Unsightly Mental Blemishes

I’ve been a bad boy again, haven’t I?

The pleasures of Alias Boston Blackie (1942),  one of a series concerning an ex-felon now trying to go straight, lie in its details – the hotel manager who, in his 15 seconds of screen time, builds more character than most of the lead actors; Blackie’s assistant misleading the police, who are not mislead – and Blackie knows they’re not mislead; the clown who appears to be 60 years old, yet performs acrobatics worthy of a 20 year old.

There is nothing profound in the plot, but the actors play it with style and wit, and it seems almost no one lacks a wit; so the story has enjoyable twists and turns, the dialog is both crisp and interesting for the words that have gone out of style, the characters are differentiated, if not necessarily memorable.

You may not remember this half an hour after fin, but while you’re watching, you’ll be amused by it. Especially if you, too, are suffering from a head cold.

And all this notwithstanding possibly the worst cinematic fist fight I’ve ever seen, which led my Artistic Editor to exclaim, “What, don’t they have elbows?”

On The Daily Kos, RoyalScribe has a lot of fun discussing statistics and Administration ethics, starting with the Nixon Administration:

Source: RoyalScribe on The Daily Kos

Overall, Richard Nixon’s administration had the most criminal indictments and convictions. Wikipedia’s list enumerates 13 specific individuals who were convicted and imprisoned over Watergate alone, but notes that a total of 69 officials were indicted for the scandal and 48 were either convicted or pleaded guilty. (Nixon himself is not included; after his resignation, President Gerald Ford gave him a blanket pardon, sparing him from any potential indictments. However, his first vice president, Spiro Agnew, is included for indictments unrelated to Watergate.)

The Reagan Administration is next with 26 indictments and 16 convictions (including guilty pleas), followed by the George W. Bush Administration with 16 indictments, all ending in convictions or guilty pleas. The Nixon Administration had at least 15 people serve at least some time in prison for their crimes, while Bush 43’s administration had at least 9 and the Reagan Administration had at least 8. (Scooter Libby’s sentence is included here even though Bush pardoned him in 2007 before he was sent to jail, since the pardon did not expunge the crime and the pardon itself is a political act, not a judicial determination. But others whose convictions were later overturned—like Oliver North’s and John Poindexter’s—are included under indictments but not convictions since it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to second-guess the courts’ reasoning for overturning those convictions.)

All those Clinton White House “scandals”? Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on hearings on Whitewater, Travelgate, the use of the White House Christmas card list, and other oddities, almost all resulted in absolutely nothing. Clinton himself isn’t included. As with Nixon, the impeachment proceedings themselves should count as an indictment, and in the end his only citation was for contempt of court, which I didn’t interpret as the same as an indictment. (I will update this if folks show me this was incorrect.) The only indictments for his administration were of his Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy (who was acquitted of all 30 charges) and of Espy’s Chief of Staff Ronald Blackely, who was convicted of making a false statement and sentenced to 27 months in prison.

There’s some lovely charts as well. RoyalScribe has some advice for the current set of nominees, who appear to be attempting to avoid ethics office overview:

But as I mentioned before, his nominees are at great personal risk if their nominations are rushed through before FBI or Office of Government Ethics review. A conflict that is revealed after they take office could result in criminal indictments. And while President Trump could pardon them for criminal violations (but not civil acts), that only applies to federal charges, not those filed under other state laws, should there be any. And how many pardons can he issue before his own support erodes? Yes, some of his most rabid supporters won’t care (but still want to seek criminal charges against Democrats who didn’t even commit any crimes). But his winning edge in the states that pushed him over the Electoral College top came from a lot of undecided voters who broke for him in the final week (or eleven days, specifically) but won’t stay loyal if scandals grow. (Already, “voted for you Trump“ on Twitter reveals a lot of his disgruntled voters telling him they voted for him but want him to stop tweeting, vet his nominees with proper ethics review, address the Russian hacking issue, and other expressions of disappointment.)

If they were wise, Trump’s nominees and appointees should insist on an Office of Government Ethics review before taking office for their own legal protection.

And if they don’t, it’s just another instance of amateur hour in full swing.

But here’s my concern, I think. If you look at his charts, it’s clear that the GOP doesn’t really have a clue as to how to run clean government, compared to the Democrats. It’s not even close. As RoyalScribe notes, if you push your relevant history marker back to Nixon’s predecessor, it gets even worse for the GOP.

Now, a rational Party – or, for that matter, a competent corporation – would take a look at the cited numbers (go take a look, I don’t want to steal his thunder), realize that there is some sort of problem going on, and institute reform. Perhaps even request support from Obama’s Administration – zero indictments, convictions, and sentences, so Obama sets the standard – because improving how the government is run is a shared concern of all Americans.

But the current edition of the GOP? It sure feels like there’s not a single serious person in the GOP. Now, this is a disservice to many members, I’m sure, but those in positions of power & influence appear to be … power-mongers. Certainly, that’s Trump, someone who’s mostly picked inappropriate people for his nominees (exception: VA nominee, and Mattis for DoD appears to get a lot of respect as well). He’s not at all likely to try to reform the general GOP inclination to appoint ethically vulnerable individuals.

And that hurts America.

Very interesting. No preview, unfortunately.

https://videos-f.jwpsrv.com/content/conversions/nZ44Y8ot/videos/fHLu8cvK-27972850.mp4?token=0_587bae8a_0xff69e4e909de838e3061c3e6d138e8c471f9c09e

Morbid curiosity.

Those two words are the only reason we finished watching The Twonky (1953). This wretched flick about an artificial intelligence masquerading as a television bought by a woman for her philosophy professor husband flops wretchedly from incident to incident, filled with illogic, grasping frantically at plot twists to pass the time. True, it does occasionally produce an unexpected character, such as the failed football coach who, in the accent and words attributable to a coach, quotes Freud and various physics texts, and says that women put him in the mood for french fries; the bill collector has a certain joie de vivre I found enjoyable; and just when you thought it was a total loss, some character or another will toss off a delightful zinger with barely a shrug of the shoulders.

But, trust me, don’t waste your time digging for them. Only watch The Twonky if it’s been prescribed as penance for some horrid crime.

Orotund:

marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound :  sonorous [Merriam-Webster]

Seen in Thereby Hangs a Tale, by Charles Earle Funk:

Bill Robinson may have heard [“copacetic”] as a youngster; its orotund polysyllabism may have stuck in his mind, and, unconsciously, he may have appropriated it, perhaps ascribing to it a meaning of his own. [Section on “copacetic”.]

HuffPo‘s Cristian Farias reports that SCOTUS will be accepting three cases centering around an important point – workers suing employers:

Suzanne Maloney publishes an analysis of the late Iranian leader on Lawfare:

Rafsanjani’s presidency played pivotal role in shaping Iran’s subsequent evolution. His embrace of economic development transformed the underlying social contract from one of revolutionary opposition and existential defense to one grounded in expectations of development and progress. His policies spawned divergent ideological movements, each of which rejected Rafsanjani’s own orientation. The political space that he occupied resists neat categorization, which helps explain the howling debate that erupted on social media in Persian and English after his death this week over whether he could be rightly described as a moderate. For his part, the former president saw himself as “a pragmatist,” as he acknowledged in 1993, when the term might have been construed as controversial within Iran. “I am interested in facts and practicality.”

Although he was a cleric and a committed revolutionary, Rafsanjani’s ideological dexterity was apparent from the outset—so much so that Reagan-era officials hoped to empower him to challenge Khomeini, thus inspiring the disastrous Iran-contra arms deals. He helped legitimize an interests-based approach to the theocracy’s decision making, as enshrined in an Orwellian-sounding state body that he led nearly since its 1988 establishment, the Council for the Discernment of the Expediency of the System. At the time, his advocacy of realism over ideology earned Rafsanjani the ire of much of the revolutionary establishment, particularly hard-liners who saw the cease-fire with Saddam Hussein and the subsequent economic reconstruction program as a betrayal of the regime’s core values and an endorsement of elite enrichment.

Which strikes me as a man committed to nation over ideology. Still,

He never wavered in his support for the Islamic Republic, pioneering the use of election rigging as a means of sidelining rivals and overseeing vicious campaigns at home and abroad intended to eliminate its adversaries and extend its influence. He was equally indifferent to Iran’s representative institutions and its citizens’ basic rights as to the excesses of the regime’s ideology. And while he consistently sought to improve Iran’s image and relationships abroad, he never proved willing or capable of reining in the regime’s reliance on terror and destabilization as a lever of regional influence—which constrained the horizons of Iran’s rehabilitation.

No saint, and suggests that maybe ideology – or religion – had the upper hand over humane treatment one’s fellows. Perhaps no Golden Rule fellow. Susan moves on to what his death may foretell for Iran:

… Rafsanjani’s demise looms large for the Iranian political establishment, whose old guard is dying off at an accelerating rate. As the gerontocracy passes from the scene, their replacements are already being readied, but the process of change itself inevitably creates uncertainty and openings. Within the foreseeable future, [Supreme Leader] Khamenei’s final farewell will arrive. The Islamic Republic has managed one momentous succession process before, at the 1989 death of the revolution’s charismatic founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The man responsible for the smooth navigation of that precarious moment was Rafsanjani himself. Who may play that role next time around remains unknown, and the simmering disaffection of Iran’s next generation, as expressed in the opposition chants at Rafsanjani’s funeral, should preoccupy the guardians of the revolution as they prepare for whatever may come next.

I note there is no attempt to predict who the next Supreme Leader might be – or from which part of the political spectrum he might emerge. And I clearly have no idea, being not even a dabbler in watching Iran.

The Tehran Times reports that Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, likes two of Trump’s nominations:

“Mike Pompeo and James Mattis, the famous American generals who are going to lead the CIA and Defense Department respectively, are two of the most important and sensitive faces among Trump’s cabinet picks,” said Mohsen Rezaei in an Instagram post on Friday.

“Although their remarks have harsh and exaggerated faces of reality, it seems they possess a better political wisdom compared to many American politicians, and given the realities, they would avoid illusions and daydreams,” he added.

The former IRGC chief noted that the Islamic Republic is well aware of the two generals’ records as well as their understanding and knowledge base.

“They, too, are aware of our capabilities,” he said, adding, “They perfectly understand that Iran is a ‘patient lion’ as well as an ‘alert tiger’ and that they should not get close to it.”

Does Trump care about an Iranian politician’s opinion on his picks? Probably not. Will the Senate take note? Harder to say, but again probably not. And they probably shouldn’t – nominees should be judged on their merits, not on the opinions of those who may have opposed agendas.

(Per Wikipedia, Pompeo retired as a Captain from the Army, not a General.)

Lee Remick is an astronomer who really likes her … uh …

Experiment in Terror (1962) stars Glenn Ford as an FBI agent handling a case in which a bank teller, played by Lee Remick, is being forced to steal money from her employer. This is a movie with fine acting and a good story, but burdened by a few details that clash or are not brought to full fruition.

For example, at one point Ford agrees to meet a woman at her home to discuss her problem. He’ll meet her in an hour – but, clearly, several hours pass before he gets there. And we know her address – but it’s an apartment building, they go right to her apartment – how did they know? And what was her part in this, anyways? The entire subplot, as intriguing as it is – she has an “unusual” occupation – comes to nothing. It would have been more effective if her occupation had something to do with the main plot, but, sadly, it doesn’t.

There are other upsetting head feints. At one juncture, it’s suggested that perhaps this is a criminal – a murderer – with a heart of gold. But, again, this point is not pursued; it’s as if someone snapped on a spotlight and pointed into the sky, but nothing ever appears and it ends up doing nothing.

All that said, this is a creepy movie to watch. Information is released slowly, letting us think and wonder before the next twist is slowly delivered. It’s easy to miss plot holes if you’re not looking for them, and the performances are effective.

While this doesn’t quite achieve my Recommended level, if you like mildly noir movies, this may be worth your time.

And if you have a head cold like I do, it’s a good way to pass the time.

I have no idea if this is authentic.

On SCOTUSblog, Eric Citron writes about potential SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch, currently on the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. While I have no opinion of Judge Gorsuch, I found this passage concerning his views of the “dormant commerce clause” interesting – if only because I had not heard of such a concept:

Another area of the law in which Gorsuch has shown both his writing talent and his similarity to Scalia is in the application (and critique) of doctrines surrounding the so-called “dormant commerce clause.” These doctrines treat the commerce clause not only as a grant of power to Congress to make laws regulating interstate commerce, but as a kind of presumptive limitation on the power of states to make laws that either unduly burden or unfairly discriminate against interstate commerce, without regard to whether Congress has ever passed a law in the relevant area. Because — as its name suggests — the dormant commerce clause cannot actually be found in the text of the Constitution, Scalia eventually came around to the view that it should not be a thing, and refused to endorse any future expansions of the doctrine. For example, in 2015, in a dissenting opinion in Comptroller v. Wynne, Scalia  stated: “The fundamental problem with our negative Commerce Clause cases is that the Constitution does not contain a negative Commerce Clause.” Although a court of appeals judge lacks the same freedom to disparage and/or depart from existing Supreme Court precedent, Gorsuch’s opinions also reveal a measure of distrust towards unwritten constitutional provisions like the dormant commerce clause.

For example, a 2015 10th Circuit decision written by Gorsuch, Energy and Environment Legal Institute v. Epel, declined to apply the dormant commerce clause to strike down a clean-energy program created by Colorado on the grounds that it might negatively affect traditional energy producers outside the state. The opinion explains that this result is consistent with the limited reach of the dormant commerce clause’s “judicial free trade policy” even under existing precedent. But while acknowledging that lower courts must take the Supreme Court’s doctrine as they find it, Gorsuch’s opinion shows respect for the doctrine’s “[d]etractors,” like Scalia, who “find dormant commerce doctrine absent from the Constitution’s text and incompatible with its structure.” Though Gorsuch’s personal constitution seems to require him to write clearly about the many unclear aspects of the doctrine, his opinion plainly takes some joy in the act of demonstrating that not only does the dormant commerce clause not apply — the doctrine also doesn’t make much sense. That same instinct is present in a prominent concurrence last year in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, in which Gorsuch singled out one aspect of dormant commerce clause doctrine—the Quill rule that exempts out-of-state mail order sales from state sales tax—as an “analytical oddity” that “seems deliberately designed” to be overruled eventually. This opinion aligned him with Justice Anthony Kennedy (who has called for overruling Quill), and again with Scalia, who identified Quill as part of the “bestiary of ad hoc tests and ad hoc exceptions that we apply nowadays” under the dormant commerce clause.

Two things stand out. First, presumably Judge Gorsuch is a conservative, even highly conservative, but note that here he used his interpretation to preserve a clean energy program run by the State of Colorado, a position of several questions for conservatives. It suggests an allegiance to the law and his interpretation to it, but not necessarily ideology. At least, it might appear that in terms of priorities, he’s more likely to follow his methodology for interpretation of the law than whatever far-right conservative ideology may be calling for.

Second, simply the existence of exceptions for out of state mail order sales from state sales tax. Replace “mail order” with “Internet retailer” and they seem interchangeable.

On this subject, Eric draws a conclusion:

The dormant commerce clause isn’t a particularly hot-button issue, nor does it have obvious liberal/conservative fault lines. But it’s noteworthy that criticism of the dormant commerce clause is of a piece with criticism of the “right to privacy” that undergirds the Supreme Court ‘s abortion jurisprudence, as well as other judge-made doctrines that do not have a strong connection to the constitutional text. Again, Gorsuch’s opinions seem to follow the lead of textualists and federalists like Scalia in expressing great skepticism towards such doctrines, which allow judges to strike down duly enacted local laws on the basis of vague principles that cannot be found in the concrete text of the national charter.

Perhaps alarming to those of us who discover that, without such readings, justice is not so warm and fuzzy.

Parabiosis:

Mr. Thiel is focused on ways to prolong life. He was intrigued by parabiosis, a blood regeneration trial in which people over 35 would receive transfusions from people aged 16 to 25 — an experiment that Anne Rice gave a thumbs up to. [The New York Times]

Similar experiments have been performed on mice, both from young mice to old mice, and young humans to old mice (not a typo!), with positive results.

Steve Benen on MaddowBlog gets a trifle hysterical – or perhaps he’s a little lacking in the imagination department – with regard to the ongoing scandal of Russia interfering in the American election:

If we stopped here and went no further, we’d still have one of the most important campaign stories in American history. It’s an almost unimaginable crime: a foreign adversary provided clandestine assistance to a presidential candidate, creating a dynamic in which the next leader of the free world managed to reach the office thanks in part to foreign espionage.

Well, no. Nearly unimaginable would require something out of the pages of the National Enquirer involving space aliens. The discussion de jour? We’ve certainly interfered in our share of elections, both during and after, including Iran. Interference in an American election is not nearly unimaginable, except that we’ve never had it thrown in our faces before.

But all this is sort of behind the point. Here’s what Steve has not yet addressed: what do we do about it? The Constitution, so far as I recall, does not address the question. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if we’ve ever had reason to address it in the courts – so, assuming not, what’s the response?

Obama can not do anything. Any positive response on his part to the crisis that requires an extension of his term will result – quite correctly – in cries of illegitimacy and, on the fringes, of dictatorship. His role is to call out the problem to the citizenry, entreating a response.

Clinton? I think she should do little, otherwise she risks sullying her reputation with the epithet of “sore loser”, and while no doubt most conservatives still despise her, in the long term I suspect she’ll be exculpated of all charges and considered one of the finest candidates for President to not win the job. But she has little leverage at this time.

Trump? Honestly, beats me. This is without precedent. I doubt he can legitimately (but, of course, yes legally) step aside on this basis: this nation needs someone to run the Executive branch. But to do so wisely? I just don’t see him able to do so.

Perhaps he should be really wise and try to construct a national unity government, with Democrats and Republicans in the Cabinet, and the Senate Republicans doing their job, rather than the rubber stamp they tend to employ. McCain and Graham have shown some grit, perhaps they can lead the way.

Otherwise, it’s going to be a rough, divisive four years, which may result in the destruction of the Republican Party, and the loss of American prestige world-wide.

Years ago, I ran across The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) while on a trip, rooming with another fencer. We only saw part of it, but I found it riveting and soon tracked down a version on DVD. Since then, every couple of years I watch it again.

Why? Because it appeals to the primal urge that a single person, man or woman, can make a difference, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Granted, the characters in this movie are rarely basic humans, but in the end they are all people motivated by the same concerns, from the most basic to the spiritual.

While this is technically part of a series, through minimal flashbacks it stands on its own while justifying characters from earlier in the series. The plot? Riddick, a man who might be considered to exist without concern for right or wrong, is being hunted at the command of a couple of people trying to save a world, Helion Prime, from an invading force of death-worshipers – they believe he might be their saviour. But Riddick, once roused, believes in being proactive; he comes to the threatened planet to see who calls him. Eventually, after messing with the invading force, he ends up on a prison planet, where he battles his way out and returns to Helion Prime to rescue a friend, where he must face the invading force again, and then it’s either win or die.

Grandiose? Sure. And the meat of the story is rich, complex, even baroque, enough to support this story. The invaders display a well-considered strategy for both winning and then stripping the world of its most precious resource: People. The swirl of power politics is touched on enough to realize this really is another human enterprise. Meanwhile, Riddick is a cipher, decisive, possibly out for himself, until one realizes his motivations appear to have little to do with wealth or sex or power; one is left wondering precisely why he’s a criminal in this society – except, perhaps, for his direct approach to problems. The prison planet once again displays the foibles of humans – both of the inmates and the keepers – and is a fascinating little world of its own.

And the story contains quite suitable attributions of a greater world beyond this story, of civilizations watching this battle with trepidation, yet hope. It’s lessons? We see the karma of lust, of avarice, of power. And we see Riddick. Perhaps that’s enough.

Some may say it’s a boy movie. But I say – Recommended.

Or so analyzing PEOTUS Trump’s comments on North Korea seems to be. Still, Jeffrey Lewis gives it his best on 38 North, with an intermediate conclusion (it’s part of a series) of:

This all adds up to … nothing. Trump praised Dennis Rodman when it helped ratings of the Celebrity Apprentice, then trashed him when he didn’t. He called Kim Jong Un a maniac and suggested assassinating him, expressing only admiration for a 20-something stepping out of his father’s shadow. And when asked about the serious issues of international diplomacy, he pivoted to a long-rant about all the money wasted on state dinners.

This isn’t a coherent North Korea policy, it’s the ramblings of a reality television show with unresolved Daddy issues and a love of fast food. To find our first hints of how Trump might approach North Korea, we need to look elsewhere. Trump is more likely to think that the way to solve the North Korea problem serving Xi Jinping a cheeseburger, not Kim Jong Un. But that is installment three of this series.

At least one gets the impression that Jeffrey’s quite realistic about the situation.

Dilip Saraf suggests us the old folk shouldn’t panic at the layoff notice:

What drives this mindset [of being unemployable when laid off after age 50] is some myth around job losses that occurred during the past several decades, mostly from the manufacturing sector. Conventional wisdom holds that the new economy is an inhospitable place for workers in their 50s or 60s, with full or part-time gigs flipping burgers or as Wal-Mart greeters or worse, are the only avenues available to them. In a recent Wall-Street Journal article Ann Tergesen reports it’s never been better to be an older worker looking for a job. Why? The numbers show that the nightmare scenario simply isn’t true. The 55-and-older demographic is actually the only age group with a rising labor-force participation rate, Ann reports. Not only that, but more than 60 percent of workers age 65 or older have full-time positions, up from 44 percent in 1995. These older workers are increasingly working in well-paid, highly skilled jobs in the professional services industry. They are helped by the overall shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, which has created more jobs in which cognitive skills matter more than physical ability.

Suggesting that the wisdom of the ages has some value after all? While keeping in mind Heinlein’s dictum that age is only guaranteed to bring wrinkles, it’s a nice thought. But in professions which rapidly transform, mental fatigue can set in, resulting in the youth being favored in job interviews.

Gonopodium:

Mating between mosquito fish – a relative of the guppy – is far from romantic. The male makes no effort to court partners. Instead, he sneaks up and attempts to copulate by force up to 1000 times a day – and females try to avoid the harassment. Males use a modified anal fin, the gonopodium, to deliver sperm into the female.

Séverine Buechel at Stockholm University in Sweden and colleagues bred males to have longer gonopodia, and found that this led to bigger-brained females (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doi.org/bvmv).

From “Longer ‘penis’ drives evolution of bigger brains in female fish,” NewScientist (17 December 2016).

Jack Goldsmith discusses on Lawfare the problems of cyber warfare and the three options the United States can pursue: better defense, better offense, or make a deal. He points out that amidst the outrage (mostly, from my own observations, from liberals) over the Russian manipulation of the recent election, the United States is not exactly an innocent:

But perhaps nothing is as threatening as the pledges and activities associated with the U.S. “Internet Freedom” initiative, which (among other things) involves funding and technical support to empower citizens in authoritarian states to circumvent censorship and promote speech there.   Russia views this initiative as “a U.S. strategy to intervene in [its] domestic politics through cyber means,” as David Fidler notes. …

In short, China and Russia, among our most potent adversaries, see efforts to weaken their control over their networks as a direct threat to their core sovereign interests.  They view it in the same way that we view the intervention in our election.

This latter point is surprising to many.  A casual consumer of the news in the United States would think that the United States is the main victim in the confrontations going on in the cyber realm.  It is indeed a victim.  But the United States is also widely perceived around the world as the greatest threat in the cyber realm.  It has, as President Obama bragged last Fall, greater offensive cyber capabilities than any other nation.  And it is perceived abroad to use these capacities aggressively.  Stuxnet, now widely attributed to the United States, is one example.  The Snowden revelations were an even bigger deal.  They provided clear, extensive, concrete evidence about the numerous impressive (and, to many, shocking) ways that the United States penetrates and collects information in foreign networks.  And of course the United States isn’t taking all of the information stolen from foreign networks and putting it in a box.  It uses the fruits of its espionage and theft to bolster every element of its foreign and defense policy, and its national and economic security.

It’s also worth noting, in this context, the many episodes in which the United States has intervened in foreign elections.  I summarized some of the evidence in posts last summer.  A study by Dov Levin found that during the Cold War, the United States intervened to influence foreign elections over twice as often (69% to 31%) as the Soviet Union.  In many of these cases the United States “weaponized information” to sway the election.  U.S. electoral intervention continued after the Cold War.  A prominent example is its support of the populist Boris Yeltsin in the 1996 Russian presidential election.

Which may or may not affect Trump, who I find quite hard to predict. Goldsmith recommends option #3, entering into a non-aggression pact with those countries we perceive as messing with us:

Selecting A & B sometimes results in C.

One response to [#3] that I hear in conversation is some version of: “The United States should be able to have its cake and eat it too.”  On this view, the United States is the strongest nation in the world militarily and economically, and should not have to give up any of its cyber and related capabilities in exchange for relief from adversary cyber and related actions.  We have to get tougher, act more aggressively, and the like.  I am surprised by this reaction because in other contexts—most notably, nuclear weapons—the United States perceived a clear advantage from giving up offensive capabilities in exchange for the threat reduction of reciprocal concessions.  But in any event, the “tough guy” line of thinking is belied by events of the last five years or so, which has made clear that problems of attribution, escalation, and digital vulnerability mean that no matter how powerful we are at the moment, we cannot in fact have our cake and eat it too in this context.

Oddly enough, in this instance I am somewhat happier that Trump is the President, rather than his VP, Pence. (On the Kelvin scale I’m still very unhappy.) Why? I perceive Pence, for all his smooth-talking ways, to be one who has let his religious impulses run rampant. When one is certain that God is on your side, you don’t compromise, you don’t negotiate – you try to put the hammer down. You burn your opponents at the stake, if I may be so rash as to take note of history. Anything less and you’re not doing the Will of God. A sure recipe for rampaging through the china shop, breaking everything you desire, all the time gasping that this is the right way, God’s will, all that irresponsible crap.

On the other hand, note carefully one of Jack’s historical notes – the United States perceived a clear advantage from giving up offensive capabilities in exchange for the threat reduction of reciprocal concessions. And then recall Trump has promised to “rebuild” our nuclear weapon stockpile. It puts a damper on my trivial bit of optimism above, doesn’t it?

Danila Tkachenko is a photographer located in Russia. From his “Restricted Areas” series:

The caption is Test bench for missiles. Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda Region, 2015. More may be found here.

Veronique Greenwood reports  in NewScientist (17 December 2016, paywall) how typing completion may affect our self-expression:

Presented with pre-digested options, will we grow less creative? “The danger of getting very formulaic in how people express themselves is a real one,” says Kushler.

Evan Selinger, a professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, who writes about the effects of predictive text, notes that both Apple’s QuickType and Google’s Allo messaging service offer pre-packaged responses. Presented with a photo of a friend skydiving, Allo might offer you the choice of the following replies:

“How exciting!”

“So brave!”

“How fun!”

Although this software can study your habits, letting the program choose a comment that sounds like you, it’s still you at your most generic. And while generic might appease the immediate needs of friendship, it’s not particularly satisfying. Studies on outsourcing suggest that putting less effort into a behaviour makes you feel less responsible for its effects, both good and bad. This kind of communication actually creates distance. And Selinger points out that prediction eliminates the possibility for whimsy that often makes human interaction rewarding: it mistakes the predictable for the inevitable.

Letting us pretend at communication and friendship, just as games let us pretend at shooting each other. But let’s be honest: some of us need hints like these in order to fit into society – the neuro-atypical, for example. Some would even argue that blogs (today) or BBSes (2-3 decades ago) were warping how to interact with our fellow man. Being one of those who finds it easier to write than to talk to someone, I just have to say – we’re not all the same. Some of us function wonderfully in close contact – and some of us need the space to think before opening our mouths. Perhaps confirming this point, Veronique concludes:

But in English, the first 10 Google search results for “predictive text”, as it happens, contain instructions for turning it off.

In view of this Steve Benen piece on how Trump plans to distance himself from his business empire:

Postscript: In the final moments of the press conference, Trump said his sons will run his business operation, “I hope at the end of eight years, I’ll come back and say, oh, you did a good job. Otherwise, if they do a bad job, I’ll say, ‘You’re fired.’”

I’d like to propose that all reporters covering a Trump press conference be issued a kazoo. It is to be used anytime Trump says something ridiculous.

Wireless headphones may also be necessary. The headphones would convey the content of the press conference, but preserve the reporters’ ears from damage caused by the incessant kazooing.

The special elections for North Carolina discussed here are now on hold after SCOTUS issued a hold on the issue, as reported by WRAL.com:

The U.S. Supreme Court has put new General Assemyed a lower court demand that lawmakers redraw many of their districts and hold new elections in 2017. Normally, new legislative elections would have to wait until 2018.

WRAL further notes:

However, many of the issues at play in this state gerrymandering case are similar to a case involving congressional districts that went before the court in December. The Supreme Court has not issued a ruling in that case yet.

The cited case appears to have to do with how Congressional districts were drawn in North Carolina, so it makes some sense.

Nystagmus:

… uncontrolled eye movement …

Observed in a sidebar titled, “47 ways not to love your liver“, NewScientist (17 December 2016, paywall).

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare covers the latest meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, looking for evidence of support for Trump’s position on Russia – and not finding it:

But this strikes me as a political fight he is unlikely to win.

The evidence of this reality in yesterday’s hearing had a few distinct elements. First off was the particularly warm body language between committee members, the leaders in particular, and Clapper. While John McCain, the committee chairman, was unspairing [sic]in his criticism of the Obama administration for not developing a cyber deterrence strategy, his demeanor towards the DNI was one of profound respect and cordiality. Others too made a point of thanking Clapper for his long service in various intelligence capacities and across administrations. …

Indeed, the whole hearing had an unusually bipartisan tone given the generally polarized political atmosphere of this particular moment. Democrats went out of their way to praise Sen. McCain. And there was, for the most part, relatively little difference between the tone of Republican and Democratic questions.

I think this all augurs quite badly for Trump if he is really hell-bent on a major confrontation with the intelligence community over its Russia conclusions. The New York Times reports today that Trump has described the hacking focus as “a political witch hunt.” The merits of that ridiculous claim aside, if it is a witch hunt, it’s one to which some Republicans and all seemingly all Democrats on this committee are fiercely committed and against which no Republicans appear eager to defend the president-elect’s position. That means that a presidential war against the intelligence community on behalf of the innocent virtue of Vladimir Putin will likely also mean a battle with Congress.

While the Presidency certainly has levers of power it can wield, a fight with an obdurate Senate Armed Services Committee could have horrific consequences for Trump. I suspect it would all depend on which side could rally public support – the Trump lovers, or the Russia-worriers, so to speak. While Trump can only claim to have information that he only knows about, making the Committee to be a bunch of worry-warts, they can call down accusations ranging from amateurism all the way to selling-out and even betrayal.

But will Trump and his advisors, who are mostly zealots rather than experienced hands, understand this?

Might be time to invest in popcorn stocks.