Unsightly Mental Blemishes

From time to time there are reports that the Houthi of Yemen have shot missiles at another ship, and I wonder what they hope to accomplish. Maybe this is it?

Revenue registered by the Suez Canal for fiscal year 2023/24 fell by more than $2 billion, as attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to disrupt global trade and cause rerouting.

Yemen’s Houthis have been attacking commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea region since November 2023, calling the strikes a direct response to Israeli military operations in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. [AL-Monitor]

Do the Houthi consider Egypt friend or foe? And I had no idea that they were having that sort of impact on Canal revenue.

When Senator Menendez (I-NJ) was initially indicted on bribery charges in 2023, he was D-NJ. The following Senators called for his resignation at or around that time:

• Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
• Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont
• Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio
• Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin
• Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana
• Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
• Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada
• Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
• Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico
• Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey
• Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona
• Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado
• Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
• Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
• Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii
• Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts
• Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
• Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia
• Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan
• Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont
• Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut
• Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut
• Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois
• Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado
• Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia
• Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
• Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois
• Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland
• Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington
• Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington
• Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware

[Business Insider]

At least them, there might have been more. Now that Senator Menendez is a convict, the following have also called for his resignation:

• Majority Leader Schumer (D-NY)
• Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)

There may be more on the Democratic side, as I haven’t the time to be obsessive. However, as Steve Benen notes, the Republican side is easier:

In fact, while the list of Senate Democrats calling on Menendez to resign grew — and continues to grow — there was no comparable push among Senate Republicans. GOP senators learned that one of their colleagues had just been convicted on corruption charges, but they made no real effort to show him the door.

Now, I could go on about reasons, maybe they felt a kinship with Senator Menendez, etc, but what caught my eyes is their lose-lose scenario they’ve entered into:

• They’ve claimed to be the law & order party – see Rep Emmer (R-MN) here – but this is no Republican law and order frenzy.
• Perhaps they feel that Menendez did what he was convicted of, which is taking bribes and other abuses of position, but their reaction is So What? That’s what we might expect to see from the Grifting Party.
• Maybe they feel the Democrats have enough rope and will strangle themselves. Unfortunately for them, the Democrats have better leaders and did the right thing – perhaps even prematurely – which should impress observers.
• If the Republicans are worried about insalubrious comparisons between Senator Menendez, Mr Trump, and disparate Republican reactions – does that mean they think anyone outside of the political classes is paying attention? Do they think the average voter will have any knowledge of the Senator’s straits? If so, that’s a surprise.
• Or maybe they just don’t want to tread on Mr Trump’s delicate sensibilities.

I look forward to what may be futile efforts to tie Democrats to the Menendez debacle.

Bibliotoxicology:

Greater awareness has risen recently concerning the phenomenon of “Poison Books”: that is, books containing pigments composed of heavy metals that are known to be hazardous to human health. Mercury, lead, chromium and arsenic-based pigments are generally the elements known to be present in bindings-they’re used to color the book-covering cloth, leather and/or paper- chiefly within the 19th century (largely the 1840’s-1860’s), and most likely of European or American publishing origin. [“Bibliotoxicology,” Doug Sanders, IU Libraries]

Noted in “Old books can be loaded with poison. Some collectors love the thrill.”, Ashley Stimpson, WaPo:

A PAC is a Political Action Committee, which collects donations and uses them to produce political messages and find space in media to place them in front of eyeballs. I think the notorious George Conway, lawyer and NeverTrumper for many years now, has the best name:

THE ANTI-PSYCHOPATH PAC

And that’s all I wanted to say.

This keeps happening, just like last time. Too much morbid fascination, I suppose.

President Biden deciding to leave the Presidential race means what?

Not a great deal for the Senate races. The Dobbs decision is really independent of President Biden, and that’s what will motivate women to vote and to kick some male ass. A President Harris will have the same policies on abortion as does Biden.

That said, Biden leaving the race may motivate a few more Never Trumpers to get out and vote, excited by a Harris vs Trump race.

It’s worth remembering virtually none of these polls were performed after July 21st, which is when Biden announced he was no longer running.

And If Kamala Harris Pins Down The Nomination?

Her impact on the Senate races will depend on the quality of her rhetoric and vociferousness.

What About Public Policy Polling?

With a rating of 1.4 on FiveThirtyEight’s scale of three stars, they seem to be a favorite of Democrat-aligned organizations, such as Clean & Prosperous America and Progress Action Fund. It’s probably a mistake to choose them, though, as that 1.4 is not impressing me.

So how does it look?

• Public Policy Polling (see above) gives Pennsylvania’s Senator Casey (D-PA) an 11 point lead, 50%-39%, over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?). Seems reasonable, if a bit on the liberal side, except that the sponsor is Clean & Prosperous America, a Democrat-aligned organization, so there may be a tilt to this result. Add in the mediocre rating and this may not be worth remembering. And when they polled for Progress Action Fund, the lead shrinks to 3 points, 47%-44%. Meanwhile, Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) is harder to judge, as they give Senator Casey a 44%-37% lead. Finally, mysterious but probably right-wing SoCal (unknown rating), working for On Point Politics, gives Casey a large 10 point lead, 50%-40%. The latter poll is sponsored by On Point Politics, a right-wing organization that is still advertising that Trump will defeat Biden in a landslide. Apparently, they were caught off-balance by the idea that things can change over a few months of campaigning, err, Trump will self-destruct per usual, I’ll get this right, Biden would outmaneuver the right with a well-timed withdrawal, as reluctant as he was to do so. I’m not bothering with reading their site, as it feels like a political echo site, but I do have to wonder what they thought Trump could do if the Senate stays in the Democratic column, and possibly even gains a seat or two. I don’t think anyone doubts that the House, packed with Republicans like Gaetz and Greene and Boebert, will return to Democratic control come January.
• Public Policy Polling (1.4) gives Michigan’s Rep Slotkin (D-MI) an 8 point lead, 46%-38%, over former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI). Once again, the poll sponsor is Clean & Prosperous America, see the Pennsylvania entry, above, for further remarks. Then PPP double-dips for Progress Action Fund and gives Slotkin a ten point lead, 45%-35%, which seems unlikely. EPIC-MRA (2.0) gives Slotkin (D-MI) a three point lead, 43%-40%, over Rogers (R-MI). Primaries are still to come.
• Tit For Tat: Skip the tawdry jokes, please. In Nebraska Senator Fischer (R-NB) has a huge lead over challenger Dave Osborn (I-NB), 50%-24%. Two problems: The pollster is Torchlight Strategies (see here for its last mention), unranked by FiveThirtyEight, and the sponsor is … Deb Fischer. I’m not sure why this poll is even listed by FiveThirtyEight.

  If we take this poll at face value, it sounds like doom, except for this bit:

  More than 75% of the Nebraskans surveyed had no opinion of Osborn, didn’t know who he was or declined to share an opinion of him. Fischer was known to all but 14% of those polled. [Nebraska Examiner]

  That leads to an overextended Osborn claim:

  Osborn’s campaign has said the race is closer than indicated by the Fischer poll. The campaign has pointed to a Public Policy Polling survey from May that indicated Fischer led 37%-33%, with a 3.7% margin of error.

  Dude, this is July, not May. Osborn’s later return shot is a lot like Fischer’s, a poll he sponsored from Red Wave Strategy Group/Impact Research that shows Osborn and Fischer tied at 42%. But who is Red Wave? FiveThirtyEight shrugs. Their web site claims they’re conservatives, but what sort? Impact Research has a 1.5 rating, which is nothing about which to brag, but I believe they claim to Democrat-aligned.

  To summarize, there’s nothing to summarize. Neither poll is worth the bits they’ve consumed.

• Unknown pollster ActiVote is giving Texas Senator Cruz (R-TX) an 8 point lead, 54%-46%, over challenger Rep Allred (D-TX). This is out of line with YouGov’s (2.9) recent assessment of a 3 point lead, ActiVote’s sample size was only 400, which seems small for a big state like Texas, and it has a margin of error of 4.9%, which is a bit large. I feel a wave of skepticism coming on, but maybe that’s just me listening to Andrew Sullivan interview Erick Erickson on religious subjects.
• Redfield & Wilton Strategies (1.8) suggests Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) leads challenger Sam Brown (R-NV) by 4 points, 41%-37%. Seems a bit low. The sponsor is The Telegraph, of which I’m not really aware except that it seems to be an overseas publication.
• In Wisconsin Public Policy Polling gives Senator Baldwin (D-WI) a 51%-43% lead over challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?) for Progress Action Fund. This is congruent with the previous poll from Republican-leaning North Star Opinion Research and American Greatness. Mr Hovde does not appear to be making progress against the incumbent.
• Resignation is more honorable than a boot up the butt. Senator Menendez (D-NJ, errr, I-NJ) has announced his intention to resign his seat on August 20th; the delay is presumably to give New Jersey Governor Murphy (D-NJ) time to select a replacement for immediate appointment and retain the Democratic Senate majority. Senator Menendez, as noted in this update, was convicted on all counts resulting from a Federal bribery scandal. This conviction (convictions?) not only may be ridding us of a weak member of the Senate, but also tears the legs off the Republican talking point that the DoJ has been weaponized by the Biden Administration. The resignation, in response to Senator Schumer’s (D-NY) request that he resign, reinforces the idea that the Democrats, despite other flaws, are still more honorable than the party that sports such names as Gaetz and Greene.Menendez did not address the issue of running for reelection as an independent. He has filed the papers to do so.

  And there’s no tall walls keeping the governor from appointing Rep and candidate for the Senate seat Kim to the seat. Republicans hate that idea, which tells me that, chairs reversed, they’d do it in a second. Still, it is true that California governor Newsom (D-CA) did appoint a caretaker, now-Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA), to the seat of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) when she died last year. Rep Adam Schiff (D-CA) and MLB great Steve Garvey (R-CA) are now running for that seat.

• In Arizona Public Opinion Polling is again double-dipping, telling Progress Action Fund that Rep Gallego (D-AZ) leads election-denier and former newscaster Kari Lake (R-AZ) by three points, 50%-47%, while telling the PAC Clean and Prosperous America that Gallego’s lead is seven points, 49%-42%. There were fewer voters in the former poll, so its margin of error will be larger, although whether or not that’s significant is beyond me. My guess is that the sponsors have different parameters for adjustments. Primaries happen July 30, and while Gallego has no challengers, Lake faces adversaries for this open seat, occupied by the retiring Senator Sinema (I-AZ, formerly D-AZ).
• Democrats may dream of defeating Senator Hawley (R-MO) of Missouri, but when the strongest news is that probable opponent Lance Kunce (D-MO) has outraised him, $2.8 million to $1.8 million, it’s not a convincing sign, because money flows easily over State borders.

As always, much of the above data derives from FiveThirtyEight.

My excuse is that I was on vacation when Rep Emmer (R-MN) suffered this mental breakdown:

Emmer: Donald Trump stands with the people and the police, our men and women in blue, not with the criminals and rioters. pic.twitter.com/WnHrKWI1Qf

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 17, 2024

Emmer: Donald Trump stands with the people and the police, our men and women in blue, not with the criminals and rioters.

Donald J. Trump:

Donald Trump says the rioters who assaulted police officers in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot are “warriors.” [Los Angeles Times]

Will his constituents recognize his condition and move on to someone else? This is one way to earn a Landgrebe nomination.

Naturally, VP Harris will now be the victim of attacks, mischaracterizations, and all that sort of thing. Here’s Erick Erickson, trying to keep the herd together:

Democrats publicly say that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. Privately, many Democrat politicians do not believe it. Privately, many of them see Kamala Harris as a weak candidate and a threat to their own ambitions. If Harris were to win in 2024, she’d be the incumbent running for re-election in 2028. That would put Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and plenty of others far out of office and out of the spotlight by the time 2032 rolls around.

Do you really think they want Harris to win? Really?

First, she’s weak or she’s a threat, but both is deeply unlikely.

Harris is also a deeply flawed candidate. Here’s the New York Times from 2020. …

In October 2023, Harris tried her fourth reboot as Vice President. But by then, the New York Times noted that Democrats were beginning to question whether Harris should be replaced. Yes, less than a year ago, Democrats were speculating that Biden should oust Harris. …

On the one-year anniversary of her tenure as Vice President, the BBC ran a story titled, “Kamala Harris one year: Where did it go wrong for her?”

Politico declared, “There is dysfunction inside the VP’s office, aides and administration officials say. And it’s emanating from the top.”

But Erickson’s dealing in rumors, many from years and years ago. Again, Harris is either weak or dangerous, but she’s been receiving a master class in politicking from demonstrated master President Biden, and she’d already graduated into an advanced program through her years in the Senate.

Erickson wants us to believe Harris a weak, divisive candidate, and maybe he’s right. But right now, very early in the game, it all sounds like malicious rumor-mongering from someone who realizes his own master criminal Party leader is something of a joke.

And what will the electorate care about the internal workings of her campaign, anyways?

For all that President Biden seems to have been forced, by the opinions of his fellow Party-members, to a certain degree this may have been his most sagacious political maneuver ever. Consider this (vague) timeline:

1. Mt. Trump is shot. He shows a bit of gumption, no doubt due to being a blowhard.
2. Rep Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) proclaims …
   

   “President Trump survives this attack — he just won the election,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told POLITICO in a brief interview shortly after the shooting.

   I’m sure some Trump supporters credit God for his survival, although exactly which one would not be clear.

3. Mr. Trump appears at the RNC and delivers a speech that could have advanced his cause, but, by all reports, his initial attempts to call for unity collapsed into an unsurprisingly selfish, all-about-him replay of all his false claims. Opportunity blown, as his connection with much of America is tenuous.
4. Still, President Biden loses a point or so. Points are precious, as they’re generally hard to gain in this political era.
5. Yesterday, President Biden removes himself from the ticket in favor of Vice President Harris. And … Mr. Trump is so yesterday.

Yes, intended or not, this is how to jerk the focus of the media away from Mr. Trump and place it on the Democrats and their presumptive nominee, VP Harris. She’s already attracting a tidal wave of donations, and a summary of her expected strategy is devastating: prosecutor versus felon.

Polls are ambivalent, but if Harris can turn in a credible performance, day after day, I expect independents will gradually begin shifting to Harris. Trump, after all, is an ugly character with multiple felony convictions and a reputation for sexual assault and, via Dobbs, endangering women. The trick will be to get men to quit gravitating towards an idiot, which is a male tradition, and either not vote, or vote Harris.

This balance of this campaign should be unique.

I’m not sure where my Arts Editor came up with this – probably FB – but it makes me laugh.

President Biden.

President Biden announced he’ll be retiring from the political scene in November, and not standing for reelection. He has endorsed Vice President Harris for the Presidency.

My sympathies to President Biden. He’s had a unique political career: Representative, Senator, former Presidential candidate rejected for alleged plagiarism, vice president to one of the most highly rated Presidents, and then President, but now for only a single term. He’ll be highly rated by historians in fifty years, especially in the context of two of the worst Presidents, Bush and Trump. It must be disappointing to have to leave the race after an unfortunate debate performance against a determined loser like Trump, especially in light of a term fill with accomplishments.  For those who’d dispute that claim, just remember: cleaning up after Trump and his Republican Congress, determined to bankrupt America, is an expensive proposition in terms of inflation, but the alternative was even worse.

Perhaps his recent Covid diagnosis and symptoms are also affecting him.

I had reluctantly concluded he was the best candidate back in 2019/2020, but was concerned about his age, and that’s caught up with him. I had hoped that he’d make it through this self-inflicted crisis, convinced that as voters began comparing the two Presidents and what they’re saying, they’d realize that Trump is a demented old man, allied with flying nutcases of many varieties: Proud Boys, Nazis, Evangelicals, all with their own delusions of why they should be in charge.

Not that all of Biden’s allies are sensible. One or two don’t seem to know how liberal democracies work. But Biden’s record of a recovering economy, return to world leadership, effective support of Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, all dangerous but necessary enterprises, speaks for itself. I believed he would put his boot right up Trump’s ass in the end.

Vice President Harris, I guess it’ll be your boot up his ass. I’m confident you can do that.

The first overturn of the current SCOTUS composition’s decisions may turn out to be a hot competition between Dobbs and several others. Lisa Rubin on MaddowBlog makes a case for the horrifying Presidential immunity ruling:

When the Supreme Court immunity decision came down on July 1, I quickly determined the worst part was not its top-line holding but something stealthily buried in its dozens of pages: its prohibition on using conduct immune from prosecution as evidence — even where the charged conduct is wholly unofficial.

The lack of common sense in the conservative wing of SCOTUS is making one thing clear: they’re just as much fourth-raters as the common run of GOP officials, and, if unsurprising, that’s saying a lot. In some ways, Biden’s fundamental decency makes it a pity that he won’t take advantage of this version of the Roberts’ Court massive error.

When it comes to corruption, details matter. Thus, Al Capone ended up in jail on tax code violation convictions, not the murders of which he was generally believed guilty. As a non-lawyer, that’s how I see this detail of the ruling – an attempt to keep the corrupt safe from prosecution.

But an overturn would fix that.

The Curiosity rover on Mars drove over a rock and saw this:

From NASA:

Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.

Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

Flamboyance:

No dictionary seems to want to admit to this, although YourDictionary.com is the source of this, from a list of species and the names for a group of members:

flamingos        flamboyance, stand, colony

Noted in the video The History Guy: Lawn Flamingos, at roughly the 11 minute mark.

When it comes to the treatment of gender dysphoria, the leader, speaking of nations, has not been the United States, but Great Britain. They,. whether they meant to or not – mostly the latter – were the first, or among the first, in the various treatments for gender dysphoria, including surgery and drugs for children.

And now what is the big winner of the latest general election of Members of Parliament, Keir Starmer, thinking?

… and his government has vowed to ban puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria. [Andrew Sullivan, The Dish, paywall]

I have to wonder if the United States will continue to take this lead, or if those advocating that children who show the first signs of gender dysphoria should be treated medically will continue to do so.

Having been on a trip last weekend, and then playing catchup ever since, I only just ran across this doozy from Erick Erickson. It appears to be a deliberate attempt to divert his sheep herd’ attention from what’s going on these days:

But the left is arguably worse. After calling to tone down the rhetoric, Democrats and their affiliated groups are quite literally comparing Trump and JD Vance to Hitler. They are forced to fan the flames of their base because Democrats don’t have a candidate to vote for – only someone to vote against. Democrats don’t have a message of a brighter tomorrow, only one of pain and suffering if they lose. In short, the left is going to continue to fan the flames because that’s their only move left. Watch:

Reading something as deliberately evasive as this really discourages me from listening to his radio show – and that’s fine. I’m not really interested in audio presentations.

So what do we have here?

• “… quite literally comparing Trump and JD Vance to Hitler.” No, they’re referencing back when Vance was calling Trump America’s Hitler.
• “[Democrats] are forced to fan the flames of their base because Democrats don’t have a candidate to vote for – only someone to vote against.” That’s a fine fantasy, I’m sure, but the real truth is that the Democrats have an excellent record for which to vote, and whether it’s Biden, Harris, or someone else, that record of cleaning up after the squalid fourth-raters of the Republicans will still exist to stir up the base. The trick will be to remind the independents that Trump glided on Obama’s excellent management, nearly completely failed on every governmental project which he promised, and then unwillingly handed it off to Biden after messing it up, assisted by the pandemic. Many of the problems blamed on the Biden Administration are actually the result of the painful incompetence of the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress.
• “Democrats don’t have a message of a brighter tomorrow, only one of pain and suffering if they lose.” It’s the proper role of a political party to warn of threats to the Republic as well as be full of cheer & smiles. It’s fine to have differing views on an issue, and it doesn’t warrant apocalyptic visions. However, when one side denies the most basic facts and scientific analysis concerning an issue which has the potential to devastate our entire nation, and even be existential, then pointing this out is entirely realistic. Climate change is just one example, and there are more.

Erickson seems to do this with all his posts that are attacking the left – obscuring context, projecting Republican faults on the Democrats, accusing the Democrats of lying to gain power, and the like. It’s worth remembering this lesson in reading today’s Republicans.

When I saw this picture, I just knew the sexual overtones demanded this be the picture du jour. du soup. Whatever.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) is the sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), which I wrote off as an execrable mess. Does this second try rescue the first?

See, a major character is sacrificed! It must be a serious effort!

Sorry, no.

(My alternative review: Kong meets Gypsy Danger and something like sex ensues. It’s not a turn-on.)

(Also, when a new Titan, a category containing Godzilla and all the other monsters in this little Godzilla offshoot known as the Monsterverse, is introduced named Shimo, I read the caption as Shemp. I took it seriously for the briefest of moments. Maybe Shimo is a portmanteau of Shemp and Moe? Sadly, Shimo lacked charisma, being just another monster.)

While the CGI is impressive, that’s a low bar to clear these days. The human characters never emerge from their cardboard matrix, and having to repress applauding their demise is not a good sign. In summary, I didn’t care about any of them.

The monsters? I do like the appearance of the title characters; the others, not so much. But it is necessary to mention that the climactic monster fight, in what seems to be zero or negative gravity, is a challenge, in silliness, to the dinosaurs swinging from vines in Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong (2005).

Don’t waste gobs of money on this one, either. I only kept watching it for the review potential and to keep up to date on the Godzilla mythos.

What happens during vacation stays on vacation? One could wish.

How Will The Republican-animated Attempted Assassination Of Trump Affect the Senatorial Campaigns?

In short, it seems unlikely there’ll be a measurable effect, particularly as the Republicans don’t have a strong message to send when the alleged assassin was a twenty year old registered as a Republican with a weapon from a weaponry class legalized and promoted by the Republicans.

That said, there may be some minor shifts here and there. The MAGA base may be even more solid, but it was rather solid prior to this tragic incident. It’s worth keeping in mind most of these polls were completed before the assassination attempt.

Any Other Observations?

At least some of this edition’s polling results indicate that some pollsters, in previous reports, are trying hard to influence the voters, such as in Texas. It’s really quite patronizing to think voters will consider polling to be a source of authoritative voting directives, isn’t it?

And Onwards At A Gallop To The Watering Hole!

• Texas gets a respectable poll, and now it’s officially a race. YouGov and its near-the-top 2.9/3.0 rating gives Senator Cruz (R-TX) a three point lead, 47%-44%, over challenger Rep Allred (D-TX). In previous recent polling, Remington Research Group had given Cruz a ten point lead, while the Manhattan Institute had given Cruz a three point lead. Remington seems to be untrustable.

  Allred still has a mountain to climb, but this is also significant:

  23% of Texas likely voters don’t know enough about Allred to have an opinion about him, compared to only 3% who don’t know enough about Cruz to have an opinion about him.

  Allred’s team must keep working on getting their message out. And Cruz must keep clawing his way over 50%. Given Cruz’s reputation, I wonder how many Republican Senators are secretly hoping he fails to reach that plateau.

  Finally, Allred may gain some voters over the poor Texas government management of the emergency brought on by Hurricane Beryl. True, Cruz has responsibility only for requesting Federal assistance, but Texas is run by the Republicans, so Cruz may accrue some blame, unearned as it may be, from voters, who may then refuse to vote, or even choose to vote for Allred.

• North Star Opinion Research (1.2), once again working for right wing American Greatness, yields a surprising result in Wisconsin: Senator Baldwin (D-WI) continues to lead challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI), and by a substantial eight points, 49%-41%. Are they capitulating on Wisconsin? And KAConsulting (1.5) (see the Michigan entry, below, for caveats regarding this pollster) has given Wisconsin Senator Baldwin (D-WI) a four point lead over Eric Hovde (R-WI?), 46%-42%.
• In Pennsylvania, The New York Times/Siena College poll (top-rated at 3.0, even if it did incur wrath from various never Trumpers a month or two ago) gives Senator Casey (D-PA) an 8 point lead among likely voters, 50%-42%, over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?), and an 11 point lead among registered voters. Compare this to a recent Remington poll giving Casey a 1 point lead. And now KAConsulting (1.5) (see the Michigan entry, below, for caveats regarding this pollster) has given Senator Casey (D-PA) a 47%-37% lead, which is far more believable than a single point lead. Finally, The Keystone has published a report suggesting McCormick may have profited from investing in a Chinese company that supplied fentanyl to the black market. Given the sensitivity of some voters on this issue, this may be devastating for McCormick.For a State Republicans thought was up for grabs, it all appears to be slipping away.
• It appears Virginia’s Tim Kaine (D-VA) has a commanding lead over challenger Hung Cao (R-VA) of seventeen points, 53%-36%, according to The New York Times/Siena College (3.0). Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs (2.1) gives Kaine a smaller lead of 11 points, 49%-38%., and Emerson College (2.9) gives Caine a 10 point edge at 49%-39%. I shan’t mention Virginia again unless something surprising emerges.
• New Jersey’s Senator Menendez (I-NJ, formerly D-NJ) was convicted on bribery charges on July 16th. He’s been convicted before a few years ago in a separate incident, but won on appeal, so he’s not necessarily trotting off to jail. However, this conviction probably terminates his political career, if not just yet, despite Majority Leader Schumer’s (D-NY) call for him to resign. Will he bow out of the Senate race and increase Democrats’ chances of holding this seat?
• KAConsulting (1.5), a Kellyanne Conway enterprise and thus allied with Mr Trump, and working for Vapor Technology Association, which appears to be an industry group promoting vaping, measures Rep Slotkin (D-MI) as having a 6 point lead, 43%-37%, over former Rep Rogers (R-MI) in the race for the open Michigan Senate seat. This is entirely reasonable. However, the link provided by FiveThirtyEight to the press release (see the numbers) has nothing to do with such a poll, and I cannot find a poll associated with KAConsulting for this race. I am taking this with a grain of salt. A largish grain.
• J.L. Partners (1.6), in a poll sponsored by prospective Republican nominee Kari Lake (R-AZ), gives Lake a 1 point lead over prospective Democratic nominee Rep Gallego (D-AZ) in Arizona, 44%-43%. A mediocre, or worse, pollster, and the candidate sponsored the poll. Think about it. Meanwhile, a couple of months ago top of the line pollster YouGov (2.9) gave Gallego a 13 point lead. Sure, maybe he’s collapsed that fast. But with primaries still to come and Lake facing other Republican Senator wannabes, this poll may simply be to persuade the base that Lake’s the best Republican candidate. Does this sort of thing work, though?
• But does it matter? NewDakota.com reports that underdog candidate for the North Dakota Senate seat currently held by Senator Cramer (R-ND), Katrina Christiansen (D-ND), has outraised her opponent in the last filing period:
  

  Katrina Christiansen has gained significant traction in North Dakota’s Senate race, surpassing incumbent Republican Senator Kevin Cramer in second-quarter fundraising by $30,000. Christiansen reported raising over $690,000, compared to Cramer’s $660,000.

  Christiansen’s campaign has seen widespread support from individuals across North Dakota, with donations pouring in from 52 of the state’s 53 counties. This contrasts sharply with Cramer’s funding sources, which heavily rely on PACs and Republican committees. In the last filing period, Cramer raised less than $100,000 from individual donors, while a substantial $354,771 came from PACs and political committees.

  I suspect this is a result of the Dobbs decision, but it’s also true that, unlike votes, money can pour across State borders, so this measure can be highly misleading insofar as using it for evaluating a race. There’s been only one poll, by a suspect pollster, for a right-wing organization, so while I expect Senator Cramer (R-ND) to be easily reelected, I suppose there’s always a chance that Christiansen could tighten up this race, even to single digits. But I doubt it.

Final Thoughts, If Any?

So far it appears Democratic Senate candidates who are defending seats are doing well. West Virginia and Arizona have open seats, and so far West Virginia looks to move to the Republican side, while Arizona seems more likely to remain Democratic.

Battleground states, as they like to call them, with Senate seats up for grabs seem to be leaning Democratic. Some report I ran across somewhere states that the Republicans are, once again, supremely confident. Judging that requires context, and so far the context of weak candidates, plus the confidence, suggests the Republican Party is still a pack of fourth-raters who do not understand common American attitudes on key issues, such as abortion, taxation, gun laws, and several other issues.

This is not surprising. The Republicans have become a Party where advancement is not through merit, but through stands on issues, and it’s a Party whose members have learned that arrogant absolutism is the only acceptable attitude in connection with those issues. Compromise, competency, understanding the other side, humility? Those are no longer considered advantages, but negatives, even treachery. Having little need to possess those qualities while following ambition, when they do need to possess that understanding, well, that’s a skill they don’t have. In fact, they seem to substitute arrogance.

It’s still a long ways ’til November, and the Biden mess has yet to blow over. If you’re a Democrat, don’t worry about West Virginia, because, unless something very interesting happens, it’ll move to the Republicans. Worry about Montana and Arizona and Michigan and maybe Wisconsin.

I was troubled by this article in NewScientist (“Could paying people to lose weight help tackle obesity?” Grace Wade, NewScientist (29 June 2024, paywall)):

A growing body of evidence suggests that paying people to lose weight could be an effective treatment for obesity. While this seems to imply that the condition boils down to just lifestyle choices – an idea doctors have moved away from in recent years – it probably isn’t that simple.

Indeed, while it’s popular among the population and non-specialists to blame the obese, quite often they have little control over what their body does with consumed calories. From how the brain is trained in infanthood onwards to the content of their gut biome, there are many factors that affect body fat levels.

Can they be overridden? Not cured, I’m saying, but simply not fed? The body, from toes to brain, of an adult is accustomed to operating on its standard inputs, as mediated by the chemical that extract and transform food into something useful, and upsetting that balance can upset performance in their chosen fields.

And the use of a payment is a form of coercion, given the influence of wealth over most Westerners. Do we want to coerce folks into lowering their weights to healthier levels? Is this wise?

It’s not a rhetorical question. While an individualist might answer No, a communalist, someone who believes the best interests of society, which as a whole exists as a separate entity, must also be considered, might answer Yes.

And what are the numbers, anyways?

For example, a 2022 US study offered 660 people with obesity in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods the chance to take part in a one-year weight-loss programme, made up of a personalised nutrition plan. About a third of the participants could also receive up to $750, depending on how much weight they lost. After six months, about 49 per cent of those with the prospect of getting paid had lost 5 per cent of their body weight, which is often considered the benchmark for a successful weight-loss intervention. The same was true for only 22 per cent of the participants who were just given the nutrition plan.

A similar UK study published in May involved researchers sending daily text messages with weight-management advice and educational resources to nearly 400 men with obesity, of whom 196 were told they would get £400 ($490) at the end of the one-year trial. The catch? The sum would dwindle if they didn’t hit certain weight-loss goals. Weight fell by around 5 per cent, on average, in the financial incentive group, compared with about 3 per cent in the text-only group.

It’s something to think about.

Back from vacation, time to recover!

Serpopard:

The serpopard is a mythical animal known from ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art. The word “serpopard” is a modern coinage. It is a portmanteau of “serpent” and “leopard“, derived from the interpretation that the creature represents an animal with the body of a leopard and the long neck and head of a serpent. However, they have also been interpreted as “serpent-necked lions”. There is no known name for the creature in any ancient texts. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Serpopards or Sauropods? ‘Dead Varmint Vision’ Makes Cats Look Like Dinosaurs,” Philip J. Senter, Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2024, paywall):

Archaeologists use the term serpopard to denote a cat with an exaggerated neck, a motif that appears occasionally on ancient Sumerian and Egyptian artifacts. The term combines the words serpent and leopard. The former is a reference to the snake-like neck, and the latter acknowledges that apart from the neck, the animal is one of the big cats. It doesn’t have a mane, so it is not a male lion, but it could be meant as a lioness. The significance of the elongated necks in these feline images is currently a mystery.

Unfortunately, the balance of the article is a clumsy putdown of creationists. Rather than emphasizing that removing the elongated necks makes them cats, a virtually irrelevant point, Senter should have disproven the sauropod contention by noting the lack of dinosaur/sauropod features, then built up the cat contention by citing the various resemblances.

Still, an organic reference would have been better, but apparently nothing of the sort is available, which is not on Senter.

Radiosonde:

A radiosonde is a small weather station coupled with a radio transmitter. The radiosonde is attached to helium- or hydrogen-filled balloon, called variously a weather balloon or a sounding balloon, and the balloon lifts the radiosonde to altitudes exceeding 115,000 feet. During the radiosonde’s ascent, it transmits data on temperature, pressure, and humidity to a sea-, air-, or land-based receiving station. Often, the position of the radiosonde is tracked through GPS, radar, or other means, to provide data on the strength and direction of winds aloft. Thus the radiosonde flight produces a vertical profile of weather parameters in the area above which it was launched. [Radiosonde Museum of North America]

Noted in this xkcd comic. This image is from Radiosonde Museum of North America.

For our purposes, this is the Mystery Pollster edition!

But What About The Presidential Debate?

My night watchman.

Most of these polls were sampled just after the debate. My expectation, which is not met but also not disproven by these polls, since I don’t trust many of them to be honest, is that Senators are not going to be heavily impacted by their Party’s Presidential candidate performance, even among voters who barely pay attention to the election.

That said, their reactions may impact certain Senators. After all, even though President Biden technically won that debate, Senators who ignore his demeanour and initially wrong answers on the Democratic side may face criticism and a few lost votes, while those who do criticize Biden may lose the votes of those voters who value absolute loyalty. It’s a bit of a conundrum.

Republican Senators may be less vulnerable to losing their base, but more vulnerable to losing the respect of independent voters, because they are loyal, regardless of inner turmoil, to Mr Trump. Independents who recognized the utterly despicable flow of mendacity from Mr Trump’s lips, his repeated inability to answer questions and to control himself, may find themselves unable to vote for those Republicans, incumbents or not.

What About Remington Research Group?

Or at least you’d be asking if you read ahead. Remington published a lot of polls on July 10, which explains why I’m including them. They have a FiveThirtyEight rating of 2.6, putting them in the top 30 of those ratings, which is nothing to sniff at.

That said, it’s worth noting the sponsor of all the Remington polls is American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM). It takes very little imagination to think that FiveThirtyEight lists them as a Republican-aligned organization, as it’s the Democrats who lean heavily to disassembling the fossil fuel industry in response to the growing evidence of climate change. AFPM will not be in favor of Democratic governance, even if it means the destruction of humanity. And it might.

Remington’s poll samples are small, but not minuscule. I’d be far happier with samples twice as large, but maybe that’s just me.

Adding to that is the publishing media, an extreme-right platform called The Daily Wire. Written to make readers think they’re getting an exclusive insight, it discourages comparisons and critical thinking while trying to encourage sheep behavior following the Presidential debate. It feels very manipulative.

Past performance is not necessarily predictive of future accomplishments. Looking over the Remington results, with the possible exception of Ohio and maybe Michigan, all the results are far more in the conservatives’ favor than most other polls I’ve seen. The question in my mind, then, is whether Remington was bought to produce results, or if the other pollsters are just getting things wrong. While either remains possible, the fact of the matter is that, over the last 2-4 years, most conservative polls have proven painfully and inaccurately optimistic, while independent pollsters have been more successful.

So evaluating Remington will involve a lot of skepticism.

And Onwards Over Yon Cliff …

• In Texas, unknown pollster Manhattan Institute (which may be the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, but Wikipedia does not see it being a polling organization, and FiveThirtyEight just shrugs its shoulders either way – don’t visualize that) tries to give continued hope to Texas liberals by allowing that incumbent Senator Cruz (R-TX) has only a three point lead over challenger Rep Allred (D-TX), 46%-43%. Wikipedia lists Manhattan Institute as conservative, but perhaps the honest conservative sort, as they’ve been around since 1978; then again, other elderly conservative think tanks have recently turned turtle, losing their respectability credentials in a frenzied rush to build a position in the envisioned new conservative order called Trumpism, which I consider an exercise in futility, as this new order is all about fellating Mr Trump, and that’s it. As Manhattan Institute is new to me, I don’t know if they are respectable, still, or just another conservative organization looking for power and influence, and so I’m not sure how to weigh this somewhat surprising polling result.Something similar goes for Remington Research Group, which is giving Cruz a ten point lead over Rep Allred, 43%-53%. Is this their honest evaluation, or are they trying to protect the Senator?
• Mystery pollster National Public Affairs, again unknown to FiveThirtyEight, suggests Nevada’s incumbent Senator Rosen (D-NV) has an eight point lead, 41%-33%, over challenger Sam Brown (R-NV). National Public Affairs’ website suggests a conservative organization, citing as one client known extremist Rep Ronny Jackson (R-TX). If so, the Rosen lead may be a few points larger than eight, which would be broadly congruent with other pollsters. That doesn’t stop Remington Research Group from giving Senator Rosen only a 2 point lead over Brown, 48% 46%. Notably, while neither pollster is necessarily trustworthy, at least Remington puts Rosen at 48%, just two point away from the 50% goal, while National Public Affairs has the Senator 9 points from the goal.
• Another pollster living in the Great Unknown, SoCal Research, measures Wisconsin’s incumbent Senator Baldwin (D-WI) leading challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?) by twelve points, 50%-38%. This is not the big breakthrough for Hovde previously mentioned, but it also may be a bit of an exaggerated lead for Baldwin. With no history to build an accuracy estimate, it’s a little hard to know how to assess a SoCal Research result.

  But a little waiting produces another poll, this one by the RepubliCratic (yes, yes, I mean two pollsters working together, with opposing alignments) pollster Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/Impact Research (1.7), and it gives Senator Baldwin a five point lead at 50%-45% as they work for the AARP. Despite the pollsters’ mediocre rating, this poll’s results seem well within the range of plausibility.

  And then the aforementioned Remington Research Group also has a poll for Wisconsin, having Baldwin and Hovde tied at 48%. While this is not outside the realm of possibility, it’s certainly farther to the conservative end of the spectrum than I would expect from a good poll.

• Remington Research Group finds Arizona’s Rep Gallego (D-AZ) even with prospective Republican nominee Kari Lake (R-AZ) at 47%. The only polls I’ve seen calling this potential contest close are from suspect pollsters. The primary is July 30, and Rep Gallego has no Democratic challenger at the moment, while Lake has two. Will election-denier Lake, who was booed at a Arizona Republican convention, still win the nomination? Stay tuned.
• In Michigan, Remington Research Group gives Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a four point lead, 47%-43%, over prospective GOP nominee and former Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI). Both still must survive their primaries on August 6, but they are the way to bet, so far.
• Montana voters supposedly favor challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) over incumbent Senator and farmer Jon Tester (D-MT) by five points, 50%-45%, at least according to Remington Research Group. Since most other reputable pollsters give Senator Tester the edge, albeit within the margin of error, this is where I figured the rat was residing for Remington.
• Ohio’s been a bit short of polls, but Remington Research Group gives Senator Brown (D-OH) a healthy 6 point lead, 50%-44%, over challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH). This is in line with other polls.
• In Pennsylvania, Remington Research Group has Senator Casey’s (D-PA) lead over David McCormick (R-PA?) down to one, 49%-48%. This is not in accordance with other polls, and I would disregard it until other pollsters come to the same conclusion. McCormick may also be facing a scandal made of false claims on his part.

And In Conclusion

Watching how Remington Research Group results played out against other pollster’s results so far, it strikes me that certain Senatorial seats are considered safe for Democrats, and so honest results are given, such as Ohio’s, but others, such as Texas’, Montana’s, and Wisconsin’s, are considered up for grabs, and so those results are skewed. Is this true? I dunno; only senior leadership at Remington Research Group can really answer that. But that’s the impression I get from looking at these results.

Here’s an inspirational story:

A $1 billion gift to Johns Hopkins University from billionaire Mike Bloomberg will make medical school free for most students, and increase financial aid for those enrolled in nursing, public health and other graduate programs.

In a Monday letter in the Bloomberg Philanthropies annual report, Bloomberg addressed the twin challenges of declining health and education. The gift marks an emphatic endorsement of the value of higher learning at a time when academia has been increasingly under political attack. [WaPo]

I wonder how long before someone on the right starts screaming But that’s socialism!

Because you know someone will, and Bloomberg is a Democrat.

Still, it’s worth contemplating the fact that our society is in need of medical professionals, and education of same has been growing faster than inflation. The pandemic motivated quite a number of members of the allied professions (docs, nurses, aides, techs, etc) to die, retire, or transfer to other, less stressful professions, so we’re in need – and I have to wonder if the United States is an attractive professional destination for medical folks any longer, what with all the political uproar.

While it’s far afield from the academic definition of socialism, we could say that socialism is a bandage for repairing what capitalism cannot.

I suppose high tech industry claims it’s in a bit of shock because of Boeing’s agreement to plead guilty:

Boeing agreed on Sunday to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the government in a case linked to crashes of its 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people — a stunning turn for the aerospace giant after the Justice Department determined that Boeing failed to live up to terms of a 2021 deal to avoid prosecution. [WaPo]

But so will be the US government. Along with being just about the only American commercial airliner supplier, Boeing is also big in Defense and NASA.

I blame this on a failure to enforce anti-monopoly laws. Such laws are all about guaranteeing^[1] competition in the marketplace, and, in limited circumstance, commodification of products that allows interoperation.

Of course, investor demands also contribute to the failures, I suspect. The continual demand for greater and greater dividends places c-suite executives in more and more difficult positions. Although it’s hard to envision a capitalist-type economy that functions well without investors, there’s definitely an urge to toss them out on their ears.

And this piques the interest:

Just trying to minimize damage to a favored contractor, or what?

¹ Guarantee is such a binary word, unsupportive of gradations. Its popularity makes it emblematic of a culture that, in large part, desires absolute, easy judgments. Members of that culture should go read H. L. Mencken: For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. In fact, a number of his quotes are applicable to today.

Glen of Glen and Friends Cooking claims he’s been running his channel on YouTube for 17 years, which I suppose makes him an institutional memory. Recently, content creators^[1] on YouTube have been required, or at least strongly encouraged, to produce “shorts,” which should be self-explanatory.

As you’ll see below, this is unprofitable for Glen, which he protests, and while he’s not dropping out, it’s interesting that he’s seen this sort of thing before. For me, it speaks to the diverging aims of the publisher, YouTube, and the content creators of the publisher. YouTube is doubtless driven by investor demands and the like, while the creators are driven by their own financial needs. Don’t gloss it over; the presence of financial terminology in both is at odds, rather than dovetailing, since the pie, while not a zero-sum pie, doesn’t expand easily. I might suppose the cost of making a video is proportional to the ln(video length), which would make short videos potentially unprofitable.

And so I wonder if YouTube is eating its own geese for breakfast. True, geese grow old and unproductive of eggs, but this isn’t a biological situation in which such a process is automatic and self-evident; such creators as Glen may have years of attracting and keeping audiences for YouTube to harvest still in them. Trying to squeeze yet more immediate profit by forcing, more or less, a format unsatisfying for both creators and their audience may result in a future failure, or at least downturn.

As Glen says he’s seen this sort of thing before, I wonder if YouTube has a new VP of content creation or somesuch, tasked with increasing revenues.

Here’s Glen:

¹ A thoroughly loathsome terminology, as it covers up critical differences in the output of the various creators; it’s a programming label, misapplied, if anything.