Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Published in Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 1986, via ScienceDirect:

A multidisciplinary approach to ritual enema scenes on ancient Maya pottery

Apparently only the abstract is freely available. I must admit I’m considering buying the paper. Maybe after reading it I can use it as a Christmas gift for my Arts Editor. Hmm.

And I did find this on a brief search, although the source appears to have disappeared.

Autotomy:

In the poem, Szymborska reflects on the creature’s process of autotomy, casting off a part of the body while under threat, through the lens of survival and mortality. [Poets & Writers]

Specializing in the whimsical selection of non-authoritative sources.

Noted in the Feedback column of NewScientist (24 September 2022, paywall), which, in this particular case, concerned itself, concerningly, with the Ig Nobel prizes for this year. Or perhaps 1986. I’m not sure.

The Biology prize went to Solimary García-Hernández and Glauco Machado. They studied whether constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions and, if so, how. The scorpions’ plight arises when they respond to a predator’s attack by discarding their tail segments – an action called autotomy. García-Hernández and Machado explain: “After autotomy, individuals lose nearly 25% of their body mass and the last portion of the digestive tract, including the anus, which prevents defecation and leads to constipation.” Despite which, love, or whatever you call it, finds a way.

I wonder if the royal family of Saudi Arabia’s a bit disconcerted:

From unanswered questions about 9/11 & the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, to conspiring w/ Putin to punish the US w/ higher oil prices, the royal Saudi family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation. It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without their alliance.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) October 6, 2022

Given the military inadequacies of Russia, vividly demonstrated in Putin’s War, I know that, if I were a member of the House of Saud, I’d be wondering if Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), de facto ruler and heir apparent to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was leading the family into a disaster.

Not that I think any of them are capable of taking MBS out. MBS has proven to be a superior practicioner of royal intrigue, royal politics, and he’s probably got the family firmly under his thumb.

But it still makes him a target. From royal family infighting, to the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi of WaPo and the Yemen War, which has been spectacularly unsuccessful, to attempting to excessively profit on the American addiction to fossil fuels in the face of President Biden, he’s made a number of enemies. Having Durbin make explicit that the best weaponry available for import into the kingdom may suddenly be withheld is not only an existential threat, it’s also a blow to MBS’ prestige. And there’s no guarantee that China will come riding to his rescue – or that their weaponry is any better than Russia’s.

Messing with the Biden Administration, which has handled Putin’s War about as well as we could have hoped, is more or less an unforced error that really speaks to his long-term survival odds falling.

I don’t know how poorly King Salman is doing, and if his orders would be followed if he chose to have MBS removed from the position of Crown Prince. The Independent reported he had Alzheimer’s back in 2015, but whether that’s accurate, I don’t know. If he does have Alzheimer’s then he may be nothing more than a figurehead, as rumors suggest.

The future for Saudi Arabia and OPEC is hard to predict.

Rumors of dragons abound, chasing maidens and gophers about. Quite pestilent. In other news, their prey keep running for office.

• Politico has an article on the potentially defective strategy employed by national Democratic organizations insofar as advertising goes for the Senate race in North Carolina.
• Emerson College gives Senator Murray (D) a 51% – 42% lead over challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) in Washington’s Senate seat race, which are numbers similar to other recent polls. The margin of error is ± 3.4 points.
• In Arizona a CBS News/YouGov Poll shows Senator Kelly (D) leading challenger Blake Masters (R) 51% – 48%, with a margin of error ± 3.8 points. This is a smaller margin that most other recent numbers. YouGov is rated B+.
• A Mason/Dixon Poll has Senator Rubio (R) of Florida leading challenger Rep Demings (D), 47% – 41%. Mason/Dixon is A- rated, so this must be of strong concern for Demings.
• In case you were wondering, North Dakota, Oregon, Hawaii, Louisiana, Idaho, and Kentucky remain unpolled with regard to their Senate races, at least that I can find. Bah.
• There is an overview of Oregon candidates for Senate available, though. I kinda liked the truck driver; the Green Party candidate seemed naive.
• Trafalgar continues to go against the grain by giving Senator Hassan (D) a slim 3 point lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), 48.2% to 45.0%, in New Hampshire. Other pollsters are awarding larger gaps, and thus more credit to New Hampshire voters.
• In Ohio, unknown and perhaps suspect Center Street PAC gives Rep Ryan (D) a shocking 49% to 38% lead among “likely voters.” An 11 point lead in the Ohio race is out of line with other pollsters, some of which have shown Vance with a lead. Is Center Street PAC’s methodology flawed, or do they know something that escapes the other pollsters?
• Politico analyzes House special elections and comes up with this: The race in New York’s 19th District wasn’t unique. A POLITICO analysis of turnout data before and after Roe v. Wade was struck down in June shows that voters in rural counties were less motivated to cast ballots than those in more Democratic-leaning suburbs and cities after the Supreme Court decision. Though special elections are not a crystal ball, that could spell potential trouble for the GOP if the trend continues to the midterms in November, because rural voters, who overwhelmingly supported former President Donald Trump, are a key constituency for Republican candidates. As ever, though, past performance is no guarantee of future performance. And it raises an important question: why is their turnout lower? Have the rural women, realizing that all forms of abortion, and possibly even medical birth control, are suddenly endangered, but unable to persuade themselves to vote Democrat, simply staying home? One would think that, having “won” the stripping of Constitutional protection of abortion rights via Dobbs, they’d realize now they need to take a second step.
• SDSU (South Dakota State University) Poll, unknown to FiveThirtyEight, gives incumbent Senator Thune (R) a 51% to 31% lead over challenger Brian Bengs (D) in South Dakota. That’s overwhelming and leaves only the shouting, no doubt by former President Trump, who had vowed to have Thune primaried and out of politics, so this’ll be another failure for Trump, even if he endorses Bengs. Not impossible with the Trump Lump of Hatred, but his endorsement power isn’t what he thinks it might be. The only surprise in the poll is that Gov Kristi Noem (R), thought to have Presidential ambitions and be more popular than Thune, is actually in a close race, leading 45 to 42 over challenger Jamie Smith (D). That’s within the margin of error. It’s an idle question, as I doubt Noem’s performance will impact Thune vs Bengs, but did Noem’s poor decisions vis a vis Covid impact this election?
• Peter Welch (D), vying for the open Vermont Senate seat, leads competitor Gerald Malloy (R) by an astonishing 62% – 28% margin, according to the UNH Survey Center, which is rated B-. That’s an abyss in politics, and more fingers than I currently possess. For comparison, the only other poll I’ve found for the Vermont Senate race is by Trafalgar, and has Welch also leading the relatively moderate Malloy, but by less than 8 points. This is a bit crazy.
• This is neither final nor of direct effect for the November elections, but Senator Sasse (R-NE), a former Midlands University president, has reportedly been offered the same job at the University of Florida, and has accepted. There are still a few steps to be taken by the University of Florida. Assuming all goes well, Sasse would resign his seat by the end of the year. Does this have immediate meaning? No. His seat will be filled by appointment by a Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, and the in-fighting in Republican ranks may be quite entertaining if Ricketts is not wisely expeditious. But, eventually, a special election will need to take place, and that will give Nebraska Democrats a chance to make some noise, inspired by Kansas Democrats.

The dead snapdragon news is here. Dragons snapping their fingers, it’s quite a sight, but they’re so competitive that they just can’t get the synchrony right.

NASA’s Juno probe has had a flyby of Jupiter’s moon Europa, and here is an intriguing picture:

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

The highest-resolution photo NASA’s Juno mission has ever taken of a specific portion of Jupiter’s moon Europa reveals a detailed view of a puzzling region of the moon’s heavily fractured icy crust.

The image covers about 93 miles (150 kilometers) by 125 miles (200 kilometers) of Europa’s surface, revealing a region crisscrossed with a network of fine grooves and double ridges (pairs of long parallel lines indicating elevated features in the ice). Near the upper right of the image, as well as just to the right and below center, are dark stains possibly linked to something from below erupting onto the surface. Below center and to the right is a surface feature that recalls a musical quarter note, measuring 42 miles (67 kilometers) north-south by 23 miles (37 kilometers) east-west. The white dots in the image are signatures of penetrating high-energy particles from the severe radiation environment around the moon.

Whether or not Herschel Walker, candidate for the Georgia Senate seat and staunch opponent of abortion, actually funded an abortion may not matter that much. For all that it looks like hypocrisy, there’s at least one report that a church of evangelicals gave Walker a standing ovation in the wake of the report.

And that leads to a subject I’ve mentioned before, that of redemption. In my view, it’s one of the great favorite themes of Americans, and justly so, as it indicates a faith in humanity’s ability to recognize mistakes, to change one’s beliefs and one’s actions as a consequence of that recognition. To improve one’s moral clarity, and the harmony between belief and action, is always worthy of admiration.

But redemption requires more than a simple assertion. I would remind the earnest students of the evangelical tradition that redemption is traditionally accompanied by moral progress on more than one front, as well as an expression of remorse.

Has Mr. Walker achieved that?

By all reports, he has not. His mendacity concerning law enforcement has continued, along with his activities in the private sector.

I suggest that, regardless of his abortion beliefs vs his actions, his overall behavior pattern, and the gibberish he often spouts on issues of governance, disqualifies him from the position to which he aspires.

Applause for correcting a moral position, even one I don’t agree with, is fine. Rewarding him, despite his other moral failings, and a long history of family failings, in the absence of any demonstrated genius, or even competence, in the arena of governance, is quite another.

Beware assuming the enemy of your enemies is your friend. Folks, we’re all Americans here, and we should be selecting those best qualified, not the worst in a fit of misplaced anger and hatred. The election of Walker would merely demonstrate the moral degradation of American politics today.

Are they changing their minds this much?

• The GOP, dominated by the former President whose willingness to do Russian President Putin’s bidding was obvious and well-known, appears to be ambivalent about President Biden’s willingness to support Ukraine. Remember, much of the GOP’s governing philosophy has been built on Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) notion, no doubt originating from former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), that the denial of a victory for the Democrats was the equivalent of a victory for the Republicans.McConnell himself has made an exception for aid to Ukraine, but as this WaPo story makes clear, there are conservative elements that are so locked into McConnell’s primitive philosophy that they remain willing to back the murderous dictator of Russia. Money quote:
  

  The Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday tweeted — and then hours later deleted — a message that called on Democrats to “end the gift-giving to Ukraine” while featuring a fluttering Russian flag. The tweet also referred to “Ukraine-occupied territories,” appearing to legitimize Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims to annex provinces based on a referendum that the U.S. and allies view as illegal.

  The point in this context? Public support for Ukraine is undeniable, and if conservatives are perceived to be out of step with the public, Republican candidates endorsing an anti-Ukraine stance may find that it costs them independents’ votes.

  They might even find themselves being asked why they’d rather fight the Russians at Niagara Falls, rather than have the Ukraine Army boot the Russians and Putin out of Ukraine. That’d be uncomfortable.

• Nevada’s Senator Cortez Masto (D) may be the most endangered Democratic Senator in this election cycle, as this NBC News article makes clear. Notable: [Somos PAC President Melissa Morales] said after she spent time canvassing she didn’t hear waffling voters turning to Republicans; instead, they said they’d vote either for Democrats or stay home. Latinos interviewed by NBC News supported that sentiment. As confident as this report may make Republicans in Nevada, and even country-wide, it’s also discouraging for them: Republicans don’t even get consideration as an alternative. Also notable: The new word Latinx, frequently savaged by critics of the elites, who reportedly are trying to supersede the traditional Latinos and Latinas with Latinx, much to the irritation of the Hispanic community, does not appear in this article, neither in quotes nor in prose. Those quoted know better? Disapprove? Or had their verbiage altered post-interviews? That’s unknown. OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, has produced a poll showing challenger Adam Laxalt (R) leading Senator Cortez Masto (D) 45% to 43%, which is within the margin of error of ± 3.6 points.
• B/C rated Meredith College agrees with Civitas: In North Carolina, the race between Budd (R) and Beasley (D) is too close to call. Their latest poll shows Budd up 41.3% to 41%. Notable: There is a great deal of enthusiasm for voting in the 2022 Midterm Elections. Over two-thirds of North Carolinians say they plan on voting before or on Election Day. Democrats and Republicans seem equally energized. Over 83 percent of North Carolinians indicate that they are likely to vote with over 85 percent of Democrats and Republicans indicating a strong likelihood of voting. This is versus 53% turnout in the midterms of 2018. And, contrary to the predictions of the right, One of the issues that is driving the expected high turnout this year is the Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case … Chiming in is WRAL News/SurveyUSA, the latter A rated, which claims a 43% to 42% lead for the Republican Budd, and a “credibility interval” of 4.4 percentage points. But I have a problem with this poll: The online survey … I’m not sure how easy it is to game an online poll, as I’m out of date on this sort of thing, but it doesn’t sound secure. But the numbers match a number of other surveys.
• Chris Hayes notes that Pennsylvania Senate candidate Lt. Governor Fetterman (D) is under constant attack by Fox News. I suppose when you’re frantic to earn back the favor of mob-boss Trump, you’ll do anything. It did occur to me that Fetterman’s dark charisma may appeal to conservatives, and those that are wavering might actually vote for him, which Fox News is trying to avert. An interesting thought. A Suffolk University poll does show Fetterman with a 46% to 40% lead. Meanwhile, WaPo (you’ll have to search the link) reports Fetterman is beginning to remind voters of Dr. Oz’s dubious practices as a celebrity doctor, including his endorsement of the fake Covid-19 treatment hydrochloroquine. Money quote from Fetterman: … a malicious scam artist. It’s difficult to disagree with that assessment. Is this a knockout blow? Or are you Erick Erickson, convinced Dr. Oz has the lead?
• A Siena College poll suggests Senator Rubio (R) has a seven point lead over challenger Rep Val Demings (D), 48%-41%, with a ± 4.5 point margin of error. Siena is A rated, making that a believable result.
• A rated Fox News Poll’s latest has Senator Warnock (D) of Georgia leading challenger Herschel Walker (R), 46% – 41%. Are hopes of flipping Warnock’s seat fading? If it were a different Republican, probably not. The only thing keeping Walker in the race has been absurd Republican loyalty to the Party’s candidates and Walker’s old University of Georgia glory. Will young Georgia voters follow in their elders’ footsteps? But now an accusation of Walker funding an abortion has surfaced, and an adult son that he’s acknowledged may be very unhappy with him, although of course his account may have been hacked by malicious forces. Walker’s threatening to sue the accuser of him funding an abortion, but if he does, wins the election, but loses the court case, he’ll almost certainly be a one-term Senator, barring amazing work in the Senate. That, in turn, would be exceedingly difficult regardless of who controls the Senate, as the Democrats would ignore his priorities, and the Republicans are dead-set against governing at all. But if he doesn’t sue, he makes his current Senate run even more difficult. In chess, they call this a ‘fork,’ where two pieces are threatened and the choice is really unpleasant. I think Walker is forked.
• I cite polls a lot. Those and the political events that affect people’s lives are about all there is to go on for forecasting elections. And now Richard Hanania doesn’t think polls are any good, either, although he’s more nuanced than that. Darn it. Anyone got a dead goat, complete with intestines?

Old, worn out tires news is here.

My Arts Editor pointed me at this shot, which I think is about as good as a smartphone is going to do these days.

The mechanism on which they’re perched is our hi-tek rain gauge.

skralyx on Daily Kos summarizes some medical research news concerning one of my two primary illnesses, diabetes:

It seems that a common bacterium found in the human gut makes a protein that looks just enough like insulin to cause the immune system to attack not only this bacterium, but indeed to attack insulin and the pancreas itself.  This process could very well be one of the main triggers of Type 1 diabetes, and knowing this would substantially change the way we think about this disease.  And it all may be just a crazy accident of nature.

I’m Type II, not Type I, but I’ve been theorizing, from the perspective of a software engineer with 40 years experience analyzing partially understood complex systems, that researchers who came up with the Type II definition of diabetes were operating with defective (or incomplete, if you prefer) information. My suspicion, based on responses to questions I’ve asked, my observations of how human system analysts react to defective information and the pressure to produce results, and the vague explanations of Type II – cells fail to respond to insulin properly, really? All of them? – that the final explanation may turn out to be far simpler: an over representation of certain types of bacteria in the gut overproduce glucose, leading to hyperglycemia, since we know that the pancreas can only produce so much insulin.

But, like I said, I’m just a software engineer. I don’t even play a doctor on TV, as the old disclaimer goes.

But this article on Type I gives me hope that Type II will have a similar explanation, and that a targeted dose of antibiotics, and, in the case of Type I, a reset of the immune system results in a cure. Then we won’t have to worry about pharma companies raising prices on insulin any longer.

Scientific research can be even harder than I thought:

Laboratory mice tend to be more stressed when they can smell men, making them behave differently in experiments depending on whether they are handled by a man or a woman. The finding raises important questions about past research using mice, since animal studies generally don’t control for an experimenter’s sex.

Todd Gould at the University of Maryland began investigating this issue after his team couldn’t replicate a simple lab result. The experiment involved a “forced swim test”, in which researchers place mice in a tank of water and see how long they keep trying to swim for. When they stop swimming, the researchers take them out, unharmed.

In previous tests with male experimenters, mice tried to stay afloat for longer if they were given ketamine, an antidepressant. But when Polymnia Georgiou, a female researcher who was working in Gould’s team, carried out the test, the mice gave up quickly regardless of whether they were given ketamine. [“The sex of the researcher can influence results of mouse experiments,” Jonathan Moens, NewScientist (17 September 2022, paywall)]

In retrospect, it makes sense. But I still insist on being flabbergasted.

Bifurcation:

A division into two branches; a forking. …

Bifurcation is the act of splitting something into two branches, or an example of a situation where something splits or there is a fork.

Bifurcation is based on the verb bifurcate, which means to divide or fork into two branches. These words are most often used in technical and scientific contexts, such as engineering and medicine.

Example: The hiking trail has a bifurcation about three miles in; make sure you go down the left branch. [Dictionary.com]

It seems a bit odd that I’ve made it this far without really having much of a clue about bifurcation and its root.

Noted in the Feedback column, NewScientist (17 September 2022, paywall):

World Standards Day 2022 will soon be upon us. The public’s enthusiasm for this annual bifurcated event, which celebrates the technical rules and regulations that keep society running, seems undimmed by the covid-19 pandemic.

The bifurcation is geographical. This year, most of the world will celebrate World Standards Day on 14 October. This date is specified by a consortium of three groups: the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Telecommunication Union. The goal is to recognise the importance of international standards.

Meanwhile, the US Celebration of World Standards Day will take place on 13 October. Its date is specified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the official theme is “Sustaining the U.S. Standards Model and American Standards Leadership”.

Well. I think that’s a reprimand. Maybe.

They should all take a ski trip, and the survivors can be declared winners. That’s sort of like the former President offering to take the lead on ending Putin’s War. In other news:

• Former Maryland Lt. Governor and Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele (R) believes there is a “pink wave” coming in November, disregarded or undetected by pollsters. The pink wave are women who don’t usually vote, but will vote Democratic this cycle. Why disregarded? My guess, unsupported by experience or evidence, is that pollsters adjust raw data based on previously detected factors, and this wouldn’t be supported by previous occurrences. If Democrats do win big in November, then Steele gets credit for an insight I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere.
• In perhaps an iconic mark of the incompetent, even childish, amateur at work, former President Trump broke Party discipline and has attacked fellow leader Senator McConnell (R) for his support of the Continuing Resolution that is keeping the government up and running during these days of hurricane (Ian) and war (Putin’s War), according to CNN/Politics:
  

  Former President Donald Trump on Friday night directly ridiculed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying on his social media platform that the Kentucky Republican had a “death wish” for supporting “Democrat sponsored bills.”

  Trump, in his Truth Social post, also mocked McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao – who was born in Taiwan and served as Trump’s secretary of transportation – referring to her as McConnell’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow!”

  So is this the sort of thing that’ll break the Republicans in half? While Trump’s MAGA voters may try to take him seriously, the fact of the matter is that many candidates McConnell has endorsed and even helping with his Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) are also endorsed by Trump, and those few that might not fall into that category, such as Senator Murkowski in Alaska, are already well known to the MAGA voters.

  And do the MAGA voters matter? Popular report has it that the MAGA rallies are ill-attended these days. It may be that the former President is coasting on past glories these days, despite the number of endorsed extremists of which he can boast.

  In the end, I suspect Trump’s temper tantrum, best interpreted as the wailing of someone who thinks they have fabulous political insight, but doesn’t, is little more than inadvertent entertainment for everyone who is not a Republican.

• A rated Fox News Poll reports Senator Kelly (D) leading Blake Masters 46% – 40% in Arizona. Their August poll gave Kelly an 8 point lead, but both lost ground in this poll. There is a ±3 point margin of error.
• Fox News Poll also reports that Senator Johnson (R) is now leading Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D) 48% – 44% in Wisconsin. Given the conspiracy rumors in which Johnson indulges, it’s a real disappointment.
• A poll from Franklin & Marshall College Poll, B/C rated by FiveThirtyEight, gives Lt. Governor Fetterman (D) a 45% to 42% lead over Dr. Oz Mehmet (R) in Pennsylvania. This seems abnormally small, especially in view of Marist Poll just giving Fetterman a ten point lead. No margin of error is given.
• Candidate Don Bolduc (R) of New Hampshire is a flip-flopper. First, he thought there was electoral fraud in 2020. Then, soon as he became the GOP nominee for the New Hampshire Senate seat, he said research showed that’s not true, that the election had no systemic fraud. Now? Back on the election denial wagon, apparently. Frankly, he seems a bit frenzied to sit in the Senate. It was intended for sober legislators, not this guy.
• Challenger Madison Horn (D) remarks on former President Trump’s endorsement of candidate James Lankford (R) for reelection in Oklahoma.
• GOP-leaning pollster Trafalgar’s latest poll in Colorado suggests Senator Bennet’s (D) lead over challenger Joe O’Dea (R) is shrinking, 48.6% to 42.6%. If accurate, then O’Dea no longer has the mountain of changing people’s minds to climb, just the mountain of undecided independent voters to climb.
• Senator Schumer (D) of New York has a 55% – 36% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R) according to A rated Siena College. Two months ago Schumer held a 22 point lead, according to Emerson College, but if this decay in Schumer’s lead continues, the rate of change is not enough for Pinion to pull the upset.
• Unknown to FiveThirtyEight, but reportedly conservative, pollster Civitas has North Carolina as a statistical tie, with Cheri Beasley (D), the former State Supreme Court Justice, leading Rep Ted Budd (R) 44.0% – 43.7%.

The last time I did this is here.

Dispensational Premillennialism:

In parts.

Dispensationalism was a system formalized by John Nelson Darby which maintains that history is divided into multiple dispensations in which God acts in multiple different ways. Dispensationalists believe in premillennialism and in a rapture that will happen before the second coming. [Wikipedia]

Premillennialism:

Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the Earth (the Second Coming) before the Millennium, a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. Premillennialism is based upon a literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1–6 in the New Testament, which describes Jesus’s reign in a period of a thousand years. [Wikipedia]

Rapture:

The rapture is an eschatological theological position held by a few Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” The origin of the term extends from Paul the Apostle‘s First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, in which he uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning “to snatch away” or “to seize,” and explains that believers in Jesus Christ would be snatched away from earth into the air. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “For some Christians, ‘rapture anxiety’ can take a lifetime to heal,” A. J. Willingham, CNN:

The concept of the rapture, known theologically as dispensational premillennialism, is not prevalent in Catholic or mainline Protestant denominations like Episcopalianism or Presbyterianism, and is most commonly adhered to in evangelical and fundamental churches. This line of theology draws heavily upon a letter from the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, included in the Bible, that says believers in Jesus would be snatched or seized into the air.

Quite literally. Fun fact from the article: The word rapture does not appear in the Bible. Which is a bit of a problematic statement in that the Bible is not originally an English document.

This is reassuring:

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women.

– Learned Hand [AZ Quotes]

I’m not being sarcastic. For the last year or so, I’ve been occasionally meditating on the thought that the American Republic’s intellectual foundation is best described as doubt. That is, we operate best when we swallow that natural arrogance that comes from our beliefs about ourselves and our divinities, acknowledge that none of us really are great at governance, or much of anything else, and that our analyses, debates, conclusions, and consequent actions should reflect this simple, yet offensive to so many, truth.

Whether our arrogance comes cloaked in the terribly woven cloth of faith, or a self-confidence earned in one field that does not transfer to another, it is the tack we step on, barefooted, that, unseen, turns our striding thoughts into limping, half-formed monsters.

We really should learn from Judge Hand. The volume of our public discourse would drop precipitously.

Professor Richardson’s summary of the day’s events included something that looks like insanity in regards to the debt ceiling:

And yet, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had voted to raise or suspend the debt ceiling 32 times in his career, said, “There is no chance, no chance the Republican conference will…help Democrats…resume ramming through partisan socialism.” His stand was in part because it was not clear he had the votes he needed to support an increase, even though establishment Republicans like McConnell were quite aware of the damage a default would create.

It’s, no doubt, partly due to short-term power-grasping. Republicans have little tolerance for being the minority party, and will do literally anything to control the government.

But it’s all a bit crazy, isn’t it? It doesn’t take a political genius to see Democrats evaluating the situation, pushing ahead with their policies, and when the world is collapsing and corporations are reeling and jobs are disappearing, blaming, quite correctly, the extremist and absolutist Republicans. They’ll point out how this endangers military aid to Ukraine, a popular endeavour. It might not be the final doom of the Republican Party, but we’ll be able to see the cliff over which they’re heading, because most independents, and not just a few suddenly jobless Republicans, will agree with the Democrats and abandon the Republicans and what passes for their policies forever.

So what’s going on?

The Republicans may or may not be conscious of it, but they’re discovering the flip side of the Gingrich Doctrine of Win at all costs! – including that of one’s honor. In short, Republicans are irretrievably married to the assertion that Democrats are socialists. Never mind that polls show that most Republicans don’t know the meaning of the word –

Socialism is a left-wing] to far-left economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. [Wikipedia]

I’m certain one or two such folks can be found espousing such a philosophy in the United States – there’s even one named Sanders, I hear – but most Democrats are busily trying to patch the holes in this creaky, leaky system called capitalism, rather than replace it with a system most voters wouldn’t like as a whole.

Not that I have any better ideas offhand.

Back to the point, though, is that in order to exhibit consistency, which voters value, now Republicans have to follow through on their wicked cries that Democrats are socialists. They have to, or the voters will suspect a grift. And it doesn’t help that political amateur, McConnell rival, and former President Trump continues to exert influence on the Party:

Driving the Republican stance was former president Trump, who pushed MAGA Republicans to use the threat of default to get what they want. “The way I look at it,” he wrote, “what the Democrats are proposing, on so many different levels, will destroy our country. Therefore, Republicans have no choice but to do what they have to do, and the Democrats will have no choice but to concede all of the horror they are trying to inflict upon the future of the United States.” Trump was not happy when McConnell backed down [a few months back]. He issued a statement blaming McConnell for “folding” and added, “He’s got all of the cards with the debt ceiling, it’s time to play the hand.”

The hand consists of hand grenades, and Trump wants to pull the pins and then dare the Democrats to not put them back. The Republicans keep holding the grenade, waiting for those pins to be put back in.

All of this driven by their ridiculous lies, their toxic team politics that has led to fourth-rate power-seekers in office, and a general foolish allegiance to the Gingrich Doctrine.

And their bulgy-eyed cries of Let’s destroy government! for no particularly good reason will become another arrow in the quiver of Democratic candidates for office.

So I see the late Queen of England’s entry in the Register of Deaths has been published:

NEW: National Records of Scotland published The Queen’s entry in the Register of Deaths. It says she died at 3:10pm on 8 September of “Old Age”. pic.twitter.com/cSnIpnTaiQ

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) September 29, 2022

I liked the entry for Occupation. Sadly, I suspect my entry will not read Hue White, as I fear that it is more of a hobby.

Psychoacoustics:

Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how humans perceive various sounds. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound (including noise, speech, and music). Psychoacoustics is an interdisciplinary field of many areas, including psychology, acoustics, electronic engineering, physics, biology, physiology, and computer science. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “The Search For The Perfect Sound,” Geoff Edgers, WaPo:

CDs were not a crime against sonic nature. Their success as a product did lead to major shifts, though. Suddenly, the technologists, not the music geeks, were in charge. They focused on psychoacoustics, a field that embraces the idea that our ears can mask deficiencies in a recording. What we hear isn’t merely what’s presented but how we interpret it.

I’ve known audioheads for decades, but never really paid attention. This is an interesting exploration of the subject from the inside.

So much blah. You’d think we’d run out. Here, you can have some of mine.

• In the ever-popular Arizona race, Suffolk University gives incumbent Senator Kelly (D) a 49.0% to 42.2% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R). Suffolk is rated B+. Kelly’s lead has been all over the map, but this seems like a solid, middle of the road number. Meanwhile, in a bit of an echo, A rated Marist Poll suggests Senator Kelly (D) is leading 51% – 41% challenger Blake Masters (R) in Arizona. Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) signals that Masters is unsalvageable may prove correct, but I would like to see Kelly with a fifteen point lead with less than a month left. Notable remark: Among independents, Kelly (51%) receives majority support and leads Masters (34%) by double digits. A 19-point gender gap also exists. While a majority of women (55%) support Kelly, men divide (47% for Kelly to 46% for Masters). These are the remarks that I’d expect to doom Masters.
• But Pennsylvania could be even more ever-popular. Or was it more broken? Anyways, A rated Marist Poll gives Lt. Governor Fetterman (D) a 51% – 41% lead over Dr. Oz Mehmet (R). While it’s disappointing that so many Pennsylvanians think the TV celebrity with a long history of promoting snake oil deserves a position in the Senate, at least the number sounds right. Notable other finding: When thinking about midterm elections, 40% of Pennsylvania adults say inflation is the issue that is top of mind. Preserving democracy (29%), abortion (16%), immigration (7%), and health care (7%) follow. Which speaks to my observation that democracy is like sex: if you’re getting some, it’s not at the forefront of your mind. If you’re not getting it, it’s the only thing on your mind. On the other hand, A rated Fox News‘ latest Pennsylvania poll for the Senate race shows Lt Governor Fetterman (D) leading Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) 45%-41%, a statistical dead heat. Which leads to the inevitable question: Why the difference between two top ranked pollsters? I suspect the thumb on the scales at Fox News for conservatives is stronger than that at Marist. It is, after all, Fox News, although A rated is A rated. We’ll find out whose adjustments are more accurate in November. B rated InsiderAdvantage has a similar result, 44.8% to 41.7%, again within the margin of error.
• Senator Lankford (R) of Oklahoma has received former President Trump’s endorsement. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Probably good for Lankford at the moment, but by the time Election Day has rolled around, it could be very, very bad. Nyah, who am I kidding? He’s an incumbent conservative in a highly conservative state. So far as I know there’s no blemish on his record; he seems to be a back-bencher.
• A rated Siena College gives Rep Ryan (D) a 46% – 43% lead over J. D. Vance (R) in Ohio with a margin of error of ±4.4 points. This state has become one of the hottest Senate battlegrounds, which suggests to me that the Ohio’s natural conservatives are confronting the extremist conservative views embodied in Vance, principally the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the proposal of a national abortion ban, and an opposition to divorce, and are beginning to have doubts about them. If Ryan can avoid a faux pas, he may snatch a victory here and make the Democrats two-for-two in Ohio Senators.
• In Kansas, Governor Kelly (D) has picked up another endorsement from a Republican, in this case former Governor Mike Hayden (R-KS). So? So, if Hayden is widely respected in the state, this may compel some Kansans to re-examine their views on the Senate race of incumbent Jerry Moran (R) and Mark Holland (D) and, perhaps, change their minds. Holland has a long ways to go, and must grasp after every bit. But I don’t know enough about Hayden’s reputation in the state to guess if he’s influential or not.
• Senator Blumenthal (D) of Connecticut continues to sport a large lead, this time 53% to 40%, over challenger Leora Levy (R), in a Hearst/WFSB poll. Notable: Levy, a Republican National Committee member and long-time party fundraiser, was not recognized by 36% of likely voters and 21% had no opinion of her. Among those who did, 18% were favorable and 23% unfavorable. Apparently she’s having trouble getting her message out, or she’s not campaigning just yet. But it does suggest some fallow ground to till.
• Polls are surprisingly scarce in Illinois, and my DuckDuckGo searches keep showing me a link to how Senator Duckworth (D) has a lead but has “soft” support. Maybe that’ll disappear with the A- rated Emerson College Polling result of a 19 point lead for Duckworth, 50% – 31%, over challenger and “I’m the only Republican who can defeat Tammy Duckworth in the fall!” claimant Kathy Salvi (R), which is a highly unfortunate echo of the former President and current endorser. As this is a 9 point fall for Salvi from the only other poll, she’s definitely moving the wrong way very quickly. Notable: President Joe Biden has a 49% job approval among Illinois voters, 44% disapprove of the job he is doing as president. Important? I think so. Duckworth’s 2016 victory margin? Roughly 15 points, so her current lead is not a surprise.
• Senator Hassan (D) of New Hampshire continues to have an almost-comfortable lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), 49.6% – 41.2%, according to B+ rated Suffolk University. A little higher and I’d be willing to say that Hassan seems assured of winning. But what are New Hampshire Republican voters thinking when they nominated Bolduc, and then select him in the poll? Reminds me of the time my conservative Uncle Bill, up for a visit from Illinois, asked me why the hell that “dingbat” notorious Minnesota Rep Michelle Bachmann (R) kept getting reelected. I had to say I had no idea.
• A- rated Public Policy Polling gives Senator Murray (D) a 52% – 40% lead over challenger and moderate Tiffany Smiley (R) in Washington, suggesting Republican hopes of flipping this seat are in tatters.
• B/C rated Fabrizio/Anzalone (aka FabrizioWard + Impact Research aka ALG Research – so confusing), for AARP Wisconsin, is giving Senator Johnson (R) a 51% – 46% over Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D) in Wisconsin. with a ±4.4 point margin of error. Notable: Both [candidates] are viewed unfavorably by 50% of voters, with Johnson’s favorable rating (48%) a bit higher than Barnes’ (43%). Johnson’s disrespectful treatment of voters should turn off citizens; I don’t know why folks don’t like Barnes, but I don’t live there. Then again, A- rated Public Policy Polling has this race tied at 47%.

That bag of old, tepid coffee grounds may be found here.

I see that Steve Benen’s upset over the latest Republican ploy:

A couple of months ago, Sen. Rick Scott pushed a line of attack that was ridiculous, even by his standards. Democrats, the Florida Republican insisted, had just successfully “cut $280 billion from Medicare.”

Part of the problem was with the messenger — Scott used to oversee a company that committed Medicare fraud on a massive and historic scale — but the message itself was about as offensive. The GOP senator was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions that empower the Medicare program to negotiate lower prices for consumers on prescription medications.

Because seniors will pay less, and taxpayers will save money, Scott described it as a “cut.” As we discussed soon after, in the English language, there is no credible definition of “cut” under which this falls, but the Floridian pushed the line anyway.

And now this claim is being packaged as a TV attack ad. Ah, the odiousness of it all!

And it’s truly dishonest, make no mistake. A savings achieved through smart legislating is not a cut, it’s a savings.

But is it any more odious than the Democratic practice of supporting extremist Republicans during primaries in hopes that a candidate unacceptable to voters, particularly due to poor reasoning or the simple power-seeker with no restraints, in the general wins the Republican nomination?

Isn’t that intrinsically dishonest? Even when no less a personage than the late Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) did it with challenger Sharon Angle (R) in 2010?

Look, dirty campaigning is more of an American tradition than a crime, but outrage over something like this seems a bit overdone, at least to this independent.

Here’s the strike of DART on the asteroid Didymos on radar:

ATLAS observations of the DART spacecraft impact at Didymos! pic.twitter.com/26IKwB9VSo

— ATLAS Project (@fallingstarIfA) September 27, 2022

Dr. Philllips of Spaceweather.com comments:

This was the result of the 1,340-pound spacecraft plunging into Dimorphos at 14,000 mph. Most of the debris is probably asteroid dust, but some of DART may be in there, too. A similar video was recorded by the 1-meter Lesedi telescope in South Africa.

Sometimes staring at the trees just yields trees, so here’s a chart, as fragmentary and with some low-confidence data, that might give the reader some thought:

This chart shows, for all incumbent GOP Senators running for reelection for which there's current poll data available, their margin of victory in 2022 2016 in the red bar, and their current lead, according to pollsters, in the blue bar.

Yes, Johnson's lead is currently 0.

The most doubtful data is Indiana ("Internet poll" of the challenger) and Iowa ("commissioned by the challenger").

But what this small, but significant data sample indicates is that the independent voters are abhorring the Republicans. No doubt there are moderate Republicans who finally cannot vote for their own people, too, as those candidates are either too extreme, or are exhibiting unacceptable behaviors, such as Grassley of Iowa or Johnson of Wisconsin. But I suspect that mostly its the independents who find Republican philosophy and behaviors repellent.

And this leaning away from what passes for Republicans indicates a repudiation of the politics that, in many case, these political newcomers have brought with them: rank anti-abortionism, election-denying, already exhibited in the primaries, and a thirst for conspiracy rumors that support their most desperate wishes - rather than the ability to digest reality as it presents itself.

In some ways, this is a repudiation of their philosophy, which is a collage of anti-science, anti-experts, and a preference for irrationality, whether it be for that of Biblical literalism that often seems conveniently discarded, or the QAnon litany of nuttiness that appeals to those who find social media addictive and bizarre theories appealing.

Lee may be the most terrifying case for Republicans. A lead in excess of forty points has evaporated to two, and there's still more than a month left for Utah voters to learn what has disgusted their fellow voters about Senator Lee (R).

But any of the samples in this graph could suffer Lee's fate, because, not displayed here, none of the incumbents have reached the 50% level of support. They're still vulnerable if enough of the undecided voters decide to break to the left.

This may be one of the most important results of the upcoming election. Not that these incumbents lose or win, but that these GOPers lost this much support, even in Republican safe states such as Utah, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. It really makes me wonder about those states that are unpolled, such as the Dakotas and Alabama.

The death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, and its effect on the citizenry, may yet lead to the downfall of the regime, and even possibly to a new liberal democracy – one which may still be hostile to the United States, but still a step up from the theocracy.

But I expect that here in the United States the GOP will, if that happens, file a claim that it was their action of shit-canning the JCPOA, aka Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, that brought Iran’s government to its knees.

I’ll be rejecting that claim, though. While the economic circumstances of Iran are certainly stressful, they were when the JCPOA was in force as well, and, at best, they are merely a contributing factor.

The real factor is no secret: it’s the death of a young, vulnerable women while in the custody of the morality police, a group that, historically speaking, rarely has a reputation for distinguished members. The circumstances, possibly exacerbated by her ethnicity of being Kurdish, function to focus on the arbitrary nature of theocracy, those unsightly creatures that benefit from it, much to the disadvantage of everyone not in favor.

And I don’t think the GOP’s actions vis a vis the JCPOA really had much to do with it at all.

On the matter of Federal District Court Judge Cannon’s handling of the Mar-a-Lago case, the ruling of the US Court Of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit came down as hoped for by lawyers liberal and conservative – and in a hurry:

The ruling Wednesday evening by a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to slap a partial stay on a lower court’s ruling that froze the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation should surprise nobody.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon was a hot mess, as we and others detailed when she handed it down, and the grounds for an almost-inevitable appellate court intervention were obvious at the time. That said, the 29-page opinion is important in a number of respects.

For one thing, its unanimity and speed emphasize the fact that Judge Cannon’s interference in the Justice Department’s investigation was a gross impropriety, not a plausible legal position. That two of the panel members were, like Judge Cannon, appointed by President Trump further emphasizes that this is a matter of professionalism, not a matter of ideology or the sort of judicial philosophy that reasonably separates conservative from liberal jurists.

So too does the fact that the court ruled within 24 hours of the government’s final brief—and wrote in a per curiam opinion, that is, in the voice of the court itself, not of its individual judges. In short, giving the government relief from Judge Cannon’s injunction was a very easy call—one that required neither time nor any significant deliberation. Rather, the rate-limiting step in issuing this opinion was the speed with which judges of diverse political stripes could type. [Quinta Jurecic, Lawfare]

This is the kind of treatment that results in judges not making their way up the ladder, and Cannon will be looking at many years of sitting behind the relatively lowly, dusty desk of a US District Judge for years to come, especially if Chief Executives unsympathetic to her actions are elected to the Presidency. Or if Democrats capture the Senate, as I expect, for several cycles, because they’ll remember this partisan decision.

I will look for her to resign if Joe Biden, or an allied Democrat, wins the Presidency in 2024.

Finding the history of cryptocurrencies and spinoff products a little cloudy? WaPo has a useful timeline here.