Unsightly Mental Blemishes

The lupine came up to take their bows:

My Arts Editor is magnificent in her efforts!

One of Kevin Drum’s readers points him at an analysis of the decline in drunk driving back in the ’90s:

There are several takeaways from this:

• During the 80s and early 90s, drunk driving decreased significantly.
• By the mid-90s, the level of drunk driving flattened out and has been flat ever since.
• The effect of laws on drunk driving has been pretty modest. That’s the red band in the chart. Stricter laws are responsible for only a small fraction of the total decline.

There’s potentially some good news here. Grant concludes that the biggest effect by far has been from social forces, namely the increased stigma associated with drunk driving. If you discount demographics, which we have no control over, social stigma accounts for about half the drop in drunk driving. This suggests that what we need isn’t so much stricter laws, but a revitalized campaign to even further stigmatize drunk driving. I’m on board with that.

His conclusion’s implications are in themselves interesting. After all, aren’t laws, to some extent, simply our social consciences encoded into law? The fact that we separate law from social forces in such a way indicates the disconnect we have in the backs of our minds between our government and ourselves.

I suppose we could take this a step further and see that disconnect as a result of our basically selfish selves.  A lot of law is about curtailing our selfishness in the interests of the greater good – taxes for government services, vehicle velocity limits (because our time is valuable, for those of us in a hurry but not seeking the adrenaline rush of driving like a nutcase), even laws stating that you will adhere to the contracts you sign, as breaking them is often out of some selfish design.

Asthenosphere:

About 100 kilometres below Earth’s surface lies the asthenosphere, a zone of relatively free-flowing rock held between two horizontal layers of stiffer rock. Iceland’s plume, they say, injects hot, runny rock into this layer that then spreads out horizontally into fingers. Other plumes don’t form such tendrils, says White, because the rock within them is not sufficiently hot and runny, or injected with enough force (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, doi.org/b6h9). [“Strange mantle plume under Iceland helps keep Scotland afloat,” Colin Barras, NewScientist (6 May 2017)]

With Trump on his way to the MidEast, Netanyahu no longer awaits his coming with glee – but, in Ben Caspit’s opinion, dread.

Bennett learned something from Netanyahu in the last 2015 elections when the prime minister gobbled up a significant part of Bennett’s electorate in the final days leading up to the vote. Now Bennett is the one eating away at him on the right, drawing clear lines to distinguish himself from Netanyahu by putting indirect pressure on Trump.

In any other circumstance, Netanyahu would back away from the pied piper that is Bennett. The problem is that he is facing Trump, the orange-haired man that no one in the world wants to upset. This includes Netanyahu, who doesn’t want to end up like former FBI Director James Comey.

This sense of awe, not to mention abject fear of Trump, has left Netanyahu paralyzed. He is like a deer in the headlights, utterly unable to move. Bennett’s announcement was the electric shock that jolted Netanyahu into action and forced him to release his statement on moving the embassy to Jerusalem benefiting peace.

The drama is also playing out behind the curtains. Tillerson’s remarks implied that the Americans were expecting help from Netanyahu. In recent conversations between the concerned parties, the possibility was raised that Israel would either hint at or quietly acquiesce to reports that there are serious security consequences to moving the embassy. Doing so would allow Trump to climb down off his high horse. While Netanyahu did not explicitly confirm that he would agree to such a gesture, he did give it consideration.

The idea was shelved, however, on May 14. Netanyahu’s breaking point had been reached: He prefers the calculated disappointment of the US administration over the continued cannibalization of his right-wing voter base by Bennett. How will the Americans respond? It looks like we’ll find out in the coming days.

Zvi Bar’el in Israel’s Haaretz suggests a possible earthquake on the relations front:

A silence fell on Arab media outlets after publication of a report about the Gulf States’ plan for partial normalization with Israel. No official response by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States or Qatar was heard. The regular pundits preferred to deal with other matters, as if they had neither heard nor seen the scoop in the Wall Street Journal. The usual government spokespeople in Israel were also apparently struck by a condition affecting the vocal chords.

When similar reports emerged in the past, official spokesmen, Arab and Israeli alike, would quickly issue a denial. But this time there were no denials either. That suggests that there is a solid foundation to the principles of the proposal – at least between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

On Tuesday, the last details were apparently hammered out between the U.A.E.’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and U.S. President Donald Trump in their meeting in Washington after Trump’s earlier meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the 31-year-old son of the Saudi king and the de facto ruler of the kingdom.

The three anchors of the new agreement rest on the granting of permits to Israeli businesses to open branches in the Gulf States, for Israeli aircraft to fly through U.A.E. airspace, and for the installation of direct telephone lines between the two countries. This is still not the full normalization that was promised in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative or its detailed ratification at the Arab summit in April in Jordan.

The Times Of Israel is on a similar tact:

“The Arabs clearly want to engage Trump in the region, to have him be an active player against Iranian encroachment,” he said.

“So they have chosen a very upbeat approach and Abbas is clearly joining that kind of Arab bandwagon.”

Egypt and Jordan have reached out to Abbas since his White House invitation, which also reassured his Palestinian supporters that his Fatah movement still has powerful international friends.

If Arab governments want to work with Washington, and more covertly with Israel, to counter Iran and the Islamic State, they may engage with efforts to break the logjam in the peace process.

“But between having an upbeat tone and having a grand breakthrough — there’s a distance between those two ideas.” Makovsky admitted.

Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and longtime expert in the peace process, agreed the Washington visit had boosted Abbas’ confidence.

“It’s a remarkable turnaround for him. It’s a lifesaver. It’s a shot of adrenaline to an ailing patient,” he told AFP, adding that Trump had put the “Palestinian issue” back on the table.

A normalization of relations would certainly irritate the author of this piece in the Tehran Times:

Notwithstanding what was said about Muslims during the election campaign, though, Trump is warming up to certain leaders in the region. Government-to-government interactions have been cordial and there are a number of ongoing economic negotiations between the U.S. and countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Moreover, the improved cooperation between Israel, certain Arab states and the U.S. against Iran has added to the regional political complications.

The fear amongst many in the Middle East is that such cooperation will normalize relations with Israel despite its continued violations of human rights and military occupation of Palestine. This is an important issue that Trump’s meeting with Arab leaders in Riyadh needs to address. What’s more, the U.S. president should also explain how Arab and Muslim leaders are expected to respond to the anti-Muslim rhetoric in America. How can they address Trump’s support for right-wing politicians in Europe who have heightened anti Muslim sentiments across the continent? Trump’s presidential campaign utilized a number of anti-Muslim stances, so his visit to Saudi Arabia presents an opportunity for him to rebuild the trust that has been shattered.

I don’t have any particular expectations of this trip, but suppose he did put together some sort of landmark deal – would that be good enough to negate his disasters at home?

There’s nothing intrinsically to wrong in a primary challenge to a sitting incumbent, even within the GOP – so far. But when the reason given is “insufficient loyalty to the President,” then an odor begins to arise. Roll Call reports:

“When Representative Roby came out against Trump I had so many people come to me,” he said.

On this thread, Sami Grover on Treehugger.com notes a report from Climate Action Tracker indicating China and India – the latter earlier had been reported planning to build many coal power plants – are pulling more than their share of the decarbonisation load:

China and India are actually years ahead of their climate commitments.

Those, at least, are the findings from Climate Action Tracker which suggest that scaling back of coal consumption in both countries is likely to be enough to ‘cancel out’ the expected slowing down of progress by the United States under President Trump. India, for example, had pledged to lower the emissions intensity by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. The new analysis suggests they will leap past that mark to a 42 to 45 percent cut in emissions intensity by 2030.

Bill Hare of Climate Analytics described the significance of these findings:

“Five years ago, the idea of either China or India stopping—or even slowing—coal use was considered an insurmountable hurdle, as coal-fired power plants were thought by many to be necessary to satisfy the energy demands of these countries. Recent observations show they are now on the way toward overcoming this challenge.”

While China may not be so surprising, given the nature of their political system, India is a raucous democracy, where in any group of N people you’ll find N+1 opinions (an observation from the book Being Indian, by Pavan Varma – very interesting, I must add), at least.

On the other hand, such predictions are only that – predictions. We’ll see how they pan out over the next few years. But it’s good to see things may be looking up.

Deponent:

An individual who, under oath or affirmation, gives out-of-court testimony in a deposition. A deponent is someone who gives evidence or acts as a witness. The testimony of a deponent is written and carries the deponent’s signature. [The Free Dictionary]

Noted in “How It Was Done: The Problem Is Not Only That Trump Fired Comey, But How He Did It,” Bob Bauer, Lawfare:

The problem overall may be that Mr. Trump cannot help but see the legal process as he did when a businessman for so many years. He was a client, a deponent, a defendant and a plaintiff. The law and legal system were factors in the business environment; they were component parts of the machinery with he had to be familiar in order to successfully pursue his private goals. His view of the law is, it seems, coldly practical: only the results appear to count.

I also think this is the most important paragraph of the piece, because it illustrates one of the reasons Trump is not qualified for the position – he has no concept of a theoretical understanding of his position. His experience is inapplicable.

One of the reasons we no longer run down our prey and gather berries and have short, disease-ridden lifetimes – for the most part – is the development of farming and supporting industry, and that has resulted in pollution which damages the well-being of ourselves and the other animals on this planet. But here’s an interesting detail, from NewScientist (6 May 2017):

Mark Miller at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his team got volunteers to breathe air filled with harmless gold nanoparticles. Within 15 minutes the gold began to show up in the volunteers’ blood – and could still be found in blood and urine three months later.

The researchers then repeated the experiment on people who were due to undergo surgery. They found that nanoparticles accumulated in the fatty plaques inside arteries that can cause heart attacks and strokes (ACS Nano, doi.org/b6gm).

Perhaps nanoparticles found in pollutants contribute to the inflammation often thought to be vital to the growth of plaques in arteries. Still, this is not to condemn the industry, just the pollution. That can be cleaned up if we have the political will to make it happen.

Yep, it’s time to dip into the old mailbag again. This time I’m not so much het up by the use and misuse of, in this case, the aphorisms of our past, so much as inspired to a more sober simile. But first, one of the hoary old aphorisms from the mildly offending mail:

1) In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm,  and three or more is a congress!
— John Adams

In passing I note the effort to whip up some anti-government sentiment. But perhaps this one is more apropos to what I have in mind:

4) I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle!
–Winston Churchill

The implication being that taxes are bad. But, as long time readers know, the counter-example is Kansas, where their storied tax-cut has lead to a shambles in the State budget, their Laffer Curve more of a Laffer Cliff.

Source: Warbird Daily/Ty Brown

Remains of an engine from a B-17 crash site.

But his led me to consider, in light of these thoughts, contributing my own poor simile.

A nation is like an aeroplane; the failure to properly fund and manage any part of it is like ripping a wing off. We all know what happens after that.

Mr. Churchill made many mistakes in his life, one of which was the Gallipoli Campaign, so his words should be subject to examination – not beatification. Government has its part to play, and without properly funding and managing it, the nation can spin out of control, environment destroyed, unethical unbound by the judiciary, and a prudent use of resources unknown. None of these are hypotheticals, but are grounded in the realities our forefathers knew so well – generally, because they had their faces ground into each one. Our task is to realize that it’s all about the bell curve, discovering the most propitious point on the taxation curve, where greater than or less than results in poorer results for society at large, as I wrote about here. Simply being anti-taxation, or anti-government, is childish.

And, having been there, I can say that.

So Roger Ailes, conservative, founder of Fox News, and bad newsman, has died. I see the hyperbole has begun, as CNN notes with the straightest of faces:

Sean Hannity, a prime time host and longtime face of the network, said on Twitter: “Today America lost one of its great patriotic warriors.”

No, Sean. That’s the sort of thing you say when General Eisenhower died. A professional propagandist isn’t a patriot. He’s just a bad newsman.

defease:

Defeasance (or defeazance) (French: défaire, to undo), in law, an instrument which defeats the force or operation of some other deed or estate; as distinguished from condition, that which in the same deed is called a condition is a defeasance in another deed.

Noted in “Defend Norms Don’t Violate Them“, Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare:

Again, I shudder at the prospect of presidential subordinates who learn from this behavior that it is OK to unilaterally defease the President of his prerogatives if it is for a good cause.

In the context of the definition, Paul’s usage makes me uneasy.

Just amazing what some critters will do.

It occurred to me whilst showering that Speaker Paul Ryan’s beloved high risk insurance pools is actually fairly un-Christian. How so? Perhaps the most influential and well-known teaching from the Bible, and certainly my favorite, is

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

aka The Golden Rule, and known in other forms as well.

So how does this work? This is clearly a poetical statement of insurance, the pooling of risk by everyone in the community.

Everyone.

Not grouping the poor into their own pool because they might cost more. Not segregating the high risks from everyone else.

I could make a number of moral arguments, but, really, once you give some thought the Golden Rule, doesn’t it just make it clear that high risk pools are, well, against the Christian God? Or whoever it was that wrote that chunk of the Bible?

Just a day or two ago I wondered if Deputy AG Rosenstein decided to sacrifice Comey – and his own honor – for a later roll of the dice. I think we’ve just seen the roll, as CNN reports:

David Kris on Lawfare provides a portrait:

I have known Mueller for a long time–he ran the Criminal Division when I joined the Justice Department in 1992 as a brand new lawyer, and years later when I ran the National Security Division at DOJ, I spent many mornings with him when he was FBI Director reviewing the overnight threat intelligence at the FBI’s SIOC. Mueller is experienced, knowledgeable, capable. He is utterly incorruptible. He cannot be intimidated. At this stage in his career, he has nothing to prove, no reputation to burnish, no axe to grind. He is ramrod straight in his integrity, and the DOJ press release notes that he has resigned from his law firm, Wilmer Hale, which represents Jared Kushner and perhaps others in or close to the Trump family, “to avoid any conflicts of interest.”

Sounds like the right man for the job. How long will it take for him to get up to speed? Ann Althouse approves.

Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare is having anxiety over the rules & ethics of government:

The President’s “decision” to release classified information to the Russians is tragically wrong.  The apparent ease with which members of the intelligence community rush to themselves leak classified information to the press is criminal — there are no two ways about it.  The President’s disclosure to the Russians of classified information (and the subsequent efforts to mitigate the effects of the disclosure) are themselves classified information — almost certainly at the same level of sensitivity as the underlying classified information.  Conservatives, like me, who saw in Edward Snowden a felon cannot now excuse identical conduct simply because the intended end of the disclosure is more condign.  I shudder at the idea that a whole generation of intelligence professionals is now being trained in the norm that “it is OK to leak to the press if the President really sucks.”  That isn’t the rule of law and it isn’t a system we should encourage.  We can (and should) hold the President to account for his exceedingly poor judgment, but we should not brush aside the significant transgression of those who brought us the information.

But I think Paul may be soft-pedaling the situation a trifle. After all, we’re not talking about a President that sucks – we’re talking about a President admitting, if unconscious of the fact, to impeachable offenses, to utterly frivolous behavior in the presence of what we politely call adversaries (no doubt they said much worse of us during the Obama years).

Ethics are a notoriously slippery subject, despite the efforts of many to claim they’re straightforward; indeed, some philosophers spend a great deal of time coming up with ethical dilemmas, and then psychologists expose those dilemmas to test subjects to see how people react when up against a hard case.

As I’m sure many have done before me, it’s relatively straightforward to construct a dilemma in this case – suppose some “classified information” clearly shows the President is committing treason, to the destruction of the country. What is the duty of the intelligence professional who comes across this information and recognizes it for what it is?

To keep it secret?

Or to expose it, at least to Congress, if not others?

If Paul’s answer is the former, with perhaps a caveat that some other part of the system will cover for it, I must answer that I think the government ethics system he’s employing is too primitive to be successful – keeping secret, destructive information secret is a recipe for disaster. Let me suggest this: an ethics system which can be employed against itself to the destruction of the using organization is a flawed system. Furthermore, it suggests that a new ethics system, no doubt based on the former to some extent, is necessary.

I don’t have enough hubris in ten lifetimes to pretend to construct such an ethical system, but I might suggest that this is a very hard problem, much in the tradition of Lawfare, and perhaps the answer is “Yes, the information can be released by the intelligence professional – but if such a release is not subsequently approved by some appropriate delegation of Congress, then the intelligence professional is in legitimate legal peril.”

It sounds enormously unfair, but it’s just a thought in any case.

I generally don’t comment on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episodes, but tonight we finished watching their coverage of The Day The Earth Froze, and I must say it was amazing – the movie was amazingly awful, amazingly earnest, and their coverage amazingly witty. If you get the chance, this episode might be worth your time.

The GOP guiding principle of team politics has been a subject of mine before, but riding hobby horses, as I tend to do, serves an important purpose in that it permits better evaluation as to whether the horse in question is really worthy of eventual enshrinement in the Horse Hall of Fame.

Or, for those who appreciate more direct prose, continual investigation of a hypothesis is integral to discovering its congruence with reality.

So as we sit in continual wonder at the incompetence erupting from the White House and the House of Representatives (an AHCA that could not be passed, and then was passed in such mutilated form as to cause cries of anguish from sober observers – and celebration from GOP leaders), let’s not forget Senator McConnell, who, according to NBC News, is still confident in the President:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wishes there was “less drama” coming out of the White House following reports that President Donald Trump revealed classified information during a meeting with Russian officials last week.

In response to questions, McConnell said that he has not lost confidence in the president and that he still trusts him with classified information.

“I think it would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the white house,” McConnell told reporters, not directly responding to the latest controversy flowing out of the executive branch.

This more or less covers the putative leadership of the Party. Remember, McConnell is the same Senator who could not even be persuaded to give a hearing to Judge Garland for his nomination to SCOTUS – against all rhyme, reason, or Senate duty.

For the objective audience, the independents who are paying attention, this really seems like insanity. An obsessive loyalty to the leader of the Party, despite his many missteps and a few Impeachable Offenses. I shan’t detail these here as I’ve mentioned them elsewhere, and the media certainly has more details than I care to provide in a blog.

This is the result of team politics, as I’ve discussed several times before (hobby, meet horse). But at this point we can ask – how many independents are truly attracted to a Party of Insanity? Certainly not I – and I doubt most others are attracted at the present.

Better yet, how many moderate Republicans will continue to stick around as the vortex of madness swirls about them? Last year we saw numerous announcements of Republicans leaving the Party – no doubt, this continues to this day as the madness persists.

So on to the central point to this post – does Karma apply to political parties?

Or, to draw a parallel to Lord of the Rings for fans, remember how Frodo escapes the clutches of the Orcs in Mordor when held captive? It wasn’t the brave, madcap assault of Samwise. No, it was the various orcs killing each other over their differences and greed. Sam just showed up in time to pick up the prize.

J.R.R. was making the point that evil often eats itself because of its very nature. Is that going to be the result of the evil of team politics? A fragmented, ripped up party, perhaps still stumbling about, whining about traitors and apostates (quite literally, given the evangelical element), never realizing that one of its central pillars of organization … is the cause of its doom?

And will the Democrats and other parties see that lesson and do better?

Noted while taking a walk:

It occurs to me today that, if we were smart, we’d have President Obama teach a masters class in being the President. Not just to the Democrats, but to the Republicans as well. We’re not talking policy, but all the operational stuff, like “What is the Department of Energy” material, and just how prepared you’d better be on day 1.

Because right now I don’t see any potential candidates in four years who inspires real confidence. Either side.

Ever wonder about the music of the Pharaohs? Amira Sayed Ahmed reports on Ahfad el-Fara’na in AL Monitor:

Ahfad el-Fara’na (Grandchildren of the Pharaohs) was founded in 2007 to revive, protect and spread the ancient Egyptian musical heritage. The unprecedented initiative, which is part of the National Project for the Revival of Ancient Egyptian Music, was launched by professor Khairy el-Malt, who has been interested in ancient Egyptian music since the 1990s. …

The band was formed after extensive academic research of the instruments and other aspects of the music of pharaonic times. “This project has two aspects: academic and cultural,” Malt added. “On the academic front, we thoroughly studied all the pharaonic instruments discovered worldwide. We began with eight instruments and we have reproduced nearly 21 instruments. We are preparing for more.”

YouTube doesn’t seem to have any impressive recordings, but it does have several audience recordings. Here’s one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyR6i-K9lY

Courtesy Melissa Breyer on Treehugger.com comes this:

Melissa summarizes:

With 700 species of these marvelous crabs across the planet, California is lucky to call a dozen or so their own. Dwelling in tide pools and kelp forests, the crabs have one tragic flaw. They’re delicious. But on the lucky flip side, they’ve learned the careful art of camouflage by way of attaching bits of finery to specialized Velcro-like hooks on their bodies.

Pusillanimity:

the quality or state of being pusillanimous :  cowardliness [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Trump Just Incriminated Himself,” Andrew Sullivan, New York:

All of this is simply unacceptable. An attempt to obstruct justice is an impeachable offense. And Trump has just openly admitted to such a thing. When, one wonders, will the patriots in the Republican Party stand up and confront this? If Clinton had done such a thing, the House would be drawing up articles of impeachment right now. We saw their pusillanimity last spring as this malign buffoon manhandled his way to the nomination. It has not abated.

How you’ll feel after watching this.

Landing in the category of dulldom is The Rift (1990), a dreadful movie about an attempted rescue of a submarine which has suffered some sort of problem. The sister sub is sent down, manned by a rabble of individualists with no real identifying marks, commanded by a US Navy Captain who appears to be a hand puppet. During the descent they run into a monster or two, not to mention the side of an iceberg; having made their way through an incomprehensible tunnel in search of a wandering “black box,” they discover an underground cavern – or, if you like, a lake with a ceiling.

Now the bloodbath begins as evil mutants (are there any other kind?) start picking off the landing party, whoever they are, not to mention a few more crew members within the ship as the biologist fails basic isolation procedures. And, just to make things fun, there’s a traitor!

Undeveloped characters, bad story, awful special effects, and empty of compelling thematic material, this will leave you sick to your stomach if you dare to watch it, just because you’ve wasted two hours of your precious life.

I pity those who made it, who no doubt put in a lot more of their time.

The latest major computer virus crisis, the WannaCry attack, is just making me tired. I realized this while I was driving home from work today, listening to NPR report on the latest developments.

I caught myself thinking that the Internet might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Update your computer. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Ever get the feeling there’s a basic flaw in how we do everything on the Internet? Surely, I was just a little tired, a little annoyed with some of my coworkers.

But now I’m wondering how many people are being driven away from the Internet by these incidents. Folks who’ve overcome the addictive element of the Internet and have calmly evaluated the aggravations of the Internet vs what good it can bring.

And decide to walk away.

There are always places where people can telecommunicate about making their lives simpler. Getting rid of stuff, not watching so much TV, trying to figure out what’s important.

And when the Internet falls into that bin … another potential customer going offline. No more trolls, no more viruses. Not that the real world lacks in aggravation, but perhaps it’s not so intense. Depending on where you live.

There is a certain allure to the idea, though.

Maybe I am just tired, though. After all, I started in the early 1980s. But I can certainly see other folks frowning over these sorts of things and finally deciding not to return. At least, until they run into that annoying fellow parishioner…