Another item in my email caught my attention. Penned by now-retired journalist Charley Reese (and confirmed by Snopes.com), this is one of several versions, written (supposedly) at his retirement in 2001. I think it’s rather naive. I think he’s trying to correct a system through shame, which, to me, seems like a futile effort. It’s better to understand the limitations of the system – and representative democracies have limitations, just like any other – and then work around them.

Notice the lead-in, which I take to be someone’s attempt make the reader respect the effort more. If you do so, the inevitable lesson is that the current form of government is bad. But you decide for yourself.

A very interesting column.. COMPLETELY NEUTRAL Be sure to Read the Poem at the end.

Charley Reese’s final column for the Orlando Sentinel… He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It’s a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Sure. Differing priorities, compromises good & bad, a few wars, some justified and some not. The insinuation is that this should be easy to fix; the problem is that the budget of the United States is not analogous to a household budget.

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

Inflation is not under direct government control. Sometimes when they want it they don’t get it, such as the recent recession. (Note: I did not expect Charlie to know about the great Recession.)

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

A dubious remark concerning a non-unitary entity, an entity deliberately made non-unitary for non-financial reasons.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

And, knowing I’m completely rhetorical here, why did they do that? Going through a brief history leading up to its creation, it appears to me that permitting several hundred amateurs to pull the levers of financial policy was madness. A decentralized central bank lets the experts – as much as we deride them, they are the most learned in the subject – be the guardians of monetary policy.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

This is ridiculously naive. From horse-trading to out and out extortion, the members of Congress can easily be vulnerable individuals in a host of ways.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

Not that I ever noticed. Even forty years ago, a campaign often saw many revelations that I wish had not be relevated. To suggest they cooperate strains the boundaries of credulity.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House now? He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

Not honest. It requires a 2/3 majority in each chamber. How often does a party, often a fractious entity, have that much of a majority? Wash, lather, repeat: Unitary Fallacy.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

Not much of an imagination. Various crimes, bigotry, pollution – these are all the government’s fault? The balance of the paragraph once again buys into the unitary fallacy, as do the following assertions. Most, I believe, are the result of 500+ individuals with 500+ priority lists, some compatible, some not, wrestling over how to best run a huge country.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

Or perhaps because it has to be in the red to build a better country for our children. Don’t make the damn-fool assumption that a government’s budget must run in the black just because a family’s should.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan …

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,””inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Yeah? Good luck with that. Remember the old chestnut about draining swamps? Send me an alligator.

What you do with this article now that you have read it… is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren’t so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Now we get to someone else, I think, who can’t stand the thought that the advantages of living in a civilized country with the barbarians somewhere else might actually cost him a nickel. Not that I approve of the tax system – it’s convoluted and rude. But that’s not this fellow’s point, whoever he is – he’s working the reader into an anti-government frenzy without ever thinking of all the positives that come with government, from health to defense to basic research to laws to law enforcement … and the list goes on.

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he’s fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,

Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid…

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me
to my doom…’

When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax

Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most
prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the
world,and Mom, if agreed, stayed home to raise the kids.

Actually, we were a second banana republic who had the good fortune of tremendous natural resources, something closer to a meritocracy than most countries had, and competition that it was trashing itself in Europe. Even though we were in World War I, we didn’t suffer the kind of losses our competition – on both sides – was suffering.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’

People doing their best, mostly. Even the current crop; they’re just so under-talented that they can’t do much but pout at Obama.

I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get
there!!!

GO AHEAD. . . BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Ah, yes, patriotism – that last refuge of a scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson

The Mark of Zorro (1940) slashed its way across our screen, and it was a light-hearted doozy, featuring Tyrone Power in the eponymous role, and a youngish Basil Rathbone playing his foil, the evil Capitan Esteban. For all that the newly returned Don Diego (Power) swiftly falls into the foppish, jaded ways of a foolish young nobleman, the story moves along at a spirited clack. For motivation, it depends, perhaps too much, on tax-collecting scenes and mild threats of a whipping, and while Basil tries to exude evil, I fear only the greed of a decayed fencing master comes through. Mere assertion of their dishonorable ways lack in punch, and perhaps a bit more depiction of their depravity would have boosted the story.

No matter. Power’s Zorro is dazzling as he fools his parents, his priest, and the buffoonishly greedy leader of this California colony, while courting the man’s beautiful niece, although I did have to wonder what she’d done to admire his wide-eyed admiration – but perhaps such would not be historically accurate. He is clever, but not without error, which is good to see – but his opponents, even the redoubtable Esteban, have no true wit about them. A fine, if short, dueling scene is tossed in, and I felt their footwork was excellent, and while the stage combat requires rather large moves, I saw a number of feints, circular parries, and other credibly executed maneuvers – only the head slashes seemed ridiculous.

Zorro escapes once again, breaking the heart of the wife of the evil leader while winning that of the niece, and all comes out well. A fine way to spend a tired evening or a rainy afternoon. The careful ear may even detect a few double entendres.

New York City is apparently quite uncomfortable these days – for humans. For cockroaches? Treehugger‘s Melissa Breyer, take it away!

This is a story of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). Not the skittish little ones that live in cabinets and creases, but the giant ones – reaching astonishing lengths of 3 inches or more – that seemingly appear from nowhere. In the south they are called Palmetto bugs, and are elsewhere referred to as water bugs … likely because they revel in city sewers. So charming. They come into our homes in search of food and water. Finding one inside is basically like stumbling across the awful love child or a threesome gone wrong, an unlikely mix of a lobster, an armadillo and a creepy alien.

And in the heat of the summer, add a pterodactyl to that impossible parentage because in weather like this, they fly.

That’s a visual for you – cockroaches, like carrier pigeons, darkening the skies in their, ah, trillions…

A number of responses concerning Mr. Trump’s drive for the Presidency:

[Moore is a] good source for making stuff up. But the idea had occurred to me some time ago. What does that say about me?

Another:

Just a few weeks ago, Michael said Trump was going to win.

My oh my. Covering all the bases, eh? And another reader replies:

Why are the two ideas mutually exclusive? It is entirely possible that Trump could win despite not wanting to.

Which just about makes my head explode. While another disagrees with Mr. Moore:

I’m in agreement with Moore that Trump absolutely does not want to be labeled as the loser, but I disagree in that I think Trump actually does want the position.

So there’s news today out of Camp Trump – a shakeup. Is it just more maneuvering to keep the supporters happy, or does Mr. Trump really believe bringing in a co-founder of Breitbart will help? Many sources, Steve Benen on Maddowblog is convenient and has a neat tidbit:

For the third time in five months, Donald Trump has overhauled his presidential campaign’s leadership team. As of this morning, Kellyanne Conway is now the Republican candidate’s campaign manager – a post that was apparently vacant since June – and Stephen Bannon, of Breitbart News notoriety, is Trump’s campaign CEO. …

GOP consultant Rick Wilson told the Washington Post, “If you were looking for a tone or pivot, Bannon will pivot you in a dark, racist and divisive direction. It’ll be a nationalist, hateful campaign. Republicans should run away.”

For more background info on Trump’s new top aides, Bloomberg Politics published an interesting profile on Bannon last fall – it described him as “the most dangerous political operative in America” – while Media Matters has published overviews of Breitbart News and Kellyanne Conway’s controversial record.

From the Bloomberg Politics report cited by Steve:

Bannon is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, the crusading right-wing populist website that’s a lineal descendant of the Drudge Report (its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, spent years apprenticing with Matt Drudge) and a haven for people who think Fox News is too polite and restrained.

There’ll be no shortage of entertaining news for a few weeks. I wonder what Mr. Bannon was promised if Mr. Trump wins?

The withdrawal of Aetna from several ACA exchanges, citing financial losses, sounds like bad news for the ACA from a fundamental viewpoint – if insurance companies lose money on these policies, then perhaps ACA won’t work.

Except there may be more to it than that, as Steve Benen on MaddowBlog notes, along with Kevin Drum and others:

What’s less clear is why, exactly, Aetna made this decision. As Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum noted this week, “Aetna did a lot of business on the Obamacare exchanges, and until recently claimed that it was a good investment. Now they’ve suddenly changed their mind. Why? No one can say for sure, but the skeptical among us suspect it’s payback. The Obama administration blocked their proposed merger with Humana, so now they’re going to exit Obamacare. Nyah nyah nyah.”

There’s fresh evidence Kevin may have been onto something. The Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young published a rather striking report overnight.

[Aetna’s] move also was directly related to a Department of Justice decision to block the insurer’s potentially lucrative merger with Humana, according to a letter from Aetna’s CEO obtained by The Huffington Post. […]

[J]ust last month, in a letter to the Department of Justice, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said the two issues were closely linked. In fact, he made a clear threat: If President Barack Obama’s administration refused to allow the merger to proceed, he wrote, Aetna would be in worse financial position and would have to withdraw from most of its Obamacare markets, and quite likely all of them.

The report added that for ACA supporters, this suggests the insurer “was using its participation in Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative as a bargaining chip in order to secure approval of a controversial business deal.”

I hope the government sits tight and let’s them throw away their “losses”, which may be profits. Perhaps impose a penalty – don’t permit re-entry to the exchanges they exit for a year or five.

Yesterday, post-storm, St. Paul was crowned with a rainbow. My Arts Editor cleaned up & enhanced the efforts of my smartphone….

And just for fun….

My correspondent rejoins with an authoritative source on Trump – Michael Moore:

A follow-up to our discussion a few days ago: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-self-sabotage-campaign?src=newsletter1061977

From that article:

But, let me throw out another theory, one that assumes Trump isn’t as dumb or crazy as he looks. Maybe the meltdown of the past three weeks was no accident. Maybe it’s all part of his new strategy to get the hell out of a race he never intended to see through to its end anyway. Because, unless he is just “crazy,” the only explanation for the unusual ramping up, day after day, of one disgustingly reckless statement after another is that he’s doing it consciously (or subconsciously) so that he’ll have to bow out or blame “others” for forcing him out. Many now are sensing the end game here because they know Trump seriously doesn’t want to do the actual job—and most importantly, he cannot and WILL NOT suffer through being officially and legally declared a loser—LOSER!—on the night of November 8.

Trust me, I’ve met the guy. Spent an afternoon with him. He would rather invite the Clintons and the Obamas to his next wedding than have that scarlet letter L branded on his forehead seconds after the last polls have closed on that night, the evening of the final episode of the permanently canceled Donald Trump Shit-Show.

Michael fails to cite sources, but it’s a fun read, nonetheless.

The old e-mail tray has yielded up another contribution to the sense of victimization of the conservatives of America, by which they become more paranoid, distrustful of their fellow citizens – and prey to those who manipulate them. It’s an interesting mix of truths, half-truths, and lies. Let’s take a look at the email, with a little commentary…

My New Reality

It seems that lately my life has been getting more complicated, and I want to thank those of you who are brave enough to still associate with me regardless of what I have become. The following is a recap of my current identity:

I was born a white male, which makes me a racist.

Attribute to physical reality what is, in fact, a controllable attitude.

I am a fiscal and moral conservative, which makes me a fascist.

It all depends on with whom you’re associating.

I am heterosexual, which makes me a homophobe.

Just no. See being white male.

I am non-union, which makes me a traitor to the working class and an ally of big business.

This one’s unclear. The author is anti-union, or just doesn’t belong to a union? In the former case the probability is it’s accurate; the latter is non-determinitive.

I am a Christian, which makes me an infidel.

Which is both a semantic fact (which is to say, the fact that we have this human concept of religion, with no root in reality but a huge impact on same, which has a rule that says if you’re not part of a particular variety of religion, then you have this word infidel attached to your identity) and a subtle reference to the paranoia about all Muslims.

It would be interesting to know if there is a similar email to this circulating in, say, Iraq, where they reference being Muslim and that this makes them … well, there’s a variety of pejoratives, isn’t there?

I am older than 65 and retired, which makes me a useless old man.

It’s hard not to feel some sympathy, 65 not being all that far off for me. It’s a shared feeling, but at the same time I cannot help but think of the many volunteer activities that are available. Being useless is self-directed in our society, not imposed.

I think and I reason; therefore I doubt much that the main stream media tells me, which makes me a reactionary.

And then we slam right up against a silly statement, which juxtaposed against “I’m so old” becomes a fallacious appeal to authority. It’s also an invitation to another common logic error, affirming the consequent, which, in this case, would be to appeal to those who distrust the media by making them think that therefore they must think and reason. But it’s not true; they may just have a distrust of the media because it says things they don’t like. Not everything in life conforms to your preconceptions; your training, no matter how much you love or hated your parents, your church, and the other institutions, is sometimes flawed, particularly in those areas in which unreasoning obedience is expected.

I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, which makes me a xenophobe.

An affirmation of a proud society which often believes God has endowed us with perfection, or so certain preachers would have us believe. My advice: learn a little history. Discover the basis of our society, the hideous massacres of the native people, the slavery we used and abandoned so late in the game, the bigotries and prejudices. There are other viewpoints of our society, based on reality on the ground rather than the truly admirable ideals of the Founding Fathers and others. Being soberly proud of our ideal is one thing, but quite another to precipitously take pride in a culture which has indulged in its share of injustices.

I value my safety and that of my family; therefore I appreciate the police and the legal system, which makes me a right-wing extremist.

A bit of folderol. The vast majority of Americans would agree with the author, with the caveat that the two systems need to improve, to cast out the abusers and affirm the desperate need for justice.

I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which makes me anti-socialist.

Then I hope you’re not a Trump supporter, since Two-Faced Trump only pays lip service to these ideals. Although there is some validity to the interesting idea of UBI.

I acquired a good education without student loans and no debt at graduation, which makes me some kind of odd underachiever.

No, it makes you unfamiliar with how higher education has changed over the years in terms of financial support and financial consumption. See here and here.

I believe in the defense and protection of the homeland by all citizens, which makes me a militarist.

Now they are trying to inspire more unjustified paranoia, although since we could beat the world with one hand tied behind our back right at this moment, I don’t really understand it. In fact, we should be in the business of cutting DoD funding, not raising it, as that would lead to long-term economic gains (but some short-term pain), but that’s another rant…

I believe guns do not kill people by themselves. People kill people, which makes me anti people.

While this has some vague sensibility about it, which I bought into for a while myself, the cold fact of the matter is that there’s a hidden assumption that mankind is a rational actor.

Every case of domestic abuse destroys this assumption. Every little accident that hurts or kills a child destroys it. Every time a child grabs and uses a loaded gun destroys it.

You want to make this argument? Why do guns exist? To make it easier to kill. It’s easier to kill a deer with a gun than it is with a knife; the same applies to a human. Guns kill people. This argument doesn’t cut it.

Please help me come to terms with this, because I’m not sure who I am anymore!

My newest problem is that I’m not sure which bathroom I should use

Use the one on the left. Heh.

Lyle Denniston, who’s covered the SCOTUS since 1958, writes about a case not yet accepted by the court – and having problems getting there – at Constitution Daily:

For more than five years, reality TV star Kody Brown and the four women to whom he is married, either legally or “spiritually,” have been trying to gain a constitutional right to that relationship. Their lawyer plans to move the case on to the Supreme Court this fall but, on the path to the Justices, theirs has become a different cause. Now the “plural family” is simply trying to keep their case alive. …

In a multi-faceted ruling last April, the appeals court said the Brown case had become moot – legally, a dead letter. There is no credible threat that they will be prosecuted, it concluded. Also, it said, the family has put down roots in Nevada, raising doubts that they would go back to Lehi. And, further, the appeals court said, even if they did go back, too much time has passed so the county could not prosecute them, anyway.

That was a ruling by a three-judge panel. The Browns’ lawyers attempted to persuade the full Tenth Circuit Court to reconsider the panel ruling, but that failed in May. The lawyers have now obtained a postponement until next month of the deadline for filing their case in the Supreme Court. That, though, is a signal that they will attempt an appeal.

The family had moved from Utah to Nevada to avoid prosecution, and now that they won – they want to lose, so they can raise the issue of polygamy in front of SCOTUS. The maneuverings in law can sometimes be a little odd – and a bit fascinating.

Cadastral. From Wikipedia:

A cadastre (also spelled cadaster), using a cadastral survey or cadastral map, is a comprehensive register of the real estate or real property‘s metes-and-bounds of a country.

Jason Urbanus reports on progress made on what sounds like an extraordinary map in Archaeology (Sep/Oct 2016):

The Forma Urbis Romae was created under the reign of the [Roman] emperor Septimius Severus (r. A.D. 193-211). Measuring 60 feet by 43 feet, the map was incised onto 150 marble blocks arranged in 11 rows, and represented an area of over five square miles at a scale of 1:240. An incredibly detailed plan of Rome, it reproduced every building, house, shop, and monument in the smallest detail, even including staircases.

It has disintegrated since Rome declined. How long have archaeologists been working to recreate it?

Scholars have been retrieving the map’s fragments from locations around Rome and attempting to determine their original positions for the past 500 years. Reassembling the map is slow, painstaking work, further complicated by the fact that thousands of fragments are still missing. However, authorities from the Capitoline and Vatican museums in Rome recently announced the discovery and identification of an important new section of the map, perhaps offering new insights into the topography of the ancient city.

Stanford has a project dedicated to reproducing it digitally here. I do hope they find ways to accelerate progress. I’d hate to be dead before they finish and it goes on display somewhere.

Professor Frank Wu of the University of California Hastings College of the Law remarks on LinkedIn upon the woes of the law profession:

In any event, studies suggest that lawyers making more money report less, not more, career satisfaction. My hypothesis is that those attracted to law for the lucre are disappointed, because they wake up to find themselves toiling for clients who, as businesspeople, make an order of magnitude more. (I have nothing against a young person declaring that they wish to make money — of course they do. My point is if that is the primary consideration in your career choice, there are better methods for doing so. Joining a profession in which you represent someone else entails making a sacrifice in the name of principle.)

The bulk of law school graduates will end up, as they always have, in solo practice or at small to medium firms; or in government, usually state and local rather than the coveted clerkships with federal judges. The figures paid to their peers at the elite end of the bell curve, or those whom they considered peers prior to matriculating in law school, symbolizes nothing. Perhaps it tastes of the bitterness of the contemporary economy.

I’ve been told that a youngster I grew up with, by which I mean someone 6 or so years younger than I, ended up as an investment banker for a few years, then spent some time sitting on an island beach. I’ve always wondered if he was enjoying his Wall Street earnings, or if he was regretting his path in life. I may never know.

Professor Wu’s remark about going to school to make money is the salient feature from the article for me. There are many reasons to go into any profession, from greed to passivity to nobility. Personally, I went into software because of a great lack of confidence in my capability – programming seemed to be easier for me than for many people I saw working on it (for two weeks) in high school. Fortunately, as some readers know, I stumbled into a hobby facet of the industry which led to great personal satisfaction, a chance to contribute to the happiness of many people, to meet them, to know them. Many professions can be greatly satisfying; and some not so much. An inverse correlation between salary and job satisfaction certainly does not correspond to the great American mythic element that money will make us happy; the rumbling counterpoint tends to be ignored, I notice, by the great mainstream. So what should one say?

It’s so tempting to say follow your passion! But I have an odd bias towards finding observations and encouragements which are insensitive to eras, and I fear this is not one of them. Only recently has it become possible for anyone outside of the top 1% to really follow a passion successfully; generally, if you’re mining coal, it’s because it’s the only way to survive, and then it’s usually a slow death.

But what of my bias? Was the coal miner of the 19th century really happy? It’s probably an irrelevancy, but still, follow your passion has its problems. I would say, if money and wealth are your passion, perhaps you should reconsider. Perhaps (American) society should reconsider the reigning mythos. Chunks of it certainly have – simply ask most of the clergy. Perhaps we should recall the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Not the pursuit of wealth, but of happiness. Wealth is measured and present in many systems, but regardless of context brings a set of problems, some unique and some common. Still, it makes some happy. And I do not wish to make the mistake of homogeneity, the idea that the same thing makes all people, even within a comformist society, happy; it just ain’t so.

So what does an unhappy eloquence of lawyers do?

mother nature network‘s Bryan Nelson reports on one of the fascinating activities of humpback whales – interference with the hunting behavior of orca packs:

Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009, while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal.

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale’s side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

The behavior appears to be widespread and involves multiple rescued species. and what’s even more fascinating (if you have the capacity to be more fascinated):

One common feature among many humpback whale rescue efforts is that the humpbacks often work in pairs. Scientists will need to do more research into this behavior, though, to truly understand the significance of it.

I always feel like I’ve been given a gift when the perennial hibiscus blooms.

Dinner plate-sized blooms make for an impressive show.

 Each bloom only lasts a day, so you have to look fast or you’ll miss them.

But it’s totally worth it.

A Nike commercial for the 2016 Olympics.

https://youtu.be/SEf7MoQYgzE

However, as my Arts Editor points out, the commercial has a typo. The good Sister is only 35 years old.

Business Insider is currently running an ad for Sovereign Investor Daily. This ad, and the page it leads to, is as good an illustration as any for the inexperienced of the first rule of the Internet: anything you read about investing should be handled with rigorous skepticism.

By “rigorous” I mean that everything you read should be subject to the same set of rules.

And by “skepticism”, I mean that rather than taking what you read to heart, you should consider it objectively. I tend to do things intuitively, which is to say I have a general list of rules which are not completely formulated and not always followed – but I’d benefit if I had more discipline. So let me dump some rules out of my brain for both my readers’ and my benefit.

1. Are there any checkable claims being made? If so, check a few. Snopes.com appears to be a good source for checking certain claims.
2. Think about the language being used. All articles are meant to be persuasive, but what’s the methodology? Are they presenting facts (which can be checked) in such a way as to guide you to a reasonable conclusion? Or are they using language in such a way as to take you to their preferred conclusion even if it’s not warranted? Extreme adjectives, overuse of adjectives, a breathless tone – all are clues that the snake oil is right behind their back. Beware of emotion.
3. Does it pass the “smell” test? Does it seem ridiculous?
4. Are they making the mistaken argument of appeal to authority? This is a proportionality problem, because there is some warranted credibility in authorities with verifiable track records – but even those need to be examined with a skeptical mind. For example, if an economist or investing professional is credited with predicting market crashes over and over, is he that good – or is he a “permabear”, someone who predicts disaster at every turn and occasionally gets it right, like the old broken analog clock? Asking pertinent questions, such as “Does he also accurately predict market highs?” can be enlightening – if discomforting to your authority. Always be an honest black sheep – not a sheared and frightened normal sheep.
5. Are your emotional buttons being pushed? What are your emotional buttons? If you don’t know them, sit down and figure them out – if you’re married, use your spouse as they’ll know them better than yourself.

So the title of the web page in question is

80% Stock Market Crash To Strike in 2016, Economist Warns

It’s awfully darn late in 2016, now isn’t it? Nothing out in market land appears to warrant a crash of that severity, although I’ll grant the American banking giants are not as well-regulated as they should be. So I read on:

But there is one distinct warning that should send chills down your spine … that of James Dale Davidson. Davidson is the famed economist who correctly predicted the collapse of 1999 and 2007.

Davidson now warns, “There are three key economic indicators screaming SELL. They don’t imply that a 50% collapse is looming – it’s already at our doorstep.”

And if Davidson calls for a 50% market correction, one should pay heed.

Indeed, his predictions have been so accurate, he’s been invited to shake hands and counsel the likes of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — and he’s had the good fortune to befriend and convene with George Bush Sr., Steve Forbes, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher, Sir Roger Douglas and even Boris Yeltsin.

They know that when Davidson makes a prediction, he backs it up. True to form, in a new controversial video, Davidson uses 20 unquestionable charts to prove his point that a 50% stock market crash is here.

Most alarming of all, is what Davidson says will cause the collapse. It has nothing to do with the China meltdown, Wall Street speculation or even the presidential election. Instead, it is linked back to a little-known economic “curse” that our Founding Fathers warned our elected officials about … a curse that was recently triggered.

As a skeptic, first I think, Excuse me, who? Never heard of the guy. OK, so off I go to do a little research. Wikipedia lists him very, very briefly. I note the flimsy appeal to authority – well, you shook hands with da President, didja? So did everyone else in those crowds he speaks to! –  as there’s really nothing to back up these claims.

And then a 50%-80% market correction is calculated to hit American investors’ biggest button – the fear of losing money. As researchers have noted, investors fear losing money more than they lust after making money – this is known as risk aversion, as Bankrate.com explains. I have personally eliminated this emotional button and replaced it with Opportunity!, but I know when I see it in an article of dubious worth, it’s a red flag that this is manipulative.

More interestingly is this reference to the Founding Fathers, which suggests this is targeted at the segment of the conservative crowd that tends to worship our Revolutionary War heroes – regardless of how far removed they may be from modern finance. While this is also a big red flag, it’s also worth a giggle as it’s both a little odd, and taking advantage of a blind spot specific to conservatives.

Later we get

(It’s unconventional and even controversial, but proven to work.)

Uh, if it works, it’s not controversial. Simple as that. But it’s an intriguing statement for the uninitiated.

So let’s stop mucking about, put Sovereign Investor Daily on our informal list of manipulative web sites, and as the next question:

Is it ethical for such web sites to exist?

I suppose the defensive strategy would be to invoke the First Amendment and then sit tight, little weasel eyes glinting in the light of the courtroom. After all, this is all opinion and if someone pays more to get more opinion, that’s their right, right? Right.¹ But that doesn’t really address the question, and, if you accept that the Golden Rule is a good ad hoc definition of ethics, then I think it becomes immediately apparent that our little weasels are unethical.

But I don’t really see how to prevent it, on the one hand, and correct it on the other. So that leads to the next question:

Are ethics and the Internet incompatible?

To my mind, if we were all unethical, the Internet would collapse from the sheer weight of scams, on the one hand, and burnt users burning their computers in protest. That’s not happening as the major retailers work very hard to make customers happy – there are tangible consequences to being an ethical entity. Perhaps the tangible benefits of ethics will entice most entities on the web to be middlin’ ethical – and the rest, like this site, will exist and perform the evolutionary duty of eating up the unwary. Or, more accurately, training them in the art of wariness and skepticism² – which most folks could use more training in.

¹Who can resist writing “right” three times in a row? Right. Not me.

² For those interested in skepticism, a subscription to Skeptical Inquirer is not out of line. They do not publish most of their articles online, so far as I know.

CNN Money reports on a new app that business groups hope to use against proposed and impending minimum wage laws:

Looking to “make it easier for small businesses to add their voices to the minimum wage debate,” the Employment Policies Institute recently launched an iPhone app called Wage Engage.

It seeks to alert business owners when minimum wage legislation is introduced in their area — and then lobby against a wage hike measure “at the push of a button” by sending a generic message to lawmakers.

“Please consider the evidence that a minimum wage increase will result in unintended consequences for low-margin businesses like mine,” the template reads.

Nothing magical here, really. And I’m a little puzzled as such laws do tend to impact all businesses. In the end, hiking your prices to cover the wage increase should work in most cases.

But – ignoring the societal case against pumping wages up for entry level positions – the deeper problem is that such an app may serve to antagonize your workers. At least today, workers are still humans capable of many things, from amazing innovation to sulky resentment, and the boss who ignores these attributes does so at their peril. To the obverse, consider the case of Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who, in mid-2015, instituted a company-wide policy that the minimum wage would be $70,000, resulting in some salaries doubling. Some employees bolted, convinced their contributions were not appreciated, illustrating the perils and pitfalls of compensation plans. But, a year later (which is hardly long enough to really analyze the results, to be honest), his employees have done what? Given him a car. From Business Insider:

Employees at Gravity Payments saved up for months and on Thursday presented their CEO, Dan Price, with his dream car, a Tesla, according to photos he shared on his public Facebook page.

The company is privately held, so obtaining financial results information is not easily done. But obviously his employees appreciate his business strategy and presumably have been motivated to work more effectively¹ , thus possibly making the company more than profitable enough to cover the higher compensation costs.

So is it more effective to fight against minimum wage laws, or to raise wages proactively? I’m not a business owner, but if I were I would certainly want to believe that I’d consider Price’s approach.

¹I am wary of saying “harder”, as it’s a more blunt instrument – working harder just means you’ve sweated, not that you’ve done anything useful.

Pakistan, or more importantly the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a religious nation, is being torn apart by … religion. Lawfare’s Rishabh Bhandari and Cody M. Poplin report on just one facet of the deliberate disintegration:

Monday’s [bombing] victims were not a random assortment of civilians waiting for medical care, but instead represented Quetta’s liberal elite. More than 200 lawyers had congregated to mourn the murder of Bilal Anwar Kasi, the president of the Balochistan Bar Association, who had been fatally shot earlier that day. A number of journalists had also arrived to cover Kasi’s death when the bomb detonated.

One surviving lawyer Barkhurdar Khan lamented that an entire generation of lawyers in Balochistan—Pakistan’s poorest province and the home of a deep-seated insurgency—had been wiped out. “Everyone who has given me a lift home is dead except for one person,” Khan said. Lawyers throughout the country boycotted court proceedings on Tuesday. …

But lawyers and judges are not targeted solely out of revenge for their role in prosecuting and sentencing terrorists. Instead, Pakistani society is witnessing a systematic attempt to undermine the integrity of its judicial system, drive courts from restive areas, and implement the Taliban’s own form of rough but relatively efficient justice in areas it seeks to control. A Pakistani Taliban spokesman said following an attack three months ago, “Pakistani courts give decisions against the laws revealed by Allah” and suggested that undermining Pakistan’s court system is a central component of establishing a state under the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia law.

It’s not hard to apply the lessons learned from the behaviors of the English Royal family to the plight of Pakistan today, as I detailed in this Pillar (see the section on English History) but has no doubt been done much better elsewhere: as the members of the various sects fall to fighting with each other, their small differences become magnified by the lens of Faith, and a nation which one might think should exist in easy harmony and solidarity has, instead, become a victim of the trivial differences of humanity. Each sect exists to climb to power, and then to direct its fruits to its members, buoyed by the certain faith that God is on their side. So are barbarous crimes sanctified, so do the winners fall to fighting amongst themselves, as God backs each individually, and so do the innocent fall to the sacred knife of the righteous, the power hungry, the lost.

American fundamentalists, who weep for more power of their own, should soberly assess this lesson from the far side of the world, and perhaps placing God on the sidelines while they reassess how they select leaders and what will serve America best. Even as a secular nation we have a bloody religious history, and we’d best hug our secular, tolerant nature tighter as we continue our tightrope walk.

The first is untouched, the second modified by my Arts Editor.

Actually, it’s just what happens to some of our wall paint when the humidity climbs too high.

I am not a horror movie aficionado and have not given much thought to what makes for a successful horror movie. I suppose, like most storytelling, I expect the characters to behave in a predictable manner, and the horror comes from the disasters these predictable, even reasonable behaviors result in. This is certainly only one way; the movies Alien and its sequel, Aliens, were certainly horror movies, although lacking the noir endings most horror movies employ, and in these the reasonableness of the activities of the characters may be questioned.

From Beyond (1986) doesn’t really seem to feature such characters. From the two psychologists who behave in a most shockingly unprofessional manner to the neighbor with the little dog that bursts in on a horrific scene, these characters seem to indulge in some downright daft behaviors which lead to their downfalls with depressing accuracy. Worse yet, possibly the best-acted character in the entire movie dies halfway through, leaving the less-talented to soldier on.

Then it also makes the mistake of not being familiar with Burke’s idea of the sublime, which includes the concept of implying there’s always more, that the true beauty or horror of something is just outside of perception. Think of the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001): as it emerges within the Mines of Moria, we never really see the whole thing, since flames and smoke envelop it. What we see is bad enough, but the hints of what may be far worse are just out of sight. The Watcher in the Lake is another example from the same movie.

But the monsters in From Beyond are presented in loving and complete detail – but it’s not competent. I wasn’t horrified, I was amused as the horrid primary monster tried to be frightening. For a horror movie not to be able to trigger some primal jerk of fear and terror is to admit that it is a failure. And the dated costumes and hairstyles simply add to the disaster.

For all that, there are some clever bits. The cop is played with outsized enthusiasm that I really enjoyed. The logic introduced early in the film in which the monster’s consumption of a victim results in the victim – a depraved scientist himself – taking over the monster is remembered and repeated when a more virtuous scientist is consumed and then attempts his own takeover, lending new meaning to the old phrase, You are what you eat.

And, finally, the emergence of the pineal gland from the forehead really left me thinking: what dickheads!

It’s not a movie I can recommend, although we finished it and were always curious if the movie was going to get better. Unfortunately, it did not.

While thinking about the racial composition of the Twin Cities area and the Castile tragedy, I happened to run across a link to a post on Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish with some slightly out of date relevance – a fantastic map of racial composition in the United States based on the 2010 Census, built by Dustin Cable at theUniversity of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Andrew was referencing a Wired article:

White people are shown with blue dots; African-Americans with green; Asians with red; and Latinos with orange, with all other race categories from the Census represented by brown. Since the dots are smaller than pixels at most zoom levels, Cable assigned shades of color based on the multiple dots therein. From a distance, for example, certain neighborhoods will look purple, but zooming-in reveals a finer-grained breakdown of red and blue–or, really, black and white.

“There are a lot of moving parts in this process, so this can cause different shades of color to appear at different zoom levels in really dense areas, like you see in NYC,” Cable explains. “I played around with dot size and transparency for a while and settled on the current scheme as being adequate.” You can read more about Cable’s methodology here, but it comes down to this: When you’re dealing with 300 million dots at varying levels of zoom, getting the presentation just right is as much an art as a science.

So here’s the Twin Cities area, with Lauderdale / Falcon Heights in the center of the picture, at max zoom:

It gives an idea of how white and asian the Twin Cities area remains. Here’s a direct link to the map.

Some news on this long dormant thread from NewScientist (6 August 2016) noting research indicating a lower sperm count for the bees:

Neonicotinoid pesticides, neurotoxins used in agriculture that kill many types of insects, also cut honeybees’ live sperm count by almost 40 per cent, found Lars Straub of the Institute of Bee Health at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and his colleagues (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, doi.org/bm6x).

However, we can’t yet be sure if this is the main reason behind the major decline in bee populations, he says, because many factors are probably playing a part.

From the cited Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences article we can learn that when we apply a chemical and a bug dies, we’re happy and keep on doing it:

Advances in agrochemical research highlight a lack of knowledge of the sublethal effects of insecticides on their target insect pests [10], as well as on sympatric beneficial insects such as bees that provide vital ecosystem services [11–13]. Frequently applied neonicotinoid insecticides can affect the nervous system of insects by acting as agonists of postsynaptic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors [14–16]. Recently, they have been shown to elicit sublethal effects on several bee genera, such as impairing bumblebee queen (primary reproductive females) production and diminishing honeybee queen reproduction [17,18]. However, to date no data exist on how neonicotinoid insecticides may affect male insect reproduction.

In an odd way, this is similar to the way Israel is threatening its own water supply by punishing the Palestinians.

The tensions caused by the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia continue to persist as construction continues. AL Monitor‘s Ayah Aman reports:

“One of the key advantages of the dam is to organize the water flow all year long. Hence, we can avoid dangers of a flood and water losses caused by natural flow and evaporation, as well as alluvium accumulation problems. It will also make navigation in the Nile smoother and support peace and regional stability,” [Renaissance Dam project manager Simegnew Bekele] said.

Despite the transparency Bekele showed, as he is responsible for running Renaissance Dam construction and was showing the press delegation around the dam sites all day, he refused to answer pressing questions about when water will be stored behind the dam and the number of years it will take to fill the reservoir. The answers would help determine the amount of water that will flow to Egypt and Sudan, and represent important factors in assessing the risks Egypt might face.

I would think the filling of such a large dam will be tricky since there are downstream users dependent on that output. They probably cannot survive long-term disruptions, and yet since these will be Sudanese and Egyptians, the Ethiopians will not have an intrinsic reason to care for them. Thus the political engagement of the Sudanese and Egyptians – and, no doubt, the implicit military threat that goes with it. This is called the Tripartite Committee.

“The tripartite committee is not concerned about continuing construction or ending the project this year or any time. However, we want to make sure that filling and operating [the dam] will have the least impact on downstream countries, and will have the most benefit for [Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia],” said Saif Hamad, head of the Sudanese delegation.

The impact of the dam is to be assessed by independent French firms, but there have been holdups in signing contracts, as Africa Review reports. They also note the proposed content of the studies:

The three countries have agreed to conduct two additional studies: the first one on the effects on the water quota for Sudan and Egypt and the second on environmental, economic and social impacts of the dam on Sudan and Egypt.

An unofficial translation of the Declaration of Principles is provided by Aigaforum here.