Unsightly Mental Blemishes

A problem with something like the Conservative Movement, which emphasizes hierarchy and loyalty, is that true leadership and wisdom is harder to exercise and have recognized. Consider this:

With little fanfare, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday allowing residents to carry a concealed loaded weapon without a permit.

DeSantis signed the bill in a nonpublic event in his office with only bill sponsors, legislative leaders and gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, in attendance. [NBC News]

In the wake of the recent Nashville shooting, in which 3 children and 3 adults died, along with the shooter Audrey Hale, it’s no surprise that Governor DeSantis (R-FL) decided to avoid the spotlight:

It was a notable departure for a governor who regularly holds splashy news conferences and bill-signing ceremonies.

But this could have been a moment for DeSantis to show some leadership. He could have vetoed the bill and used that moment to deliver a speech that explains why more guns does not equal more safety, that mankind is an animal that can be rational, but is not a rational animal, and a dozen more reasons to explain why it’s bad policy to assume the Second Amendment is an unlimited right.

Good leaders do not simply echo everyone else. Those are just sheep, not leaders. No, good leaders jump up and use their podiums to explain why the crowd is wrong, and to propose a better way.

But the hierarchy and loyalty, not just to other personalities but to ideologies and tenets as well, implicit in the Conservative Movement, its absurd belief that unlimited gun rights makes more sense than a safe society in this case, make the truly ambitious politician’s plans difficult to impossible to execute. If they don’t hew to the ideological line, their ideas aren’t examined and weighed carefully.

No, instead they are chased away by the enraged partisans who place loyalty over thoughtfulness.

And that’s part of the reason the Conservative Movement is a crippled movement, an example of how not to structure an institution to those who acknowledge man’s need to be humble.

From ICT comes news of a cessation of arrogance at the Vatican:

The Vatican on Thursday responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today.

A Vatican statement said the papal bulls, or decrees, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.

I don’t know how many people would have agreed with me at the time, but I recall learning, as a teenager, that Pope Alexander VI, in 1493, assigned newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal:

The Papal Bull “Inter Caetera,” issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year. It established a demarcation line one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands and assigned Spain the exclusive right to acquire territorial possessions and to trade in all lands west of that line. All others were forbidden to approach the lands west of the line without special license from the rulers of Spain. This effectively gave Spain a monopoly on the lands in the New World. [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History]

Rather the height of arrogancy, in my young eyes, and these older eyes find little with which to disagree.

I must admit to some amusement at this part of the ICT article – a little tap dance from a Jesuit, I think:

Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian Jesuit whose office co-authored the statement, stressed that the original bulls had long ago been abrogated and that the use of the term “doctrine” — which in this case is a legal term, not a religious one — had led to centuries of confusion about the church’s role.

The original bulls, he said, “are being treated as if they were teaching, magisterial or doctrinal documents, and they are an ad hoc political move. And I think to solemnly repudiate an ad hoc political move is to generate more confusion than clarity.”

He stressed that the statement wasn’t just about setting the historical record straight, but “to discover, identify, analyze and try to overcome what we can only call the enduring effects of colonialism today.”

No, no, you were all confused for centuries!

In the end, this was all about worldly greed, a world in which might made right – and that message came about from the supposed center of Western Civilization, the leading moral light. It was appalling.

It snowed last night.

And a reminder that summer is nearby.

Reading Erick Erickson’s stuff is always a bit of a trip because his viewpoint and consequential conclusions are often skewed – and, when it’s not, you wonder why. But today, this might take the cake:

There is the camp that says this is designed to bolster Donald Trump’s nomination so they can beat him. Some of you are probably in that camp. You think the Democrats calculate that by indicting Trump, they’ll help him in the GOP primary. They think they can beat him in the general, and this indictment might push him across the finish line as the GOP nominee.

Perhaps.

But the camp I’m in is that Alvin Bragg represents a wing of the Democrat Party that is on the short bus of the party. He’s not very bright. I suspect the grand jurors are just rabid progressives, too, and they are all in the wing of “let’s put the SOB behind bars.” They hate him. They call him vulgarities instead of the President. They just want him in prison, and they’ll do anything to get him there.

They are not smart enough to consider the ramifications and too blinded by rage against Trump to care.

And on and on. Significantly, Erickson, a lawyer specializing in elections at one time himself, never gives Bragg the benefit of the doubt, namely that maybe Bragg is just doing his job. The fact that a job is high-profile and may have a political facet doesn’t mean the person in that job has absolute discretion in doing that job.

The fact of the matter is that a grand jury listened to testimony and returned indictments – more than thirty, according to this CNN/Politics article. This should be a hint that there’s a fire going on. Add in the fact that Bragg’s political career would be significantly damaged by a failed prosecution and so he’d best be very sure, and yet here we are, and I found Erickson’s political calculations reprehensible.

But it’s true, his blog was called Confessions of a Political Junkie (now, in support of his radio show, it’s called the Erick Erickson Show). But it seems to be the only prism he has, this political prism, along with the occasional God is in control prism for those days when events are unpredictable.

And this is what makes him, as a pundit, an entertaining failure. I mean, he’s no doubt fun on the radio, and judging from the content of his blog, his listeners will be hearing what makes them feel good.

But if it leads to such mistakes as predicting the 2022 election to be a blow out, rather than the split-decision it turned out to be, well, that’s failure. And Erickson really piles them up.

But, as a prominent pundit, he’s certainly a window on extremist thinking.

Integument:

1. a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind.
2. any covering, coating, enclosure, etc. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Scientists say your idea of how the T. rex looked is probably wrong,” Dino Grandoni, WaPo:

But [Auburn University paleontologist Thomas] Cullen, one of the new study’s co-authors, said there is no strong evidence in the skulls of living animals that the wrinkle pattern precludes the presence of lips. “Simply put, the wrinkled texture along the upper jaws,” he said, “does not appear to be strongly correlated to lips one way or another.”

[Carthage College paleontologist Thomas] Carr is confident the debate will be settled someday. “What we need is a fossil of a mummy tyrannosaur that preserves the integument of the face,” he said.

I see Senator Tuberville (R-AL) has quietly joined the House Republicans in advocating, and implementing, nutty political strategies in order to achieve unpopular political goals:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went on offense Tuesday against one Republican senator’s blockade of 160 senior military promotions, cautioning that delaying the moves will harm national security.

Austin delivered the warning at a Senate Armed Services hearing Tuesday, where he made the case for the Pentagon’s annual defense budget. The defense chief was asked about Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s temporary hold, which is based on new policies aimed at shoring up troops’ access to abortions, and pleaded with the Republican to change course.

Without naming the Alabama senator or citing the abortion policy, Austin called the impact of delaying routine military promotions “absolutely critical” as dozens, potentially hundreds, of general and flag officer picks pile up. He cited a number of tense global situations, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Iran. [Politico]

Tuberville’s anti-abortion maneuver won’t hurt him personally, as Alabama appears to be firmly in the grip of the GOP, but for other members of Congress up for reelection in swing districts, it could be problematic. Threatening national security over a domestic political issue in which most of the national electorate disagrees with Tuberville will do nothing to endear his GOP colleagues to local voters.

The GOP’s forest of prosperity.

Add in their clown car affair with raising the the national debt limit, an irrational resistance to raising taxes, and the general adherence to the Gingrich Doctrine of never giving Democrats a win – in case you’re wondering, it’s the Democrats who are currently occupying the position of ‘mostly sane’ – and the general 4th rate personalities now being put up for election, and the 2024 election is looking dreary indeed for the Republicans.

An object lesson in not opening your shirt.

Black Adam (2022) is one of those movies that’s not quite a credit card movie: it starts out in a hole, but doesn’t quite start digging deeper; instead, it improves.

Slightly.

Oh, so slightly.

Black Adam, aka Teth Adam, is the former and future protector of the fictional country of Kahndaq, a Middle Eastern country that has suffered various governmental plagues, from monarchies to autocracies to anarchies, none of them pleasant. But in this slightly futuristic world there’s an archaeologist who has tired of it all, and has found the key to Black Adam, and now need only find her way to him. Son and brother in tow. Along with this mysterious other guy.

Too bad Adam’s under a mountain.

And he’s a popular guy, at least for a God-like creature who can’t be beat. Except for the occasional blob of Eternium, he just rolls through everything. Anyways, an aspirational monarch is looking for power, as is the self-righteous League of Justice, a bunch of killjoys who forgot to take their chemistry shots before coming on stage.

Anyways, various adventures and CGI explosions ensue once the thoroughly joyless Adam is found; my Arts Editor remarked What fun is this if no one can beat him? And, indeed, it was only stubbornness that got us to the end of this movie.

If you’re heavily into the D. C. Comics Universe, then perhaps you should see this. Maybe. At three in the morning, after drinking heavily.

Otherwise, don’t bother. Duane Johnson’s talents lie in some other place than God-like invincibility.

I see the extreme loyalty demanded of the GOP representatives who’ve been melded to the former President’s shirt-tails by their own extremism and incompetence has led to the next logical step of toxic team politics:

Top House Republicans said in a letter Saturday that they’re considering legislation to “protect” current and former presidents from “politically motivated prosecutions” in response to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into former President Trump.

Why it matters: The letter is the latest volley in their back-and-forth with Bragg, who has refused to comply with their request for records related to his probe. Republicans have attempted to paint Bragg’s actions — which could result in a historic indictment of Trump — as an abuse of prosecutorial authority. [Axios]

Which is damn silly for anyone who cares about having a lawful society. But when the guy who delivered you a job with prestige calls in the favor, you have to answer.

Don’t you? Depends on your chutzpah, not to mention the threats you’ve received, maybe, which is in itself an important consideration.

This is a predictable attempt by the Republican House “leaders” to legitimize their exceptionally poor showing, so far, in the current session of Congress. Don’t look for them to moderate their stances, because they perceive their extremism as the reason they’re in Congress – rather than the toxic team politics upon which I’ve harped for so long.

It’s up to the voters to kick them out.

The musical dance scene was particularly disturbing.

The Walking Dead (1936) chronicles the classic revenge from beyond the grave tale. John Ellman, a poor man walking about an unnamed contemporary American city, happens to stumble into a fresh murder scene, is accused of the shooting, and, as the research lab assistants who initially accused him dither in fear, is executed.

So who did it? A city-wide conspiracy of business leaders. The worship of money and power is without bounds, and the death of Ellman is meaningless to them.

Until the head of the research lab decides to try out his untested revivification methods on Ellman, at the urging of his guilt-stricken assistants. Soon enough, he’s strolling about, playing the piano, and, when justice fails, taking his revenge on both the hired hands and those who paid those hands to kill them.

Is this memorable? No, not really. Plot holes include the question of why a revivified guy can outmuscle the original muscle that killed him. Nor is Ellman all that charming.

But it’s not a bad little movie, either. It comes off as a B-list horror flick, and I suspect that was the extent of the ambition of the movie makers. But the idea that arrogant murderers can be tripped up by the lowest of the low is a quintessentially American idea, the underdog leaping at the throat of its enemy.

So if you’re a Boris Karloff completist, this particular entry in his canon won’t hurt you to watch, unlike some.

Anyone else mark the resemblance to Robert Downey, Jr? I was quite distracted.

Hercules (2014), as the bold audience member might guess, derives from the Roman mythical character Hercules (Greek Heracles), son of king-of-the-gods Zeus and a mortal woman. This is but one of a large portfolio of films that have used him as the protagonist in their tales, or as a supporting character in other heroes’ adventures.

This one’s a bit different, though. With the notable exception of the portrayal of Hercules by Kevin Sorbo in the eponymous TV series, Hercules, the son of Jupiter, or Zeus, qualified at least as a demi-god, and despite, or perhaps because of, the many tragedies visited upon him by Zeus’ wife, Hera, who is insanely jealous of her husband’s mortal lover, as well as a host of accomplishments, Hercules is often headstrong, proud, and even petty at times, often to his regret.

But imagining Hollywood and wrestling star Duane Johnson as blindly arrogant is the sort of exercise sure to induce headaches, and, fortunately, Johnson doesn’t play Hercules with that in mind. For those familiar with Johnson’s work, this is an early example of his humble, laconic trademark, exuding, much like Sorbo, a quiet desire to learn and comfort, even as enemies fly across the screen after meeting his mighty fist.

In this story, Hercules and his entourage of friends he’s rescued from dicey situations are hired to save a kingdom from the depredations of a magician who can raise the dead.

There’s a wee problem, however, as the magician says he doesn’t do that.

And the king-to-be-saved seems ambitious to lord it over more than just his kingdom.

And the promised gold is awfully damn heavy, anyways.

Tongue in cheek fun and actually a bit inventive, it’s not a bad little tale. However, there are too many characters, which is not to say confusion reigns here, but most of the support characters have as much depth as does a cardboard box. A nicely decorated box, but I fear the script shorts the Hercules supporters in favor of the demi-god himself.

Who smiles and keeps on going.

If you stumble across this one stormy night, it’s not a bad way to spend the evening. You won’t stay up afterwards contemplating important philosophical issues, it’s true.

But you may fall asleep with a tired smile on your face.

Noshery:

1. informal a restaurant or other place where food is served [Dictionary.com]

Until I saw the definition I was mispronouncing it in my head. No-shery. Noted in “A birthday party for a dead man? Philip Roth gets feted on his 90th.” Karen Heller, WaPo:

Yes, there were countless liver jokes, in reference to the most creatively abused organ in American fiction, as in: “After reading Philip Roth’s ‘Portnoy’s Complaint,’ I could never eat liver again.” There was even a noble mound of chopped liver served at Hobby’s Delicatessen (motto: “Established before you were born”), a corner noshery where stand-up comedians ripped jokes, many off-color, in honor of this city’s acclaimed literary son.

Erick Erickson is executing a frantic dance – during his vacation, no less – to keep the right-wing base together. As he, or the powers-that-want-to-be, see it, the former President is an anchor dragging them into the depths:

The national calamity we are in is because a man with no impulse control lacked impulse control, banged the porn star, and when the Christian Right gravitated to him, he had to shut her up with hush money because he was afraid they’d turn on him right before the 2016 election.

Them’s the facts, y’all.

I know a few remaining hardcore true believers will deny it because Trump denies it, but we’ve got the paper trail, the lawyer, the porn star, and the only one who says no is the one who talked about grabbing women by their vaginal parts.

This isn’t so important as it sounds; the point Erickson wants to elide is that Trump was, at the very best, an incompetent, boastful boob lacking a moral system, whose attraction of the evangelical element of the electorate is not only an embarrassment to themselves, but to everyone else as well. At worst, suspected but unproven, is a treasonous loyalty to President Vladimir Putin, and a disrespect for democracy suggested by the January 6th Insurrection.

But as much as Erickson wants him gone, he remembers Trump is the Republican Party-chosen boob, which is to say Trump is the reflection in the mirror the Republican Party held up to tidy its curls in 2016, 2018, and 2020, and to acknowledge his unforgivable errors, policies, and view of the world is to condemn the Party members themselves.

That includes pastors and congregations who embraced Trump using Biblical language, much like the Fire-Eaters in the American Civil War used the Bible to justify continuing the unjust institution of slavery. These “faithful” desired to maintain a privileged position in society and government, rather than accede to the requirements of democracy; that God is four-square behind them, or so they believe, makes the suggestion that Trump was a mistake unpalatable.

So Erickson must find a path between fatally insulting the right-wing base, and keeping Trump in power; thus, the lack of impulse control, which sounds like something outside of Trump’s responsibilities.

And now to save his own ass:

To be sure, a county district attorney in New York prosecuting Trump for paying his mistress hush money is a heavy-handed political stunt. Sure, if you or I got caught ordering our companies to do it, and they did, we might get prosecuted. But it’s doubtful we’d get caught, not that I recommend it.

What, are only federal prosecutors permitted to engage with Trump? Word is that most crimes are defined and prosecuted at the local level, not the federal, so it make sense that local prosecutions will take place. And then he degenerates into good-feeling bibble babble, and, unable to help himself, he just has to devolve into the usual insults:

Yes, in fact, sometimes it is better not to prosecute if it risks the nation itself. There is discretion with justice. But this is a Soros-backed progressive prosecutor. He’d rather prosecute Trump than a cop killer. The left has weaponized prosecutions.

Have they? Have they weaponized juries? It’s one of those remarks designed to inspire paranoia: Keep the herd together! But on examination, the remark degenerates into meaningless static. If Alvin Bragg, the New York County D.A., has abused his office to “get Trump”, the jury will, at worst, be hung, and at best find Trump Not Guilty and even reprimand Bragg, thus ending his political career. Would Bragg risk that?

But if this is a legit prosecution, the jury may very well find Trump guilty. Not that Erickson would dare endorse such a finding, as that would endanger his current lofty position in the right-wing punditry, but that’s how it works out.

Finally, Erickson has a history of getting the American mood wrong, from predicting left-wing riots over the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett (in order to blame the late, even then, Justice Ginsburg for not resigning when Obama was President, ignoring the Judge Garland incident, not to mention Ginsburg’s right to stay on the bench until death or incompetence) (the riots didn’t happen), to predicting the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, would have little effect on the 2022 election, while the post-mortem analysis credits Dobbs with Democratic gains in the Senate and exceptionally minimal losses in the House, confounding most professional pundits. So this made me laugh:

Who exactly do an indictment and arrest bring to Trump that wasn’t with him in 2020? Republicans, you do know if you go with literally anyone else, you can get eight years in the White House, right, and half or less of the soap opera?

Uh, no. Like I said, the Republicans selected their image in Trump, and that has simply worsened. It means most of their candidates, national and local, are like Trump, whether they have a safe seat, like Rep Greene (R-GA), or they’re wailing, unjustifiably, that they were cheated, such as Kari Lake (R-AZ) losing the governor’s seat in Arizona. A self-centered, often money-worshiping, lot, they continue to push anti-abortion measures which infuriate the all-important independents, and likely many Republicans who’ve not become convinced they know what’s passing through God’s mind these days.

See, Trump is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself. Get rid of him, and you’re still stuck with candidates who think the world revolves around them, and by-fucking-god, god hates abortion and everyone agrees with them.

It’s not how the world works. So long as the Republicans continue to field Lake, Pastriano, Oz, and dozens of other such candidates, they’ll be dancing on the edge of an abyss of oblivion. And Erickson just doesn’t get it.

This WaPo article explores how the Nebraska legislature is slowly sliding into the pit of polarization, in the context of an “I’m going to filibuster everything!” state Senator, as they start to see the introduction of culture war laws, and why:

The legislature, called the Unicam in Nebraska, used to be one of the least polarized in the country, said Geoff Lorenz, a political scientist from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but that changed with the introduction of term limits for senators, as the old guard retired.

“Over the last two decades, the Unicam has been among the most rapidly polarizing state legislative chambers in the country,” he said.

As a reminder, Nebraska has the only unicameral state legislature in the Union.

It had not occurred to me that term limits are a mechanism for introducing extremists into a legislature, but, in concert with the toxic team politics of the GOP, that appears to be happening.

There is value in having stability in the legislature, so long as the incumbents can be voted out if they turn out to be incompetent or malignant. Nebraska is demonstrating the inverse.

Geofence warrant:

Searches stemming from a geofence warrant can be likened most succinctly to “fishing expedition[s]”: Law enforcement compels a third-party provider, like Google, to disclose user location history (LH) data of “cell phones in the vicinity of [an] alleged criminal activity under investigation” in order “to narrow the pool” and “fish” out the identity of the criminal suspect. Unlike traditional search warrants, where courts compel a third-party provider to disclose a suspect’s location data after a suspect has been identified, geofence warrants place the cart before the horse. A third-party provider is compelled to disclose LH data of all individuals present in a particular vicinity during an alleged crime before a suspect has been identified. [“The D.C. District Court Upholds the Government’s Geofence Warrant Used to Identify Jan. 6 Rioters,” Saraphin Dhanani, Lawfare]

Further on, the article states:

With so little precedent on what makes geofence warrants constitutional, Judge Contreras’s holding is a breakthrough for the government as it uses LH data obtained through the geofence warrant to level charges against Jan. 6 rioters. More broadly, the case is also instructive for law enforcement as an example of the kinds of Fourth Amendment guardrails that a geofence warrant must have for it to pass constitutional muster.

Now which room has the poker table again?

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) is the third part of a prequel sequence to the popular Harry Potter series and its universe of a hidden world of wizards and magical creatures, and the inherent tensions between wizards and Muggles, the non-magical humans of our world. This movie is the climax of a conflict between Albus Dumbledore, later a dominant character and wizard in the main series, and his former gay lover Grindewald.

Sounds like fun.

But it’s not. I think it suffers from a malady endemic to fantasy: Got a problem? Slap some magic over it, and if there’s a cost, minimize it. Makes for a flashy movie, but it’s hard to see the consequences and side effects of decisions made – and that is often the real heart of a story, regardless of genre.

Add characters appearing and disappearing with little clue as to their significance, a lack of chemistry between the Muggle Jacob and his wizard love, Queenie, the repetitiveness of the lead character, Newt Scamander, a real difficulty in detecting an organic theme or two to stir debate and discussion, and this story devolves into just another money-maker by-blow. And that’s too bad, as there’s a lot of good performers present.

I fear the storytellers just don’t pull it off this time. Unless you’re a completist for Potter, or for any of the actors in this movie, don’t bother with this one.

Our robotic overlords will be drones, not massive computers:

Some cool stuff there.

CNN/Politics:

Former President Donald Trump said Saturday he expects to be arrested in connection with the yearslong investigation into a hush money scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels and called on his supporters to protest any such move.

In a social media post, Trump, referring to himself, said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week” – though he did not say why he expects to be arrested. His team said after Trump’s post that it had not received any notifications from prosecutors.

It appears that the former President is trying to get out ahead of the story, but prospects of finding a positive spin appealing for independent voters, particularly in the wake of the ICC’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Trump’s alleged mentor, Russian President Putin, seem remote. I expect this move is in defense of his influence over his base, without which Trump is a political nothing.

But the events between now and the potential trial should provide both meaningful information and quite the entertainment for the observant citizen. For example, will the former President attempt to rival former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) mugshot?

Infamous for his grin in the mugshot for his arrest on various campaign money violations in 2005, he was initially convicted, later reversed by an appeals court and the Texas Supreme Court, both Republican dominated institutions. Will Trump try his charm on a mugshot? He’ll become an endless subject of laughter.

Early on, the repercussions of this may also influence events:

His call for a protest in response to a potential arrest echoes his final days in office, when he repeatedly urged his supporters to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Some of Trump’s advisers had urged him privately not to call for protests, concerned about the optics of a mass protest in the streets of Manhattan growing out of control or resembling the 2021 insurrection.

CNN’s reporters fail to note the consequences of calling for a protest and suffering underperformance, instead. Then he’d have to make up stories about conspiracies to keep his followers away from him, rather than face the more likely explanation: they’ve figured out that he’s just a pathetic grifter.

That might just break the MAGA movement, although the MAGA sharks are already circling, awaiting Trump’s demise or discrediting, hoping to claim this mob of mislead citizens and predatory grifters as their own. Their names? Miscreants in Congress, mostly, with Rep Greene (R-GA) perhaps the leading candidate. (I must admit I have a soft spot in my head for her orbiting Jewish Space Lasers, a real favorite.)

The trial’s testimony, too, will damage Trump badly, as it’ll show his lack of respect for family values by patronizing a high-priced prostitute – cheating on one’s wife should not appeal to most MAGA-ites.

This will be an entertaining and even instructional few months leading to a trial – assuming he is, in fact, indicted.

Natatorium:

a swimming pool, especially one that is indoors. [Dictionary.com]

Noted on RoadsideArchitecture.com:

The news that the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for President Vladimir Putin of Russia brought just one thing to mind:

How much is on offer for the bounty hunter who brings Putin in alive?

And if you think that’s a joke, well, it’s not.

Our latest nominee has a political history of madness, so this is no surprise:

… Kari Lake, the news anchor-turned-failed-Arizona gubernatorial candidate who ended her remarks at a keynote event dinner by kissing a portrait of Trump that was placed on stage. [AP]

It seems a bit much. I mean, whose hands touched that portrait? Who kissed it before she did?

And does she realize how much of a fourth rater she appears to be?

Lately, the news concerning cryptocurrencies tends to lean negative. Reportedly, Signature Bank, now in receivership, had a strong association with crypto. Before that, CNN/Business reported on an entity named Silverlake going under:

Crypto-focused lender Silvergate said it is winding down operations and will liquidate the bank after being financially pummeled by turmoil in digital assets.

“In light of recent industry and regulatory developments, Silvergate believes that an orderly wind down of Bank operations and a voluntary liquidation of the Bank is the best path forward,” it said in a statement Wednesday.

The bank’s plan includes “full repayment of all deposits,” it said.

Silvergate’s collapse is a rare example of crypto’s volatility spilling into the mainstream banking system. The bank is a traditional, federally insured lender that positioned itself as a gateway to the digital asset space. …

“The problems that faced Silvergate were primarily a result of less-than-adequate risk management, notably one of relying too much on volatile short-term deposits while lending or investing at a longer duration,” [Dave Weisberger, the CEO of CoinRoutes] said. “This is not like the collapse of FTX, where investors lost their deposits, but, rather, an orderly dissolution.”

Which suggests either Silverlake’s management was inexperienced and not up to the task, or that managing a bank with an exposure to crypto is a horrendous task. On that matter I have no insight, but I suspect the latter, since crypto, despite the bombast, remains a new entity with unknown attributes.

And now there’s news on crypto-connected fraud from Egypt via AL-Monitor:

Egyptian authorities have succeeded this month in partially unraveling one of the largest cases of online fraud in the country to date by arresting the members of a network that established a fake digital currency platform and deceived thousands of people into readily handing over their life’s savings.

The network was made up of 29 people, including 13 foreign nationals, according to the Egyptian Interior Ministry.

They established the fictitious HoggPool crypto mining platform and lured users by promising them high returns for their investments, stealing 19 million Egyptian pounds ($615,000) from them, the ministry said in a statement released last week.

From the article, it sounds like a familiar Ponzi scheme in which early “investors,” few in number, profit at the expense of later rounds of investors, as the latter pay the former via those responsible for the scheme. But why are Egyptians taking such risks as believing in crypto?

[Due to Putin’s War, ] The central bank has depreciated the Egyptian pound several times since early 2022, causing the pound to lose almost 50% of its value against foreign currencies, doing away with the savings of millions of Egyptians and partially contributing to making the prices of commodities tower over the money in people’s hands, regardless of its amount.

To protect their savings, Egyptians are putting their money in anything that seems profitable, from real estate to vehicles and gold. And some put their savings into digital currencies, too, trying to achieve easy and quick profits.

In a world heavily dependent on trade, a little war over here can induce uproar halfway around the globe. And so do the vulnerable suffer some more.

On Lawfare Brittan Heller discusses the use of AI and metaverse avatars in court proceedings, and I can’t help but wonder as to the accuracy of this statement:

Humans make judgments based on impressions of others’ expressions and movements. Mouths and eyes are particularly important for interpreting if someone is trustworthy or is a threat. In avatars, the face is the last step in crossing the uncanny valley. This is why some virtual humans or digital resurrections of actors, like Carrie Fisher’s posthumous Princess Leia, still feel “off,” flat, or just creepy, in an almost imperceptible way.

My experience with the use of Carrie Fisher’s image in the Star Wars movies made since her death is inevitably colored by my knowledge that she’s passed away. Has anyone carried out a double blind study of the uncanny valley testing the latest technology?

On the topic of AI assistance in generating opinions, it strikes me that a ChatGPT system trained on a law library and resultant opinions may be a perfect assistant to the judge. As a judge themselves, however, well, I’d rather not stand in that courtroom, not even as a juror.

In the wake of the 100% coverage of SVB deposits, what appears to be moral hazard, or cosseting people from their mistakes, has come to mind for numerous folks, including myself. Mitigating this concern, however, is Marcus Weisgerber and Patrick Tucker at DefenseOne:

In the hours after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, Pentagon officials who work directly with startups that develop national-security technologies grew increasingly concerned.

Would startups that had money in the bank need to stop work? If that happened, would there be supply-chain disruptions? Would a company under financial stress put its intellectual property at risk? …

“You certainly would have seen the national-security implications for autonomy for AI, for cyber space, a lot of the sectors which are so vibrant right now and could be used to better effect by the Defense Department,” he said. “It would be like cutting the [research and development] for all of those different companies. And you can imagine what happens, right? That means you’re just living on your current product. And as soon as they run out, nothing’s coming.”

It’s an important point, more important than questions about moral hazard. That’s not to denigrate the latter topic, but I’ve always been a firm believer that a philosophy that results in self-extinguishment should be considered inferior, at least in that context.

The above writers go on to suggest that the Defense Department might take the place of SVB, which would frustrate conservative free markets, but there’s nothing magical about the free market. If it presents unacceptable risks in a given context, then best to detour around it.

Accounts are FDIC-insured up to $250,000.

That used to be a common part of bank commercials. Maybe it still is. So why this?

According to S&P Global, entities had $151.6 billion in uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, or 93.9 percent of the company’s total holdings. [WaPo]

I presume, from context, that company’s means SVB’s, recent victim of the complexity of the current financial system, or tactical financial blundering.

I’m amazed.

Don’t banks offer some sort of “spillover” feature, where no account owned by a company can have more than $250,000, and overflows cause new accounts to be automatically opened, registered with the FDIC, and used?

This just seems like madness. No doubt it’s because I don’t work in the banking industry. Maybe the uninsured money was in uninsurable accounts that offered more return on more risk. But Still.