Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Our robotic overlords will be drones, not massive computers:

Some cool stuff there.

CNN/Politics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natatorium:

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

Noted on RoadsideArchitecture.com:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m amazed.

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

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

“Are we murderers or just shriekers? Does it matter? And do we have to notify next-of-kin?”

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) explores the possible consequences of having a time vortex between your restaurant and upstairs apartment. Our heroes discover it as a time gap between a television and a television camera, and they use it to explore the future, while reviewing the past. It’s a bit of a mind-bender, and each reacts slightly differently.

And then a pair of murderous cops show up.

Just as a caution, this is Japanese, so ready yourself for captioning. Otherwise, it’s a bit fascinating to see it all play out, and while some may see the ending as a weird copout, for others … think, maybe, of the atmospherics of Flash Gordon.

Keep your mind open.

The Texas Tribune has a story:

A Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute, alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.

Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives.

Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy.

To me, this sounds like a First Amendment case. Since the State government passed and enforces the law that allegedly gives this guy some right to sue the women, the government effectively is interfering with the women’s right to free speech.

I’m sure some conservative lawyer will start screaming at the idea that the US Constitution applies in this case.

Lately I’ve been enjoying the complex percussion of Clanadonia:

If you like scene stealing, the old guy does it well.

I see Steve Benen is knocking Rep Jim Jordan’s spankin’ new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about:

Rep. Jim Jordan realizes that his Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government isn’t off to a good start. The panel’s first big hearing was an embarrassing display, and it was soon followed by revelations that the FBI “whistleblowers” the Ohio Republican has been touting for months aren’t actually whistleblowers, and their recent behind-the-scenes testimony was literally unbelievable.

The far-right chairman is confronting complaints from disappointed conservatives and headlines about his GOP-led crusade being “a dud.” Jordan has tried to defend the endeavor with excuses that don’t make a lot of sense.

The far-right victimhood routine is a key part of the strategy to keep the herd together for fleecing and power. That sense of victimhood, especially when it’s both existential and true, can prove a strong bulwark for many groups.

But there’s a stronger American tradition that I think the Biden Administration should be using: Laughter. A simple press release should do the trick, especially for such an humorless man like Jordan:

The President and Vice President plan to watch the next meeting of the Subcommittee while eating popcorn, as this may be one of the most entertaining spectacles on C-SPAN these days.

Ridicule: spice liberally over idiots.

No doubt most readers saw the news that Silicon Valley Bank, a top-20 bank, went into receivership on Friday. There’s more news: Signature Bank, a smaller regional bank, has joined it. And worse yet?

In an extraordinary action to restore confidence in America’s banking system, the Biden administration on Sunday guaranteed that customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank will have access to all their money starting Monday. [CNN/Business]

The little information present on the Signature Bank collapse is in the above article.

So why is this little Christmas gift to Silicon and, yes, Signature bad news? Because this is a misuse of a system that depends on the intelligent use of its parts – not foolhardy use. Much like the foolish mistake of the Clinton Administration in rescuing Long Term Capital Management, and thus encouraging other hedge funds to grow huge and shoot for the moon, this misstep by the Biden Administration essentially insulates customers from the consequences of their own mistakes.

The system functions on the feedback loop of action -> consequence -> learn -> next action. By breaking this critical sequence, we do not learn, we do not grow – we become infantilized.

Yes, yes, I recognize that the Administration is trying to avoid a run on all the banks. Is it worth it? I guess we’ll never really know.

But I fear the consequences of this action may outweigh the immediate punishment of letting dumb people be in charge.

Not done yet, though. All that said, it’s legitimate to speculate that we may be asking too much of the people in charge. After all, 1-2 million years of evolution for surviving on the savanna and other places doesn’t prepare anyone, simple depositor or CFO of Apple, to pick out the right bank for a bank account.

But the fix has to be right in order to avoid unforeseen consequences, and I frankly haven’t the expertise to understand even this:

US taxpayers will not be on the hook for either facility, the regulators said.

So who will be? Maybe other banks?

And how carefully have regulators prepared for these situations?

Vice has the goods:

Same likelihood as this being a pic of a posh, beachside resort, once frequented by Teddy Roosevelt.

Flanked by two of her closest followers, the QAnon Queen of Canada gave a gracious thank you to her followers who—with their hard-earned, real-world cash—funded her most recent venture: so-called “loyalty” money.

“Thank you to those who sent money to help print your loyalty money,” the self-proclaimed queen Romana Didulo said in a Telegram live stream in late January, when she introduced the bills and proudly presented them to her followers. “Everyone, continue to send money so that we can continue to print.”

The bills, which say 100,000 on them referring to an unknown currency, are white and feature her emblem in the middle flanked by two flags. Larger than normal cash, they have the look of a novelty check or board game money. Despite their cheap look, Didulo promised her fans they have interdimensional security devices on them.

And they have their usual victims: the vulnerable.

In chat rooms dedicated to Didulo, her fans celebrated the false hope given to them. One person said that he’s going to attempt to pay his utility bills with the money, and another said she’s excited because they’ve been living in their car and this could get a roof over their heads.

“I am so hopeful that the loyalty money will allow me to purchase a prefab home or one of those tiny homes,” she wrote. “How wonderful that would be for me and many others like me around Canada.”

“I can’t wait to hear when or how I can use this loyalty money for this purpose.”

Pillory:

The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks. [Wikipedia]

To be subjected is to be pilloried; often used metaphorically. Noted in ““A Huge Threat to Our Republic” – Tucker Rewrites History, Your Brain on Food, and How Will You Spend Your ‘Loyalty Money’? “, JD Sword and Jeff Dellinger, The Morning Heresy:

Tucker Carlson’s effort to rewrite the history of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot as “”mostly peaceful chaos” is getting pilloried, with even prominent Republican senators like Mitch McConnell disavowing the effort. The Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police called Carlson’s revisionism “offensive and misleading.” McConnell agreed[.]

Personally, I think Carlson has come to the end of his working career. No one in journalism will ever hire him again after this decade long fiasco.

This is fun:

My kingdom for a moratorium on describing single individuals as "diverse."

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) March 7, 2023

But I should like to ask for a ban on the adjective ‘amazing.’ Everyone’s fucking amazing. Please stop. Stop stop stop stop. Not everyone can be amazing. It doesn’t work that way.

Ouch! The bowling hand!

Trapeze (1956) is a reminder of another age of movie-making, when the pace of the story was more sedate, strong characters don’t always win, victories are tainted with costs, and virtually no one is content with their role in life. Young Tino Orsini has come to Europe to work with Mike Ribble, specifically, as a circus high flyer, to accomplish the dangerous triple for performance.

But Ribble has been crippled in a circus accident, and has little interest in working with Orsini, as he doesn’t want to endanger anyone else, and so he must be persuaded. Into the mix comes Lola, hungry to advance in her act, up the social ladder, and from tthese three an act is concocted. But the triple remains out of reach. Will one of them master it?

The charm is in the personal tensions and attention to detail: Ribble’s injury, Orsini’s family background as flyers all, Lola’s driving ambition. Indeed, surrounding them are other circus performers with their own agendas, and a circus owner with his own read of the situation. All of this gives this story a frisson of reality. This is no superhero flick, this feels like nitty gritty reality that may, at any moment, drop you from 50 feet up into a net that may, or may not, catch you.

Mesmerizing, if you permit it.

Recommended.

Chandlery:

A chandlery was originally the office in a wealthy medieval household responsible for wax and candles, as well as the room in which the candles were kept. It could be headed by a chandler. The office was subordinated to the kitchen, and only existed as a separate office in larger households.

Whether a separate office or not, the function was naturally an important one, in a time before electric light, and when production of candles was often done privately. It was closely connected with other offices of the household, such as the ewery and the scullery. While this usage is obsolete today, the term can refer to a candle business. The current meaning of “chandler” is a person who sells candles.

By the 18th century, most commercial chandlers dealt in candles, oils, soap, and even paint. As these provided ships’ stores, chandlery came to refer to a shop selling nautical items for ships and boats, although for a time they were called ship-chandleries to distinguish them. Americans used the term chandlery for these ship-chandleries,^[4] but tended to prefer the term chandler’s shop. Both terms are still in use. [Wikipedia]

Noted in this Country House Gent video:

After a few days of food poisoning, I’m sort of functional again, and noticing this:

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a measure this week loosening child labor protections in the state.

Under the law, the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, children under 16 do not have to obtain permission from the Division of Labor to get a job. They will no longer need to get an employment certificate, which verified their age, described their work and work schedule, and included written consent from a parent or guardian. Sanders signed the bill into law on Tuesday.

Alexa Henning, Sanders’ communication director, said that the permit requirement had placed an “arbitrary burden on parents” who needed government permission for their child to get a job. [NBC News]

Given the recent reports of labor shortages, I suppose this was inevitable. But will those labor shortages override concerns about robots taking away our jobs?

Privity:

1. 1. : a relationship between persons who successively have a legal interest in the same right or property
   2. : an interest in a transaction, contract, or legal action to which one is not a party arising out of a relationship to one of the parties
2. : private or joint knowledge of a private matter
   especially : cognizance implying concurrence [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Cybersecurity’s Third Rail: Software Liability,” Jim Dempsey, Lawfare:

Some software companies will likely object. But in urging that responsibility should be placed on those best positioned to reduce risk, the administration is merely applying an old principle to the now-matured software sector. Early in the 20th century, the automobile industry was about where the computer software industry is today. Automobile makers then, as software developers do now, disclaimed liability for any flaws in their products. We sell to dealers, not to consumers, they argued, so end users don’t have the “privity of contract” with us needed to sue. And anyhow, we’re not liable for the tires or the brakes or any of the other components, since we didn’t make those. We just assembled the car.

Perhaps one of the more important anecdotes of the year, from Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute:

Long-time readers may recall my advocacy for this proposed change to the law insofar as software warranties, or lack thereof, go, as reported by Jim Dempsey of UC Berkeley Law School:

Well, they’ve done it. The Biden administration’s new National Cybersecurity Strategy takes on the third rail of cybersecurity policy: software liability. For decades, scholars and litigators have been talking about imposing legal liability on the makers of insecure software. But the objections of manufacturers were too strong, concerns about impeding innovation were too great, and the conceptual difficulties of the issue were just too complex. So today software licenses and user agreements continue to disclaim liability, whether the end user is a consumer or an operator of critical infrastructure. With this new strategy, the administration proposes changing that.

The strategy’s discussion of the issue starts with an incontrovertible point: “[M]arket forces alone have not been enough to drive broad adoption of best practices in cybersecurity and resilience.” Indeed, the strategy goes on to note, market forces often reward those entities that rush to introduce vulnerable products or services into our digital ecosystem. Problems include the shipping of products with insecure default configurations or known vulnerabilities and the integration of third-party software with unvetted or unknown features. End users are left holding the bag, and the entire ecosystem suffers, with U.S. citizens ultimately bearing the cost. [Lawfare]

The analogy drawn to the early days of the auto industry was fascinating as well, as its history of which I was unaware.

Another reason to be happy with the Biden Administration.

The D. Adams style of flying requires that you throw yourself at the ground and miss!

A Kind Of Murder (2016) is a cautionary tale about your hobbies. A hobby that makes you look like you might be a murderer may lead to unfortunate consequences. In this case, the hobby is an obsession with collecting newspaper clippings about mysterious murderers in preparation for writing short stories, the hobby of successful architect Walter Stackhouse. The murder in question? The wife of Marty Kimell, an antique book dealer in town, turns up dead at a long distance route bus stop. Kimell has strenuously denied responsibility, and the case is at a stop.

Then Stackhouse’s wife, the troubled Clara, discovers Stackhouse with a younger woman, Ellie, and that pushes her over the edge. She decides to travel to see her sickly mother, seeking stability.

Via bus.

Her murder, body at the same bus stop as that of Kimell’s wife’s murder, is assigned to the same detective working the case of Kimell’s wife; his discovery that Stackhouse had recently visited Kimell’s shop leaves the two husbands more than a bit jittery.

Toss in a bit of 1950s vibe and police aggression, and the whole structure threatens to come crashing down. Who’s innocent? Who’s guilty? The tension ratchets up as Stackhouse discovers Ellie’s unease at the death of the woman she may have been trying to displace. Could she … ? And what sort of reverberation comes from compressed guilt?

It’s not a classic, but it’s a competent telling of a sordid and cautionary story that will appeal to the crime story fan. Don’t forget the popcorn.