Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Canard:

a false report or piece of information that is intended to deceive people [Cambridge Dictionary]

A word that we should be used far more often. Noted in “In the House, a spectacular flameout,” Dana Milbank, WaPo:

I fear Erick Erickson is looking a little ragged this morning in his reaction to the indictment of the former President:

I will not waste my time convincing Democrats that indicting Trump is a bad idea. They are so convinced of the righteousness of the cause there is no point explaining to them that they’ve just opened their own candidates to future indictments.

I am an independent, not a Democrat, but I’ll take the liberty of answering for them: Good! If the Democrats nominate and even get elected a candidate who appears to have broken the law, then an indictment is appropriate and welcome.

Being a candidate, successfully or not, does not excuse criminal activities, and former lawyer Erick Erickson should know that in his bones. This is a red flag for me: He should know better than to spew such a hollow pronouncement, so either he’s following orders or he’s fighting for his job.

Republicans yesterday, before the indictment news broke, were busy laying out their case that Joe Biden had taken bribes. If he loses in 2024, he better lawyer up. So too should Hunter Biden.

My understanding of this is that notorious Trump operative Rudy Giuliani claimed to have talked to someone who made said claim, and the FBI, not-so-incidentally run by a Republican, Christopher Wray, nominated by the former President, and confirmed in a hugely bipartisan Senate vote of 92-5, rejected the claim as unsupported. That doesn’t seem to have stopped Republicans from making the accusation, who are frantic to achieve moral parity with the Democrats, and while the Democrats have some shady actions and characters on their account, I fear the former President is unchallenged. The man, after all, was impeached twice, condemned by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), been indicted and subsequently lost a civil sexual assault case to E. Jean Carroll (found not guilty of rape, it should be mentioned), broken many norms and rules, claimed on tape that sexual assault is completely acceptable for a certain class of men, and, finally, been criminally indicted, reportedly for violations of the Espionage Act. That’s a tough, tough act to beat.

Are their acquisitions of bribe taking? Of course there are. The Republicans don’t care if they smell like skunks, just so long as do the Democrats as well. But who will bell the cat?

Donald Trump and his administration did not aggressively legally pursue Hillary Clinton. No Republican, in the future, will do anything other than aggressively pursue their Democrat rival upon taking office.

What, Trump was being nice? (Don’t let him hear that, Erickson, or he’ll humiliate you unmercifully, and take away your job.) Let’s not be too silly here: There’s a difference between a campaign accusation and standing in a courtroom, a judge eyeing you skeptically, making the same accusation. The first might result in some embarrassing questions, while the second might be far more costly.

Sure, they’ll pursue their ideological foes. Filing a sheaf of accusations in Court isn’t the same as putting them away, though. This is win-win for voters.

You can claim the cause is righteous. The other side does not see it that way. You can claim highmindedly that justice demands action, but even the Greeks knew justice at the cost of the world burning down was not worth pursuing.

In other words, if you can make yourself Too big to fail, you can go and do anything you like. Erickson hasn’t thought this through, or he thinks his readers won’t. But those who do will have one of those teeth-gritted laughs, because he’s obviously playing on emotion, not thoughtful rationality.

I don’t know the Grecian reference, but it sounds like they blew it.

The balance of his post is more or less adrift, since it depends on these unbalanced pronouncements, so I’ll just let it go. Just keep in mind, for being a pundit, Erickson’s often not just wrong, but badly wrong.

… there seems to be a lot of clapping in MAGA-world this and last week.

The two big items?

MAGA-world in the US House of Representatives gaped an abyss:

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) on Tuesday became the first House conservative to explicitly state he is considering a push to strip McCarthy of the gavel over his recent [debt ceiling] deal with President Joe Biden.

“Absolutely,” Bishop told POLITICO in an interview, when asked about using the tool to force out a sitting speaker. “It is inescapable to me. It has to be done.” [Politico]

So? Leading members of the caucus Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) voted for the debt ceiling deal. Yep, here the Caucus thought Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) was their hand-puppet, and not only did he, apparently, trick them, but some of their caucus supported McCarthy.

Former President Trump (R-FL) is trashing his staffers:

Former President Trump slammed his onetime press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday, accusing her of providing the “wrong” poll numbers during an appearance on Fox News.

“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews. I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, using his nickname for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

“While 25 is great, it’s not 34,” he added. “She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll. The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!” [The Hill]

Just one of many, too.

And then SCOTUS came along and found enough votes to reject a gerrymandering scheme, shocking more than a few SCOTUS observers and assorted liberals in the process – oh, and conservatives who thought they could rely on SCOTUS as a backstop:

A divided Supreme Court said Thursday that the Alabama legislature drew congressional districts that unlawfully diluted the political power of its Black residents, an unexpected decision from a court that recently has been more skeptical of the Voting Rights Act’s protections.

The 5-4 decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., bucked the court’s recent trend of rulings that weakened provisions of the landmark 1965 act. He was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

They upheld a decision by a three-judge panel that threw out Alabama’s maps for its seven congressional districts, which included only one with a majority of Black voters even though African Americans make up more than a quarter of the state’s population. [WaPo]

This and similar cases may result in more seats moving from the Republican column to the Democrat or Independent columns. Expecting Chief Justice Roberts to follow orders when it’s his legacy on the line? Incompetent.

And now MAGA-world shakes as the former President is indicted:

Donald Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty confirmed Thursday night that the former president has been charged with seven counts – and revealed that the charges “break out from an Espionage Act charge.”

“It does have some language in it that suggests what the seven charges would be. Not 100% clear that all of those are separate charges, but they basically break out from an Espionage Act charge,” he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Trusty called the espionage charge “ludicrous,” and added that there are also “several obstruction-based-type charges and then false statement charges.”

He said his team did not get a copy of the indictment but instead received a summons via email. Trusty refused to reveal when his team received the initial letter from the Justice Department that listed Trump as a target of their investigation.

Look for self-important Republicans claiming that this will make Trump stronger. Look for the Republican base to continue edging away from Trump as they slowly realize he’s a pathological narcissist. It’ll be slow because this is a blow to the ego of the base, because they voted for someone who’s turning out to be a criminal.

And look for those closely associated with Trump to run for the hills, but only if they think they’re not totally dependent on Trump for their positions.

And look for those such as former Governor Christie (R-NJ) begin to rebuild the Republican Party in a more sane manner by kicking out the nutcases.

And, yes, relying on constant lying to bail yourself out of jams is a signal red flag of incompetency.

Poor kid.

So what’s going on with freshman Representative, and noted liar, George Santos (R-NY)?

The judge overseeing the case against indicted Rep. George Santos agreed Tuesday to unseal the names of the people who put up the New York Republican’s $500,000 bond.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Shields kept her order and related filings under seal, however, to give Santos until noon Friday to appeal her decision.

Several news organizations requested that the names of the co-signers of Santos’ bond be released following the lawmaker’s indictment last month. In a letter to the judge on Monday, Santos’ lawyer, argued that unsealing the names of the co-signers would put them in a position to “likely to suffer great distress, may lose their jobs, and God forbid, may suffer physical injury.”

“There is little doubt that the suretors will suffer some unnecessary form of retaliation if their identities and employment are revealed,” the lawyer, Joseph Murray, wrote. [NBC News]

Really? Can the good consul, Mr. Murray, provide proof of the magnitude?

OK, so maybe it does, or would, happen.

Then again, maybe not. Is this just more drama from one of the noted drama queens of the age, George Santos. His fevered imagination may not quite match that of his idol, Mr. Trump, but is certainly heated.

It’s even possible Santos wants to be in jail, either for safety or notoriety reasons.

This one’s a real puzzle, I must say, and I’m looking forward to the climax.

Special Effects had a bad day when working on Time Blandishments.

Time Bandits (1981) is a rollicking exploration of what lengths a Supreme Being will go to in order to

1. Have their own version of the Monty Python troupe;
2. Retrieve the super-secret map of the world from whoever stole it this time;
3. Test out the new formulation of evil they stayed up late concocting.

Pick one and only one, please. Or, if you prefer, most movies aspire to, and some even attain, Jello Salad status, where the gelatin is the action and the fruit embedded in the gelatin is/are the themes.

Time Bandits forgot the fruit.

Which doesn’t make it boring, but it is a bit choppy and even puzzling. Best taken with a measure of alcohol. You pick the measuring utensil.

Coterie:

1. a group of people who associate closely.
2. an exclusive group; clique.
3. a group of prairie dogs occupying a communal burrow. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Trump-funded studies disputing election fraud are focus in two probes,” Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner, WaPo:

The findings were never released to the public as Trump and a coterie of allies continued to say there was fraud. For example, the reports were not turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump advisers said. The reports were not reviewed by investigators until after The Washington Post reported on their existence, two people familiar with subpoenas in the case said.

The former President as a prairie dog. Gotta like it.

From WaPo:

[This post was prepared May 24 and then I forgot about it. It’s not particularly time-sensitive, so here it is.]

Steve Benen provides a useful summary of the embarrassing nature of the Tennessee legislature, although it’s not complete, as he didn’t even mention the Speaker of the Tennessee House is under investigation for not living in the district he represents, as Tennessee law requires.

As I read it, what struck me about it is that American voters have a long history of not tolerating corruption, and in Tennessee we’re seeing it on a personal level: apparent sexual assault, gerrymandering, which is another issue Benen didn’t cover, outright lying in order to be elected, expulsion of members calling Republicans to account, refusing to at least consider the will of the voters, and no doubt some things I’ve forgotten.

And what’ll come up next week?

But my point is that the Republican Party, which is rapidly entering the corruption phase predicted by their toxic team culture, the denigration of experience and expertise, the arrogant religious component, and the RINO attack plan, all issues well-covered by critics, will continue to degrade itself until the American public, disgusted by their behaviors, boots the Republicans’ pack of fourth-raters out of power and into the nearest polluted river.

You can get the popcorn, but I fear the salt will be unpalatably bitter.

Other than that, I rather like this picture from our garden.

Although this one does seem to be threatening to spit.

And that’s all I know of changes at Rosedale, a couple of miles from where I live.

Granite City had a notice posted indicating they’re permanently closed; others said they were moving. The rest? I don’t know. Oh, except AMC is not closing or moving. Too new, I’d guess.

Herb Lin on Lawfare is perturbed by an answer from ChatGPT in response to the question “what is herb lin known for” and followups, such as this:

Overall, Herb Lin is known for his expertise and leadership in the field of cybersecurity and for his efforts to advance cybersecurity policies and practices at the national level.

Me: what does Lin believe about DEI issues

ChatGPT:
Herb Lin has been an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the technology sector and the cybersecurity community. He has written and spoken about the importance of diversity in building a more robust and effective cybersecurity workforce.

Lin has emphasized that diversity in the cybersecurity workforce is critical to addressing the complex and evolving nature of cybersecurity threats. In a 2018 article, he wrote that “a diverse workforce helps us think about problems differently, come up with new solutions, and approach the world in a more nuanced way.” He has also argued that a lack of diversity can lead to blind spots and groupthink, which can make it harder to identify and respond to cyber threats.

Comment: Though I believe this statement, and I would have happily said it, I never did. I never wrote an article in 2018 (or in any other year) that even touched on these points. …

I find this short exercise with ChatGPT quite alarming. Everything that ChatGPT says about me is plausible at least to some extent. Indeed, it correctly attributes my views on password security and DEI regarding the cyber workforce. It did so well that I had to ask myself, “Wait a moment—did I ever testify as it reported?” Even though it came close enough to hitting the mark that I had to check, the bottom line is I never said or wrote any of those things, and yet it completely made up references to papers it said I had written and to testimony it said I had given.

If even I had a bit of trouble determining if ChatGPT was making accurate statements about me, what would anyone else have thought? Anyone, even people with some familiarity with my work, could have read the ChatGPT transcript and believed it in its entirety, because it’s entirely plausible. The made-up citations add tremendously to the transcript’s credibility. To identify the falsehoods in the transcript, someone would have had to have a reason to request a citation, and then to track down the actual citation online (to discover it was made up).

It sounds like a puppy trying to please, with no reference to morality.

Which is, of course, not surprising. But if this thing were to develop self-agency … !

Midway through the debt ceiling crisis, the House GOP’s Freedom Caucus is now out of the loop – and not at all happy, as Politico notes:

Conservative angst over the debt deal is threatening to trigger Kevin McCarthy’s biggest fear — a push to oust him from the speakership.

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) on Tuesday became the first House conservative to explicitly state he is considering a push to strip McCarthy of the gavel over his recent deal with President Joe Biden.

“Absolutely,” Bishop told POLITICO in an interview, when asked about using the tool to force out a sitting speaker. “It is inescapable to me. It has to be done.” …

… Rep. Ken Buck, who raised the issue on a private call with House Freedom Caucus members on Tuesday. Buck asked the group’s chair, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), whether any of his fellow members were planning to trigger what’s known as a motion to vacate, the Colorado Republican recalled in an interview Tuesday.

On the call, Buck claimed that McCarthy’s deal violated his promise to conservatives during the January speaker fight, when he promised to return Congress to pre-pandemic spending levels. Perry’s response, according to Buck, was: “Let’s see, it’s premature.”

This behavior should be perplexing to even casual politics watchers, much less the citizen who, despite identifying with Democrats or Republicans, is uninterested in the entire process. Surely all of the conservative angst on display must mean something terrible is happening.

Right?

No.

Remember that today’s Republican Party is no longer built on a respect for competency and experience. No, those who attend party primaries, and in those Districts willing to elect these Reps, the conservative Republicans disdain those who might be competent, those who are experienced.

And that means compromise, even recognition of traditional American political practices, is a denigrated, not respected, attribute of a politician.

Instead, these folks are elected on their performances. They hop up and down on modern conservative issues such as abortion, fiscal responsibility, taxes, gun control, and, because they have nothing else in their quivers of value, they compete on extremism. Now they’re in Congress and have no idea how to conduct the public’s business as humble servants. Instead, what got them elected will be how they conduct themselves.

So now they’re publicly dismayed. A compromise happened. It’s terrible. It’s a disaster. Quick, guys, put on your tuxedos, it’s bloody time to perform.

That’s today Republican Party.

I must confess that I have not kept up with William Gibson, who, long ago, wrote Neuromancer, and later another novel – I forget its name – in which a rock star is engaged to marry an AI woman. Now I’ve run across this:

Smiling as the charm oozes out everywhere.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is a whimsically told, even charming story of the concierge Gustav, his favorite bellhop, Zero, and their often bold attempts to preserve the eponymous hotel in the midst of a very uncharming time.

World War II.

Just as Gustav’s goal is to give every guest a special environment in which they can forget the tiresome realities of the mid-twentieth century, Gustav and Zero try to cushion their hotel, themselves, and each other, even as the dirty realities of German fascism invade the hotel.

And when it all comes crashing down, it’s a real downer.

Both memorable and fun, if a mixture of idyll and reality appeals, this may be for you.

Parhelic circle:

This is a white, horizontal circle at the same angular elevation as the Sun. Bright spots may be observed at certain points of the parhelic circle. These spots occur most commonly a little outside the 22° halo (parhelia, often brilliantly coloured). Occasionally, bright spots (paranthelia) are seen at an azimuthal distance of 120° from the Sun and, very rarely, opposite the Sun (anthelion). When the parhelia, paranthelia or the anthelion are particularly bright, they are often called mock suns. [Internaional Cloud Atlas of the World Meteorological Organization]

Noted on Spaceweather.com:

COMPLEX SUN HALO: You’re not supposed to look straight at the sun, but… “I’m so glad I did,” says R. J. Cobain of Conlig, Northern Ireland. “I was dumbfounded yesterday when I happened to look up at the sky.” The sun was surrounded by a lacy network of halos and arcs:

[picture omitted, go follow the link]

“It’s by far the best display of atmospheric optics I have ever seen,” he says. “I was shaking as I took as many photos as I could. There was a complete parhelic circle, a circumscribed halo, a supralateral arc, a 22-degree halo, a pair of sundogs, and possibly a Wegener arc.”

The orange azalea is sort of blooming. Stripping context gives this lovely pic.

And this is not bad.

However, my Arts Editor has raised objections to the heartless telephone pole that photobombed the unsuspecting azalea.

This is the British FV4005.

Never actually used in combat. The mini-documentary I watched didn’t address the question of surviving the firing of a round.

Quick: Who would you rather see as Speaker of the House, current Speaker Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) or … Rep and member of the extremist Freedom Caucus Matt Gaetz (R-FL)?

Yeah, the latter is worse than the former, and, while Steve Benen doesn’t mention Gaetz by name, it’s implied in this reminder:

But let’s also not forget that McCarthy, while begging his own members for their support during his protracted fight for the speaker’s gavel, agreed to tweak the motion-to-vacate-the-chair rules, which at least in theory, would make it easier for angry House Republicans to try to oust McCarthy from his leadership position.

This isn’t a prediction, per se, and I’m not saying the House speaker will necessarily be ousted by a relatively moderate bipartisan deal, should one come together. But if the scope of the Freedom Caucus’ discontent reaches a fever pitch, a hypothetical deal clears thanks to significant Democratic support, don’t be surprised if we all start hearing the phrase “vacate the chair” a lot more frequently.

A slippery question indeed.

So, suppose such a motion occurs, and it’s known that a Freedom Caucus member will at least try to replace McCarthy should the motion be sustained. Then some unnamed Republican contacts the Democrats and states that, while the Republicans won’t vote for a Democrat, many will vote to return McCarthy to the Speaker’s chair – and asks the Democrats to support McCarthy.

What do the Democrats do?

“Lab-grown meat”, which is cultured from muscle cells, and thus considered, by some, to be morally acceptable for consumption, has one under-considered problem:

Meat produced from cultured cells could be 25 times worse for the climate than regular beef unless scientists find ways to overhaul energy-intensive steps in its production. …

[…] Derrick Risner at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues found that the global warming potential of cultivated meat, defined as the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced, is 4 to 25 times higher than for regular beef.

The researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of cultivated meat that estimated the energy used in each step in current production methods. They predict that this will be similar regardless of which animal’s cells are being cultivated.

They found that the nutrient broth used to culture the animal cells has a large carbon footprint because it contains components like sugars, growth factors, salts, amino acids and vitamins that each come with energy costs. [“Lab-grown meat could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef,” Alice Klein, NewScientist (13 May 2023, paywall)]

Technology is often subject to initial condemnation because of a drawback later overcome by advances, so, if eating a steak from a petri dish is your dream, despair not yet. But, in today’s world, energy is the foundation of just about all that we do. Natural grown meat has some significant advantages, so far, over lab-grown, so if we want to continue to eat meat, like most omnivores, then we may have to discard what we could consider to be a proposed moral precept.

Earlier this month I suggested Governor DeSantis’ (R-FL) Presidential dreams, at least for 2024, were little more than ashes. Right on queue, I am given to understand, DeSantis’ announcement of his run for the GOP nomination took place yesterday, and was unimpressive.

The start of a much-anticipated Twitter event in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis planned to announce his 2024 Republican presidential bid was repeatedly disrupted Wednesday when Twitter’s servers apparently could not handle the surge in traffic.

The app crashed repeatedly as Twitter users tried to listen to the event where Twitter owner Elon Musk joined DeSantis for the announcement.

DeSantis eventually was able to speak, about 20 minutes after the scheduled start, after Musk closed the initial Twitter Spaces event and started a second one on the app. That space attracted about 161,000 users, according to Twitter’s public-facing data, as DeSantis read a short speech. [NBC News]

All consonant with the general fourth-rate quality of GOP officials. Before my readers assail me about technical glitches, I’ll note that, quite often, bad attracts bad. For example, find one bug in some computer code, chances are above average that another lurks in that code path.

And that glitch, oddly enough, is an opportunity for DeSantis. The poor official entry into the race puts him on his back foot, yes, but it also lets him demonstrate resilience and flexibility. Shake out the screw ups, have a good yell at Musk, etc etc, and those independents who value some sign off competence – of which DeSantis has exhibited little – and he may attract the votes necessary from the independents.

In fact, he might find MAGA voters much more difficult to attract than independent voters, and that’s a completely separate problem.

I’ve still written DeSantis off, but he’s had opportunity handed to him. Can he do anything with it?

Dude, one little misplaced pat on the bottom will either have her right over the railing to the stone floor below – or you. Decide wisely.

Cry Wolf (1947) has a baffling title, perhaps a preparation for a plot that mystifies. After all, why does the unknown wife of the dead man show up claiming his estate, yet not weeping over his death? What is bothering the sister of the dead man so badly that she ends up face down on the plaza?

And where did they find this patriarch of the family that had my Arts Editor literally grinding her teeth?

It all revolves around a semi-ridiculous trust, large debts of the trustee, and a family wracked with a mysterious illness.

Interesting, but not fascinating, with good acting. Errol Flynn completists will need to see it, if only to verify he doesn’t bear a sword in every movie he made.

If you want a simple introduction to entropy, relativity and quantum mechanics, their unexplained facets, and how they feed into a theory of how Time is emerges from reality, The Physics of Time by Robert A. Muller is an excellent place to start. While it took me six months to read it, that’s a reflection of my time constraints, and not of the readability of the book.

All the same, if you’re not a physicist, then you’ll need to read this in a quiet environment. Constant interruptions will seriously degrade comprehension, far more than most books.

While watching SOUTH PARK today, I came to the realization that Eric Cartman is Donald J. Trump.

Beat the shit out of him, Wendy Testaberger!