believe, a public side to their site, but the value is in the services they offer for sale – Stock Advisor, Hidden Gems, Rule Breakers, etc. These are structured around specific investment strategies, and often their own money is invested next to your’s.

I continue to use them, but over the last few years I’ve had a feeling of creeping disappointment. Why? Changes in how they seem to reach out to the public.

For a long time, I suppose as they built themselves from a two man operation selling their chutzpah at stock recommendations (maybe I was naive to think it was a couple of guys – and some technical support – with a good idea), it really felt like a couple of guys who brought fresh thinking to the question of how to invest in the stock market, looking at each facet of the traditional investment model with skeptical eyes that, like children at a magic show, weren’t distracted by the bright lights, but saw the magician slip the ball into a pocket while staring up at the imaginary ball^[1].

But now?

Honestly, now I apply that same skepticism (and my own home-grown bottle) to their advertising. From a recent mailing for their Motley Fool Explorer service:

You might have heard of Motley Fool Explorer. It’s quickly become one of the fastest-growing services in Motley Fool history for good reason.

The Explorer team conducts boots-on-the-ground research every month to identify the David Gardner stocks they think are poised to profit from the market’s most promising trends.

Fastest-growing meaning what, exactly? Ah, I see.

I should follow the herd. Otherwise, I may lose out.

And that is exactly what the Gardner brothers warned against when they first started out – herds of sheep get sheared, after all.

Another marketing tactic, for which I don’t happen to have a solid example (that mail was deleted) has to do with “seats” – open slots in a service. The new seats are going fast, and once they’re gone, the service will be closed to new members at least until next year. This is the sort of marketing hype meant to instill anxiety in the inexperienced investor. It’s a fight or flight response, meant to hit a reflex and get a profitable response, rather than appeal to the rational mind. That appeal to the rational, DIY approach to investing was the main attraction for them all those years ago. You could analyze their arguments, see their insights, and incorporate their strategies into your own approach. But this … marketing hype? It’s not designed to appeal to the intellect, but to suck in investors who may not be prepared for the situation. Add in such marketing copy as,

That’s because they know David’s track record for calling trends is legendary in this industry. Since 2002, he’s made 140 recommendations that have more than doubled in value… and 21 recommendations that have returned more than 1,000%!

Those kinds of 10x, 25x, and even 50x returns are possible only by spotting the market’s biggest waves.

And it just adds to the fight or flight response by appealing to the reputation of David Gardner. Not his ideas, but his results. And I know the Gardners will give you the documentation proving these claims – I’ve seen many of them happen, such as AOL and Amazon (but too bad for me, I didn’t act on those recommendations). But – it’s a bit of a magician’s trick. There’s no mention of the emotional stability required for this investment strategy, because they are making riskier bets and they sometimes have to stick to a stock like glue before it pays off years later. Nor do we get any feeling for his recent record. Did he get off to a hot start and then tail off? I can’t tell, and while I think he’s still making good calls, I can’t really be sure – and certainly the novice investor won’t even know to ask that subtle question. No, the advertising for these services makes it sound as smooth as silk.

And then there’s the follow-up emails. “Yes, your opportunity closed at midnight last night, but this morning we got a few sad calls from desperate investors who missed the boat, and so here’s one last chance to get a crippled entry into the service! Quick, call us at once!” Now this is just a bit slimy. Other people had regrets – maybe you should, too! Did you see the sheep go walking by?

Yeah, the follow-up emails are really the worst of the lot. Sure, maybe they’re in earnest – but even for a trusting guy like me^[2], the red flags come popping out so hard it makes my head jerk. After all, sending out these final e-mails cost a few pennies, and writing the marketing copy that fills them isn’t going to be more than a $1000. And the emotional manipulation is fairly blatant. It has all the signs of being all about the money.

Now, I’m sure my more jaded readers are shaking their heads and asking why I’m bothering to even read these promotional mails if I don’t like them. Here’s what you need to understand:

I like the Fool. They’ve given me a lot of good stock ideas, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate the culture of their early business they built, based on the foundation of their philosophy. They’ve tried to build a community based on mutual aid and information exchange, and having done that myself in the ’80s in the BBS world, I understand how satisfying it can be to see people exchanging ideas and wisdom and learning and knowing you were part of making that happen.

But now I’m seeing this marketing blitz which, frankly, is at odds with their earlier methods of sharing their philosophies, insights, even ethics. And a marketing blitz which relies on hitting emotional reflexes is not a particularly ethical operation. It may be standard in the industry, and I understand, I really do, using their successes to build the business. Heck, I suppose they’re just trying to monetize their business. I understand that’s a typical maneuver, try to leverage the business as much as possible.

But it doesn’t feel like they’re really running ahead of the industry in the area of marketing. What do I know? Nothing. I am neither a marketing nor investment professional; I’m a software engineer who, to be bluntly honest, has sometimes treated investing as more of an entertainment than anything else. I couldn’t tell you the difference between cash flow and profit. (I read about them, recognize the difference, but five minutes later it all flees my brain.) I’m far more of a story guy, who appreciated the story of Amazon way back when, but was too shy to follow through.

But I worry about the Fool. Will this marketing effort, which strikes me as on the border of unethical, if only in my world, seep into their stock-picking operations? This is some matter of concern to me – maybe because I’m an ignoramus.

I will probably stick with the Fool, even though I’m not the active investor I used to be – I tend to stay within the ruts. But every time I receive one of these mails promoting their new services, I shudder. And wonder.

¹Magicians find children their hardest audience, as one told me years ago – they don’t know they’re supposed to be distracted by what distracts adults.

²My wife tells me at least once a month that I am too eager to believe the best of people. Of course, she’s a cynic from Chicago, so I know she knows better and is just following her training.

In case  you missed it, Gianforte won the race for the empty lone Montana House of Representatives seat. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver notes vote finalization takes a while in Montana:

Gianforte leads by about 7 percentage points as we wrap up this live blog. The numbers will shift around a bit — Montana takes a long time to finalize its vote — but we should wind up somewhere in that range, which we can call the mid-to-high single digits.

CNN shows a 6 point gap, with 5.7 points to the Libertarian candidate – Gianforte is at 50.1%. CNN’s Lauren Fox comments:

But Montana’s election may be an unreliable arbiter of what’s to come in races across the country. After all, the race here featured a banjo-playing, first-time Democratic candidate, and many of Montana’s voters cast absentee ballots before the alleged assault even took place. The events that transpired here won’t be easily replicated.

“All politics are local,” said Art Wittich, a Gianforte supporter. “It comes down to two candidates.”

Perhaps Quist didn’t have what it takes to be a good candidate. After all, being a folk singer is not the same as being an experienced politician.

So now it’s up to Gianforte to prove he’s not another GOP zombie, that he’s not joining the Gohmert/Roby/Ryan crew to vote in solid lock-step with the GOP dictates. It’s so easy, when you’re not sitting in that hot seat, to say this:

… Gianforte didn’t fully embrace the Republican House-passed bill from the beginning, arguing it was rushed and not fully baked. His own campaign staff said Gianforte wouldn’t have voted for it.

It’s quite another to actually have to face the pressure of a vote and the angry glare of the GOP whip. So will Gianforte exercise his best judgment and vote against legislation which is bad for America?

Or will he just be another zombie GOP member and betray Montana in the process?

Which could also be the name of a story idea I’m contemplating.

Steve Benen on Maddowblog is appalled at the remarks of Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:

Carson said it’s mind over matter. “I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind,” said Carson. “You take somebody who has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street and I guarantee you in a little while they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”

This is not an argument that anyone should take seriously. The causes of chronic, generational poverty are complex, but “the wrong mindset” isn’t among them.

Except that it does, if you accept the hypothesis that racism has been a factor in generational, chronic poverty – so that it’s not the mindset of the victims so much as the shared mindset of the victimizers, whether it be actively malicious or just the go-with-the-flow folks.

All that said, Dr. Carson should probably recognize that some mindsets are not currently changeable. Those who are brain-damaged are certainly going to have more problems than those who are not. Given the number of homeless veterans on the streets, perhaps Dr. Carson should make it his number one priority to advocate against war.

Greg Gianforte, candidate for the empty Montana seat in the House of Representatives, has been charged with assault on the day of the special election. The Guardian reports on the incident, including reactions of Fox News reporters on the scene:

“He took me to the ground,” Jacobs said by phone from the back of an ambulance. “I think he wailed on me once or twice … He got on me and I think he hit me … This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in reporting on politics.”

Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna, field producer Faith Mangan and photographer Keith Railey witnessed the incident at Gianforte’s campaign headquarters in Montana, according to an account published on the Fox News website. After Jacobs asked Gianforte his question, Acuna wrote: “Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him.

“Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of ‘I’m sick and tired of this!’ … To be clear, at no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte, who left the area after giving statements to local sheriff’s deputies.”

Jacobs subsequently reported the incident to the police. The Gallatin county sheriff’s office said on Wednesday night it had completed its investigation and that Gianforte had been issued with a charge of misdemeanour assault.

RawStory follows up on Fox News:

On Fox & Friends, however, Mele simply repeated the Gianforte campaign’s talking points by noting that “the candidate says that reporter tried to push a phone in his face before this happened” and that “Gianforte’s campaign says the men both fell.”

The network also ran a chyron that simply read, “Gianforte blames reporter for incident.”
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Later on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade did reference Acuna’s report on the incident — but he never talked about its contents or the fact that it completely contradicted the Gianforte campaign’s spin.

Their founder may be dead, but his spirit lives on. Mediaite notes the reaction of pundit Joe Scarborough:

“All three papers overnight took their endorsements away from this Republican guy,” said Scarborough. “It’s that incredible. A guy assault a reporter, which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising in an age of Trump where he calls the press ‘enemy of the people.’ These reckless words have consequences.”

“This candidate had also said things sort of Trumpian about the press,” offered Willie Geist for the assist.

Weirdly, I wonder if this will play well with the GOP base. There has been a current of fury in the past campaign season, enough so that the spats of violence reported at some events were not negative, but rather positives for Trump. Given Gianforte is a Trump supporter, it suggests this could even be a planned incident – trade a misdemeanour assault for building street cred with the base. I haven’t paid much attention to the Montana electorate, not living there, so it’s hard to say if they lean that way, or if the endorsements of the major newspapers, snatched away overnight, will have any influence on the election.

This will be a major marker as to whether the American electorate is transmuting from the traditional ways of evaluating candidates – or staying with tried and true values. If the former, GOPer Gianforte wins and we enter a more violent stage of our Republic;  if the latter, Democrat Quist wins and we back away from a nasty little precipice.

Stay tuned. Today’s the special election.

He’s really a child, isn’t he? CNN:

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Thursday she would raise leaks to US media from the Manchester bombing investigation with US President Donald Trump when the pair meet later at a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium.

“I will make clear to President Trump that intelligence that is shared between our law enforcement agencies must remain secure,” she said, following a cabinet-level security meeting.

The United States has faced growing criticism from UK lawmakers over the leaks, amid concern they could disrupt the fast-moving investigation into Monday night’s attack against concertgoers at Manchester Arena.

I realize it may not be Trump, personally, doing the leaking – but, even so, he sets the tone. Worse yet, it’s easy to suspect members of his Administration are leaking this information in order to advance their political agenda – because that’s the kind of people he’s hired, politicos who think the world revolves around their agenda and will use anything to advance it against their foes, who just happen to be their fellow Americans.

The tragedy of the Manchester bombing should not be permitted to distract from the dangerous meltdown which is the Trump Administration.

BTW, shortly after Obama had taken office, someone bought some time on a highway billboard, on which they put Bush’s face and the message, “Miss me yet?” I’ve always thought that was a sincere, if misguided message. Repeating that with Obama’s face would be far more effective, and remind us of just what professionally run government looks like – no scandals, just trying to improve life.

The bleeding hearts and blue bells were out last week in full swing.

And I ain’t speaking in metaphors.

Bluebells are one of my favorites, due to their shapes and short display times.

Recondite:

1 : difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend : deep a recondite subject

2 : of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure
recondite fact about the origin of the holiday — Floyd Dell

3 : hidden from sight : concealed

[Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Odds on: 10 science breakthroughs you can bet on,” Michael Brooks, NewScientist (13 May 2017, paywall):

Alien contact at least has a protocol: it must be confirmed by the US President or UK Prime Minister. Policing more recondite bets can be tough, though. “Say we were to take a bet on there being more to evolution than genetics,” says Sharpe. “Who’s going to chair that debate?”

As the Cassini probe enters its last few orbits, known as the Grand Finale, it’s measuring the density of dust between the various rings – and getting a surprise:

As NASA’s Cassini spacecraft prepares to shoot the narrow gap between Saturn and its rings for the second time in its Grand Finale, Cassini engineers are delighted, while ring scientists are puzzled, that the region appears to be relatively dust-free. This assessment is based on data Cassini collected during its first dive through the region on April 26.

With this information in hand, the Cassini team will now move forward with its preferred plan of science observations.

“The region between the rings and Saturn is ‘the big empty,’ apparently,” said Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Cassini will stay the course, while the scientists work on the mystery of why the dust level is much lower than expected.”

They have a couple nifty conversions of the impacts of dust particles to our audible range at that link. And just how big are the things they are hitting?

The team’s analysis suggests Cassini only encountered a few particles as it crossed the gap — none larger than those in smoke (about 1 micron across).

So the rings seem to represent tightly defined areas of orbital stability, and if you’re not in a ring – you’re not in a stable area. It’s a little like seeing iron fillings near a magnet as they outline the energy – although this Q&A answer from the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois was a bit of a letdown for my analogy:

Great question, and one that can easily lead to confusion, due to an accident of nature.

First of all, electric, gravitational, AND magentic fields are all completely smooth. The “field lines” taught in many classes and used by physicists to visualize field strengths are purely to guide the eye; they don’t have physical meaning. (Even so, they are useful lines to draw, and even contain weakly quantitative behavior, since the field strength is proportional to the density of field lines. Just remember that between any two such field lines, the field strength is just as strong as on the lines themselves. The field is smooth.)

Ironically, when you do the classic magnet and iron filing experiment, this is what you see:

It sure looks like field lines, right? Actually, this clumpiness has nothing to do with field lines; it’s just a coincidence that it looks like lines (or perhaps it inspired the idea of field lines?). The reason for the creation of these pretty iron filing shapes is that each little iron filing, when subject to a magnetic field, becomes a little dipole itself. This dipole feels the force of the magnet, and aligns in the direction of the field lines. In addition, each little dipole feels a small force from the other nearby dipoles, and they move to minimize their local energy. This causes the clumping into lines that you see, as the opposite ends of the dipoles move together.

The clumping is NOT a property of the magnetic field from the large magnet, it is a consequence of the magnetic fields of the small iron filings.

You can do a similar experiment with electric fields instead, and you would expect the same result, since the “test particles” would form electric dipoles and clump.

… and there’s more. So I was wrong about my analogy, but found the reason I’m wrong to be interesting.

In Egypt, Amira Sayed Ahmed reports in AL Monitor on the grounds a government with an explicit religious association must traverse, which makes our occasional tippy-toes through religious controversy looking quite easy:

The bill would restrict the issuance of public edicts or fatwas to clerics and researchers affiliated with only four entities: Al-Azhar, the Ministry of Religious Endowments, Dar al-Ifta (official entity charged with issuing edicts) and Majma al-Buhuth al-Islamiya (Islamic Research Academy). Clerics should get permission from one of these entities before issuing any public fatwa on TV.

According to the bill, preachers and professors of Al-Azhar University could perform their tasks of preaching to people without being obliged to get permission, since preaching is not considered a public fatwa. But if they wanted to issue a certain public fatwa, they should first obtain a license from one of the four entities.

This step came as part of Al-Azhar’s efforts to reform religious discourse and curb the torrent of the so-called fatwa chaos that flooded media outlets, inciting extremism and fanatical thinking. The draft law was approved one day before Al-Azhar University President Ahmed Hosni labeled Islamic researcher Islam al-Beheiry an apostate. Hosni apologized and resigned May 5.

“A fatwa is a huge responsibility and it has certain requirements, no question. The issuance of a fatwa should be exclusively limited to specialists since these edicts may lead to crucial consequences. I highly welcome this bill,” parliament member Amna Nosseir told Al-Monitor.

Which leads to the question, does the government control the religion – or does the religion control the government? While the answer may appear to be the former, it could be the latter, as a single sect may be trying to restrict other sects from using fatwas – legal opinions on issues pertaining to Islamic law – which can lead to unfortunate consequences. This is rooted in the believers’ certainty of the righteousness of their beliefs.

Incorporating such strains into our own government would bode very poorly for a peaceful, prosperous future. Not every sect can be right – but none willing to assert the rightness of Dominionism will be willing to back down in the face of anything less than terminal violence.

Which, as the Founders noted, is an excellent reason to keep the United States secular.

Tom Mechler, the chairman of the Texas GOP, has resigned for personal reasons. His counterpart in the Texas Democratic Party is lamenting the event, according to The Texas Tribute:

Of an iris, that is.

Kind of an hairy tongue, no? Gotta like the blue in the background, though. Totally inadvertent.

Yeah, it’s hairy.

A shot sort of down the gullet.

Lawfare‘s Quinta Jurecic comments on the compromises faced by government lawyers and others and ends up with categories, one good, one not so good:

Following Weber, we might define two categories of moral compromise presented by political service: first, compromises that are difficult, painful, and even tragic, but from which one emerges with one’s moral sense and one’s sense of self basically intact. But there are also compromises that are so inherently degrading that there is no coming away from them intact. (Luban makes a similar point in his use of Avishai Margalit’s distinction between “bad compromises” and “rotten compromises.”)

The first kind of compromise is hard, and it’s also inherent in government service. People go into government, after all, because they believe in things, and the bureaucracies they serve in do not always reach, from their points of view, the right answers. Think of the Obama administration officials who believed the President should do more to close Guantanamo or the Bush administration officials who believed sincerely in the tough actions the administration took even as it started to back off of them.

The second kind of compromise, however, is corrupting. This second case is exactly what concerns both Luban and Eliot Cohen, in his Atlantic essay: it’s the result of having lost the keenness of one’s moral sense, in having made the ugly choice to begin with, and it breeds further path-dependencies. Once one has made one degrading compromise, after all, it’s easy to slip toward others. And it also destroys the person’s ability to function as a figure worthy of others’ trust in one’ honorable service and efforts to mitigate harm—which may be the very reason that the official accepted an appointment in the first place. I suspect both the public and those within government will be much more hesitant now to trust Rosenstein and McMaster to serve as guardians of their respective institutions going forward.

And the intuitive psychological responses to your hierarchical superiors has to play into this drama. After all, that’s how we’re built, even if we like to think we’re rational creatures. Quinta’s insights should probably be required reading for any lawyer considering government service – and who prides themselves on their ethical behavior:

I suspect that Rosenstein and McMaster’s behavior has rattled so many of us because it has served as a reminder that the distinction between painful and indefensible compromises can easily become confused, however anguished one feels. More specifically, it suggests that the specific pressures of the Trump administration push in the direction of turning difficult compromises into the sort of compromises that can destroy a person. Jack made a similar point, noting the President’s “mendacity, norm-breaking, and impetuousness,” along with his apparent demands for personal loyalty over integrity and institutional legitimacy. It is entirely possible that a person could go into the Trump administration with open eyes, prepared to make difficult and painful choices for the sake of mitigating harm, and instead be pushed toward degradation.

Like it says…

Rick Hasen on Election Law Blog notes SCOTUS passing on an opportunity with regards to limits on donations to political parties:

If my count is correct, this is Jim Bopp’s fourth attempt to get the Court to hear a soft money case to overturn one of the two main pillars of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law (the Court overturned the other in Citizens United.) In one of those earlier attempts, Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas dissented from the Court’s refusal to hear the case.  And the Chief Justice has said that he feels an obligation to take appeals that come up through three judge courts. And we know that Justice Gorsuch expressed skepticism of campaign finance laws when he was a Tenth Circuit judge.

So what explains the Court refusing to take a case which could have been used to further deregulate campaign financing, by extending the narrow views of corruption and strong reading of the First Amendment that the Supreme Court put forward in Citizens United and McCutcheon? And why did it take only one Court conference to reach this conclusion, when the Court has been taking so long with many other cases (in part as J. Gorsuch got up to speed on the Court’s cases)?

This suggests to me that the Court has really no appetite to get back into this area right now—perhaps they want to save their capital in ruling on other high profile cases coming down the line. Perhaps there was something about Bopp’s petition that made the Court believe the issue of overturning the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell v. FEC (upholding the soft money ban) not properly presented to it.

Along with the commentary on SCOTUS, the societal impact:

On the other hand, we now have a situation where political parties (especially state and local political parties, the subject of Bopp’s petition) are limited in what they can do, while Super PACs and non-disclosing 501c4s can operate without limit, and in the case of c4s, without adequate disclosure. This further weakens the political parties, which many political scientists and election law scholars leads to further polarization and political dysfunction.

Shark Dentistry: Does It Have A Future?

This is a Public Service Announcement.

DO not, I repeat NOT, attempt to do shots each time someone dies in Avalanche Sharks (2014), you will wind up at the ER with alcohol poisoning – or possibly choking, in a most serious manner, on the alcohol as you gasp with laughter at each attack.

ADDITIONALLY, if you are deathly allergic to thoughts of misanthropy, do not attempt to view this movie. Once we had ascertained there was no themes, no acting, no sympathetic characters (ok, there was one or two, but I wanted to keep the rhythms of the sentence going), the most nebulous of story-tellling, and wretched special-effects, we began cheering the sharks on, pumping our fists at each successful attack. If you have a sore shoulder, you should also view this movie only with great caution.

YOU may be prone to nightmares after watching this movie, but only because you’ll want those two hours back. Desperately.

Preponderance:

the fact or quality of being preponderant; superiority in weight, power, numbers, etc.:
The preponderance of votes is against the proposal. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in many places, for example, “The Scope of the Mueller Probe: Will the Public Learn What Was Uncovered?” Andrew Kent, Lawfare:

The Department of Justice takes the position that “organized criminal activity” is a very broad term that “includes ‘any criminal activity collectively undertaken.’” The statute provides that the federal judge overseeing the special grand jury will make the report public if certain conditions are satisfied, including that the report is “supported by the preponderance of the evidence” revealed during the special grand jury investigation.

Personally, for such a strong term, it sounds awfully wishywashy.

The inexplicable behavior of Attorney General Sessions with regard to marijuana is noted here in The Washington Times (April 13, 2017):

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday said he’s “surprised” Americans aren’t overwhelmingly embracing his widely reported stance against marijuana, all the while recent polling reveals a majority of voters do in fact support legal pot.

Mr. Sessions briefly weighed in on marijuana legalization during a wide-ranging discussion held Tuesday at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, AZCentral reported.

“When they nominated me for attorney general, you would have thought the biggest issue in America was when I said, ‘I don’t think America’s going to be a better place if they sell marijuana at every corner grocery store,’ ” Mr. Sessions told attendees.

“[People] didn’t like that; I’m surprised they didn’t like that,” he added.

Indeed, 57 percent Americans favor legalizing marijuana, according to results of a government-sponsored opinion poll published last month, establishing a historic high point with respect to public support for pot.

His remarkable interest in restricting marijuana may face another obstacle – a health facet of interest to everyone over, say, age 45. NewScientist (13 May 2017, but this is from the online, altered article) reports:

[Andreas Zimmer‘s team at the University of Bonn] gave young (2-month-old), middle-aged (12-month-old) and elderly (18-month-old) mice a steady dose of THC. The amount they received was too small to give them psychoactive effects.

After a month, the team tested the mice’s ability to perform cognitive tasks, such as finding their way around mazes, or recognising other individuals.

In the control groups, which received no THC, the young mice performed far better than the middle-aged and elderly mice. But the middle-aged and elderly mice who had been given THC performed as well as the young mice in the control group.

Further studies showed that THC boosted the number of connections between brain cells in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory formation. “It’s a quite striking finding,” says Zimmer.

But THC seemed to have the opposite effect in young mice: when they were given THC, their performance in some tasks declined.

Young people also perform worse in learning and memory tests in the hours and days after smoking cannabis, but a joint delivers far higher doses than the mice received. Claims that heavy marijuana use can permanently impair cognition are disputed.

Human results are anecdotal. But if humans react like mice – which is never guaranteed – the anti-marijuana campaigners may find themselves swept out to sea, never to be relevant again. I don’t know any middle-aged person who’s happy with their brain performance, and if restoration of some capability is as simple as a mouth spray (proposed) or toking up once a month, there will be little patience with the failing cries of those opposed – particularly if their objections continue to be falsified or are inarticulate.

And if you’re a mouse and you’re reading this article, well, you’re just golden.

I fell behind on the Iranian election, and as I understand it, President Rouhani used the third and final debate to unleash a violent attack upon his conservative opponent, Raisi. But this examination of Rouhani’s response to a question regarding banking shows the Reformists work together, keeping in mind Hashemi-Taba is a Reformist, like Rouhani. From Iran’s PressTV:

Rouhani, the third candidate at the podium, used his four-minute time to express his plans to solve the problems in the country’s banking system. He said Iran’s banking system needs fundamental reforms. The incumbent president added that his administration has managed to double the capital of state-run banks to get more active in the economic sector.

The presidential candidates took turns to express their views on Rouhani’s remarks with Jahangiri saying the previous administration had brought about the depletion of bank resources. He added that the 11th administration is implementing the development plan for banks to help them become active in production. Raeisi said the 11th administration blames its predecessor for all of the problems. Raeisi added that the current administration has left the country in limbo for four years. Hashemi-Taba said the banking problems were handed down to the 11th administration by its predecessor. Qalibaf said the administration of President Rouhani has failed in properly supervising and managing banks and added that liquidity has tripled under the present administration. Aqa-Mirsalim said the banking system is currently based on usury, adding that the 11th administration is required to be more serious in dealing with the banking problems.

Notice how Hashemi-Taba reinforces Rouhani’s assertion while breaking the momentum of the hard-liners.

Golnaz Esfandiari provides a live blog of the event on RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty: .

19:3912.5.2017  Rohani attacks Raisi, says he doesn’t seem to be informed about legal issues despite being a judge. You’re a judge, you make such gratuitous accusations?

A Letter To The Evangelical Community

For the evangelical voter, a statement from another evangelical to the effect that God has picked this or that man (usually) to be President can be a powerful announcement. An endorsement from a representative of the most powerful being in – or outside of – the Universe is powerful stuff.  As documented in National Review in the case of President Bush during his 2004 campaign:

After 9/11, the sense that God had chosen Bush certainly increased among his supporters, and perhaps in him. “I think that God picked the right man at the right time for the right purpose,” said popular Christian broadcaster Janet Parshall. Others began to find their own evidence. General William Boykin got in trouble in part because of his comment that God must have put Bush in the White House, since the voters didn’t: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

I have a vivid memory of a TV interview with a voter who stated that she felt God had picked Bush for the Presidency.

I will now note, not as a matter of snark, disdain, loathing, nor contempt, but as a simple fact, (one worthy of consideration by those who wish to consider themselves thoughtful, and therefore worthy of being an American citizen and intellectual inheritor of the mantle of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc.) that, today, the Bush Administration is not mentioned as a Golden Era, nor as a Blessed Administration; in fact, it is scarcely mentioned at all by its ideological successors. President Bush does not appear to be sought out for his wisdom or experience – and, in fact, his most noteworthy comment lately reported was a succinct statement on the Trump Inauguration, suggesting it was “… some weird shit.” For the serious voter, liberal or conservative, this descent from near-ecstasy to disdain & obscurity, instigated by the conservatives for their own living ex-President, should be a sobering question to be considered for its lessons.

But let me tell you what many of us outside of the evangelical community saw from this particular Administration – two long, expensive wars which killed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants; the botching of opportunities to win hearts and minds in a vital part of the world with those wars; the descent into country-wide dishonor when we began a government-sanctioned torture system, an activity disavowed by our wiser ancestors, regardless of its efficacy (which was, according to the CIA report, zero); wars in which our own military forces were dissipated, men and women killed and injured, thus damaging their families and, for those who worry about material resources, resulting in huge future costs as the injured must receive lifelong care; the horrific revelation that the Iraq War was initiated under false pretenses, as the Iraqis had no WMDs, and our key leaders knew it; and, insult to injury, the Great Recession, brought on by the GOP-led Congress promoting their GOP business ideology, that Government should have little role to play in business regulation.

My fellow Americans in the Evangelical community, the paragraph above describes judgments that are poor, bad, and outright evil.  They came from the Administration of a man selected by the Evangelical community, and, regardless of his personal responsibility for any action during that period, he must take responsibility, as he was responsible for placing in his government those who perpetrated those actions. This man, thought to be picked by God, damaged and dishonored the nation.

That’s what those of us outside the Evangelical community saw.

Before I come to the subject of methods, let me briefly cover the previous subject again, the process of selecting a President, but now, I’ll frame it in a different context – the most recent Presidential election. Rather than indulge in discussion, I shall illustrate with example. First, Glenn Beck, as quoted via Mediaite:

I have said that I believe he’s given us the opportunity to unite behind Ted Cruz. I believe that Ted is a man of God. I do believe that if we study, pray, and seek God’s inspiration, he will touch our hearts. We will see the truth about the two candidates: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. And he will inspire us on the truth … I have seen this man’s life. I have watched this man. I have prayed about this man. I have prayed about it by myself, out loud, in quiet, with my family, with my staff, and I happen to believe that Ted Cruz actually was anointed for this time. Would there not be someone that was in the pool that might have the right qualifications for God? Is he that disinterested in all of us? Or is it perhaps possible that just like in the Bible, people were raised from birth for a specific time? Are we that inconsequential, Dr. Kidd? Are we really not that important enough for him to raise someone up, at this critical juncture?

And, next, Pat Robertson, via Snopes News Service:

You know, you read the Bible, and there was a point in there where God told Jeremiah, he said, “Tell them to take the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar,” and they didn’t want to do it, and you read the second Psalm which says, “Why do the nations rage, and imagine a vain thing,” and they revolt against the Lord and his anointed. I think, somehow, the Lord’s plan is being put in place for America and these people are not only revolting against Trump, they’re revolting against what God’s plan is for America. These other people have been trying to destroy America. These left-wingers and so-called progressives are trying to destroy the country that we love and take away the freedoms they love. They want collectivism. They want socialism. What we’re looking at is free markets and freedom from this terrible, overarching bureaucracy. They want to fight as much as they can but I think the good news is the Bible says, “He that sits in the heavens will laugh them to scorn,” and I think that Trump’s got something on his side that’s a lot more powerful than the media.

Two icons of the Evangelical community, claiming direct communications with the Supreme Being, come to radically different conclusions. If one were to focus only on results, however, this would not be a problem. Reasonable people reach different conclusions, based on differing assumptions about data and processes. But the key word here is reasonable.

And this leads me to my next subject, methods, the crux of this letter. By this, my friends, I mean how we evaluate our candidates. Let me tell you that, outside of the Evangelical community, methods are various and sometimes mystifying, as they range from detailed data-driven analysis which somehow disregards the character of the candidate, to a simple shrug and the statement, “I guess I’m a died-in-the-wool Republican voter.” No one method is perfect, but some are better than others – and most admit to discussion and refinement.

Now – and I truly am not digressing, if you’ll give me a moment of patience – the National Review article cited earlier states:

But many evangelical Christians believe they are despised, misunderstood, and discriminated against by journalists, Hollywood, elites, and almost anyone not in their pack.

Regardless of the applicability of these adjectives, then (2004) or now, I shall add one more adjective as it applies to those outside the Evangelical community – dismayed. Many would say they are dismayed over the election results; dismayed by who was picked by the Evangelical community. But I will dispute that and suggest that this dismay should be redirected at a more apropos source.

The selection methods, themselves.

When Glenn Beck asserts that he believes Ted Cruz has been anointed for the Presidency, this is not on any rational grounds. When Pat Robertson says he believes Trump is God’s intended leader, and those opposed to him are in revolt against God, this has no rational basis.

These assertions are considered privileged communications from God.

And this is the crux. A respected member of the Evangelical community claims to know the mind of God – in this case, who God has sent to lead the United States.  Then this man’s choice, without question, is broadcast to the rest of the group as the selection of God. There is no verification. God doesn’t write it on the side of a mountain. How do we know this is really God’s pick, and not just a self-interested selection by that same Evangelical?

And as wonderful and mysterious as these proclamations of holy selection may seem to those on the inside, for those of us outside your community, they fill us with dread and despair. Not, as you might think, at the power or mystery of God, but dread and despair at the folly of man.  Because we remember. We remember the disastrous Bush Administration. And the turmoil and deceit of the Nixon years.  And the economic free-fall caused by Reagan’s policies. And – we notice how quickly and completely you forget. For those of us of a historical bent, we remember your predecessors, the repeated predictions of the end of the world, the hysteria, the abandonment of responsibilities in expectation of the coming of God. All for naught.

And all of this was based on the words of those who claim private knowledge, straight from God.

But perhaps these are familiar arguments. Let me take this one step further, in a logical yet visceral manner. In this post, I explored my reasons for supporting the secular nature of the United States. Its relevant facet, a short history of the monarchs of Britain in the time directly preceding the American Revolution, may be summarized thusly:

Many of those English monarchs, acting on their religious certainty, burned their opponents at the stake.

Take a moment. Remove the intellectual knowledge of the process of this torture from the forefront of your mind. Imagine, instead, being that victim. Feel their emotion, elicited by the knowledge that someone else’s religious belief has doomed you to an agonizing death. Feel the helplessness of the victim, knowing they had no argument against the authorities, because the mandate condemning them was immune to reason or argument.  The other side always bolstered its argument by the simple invocations of God’s Will and God’s Ways Are Mysterious, followed by the Admonition, the Rack, the Chain, and the Flame.

* * *

I hope, then, that the dismay outside the Evangelical community at the selection and subsequent performance of Donald Trump for the Presidency should be of no surprise. It’s widely recognized that the Evangelical community played an important, even pivotal part in bring the Presidency within his grasp.

But allow me to convey to the Evangelical community the perceptions of Donald Trump by those not dependent upon the Word of God.

Bully.

Casual breaker of contracts.

Boastful.

Willfully ignorant.

Deceiver.

A facile promiser, by which I mean someone who would give a promise regardless of how it impacts past, present, or future promises, but merely to gain the support of the person for Trump’s agenda.

All these came from the campaign. The decision of the Evangelical community to back such a man, of whom all these descriptions are objective (that is, provable through a little research into history, and not merely hateful insults), were painfully dismaying to the balance of the electorate who perceived him in this way. These Evangelical methods are impervious to reason and argument, and only vulnerable to an opposing communique from God, again impervious to reason and argument.  This leaves us to wonder why our fellow Americans, inheritors of the mantle of reason, as it came down from our Founding Fathers such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and many other distinguished gentlemen, in opposition to the forces of religious communication and absolute power in the personae of the English monarchs who slew and destroyed in answer to their religious impulses, have chosen such a doubtful approach to the fulfilling of their duties as Americans in the selection of their leaders, both Presidential and Congressional.

Since the new Administration and Congress have taken their seats, the performances of both Donald Trump and most, but not all, of the GOP members of Congress, where most Evangelical votes went, have done nothing to quell the disquiet in America. Such words and phrases as incompetent, White Supremacist, extremist, insular, repressive, authoritarian and other negative sentiments have been hurled with great appropriateness at the current government, and by a large segment of the electorate. The proof is in the polls.

The current numbers are unprecedented in their dismal assessment of a President, especially one just getting under way. This is not unreasoning hatred or a rush to judgment, my friends, but rather the sober evaluation of a President whose tangible actions have been a source of dismay, embarrassment and concern for those who love this country.

And yet, his approval rating, at about 38% in this Gallup poll, is still too high in my opinion.

My original motivation in writing this post was to deconstruct a piece of mail that had crossed my desk recently, and, as I like to finish what I start, if perhaps after a long delay, I hope to ask your indulgence in a little more analysis. In this case, I shall copy the mail and intersperse my comments, all fairly spare and referential to my earlier points.

My Fellow Americans…..

“Only through faith in God may a man carrying responsibility find repose” Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1944

A reasonable sentiment, giving cover to the unfortunate sentiments to follow. I also did not find a secular source attributing this quote to Eisenhower, although perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.

Understand the weight of this image. This soldier lost both arms, both arms. The feeling of a handshake is lost to him. Donald Trump realized this and touched his face so he can, at least for a moment in time, feel the human connection!!!

It’s a lovely thought, it really is. However, the writer is naive (or quite deceptive, but I prefer to think the best of my fellow Americans), for it’s a well-established American political tradition to set up photo-ops such as this. It’s an inspirational image, but it does not prove Mr. Trump had that thought in his head; he could have easily been instructed to do so by aides, as so many politicians before him have been instructed in specific actions to gain the sympathy of the public. No doubt Clinton did so as well.

This is what I see when I think of Trump’s motives. He gave up the billionaire lifestyle to be insulted, dragged through the proverbial political mud, and lied about on a daily basis.

All this to save this country and people he loves.

Which presupposes it needed saving. Objective metrics suggest that, while serious challenges exist, we had done well under the leadership of the previous Administration in climbing out of the catastrophe of the Bush Administration.

He’s not perfect. None of us are. However, I believe our Lord has answered our prayers and placed him where he is.

This is an interesting statement, since it references Trump’s obvious and painful failures. Worse yet, for the American who is not part of the Evangelical community, this statement is appalling, because it suggests God has taken a dark view of the United States and, through the Evangelical community, inflicted upon America a leader of many vices, few if any virtues, whose actions do not speak to the requirements of the Nation as a whole – but to his own peculiar set of perceptions of reality (which are better addressed elsewhere). Is this really the desire of the Evangelical community?

PLEASE LOOK AT THIS PICTURE ONE MORE TIME!!!

An appeal to visceral emotion, rather than mature, sober evaluation and judgment.

To my fellow Americans and friends in the Evangelical community, thank you for your patience, consideration, and understanding.  At present, the rest of the country is greatly dismayed by your choice for President of the United States.  It is my hope that we may be able come together to correct the current situation, then move forward into a time of greater integrity, intelligence and informed reason.

logosyllabic:

The two khipus comprise 487 pendants cords, dyed 14 colors and made from six animal fibers, including alpaca, llama and vizcacha—a rabbit-looking rodent. Combinations of color, fiber and twist direction create 95 distinct symbols, a number that’s within the range of logosyllabic writing systems, or those with signs for full words and phonetic sounds. [“Untangling the Ancient Inca Code of Strings,” Bridget Alex, D-brief]