Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Tyler Dinucci explains how Alaska decided to run an election, and how it snuffs the ideological extremists:

Measure 2 scrapped Alaska’s partisan primary system and replaced it with a blanket primary, similar (but different) to Washington, Louisiana, and California’s primaries. Every candidate would run on the same ballot in the primary regardless of party. But unlike those states, Measure 2 would then send the top four candidates in the primary to the general election. That general election would then be run under a ranked-choice system, similar to Maine.

Confused? Let me give an example:

In 2010, Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to far-right challenger Joe Miller. She staged an incredible comeback, winning only one of two successful write-in campaigns for Senate in American history. But with Measure 2, she wouldn’t have had a primary to lose. That’s because everyone — Miller, Murkowski, the Democratic candidate and more would’ve all competed on the same ballot in the primary. Joe Miller received 55,878 votes in the primary. Murkowski received 53,872, while the top two Democrats running received 18,035 and 6,913 in their primary. In this system, all four of these people who received the most votes in the primary would have advanced to the general election.

By eliminating the outsize influence of ideological zealots of any brand, moderates have a far better chance of victory – and given the zealots’ tendency towards arrogant hubris, I’ve very often been in favor of moderates.

The blanket primary sounds like a winner.

When you forget to turn off your phone in the theater.

A Living Dog (2019) is about our new robotic overlords.

No, seriously! An experiment apparently out of control, the robots now hunt humans mostly by sound, so there’s no dialog to worry about – just a military deserter (or survivor), a really angry civilian with some mad electronics skills, and their pet.

Pet tactical nuke, that is.

And a bunch of 20 ton robots that can, paradoxically, sneak up on you without making a sound, an unsettling skill that really shouldn’t be permitted.

And the dog? Don’t buy the head fake.

So, once again the scientists are to blame for trying to make the world better, and the good guys, well, so-so guys have to go and clean up after them. If you like that, great. And this isn’t a bad take on it. But why would robots key in on sound rather than sight? It’s the little question marks like that which lessen the impact of this story.

But it’s not badly done.

Xenograft:

A surgical graft of tissue from one species to an unlike species (or genus or family). A graft from a baboon to a human is a xenograft.

The prefix “xeno-” means foreign. It comes from the Greek word “xenos” meaning stranger, guest, or host. (Xeno- and xen- are variant forms of the same prefix.)  [MedicineNet]

Noted in “Team in China aims to start trial of pig organs in humans this year,” Michael Le Page (NewScientist, 19 February 2022, paywall):

Other experts say the results are encouraging. “The availability of a modified xenograft that lasts longer could be of significant benefit to patients with large and deep wounds,” says Adam Singer at Stony Brook University in New York.

Erick Erickson, a few days ago, flailed once again in full knowledge that the Democrats have no ill-birthed action like the Republicans’ January 6th insurrection, but, to keep the spirits of the conservatives up, he claimed they do:

Democratic pollsters are telling President Biden and other Democrats to simply move on from COVID. Did the science change? Nope. Only the polling.

Is that right? Well, I suppose it depends on how literally ‘science‘ should be taken. I mean, science is the study of reality, but some would argue that it should be restricted to our technical knowledge of Covid in this case.

I prefer the former, because then it becomes directly relevant to the citizen. How do I mean? From the Minnesota Department of Health:

It’s graphs like these that prompted public health officials to recommend the lockdown, and the various elected officials to follow through. The Hospitalization Rate time-series is the most important graph, because our strongest worry during the pandemic was the overwhelming stress on the health system, meaning not just Covid patients, but anyone admitted with a serious problem – accidents, gunshots, burst appendix, anything that might land you in the ICU or OR in ordinary times.

That plunging graph represents knowledge, and that represents a change in the science. Our knowledge is that the stress on hospitals is lessening rapidly.

Of course, there are infinite nuances to these sorts of analyses. For example, if the omicron variant was more dangerous and more virulent than the previously dominant mutant, delta, the above graph could be questioned. Is omicron worse than delta?

Researchers compared 52,297 cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant with 16,982 cases caused by the delta variant. Rates of hospitalization, intensive care unit admissions, requirement for mechanical ventilation, and mortality were substantially higher for infections caused by the delta variant than those caused by the omicron variant. The authors concluded, “During a period with mixed delta and omicron variant circulation, SARS-CoV-2 infections with presumed omicron variant infection were associated with substantially reduced risk of severe clinical endpoints and shorter durations of hospital stays.” [Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia]

No, it doesn’t appear to be.

If I were operating as a public official, the above graph, and others at the link cited, suggest to me that we may be nearing the end of the acute phase of the Covid pandemic. That analysis could be wrong. The next viable mutant form could have a case fatality rate like cousin MERS, which had a case fatality rate of 34%; by comparison, Covid’s case fatality rate is currently estimated at 1.35% (both numbers are from Wikipedia).

My point is that we’re on the leading edge of science, and science often gets things wrong. But right now, things are not looking too bad.

And Erickson’s a dishonest weasel.

Here’s a dude I’d rather not meet up close & personal:

For more unbearably cute pictures of polar bears occupying a weather station, go to Dmitry Kokh’s site here.

Admittedly, military vehicles are probably too well shielded for this to actually work, but it satisfies a minor fantasy of mine to do something more worthwhile than donating money to Ukraine:

A microwave weapon that can be carried by a drone is powerful enough to shoot down other drones and can also knock out other electronic devices.

The Leonidas Pod, produced by start-up Epirus based in Los Angeles, generates a beam of microwaves to overload a target’s electronics, causing drones to drop out of the sky, but doesn’t affect people.

Other counter-drone microwave weapons are based on magnetrons, the technology found in microwave ovens, and are the size of a shipping container. Instead, Epirus uses compact solid state emitters and last year unveiled a device that can fit on a pickup truck. [NewScientist, 19 February 2022, paywall]

And one need not wipe out all the Russia vehicles, just those at key points in the road. It’s already been demonstrated that four-wheeling across the country-side involves significant risk of getting stuck in the mud.

Here’s Epirus‘ advertising for their HPM. You’ll have to dig about a bit to find it, unfortunately. It’s known as Leonidas and is thought to be effective against drone swarms as well.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021, but still at theaters) follows the old & familiar plot line, but dressed up with effects difficult or impossible on a stage: are those three witches, or one? A castle architecture almost ‘gestural,’ while still brutalist in essence, in the words of my Arts Editor. A crop of fine, seasoned actors round out the mix, and made it a fine afternoon, only spoiled by the Scottish accents which were occasionally unintelligible.

Not necessarily recommended, but a fine effort. Enjoy!

WaPo has published some of the letters written after the 2020 election, but before the inauguration, discussing possible approaches to overturning the election, and this one, from Pence lawyer Greg Jacob to Trump-allied lawyer John Eastman, who has become rather infamous, is a doozy of way to tell someone they’re so full of shit it’s leaking out their ears:

John, very respectfully, I just don’t in the end believe that there is a single Justice on the United States Supreme Court, or a single judge on any of our Courts of Appeals, who is as “broad minded” as you when it comes to the irrelevance of statutes enacted by the United States Congress, and followed without exception for more than 130 years. They cannot be set aside except when in direct conflict with the Constitution that our revered Framers handed us. And very respectfully, I don’t think that a single one of those Framers would agree with your position either. Certainly, [former conservative] Judge Luttig has made clear he does not. And there is no reasonable argument that the Constitution directs or empowers the Vice President to set a procedure followed for 130 years before it has even been resorted to.

The contrast between very respectfully and the idiocy of advocating for ignoring statutes, by someone who, at one time, was a professor of law, kinda tells the story. Mr. Jacob may have been merely trying to soothe an overbearing ego, but it comes out as, You idiot, that’s not how the Law works.

And that this former professor of law apparently wanted to break laws he doesn’t like speaks to the arrogance of Trump’s coterie of devotees. It rather reminds me of a podcast Andrew Sullivan conducted with Michael Anton, a far-right “thinker,” who seemed to have little familiarity with actual thinking. Now, I do have some sympathy with Anton in a podcast, as I would probably sound like an idiot, too, but his refusal to do much but hide behind a screen of “I dunno…” rendered the podcast an implicit condemnation of the right, rather than a raucous debate.

Anyways, back to Jacob’s letter, a few paragraphs later the quote ends with

And thanks to your bull—-, we are now under siege.

Which just makes me laugh. Eastman doesn’t appear to have universal respect.

Former Republican Presidential contender, HUD Secretary, and famed retired surgeon Ben Carson said something that sounds persuasive, but is not, and Paul Fidalgo helpfully provides a transcript:

I feel like Ben Carson doesn’t quite get what the separation of church and state is supposed to be about. Call me crazy. He said:

So if [references to God are] in our founding documents, it’s in our Pledge, it’s on our courts, it’s on our money, but we’re not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? In medicine, we call it “schizophrenia.”

It sounds like Carson is providing context, but, in this case, he’s providing incomplete context. What’s missing?

The nature of the ‘God’ references.

Which Divinity is referenced? No identification is given. Could be Christian, Muslim, or even Zoroastrian. Could be something far more outre, now couldn’t it? But Christians were the dominant culture, you cry? But the Founding Fathers contain several faiths, and the Deists and, no doubt, Agnostics were among them. Some would argue they even dominated the group, intellectually speaking. Would they have signed documents that might have contradicted their own beliefs as to the nature of the Divine? No.

The recognition that operating on a lack of evidence, as faith and religious tradition do, does not serve society well, leads to the inescapable conclusion that, while a Divinity was recognized as probably existing, its nature was not known. Further, the lessons of history recent to the Fathers dictated the importance of restraining the actions of supposedly Divine-inspired people from controlling government in regard to those supposed principles, for down that Divine path lay blood and division.

The humility of the Founding Fathers in this regard is in deep contrast to the grasping, arrogant assumptions of Carson and his ilk. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to them.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is widely thought to be a likely candidate for President in 2024, but if this is his impression of the nature of foreign relations, which is a primary responsibility of the Presidency, then he’s disqualified himself already:

“When you see people that are willing to fight, I mean it’s inspiring to see these people just grab rifles who are civilians and going out there and fighting to ward off the Russian Army,” DeSantis said. “A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity. I mean could you imagine if they went into France, would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.” [USA Today]

France has suffered through two German invasions and occupations, the first partial and the second total; that they completely misunderstood the nature of warfare in the run-up to World War II doesn’t render them pacifists or generally incompetent, just extraordinarily misguided in the preparation phase of the war – and far too close to the aggressor to recover from their mistakes. They fought before and after their country was overrun, and the exploits of the French Resistance are justly famed.

The United States also messed up preparation for World War II, in the area of naval sea power, as anyone who’s taken a moment to understand that the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor signified the importance of same when most American naval commanders at the time didn’t understand it^[1]. But because of our distance from Japan, and greater resources, we were able to recover.

But my real point isn’t to defend the courageous French, but to point out that anywhere there’s nation-level aggression, there’s also defense, whether it’s internal, such as in Thailand, or between nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It’s often a spirited, even vicious defense. It’s often a point of pride. It’s world-wide.

But DeSantis doesn’t seem to know this. Oh, he could be simply catering to the prejudices of his audience, but that’s not the mark of a real leader, who should speak truth into the tornado of falsehoods. He’s busy digging for votes, and in a most unjust manner indeed.

¹ Bonus points to those whose study indicated the Pearl Harbor raid, for all of the damage and casualties inflicted, was a failure for the Japanese because none of the few American aircraft carriers were in port.

Long-time readers will recall that I predicted former President Trump would flee the country either prior to or shortly following the transfer of office from himself to President-elect, at the time, Biden.

It didn’t happen.

But the rapidly worsening situation in Russia, consequential to Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine, just now struck me as denying former President Trump a plausible refuge in case his situation goes rapidly south. At the very least, the shortages and social unrest appearing in Russia would be unappealing to the fastidious Trump. If Putin is ousted, or even passes away, Trump’s probably most important protector would be gone.

And is the former President’s situation dire? From a response by the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection to being sued by Trump’s supposed lawyer, John Eastman:

Critically for this case, an in camera [i.e., in private] review of the documents is warranted when the party seeking production has provided “a factual basis adequate to support a good faith belief by a reasonable person that in camera review of the materials may reveal evidence to establish the claim that the crime-fraud exception applies.” United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554, 572 (1989) (citation omitted). That standard has plainly been met here. As discussed in the Background section above, evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts, and that Plaintiff’s legal assistance was used in furtherance of those activities. Accordingly, this Court should conduct an in camera review of the documents to determine whether the crime-fraud exception applies.

Bold mine. Worse yet for the former President, extremely serious charges are now being brought against arrestees of the January 6th insurrection, and one guilty plea, for seditious conspiracy, has already been extracted:

Jan 6 defendant Josh James signs plea deal saying:

"(Stewart) Rhodes instructed James &..conspirators to be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter & use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump" pic.twitter.com/kBkKP9y3zk

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 3, 2022

This extremely serious charge and guilty plea should be a big red flag for the former President – but now, to put it baldly, his options for refuge are now far more limited than he may have anticipated just a month ago, for his metaphorical brother, President Putin, has committed the same foul as did Trump – engage in arrogant stupidity, like most autocrats.

Honestly, I’m not sure where Trump might run if his situation significantly deteriorates. Even Switzerland has come out against Putin; he can no longer trust that the doggedly neutral bureaucrats of the mountains will harbor him, even with the offer of a deodorizing bribe.

I wonder how the betting pools on Trump’s future are leaning.

Manchin is either too rich or too glib:

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) poured cold water on President Biden’s attempt [during the State of the Union address] to revive the core elements of his Build Back Better agenda, questioning the president’s claim that passing a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion spending package would “lower costs” for most Americans.

“They just can’t help themselves,” Manchin quipped when asked by reporters after Biden’s State of the Union speech whether he was surprised by the president’s effort to try to use the moment to try to revive his stalled climate and social spending plan. [The Hill]

But as most families that have clawed their way up the economic class ladder are aware, wise spending, also known as investment, usually pays off in the end. For example, you can buy all sorts of cheap shit at Walmart. Then it breaks or wears out quickly, and you have to replace it.

And again.

And again.

Anyone who does the math soon realizes that buying something that is initially more expensive, but holds together and doesn’t need to be replaced, is actually cheaper – over the lifetime of the initially more expensive product. When I’m looking at buying something new amidst a range of competing products, Low low price! is not on my list of requirements; instead, I’m looking for a price point midway, or higher than midway, through the price range, taking the price as a proxy for quality. Then I start checking consumer reviews online. There are no guarantees, but this approach quite often works.

Even with food, you can buy cheap shit that isn’t nutritious and end up at the doc for an expensive visit, or you can eat food that’s good for you for more money, and not end up at the expensive doc. The latter is what you want, financially and existentially.

The point is that staring at the initial price, as Manchin advocates, is misleading. The question really comes down to return on investment, or ROI as investment professionals call it. If we can put a billion dollars into child care and get two billion dollars of productivity, then Manchin should be made to explain why he’s against that. And that should be a fruitful discussion for both sides – because this where real debates begin.

But Manchin shooting his fool mouth off without acknowledging how this is an investment and not a commodity buy is just sheer deceit.

Codel:

of congressional delegation, government-paid trips abroad, designed to give lawmakers first-hand knowledge of matters relevant to their legislation. [Definitions.net]

Noted in “Eight Republicans pick the worst possible place to celebrate July 4,” Dana Milbank, WaPo:

For all that it’s unmitigated tragedy in Ukraine, this article in WaPo tells me that, win or lose, President Biden’s non-egotistical approach to building alliances to oppose Russia is going to bear fruit both now and as far into the future as we’re willing to nurture that tree. In case my reader wasn’t aware, consider this:

Biden has seen one of his major goals as rebuilding global alliances that he viewed as recently tattered, and persuading leaders with disparate interests and varied domestic concerns to come together. As Russia prepared its attack, officials say, Biden engaged in discreet diplomacy with European allies, and in recent weeks he has encouraged them to take action.

“They avoid the political downside of having the view that somehow big brother is corralling or forcing the junior partners to do its own bidding,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran diplomat and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s not just Joe Biden and the United States carrying the load.”

Even while much of the process may be stage-managed by the United States, he added, it helps European leaders domestically by presenting the response as a widespread global alliance and not just one orchestrated by Washington. The strategy is not without risk for Biden’s own domestic political concerns, depriving him of opportunities to tout achievements as he faces low approval ratings and attacks from Republicans who call his response weak.

By not turning this into America and a few allies, we now have a united front in which various nations have equal voices and opinions. This leads away from the toxic Oh, it’s a war between the United States and Russia, fought on Ukrainian territory, and towards the narrative Russia is a violent, rogue nation with a strongman for a leader … and look what happened to them.

This serves to fortify the alliance of liberal democracies, including those who are on the edge of falling off that wagon, or even are off that wagon – looking at you, Hungary! – because they see an alliance that is doing good in the face of evil, and that’s an often attractive option for leaders. The knowledge there are many similarly-minded countries encourages everyone even more.

Hell, if the Swiss abandon their neutrality, you know something is going on.

It also serves as a discouragement to would-be leaders who think they can be a successful strongman. Strongman leaders are rarely successful; instead, they tend to be prideful incompetents, from Franco of Spain to Bolsonaro of Brazil to Marcos of the Phillippines, and now, as Russian forces bog down against Ukraine, Putin of Russia. In this last case, it’s not just that Putin’s military did not immediately succeed, but the fact that Putin didn’t foresee, or head off, the devastating economic sanctions that will send Russia spiraling down to Third World status, the military aid dispatched to Ukraine by various alliance members that will kill more Russian soldiers, the sudden and shocking interest of Finland in joining NATO, the crippling removal of big Russian banks from SWIFT, and no doubt other items I’ve forgotten or missed.

Each failed strongman, whether dictator in fact only, or in name as well, is an object lesson in that failed governance model, a lesson that all its fans, from Trump to Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus to Tucker Carlson, should learn.

And Biden’s approach, as frustrating as GOP leaders and pundits may claim to be by it, is strongly beneficial for the United States, far more than the foolhardy pursuit of personal glory. But the GOP has discarded the old American tradition that politics stops at the American beach. They are not conservatives any longer, simply power-hungry fools who never learned how to govern in a world of hostile powers.

I expect we’ll benefit from Biden’s decisions for decades to come … unless Putin decides to fire off World War III with his nuclear arsenal.

It must be a little tough to be Erick Erickson, based on this:

The leader of the free world needs to be decisive and support freedom. Ukraine is fighting for its life. Europe has stepped up. For God’s sake, the Swedish are supplying arms to Ukraine while Joe Biden vacations in Delaware and dithers.

Even now, the Biden Administration will not restore American energy independence, but imports Russian oil. After refusing to ban Russia from SWIFT and giving Europe a veto over the matter, Biden finally prohibited Russia from the SWIFT banking system, but went out of his way to make clear the ban would not apply to energy related transaction.

He’s evidently forgotten that we’re the biggest nuclear power, and Russia is #2. If we sufficiently provoke Putin, he will increase the number of cities hit by nuclear missiles in the history of the world from two to three, four, five …

So, therefore, we move with great delicacy. We use proxies, such as Sweden. We push Germany into supplying more arms – and remember that we supplied hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms to Ukraine just  a few years ago, despite the frenzied attempts of then-President Trump to stop those shipments.

Ahem.

I’m not taking Erickson too seriously these days when he critiques the Democrats. I’m sure he has some good points, particularly about the self-delusions of the far left, but digging them out of the manure he spreads makes the entire matter tiresome for a working dude. I find him far more credible when he critiques his own side.

Which, according to Senator Romney (R-UT), is populated with morons.

Professor Richardson summarizes the invasion of Russia so far:

Less than a week ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched an assault on Ukraine, and with his large military force, rebuilt after the military’s poor showing in its 2008 invasion of Georgia, it seemed to most observers that such an attack would be quick and deadly. He seemed unstoppable. For all that his position at home has been weakening for a while now as a slow economy and the political opposition of people like Alexei Navalny have turned people against him, his global influence seemed to be growing. That he believed an attack on Ukraine would be quick and successful was clear today when a number of Russian state media outlets published an essay, obviously written before the invasion, announcing Russia’s victory in Ukraine, saying ominously that “Putin solved the Ukrainian question forever…. Ukraine has returned to Russia.”

But Ukrainians changed the story line. While the war is still underway and deadly, and while Russia continues to escalate its attacks, no matter what happens the world will never go back to where it was a week ago. Suddenly, autocracy, rather than democracy, appears to be on the ropes.

Let’s assume Putin is finished. Whether he’s thrust out of power, or out an upper-story window, it doesn’t matter. But let’s not ask the obvious question, which is What comes next, who will take over, will it continue as a corrupt autocracy or will it become a democracy, etc etc.

Let’s ask a question important to the United States: When Putin disappears, what will be the effect on the American right wing?

There’s a number of possible results.

• No change in behavior. This suggests the right wing is an organic movement.
• The movement begins to move back towards the center. This suggests Putin was pumping money into the movement in an effort to guide it into splitting the American political scene. When the motivation goes away, so does the behavior.
• The anti-vaxx subgroup begins to fade away. Once again, Putin funds them and they quit when the money stops flowing. I consider this as a low probability result because anti-vaccination sentiment has been with us for a very long time.
• QAnon disappears. The eponymous ‘Q’ hasn’t posted for a very long time, at least by Internet standards, so that suggests the continuing movement is self-sustaining. Still, ‘self-sustaining’ could be an illusion. Anonymous members, paid by Putin to keep the lights on, are difficult to impossible to identify, so if QAnon breaks up and shrinks, Putin’s hand may be discerned.
• Others?

Of course, the problem with the approach of measuring a change in our political scene that can be connected to Putin’s demise is that China may have also been interfering. Money, after all, is money, and those who are willing to take it corruptly rarely object to using a range of sources.

But for anyone puzzling over the polarization of the American political scene, the removal of Putin from the scene may turn out to be an eye opener. I seriously doubt that fake clergy like Greg Locke will be abandoning their ego-inflating gigs just because Putin loses, but, whether there’s changes or not, Putin’s debacle will teach us something.

By the eighth take, the gorilla, already deprived of a credit, was distinctly crabby.
Which was exactly how Laura likes her gorillas.

The Bride and the Beast (1958) is an odd collage of a film. The first chunk presents the new bride of African explorer and hunter Dan Fuller, Laura Fuller. Plagued by odd dreams about living with gorillas on her wedding night, Dan’s long-time pet gorilla breaks out of his cage and entrances Laura when she awakens. She is only freed of his influence when her husband finds her being led out of the house and shoots the pet gorilla to death. A later examination of her by a doctor, using hypnosis, reveals that in a previous life she … was a gorilla!

Then comes a long, long section of film best described as a safari documentary, utilizing what appears to be authentic video of the era, as Dan and Laura travel across the continent in search of … I forget. Probably gorillas. The cinematography throughout the movie is B&W gorgeous, and may make the movie worthwhile if you are a safari video aficionado.

Once they reach their destination, the movie reverts to the previous storyline, resulting in Laura being kidnapped, not entirely unwillingly, by the local gorillas, and, despite Dan’s frenzied attempts to rescue her, she is lost to the gorilla clan, much to his dismay.

It’s all a little disjointed, feeling more like the moviemakers happened to have some primo footage that had to be worked into what was otherwise a fairly hollow, even silly, story. But I have to admit that footage really was good, if violent, so I can see why they succumbed to its lure.

But in the end I fear I was overcome with incredulity.

Crypsis:

Crypsis, or avoiding detection by blending into the background, is one of the most common and successful defenses. Classical examples of crypsis include mantids and stick insects in the Mantodea and Phasmatodea, leaf-mimicking moths, and ambush bugs (Phymatidae) that resemble the flowers in which they hide. [Justin O. Schmidt, ScienceDirect]

Noted in “Competition, part II,” Heather Heying, Natural Selections:

Historically, though, male-typical competition is visible, overt, and finite in its nature. Female-typical competition is more cryptic and covert, and has boundaries that are looser. Overt games have clear borders, both in space and time, or at least they’re supposed to. In male-typical competition both the games themselves, and the rules of the games tend to be clear. In female-typical social competition, by contrast, both the game and its rules may be difficult to detect. And this difficulty of detection may precisely, in turn, be part of the game. Crypsis can be a powerful adaptive move—if your competitors can’t see you coming, they may well be less prepared, especially if it’s not even clear that a game is on.

… I’d just ignore it.

But The Lincoln Project is a NeverTrumper conservative organization.

So this is worth a gander.

So accurate.

And it’s worth noting that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has been a favorite of Tucker Carlson to the extent that Carlson has broadcast from Hungary, has come out against Putin. It’ll be interesting to hear how Carlson adjusts to that.

I see CNN is claiming Ukraine survived the night in its war against the much stronger invader, Russia, and, if true, I think that may inspire and solidify American citizens’ backing for underdog Ukraine, who were also, incidentally, the victims of American aggression just a few years ago, leading to the first impeachment and trial of then-President Trump. Yes, the President, in the guise of his official duties, put illicit pressure on Ukrainian President Zelensky to initiate an unwarranted investigation of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s sadly flawed son, before delivery of promised military arms and assistance would commence, and that threatened the future of Ukraine. That makes us aggressors. And, sorry dude, but your false claims of a rigged election causing this invasion don’t match up with your own culpability. President Biden, if he hasn’t already, should apologize for his predecessor’s morally inferior action.

But I digress.

It’s the affects of the invasion and how they may rebound to Russia’s detriment that I think is most interesting.

Finland and Sweden have brushed off warnings from neighboring Russia that their possible joining of NATO would trigger “serious military-political consequences” from Moscow for the two countries.

A statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry Friday voiced concern about what it described as efforts by the United States and some of its allies to “drag” Finland and Sweden into NATO and warned that Moscow would be forced to take retaliatory measures if they join the alliance.

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Saturday that “we’ve heard this before.”

“We don’t think that it calls for a military threat,” Haavisto said in an interview with the Finnish public broadcaster YLE. “Should Finland be NATO’s external border, it rather means that Russia would certainly take that into account in its own defense planning. I don’t see anything new as such” in the statement delivered by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Haavisto said. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]

Yeah, solidification of opposition. Russia may dare to invade a weaker neighbor under a pretext. It’s only a single front. But what if Sweden were to issue a statement like this?

We were messing around with Google maps today and estimate a column of Swedish tanks could reach Moscow in less than a week.

(Does Sweden have tanks?) Sure, I’m just spitballing here. And what if documentaries concerning the Swedish Empire (1561-1721) were to appear on Swedish broadcast television? For us Americans, “Swedish Empire” sounds almost like a contradiction, seeing that Sweden was neutral during World War II, but at one time the Swedes were the rampaging maniacs of the North and actually had designs on the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor, although they didn’t work out.

We may be understandably ignorant, but not the Russians. They’ll understand the threat.

And then the Finlanders could remark, ever so casually, on the inability of Russian radar to pick up on American B-2 bombers, and then add that the Ghost of Kyiv is sucking down so much Russian Air Force resources that a small flight of B-2s could probably make Moscow without visual detection. Which is utter nonsense, but, given Russian penchants for disinformation, a return volley of same is not out of the question.

We can be sure that Putin won’t pull in his horns, but we all know he’s a lost cause. The real goal here is to collapse support for Putin among both the common citizenry, and the oligarchs, as I’ve mentioned before, who have far more to lose.

One of the excuses Putin has used for this war, an excuse that might actually be sincere, is that he doesn’t want NATO neighbors. If Finland and Sweden join NATO, he’ll have an unintended consequence for Finland, and Sweden is right next door to Finland, which is built like a spite house – long and narrow.

How the countries of the world react to the survival of Ukraine may determine the war’s course more than we imagine.

Unexpected progress made on a scientific mystery:

Kicking off an occasional series on random views of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which exist in an environment antithetical to their aspirations, which is a singular, even unique existence. Search UMB on ‘NFT’ for my evolving thoughts on the matter.

From WaPo, covering an art exhibit of NFTs in San Francisco, where wearing Metaverse-style goggles isn’t just de rigeur, but actually required to see the art.

I was first attracted to this case by the petition to the for an en banc (all the judges on the circuit) re-hearing in this case concerning religious objections to the Covid-19 in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The initial attractor:

In sum, the majority’s “ongoing coercion” theory is contrary to all precedent, devoid of any limiting principle, and harmful to the employees it purports to protect. The en banc Court should put a stop to this madness.

A bit puzzling, if fun. It turns out that a three judge panel had ruled, 2-1, in favor of the plaintiffs, who were pissed that their religious accommodation for not taking the Covid-19 shot – that is, for not contributing to public health – was leave without pay from United Airlines. The dissenting judge claimed this violated many precedents, both specific to the Fifth Circuit and those from SCOTUS.

Going through the sections leading to the above paragraph impressed me by how it doesn’t address the primary motivation of the need for everyone to participate in public health, and that’s the potential damage and death, both directly and indirectly, the unvaccinated can cause. Quite frankly, the idea that religious “sensibilities” justify endangering society is exactly what we were trying to escape 200+ years ago when we engaged in the Revolutionary War, telling off Mad King George and, by implication, his monarchical ancestors and descendants who paraded about, murdered innocents, and took terrible arbitrary actions, all under the imprimatur of some Divine touch making them King or Queen.

Allegedly. Self-reported, one might say.

So I have little sympathy for the majority of the panel who rendered the decision which United Airlines is now appealing. One of the judges is a Trump nominee, the other from Bush II. If I’m to believe the dissent, it sounds like a sad commentary on the nominations of those Presidents.

Aposematic:

Aposematism is the advertising by an animal to potential predators that it is not worth attacking or eating. This unprofitability may consist of any defences which make the prey difficult to kill and eat, such as toxicity, venom, foul taste or smell, sharp spines, or aggressive nature. These advertising signals may take the form of conspicuous coloration, sounds, odours, or other perceivable characteristics. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both predator and prey, since both avoid potential harm. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Join a Scientist’s Undersea Adventure,” Andria Greene, Discover (March/April 2022):

Nudibranchs are invertebrates — backboneless organisms in the kingdom Animalia — that include 2,000 different species, many of which are best known for their wildly diverse and colorful appearance. But what’s beautiful to humans is to other animals an aposematic signal — a warning not to eat this creature. Nudibranchs’ bright coloration is intended to indicate unpalatability, and comes from a diet rich in animals armed with cnidocytes, the stinging cells common to sponges, anemone, and coral. Not all nudibranchs parade colorful displays; some rely on near-perfect camouflage to avoid being eaten. But coloration and camouflage can’t protect these and other underwater creatures from every threat.