The July open thread is getting full. So I’m opening a new one.
There was some talk of Covid-19 in the July thread. People wanted to know what efforts are being made to get broader treatments to deal with mutations constantly evolving to evade vaccines and previous immunity. This article discusses efforts to create vaccines that protect against entire virus families like sarbecorona viruses.
I can’t really comment beyond saying it’s an interesting read and that I hope this promising work pans out.
Open thread.
And to think I thought angech had scotched the last one.
I read earlier this week that a small molecule drug also shows potential to inhibit covid and all related viruses. All use a human enzyme to process their proteins into complete virons. The small molecule temporarily blocks the virus’s access to the human protein… inhibiting replication. Since what is being blocked is a human enzyme, the virus will have a hard time evolving to replicate without access to that enzyme.
As one who believes nuclear fission technology is the best current non-fossil energy source, I am heartened by NRC approval of a small modular reactor.
Took way too long of course.
Thanks Harold, I wouldn’t have caught that if you hadn’t pointed it out. I agree with you, about darn time.
HaroldW/mark bofill,
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Unfortunately, people are terrified of nuclear power… all nuclear power. Even if a design is ‘fail-safe’ and bulletproof, there will continue to be a combination of resistance from people who are terrified, and from greens who want to reduce material wealth…. substitution of nuclear power for windmills and solar panels will not make energy expensive enough to greatly diminish material wealth. And of course, the crazy greens will do everything they can to keep the public terrified of nuclear power.
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The issue is not and has never been nuclear safety. It is and has always been a simple refusal to “solve” the CO2 emergency in any way that maintains (never mind increases!) material wealth. Do I sound cynical? That is because I am cynical; fundamental philosophical differences are not going to be resolved through improved technology. There are many dozens of proposed (and in some cases approved) compact reactor designs from all over the world. But there are exactly two countries where those reactors are either under construction or in operation: China and Russia. Don’t count on the USA or Europe adopting nuclear power in the foreseeable future.
This says that 76% of Americans favor nuclear as “one of the ways to provide electricity”:
https://www.ans.org/news/article-2974/support-for-nuclear-energy-grows-with-climate-change-concerns/
Whereas this shows a slight edge in favor of “expanding” nuclear:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/23/americans-continue-to-express-mixed-views-about-nuclear-power/
The difference might be the source or might be the difference in wording.
Opposition is not just safety, it is also cost. And opinion seems to be slowly trending toward nuclear. So I think there is a good chance that an outfit like NuScale could succeed.
Steve,
I don’t exactly disagree with you. It’s just – how many of them? I mean, sure. There are greens who think mankind is a cancer on the planet, who in essence long for a return to living in caves. Then there are others (young people) who don’t know any better, who honestly believe the hype about ‘climate crisis’ and who probably will continue to believe in it for another decade or so until they wise up from personal experience.
Eventually, there may be enough people who care about CO2 and who don’t actually hate wealth and human life that nuclear power will become attractive again.
Shrug. Or not. I don’t really know. I just hope.
Well, you can’t have nuclear reactors blowing up on TV like they did in Fukushima. I’m sure these were allegedly safe until they weren’t. This doesn’t help the safety message.
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The all cause deaths per gigawatt is the right measure and nuclear power does well here, not that this message is going to be broadcast. Nuclear power is also still a prime terrorism target.
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The safety and regulation of nuclear power drives up the costs. The anti-nuclear lobby is clearly winning this fight in the US through clever lawyering. Bullet proof safety seems doable, and simplifying mass produced designs seems like a better answer.
Tom,
But nobody died because of Fukushima, did they? Maybe one guy got lung cancer that might have been linked to it is what I seem to be reading.
Shrug.
[Edit: I think move lives were lost at Sandy Hook than due to Fukushima]
These are the nuclear containment vessels having a bad day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMVi-XmM-SU
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My guess is they no longer contained much of anything after that. The backup generators failed because of the tsunami and the reactors lost their cooling capability. This was perilously close to a worst case full scale melt down.
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“The resultant loss of reactor core cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions, and the release of radioactive contamination in Units 1, 2 and 3 between 12 and 15 March. The spent fuel pool of previously shut down Reactor 4 increased in temperature on 15 March due to decay heat from newly added spent fuel rods, but did not boil down sufficiently to expose the fuel.”
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The final loss of life was minimal, but this was not a confidence building exercise for the radiation averse crowd to say the least. I guarantee that had someone postulated this might happen before the disaster that there would have been lots of hand waving “impossible!, blah blah blah” responses. I would call this a failure, not a success.
Tough crowd. 🙂
Tom Scharf,
While the proximate cause of the backup generators failing was the tsunami, the real cause was the incredibly stupid design. The seawater pumps that supplied cooling to everything, including the backup generators were destroyed by the tsunami.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable-pub-47361
And, of course, most of the backup generators were also flooded and destroyed as well as the backup battery systems and links to external power. So Homer Simpson seems to have been the designer of the plant and the possibility of a tsunami was apparently completely discounted.
There was a failure of imagination for the Fukushima design and one wonders how prevalent that is elsewhere. After 9/11 the risk of flying an airliner into a reactor all of sudden became real. Not obvious that any of the US nuclear plants can survive that, nor is it obvious a van load of bad guys with AK-47’s and a person knowledgeable about the design could take over a facility and intentionally initiate a meltdown.
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I’m a fan of nuclear power, but it does fall into a special category of safety.
Tom Scharf (Comment #213834):
“This was perilously close to a worst case full scale melt down.”
“The final loss of life was minimal”.
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So minimal loss of life is very near the WORST that could happen? I guess Chernobyl would be the worst, that cost some tens of lives.
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Compare that to, say, deaths of coal miners. Nuclear is spectacularly safe.
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Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima all involved some extremely bad decision making. Sadly, that is to be expected with one-off designs. It should be far less of a problem with designs like NuScale’s.
NIMBY is a big problem with nuclear. Even if a majority of people support nuclear power, the NIMBY effect will always be very strong. On Cape Cod there was a decades long fight over “Cape Wind”…. a huge array of off-shore wind turbines that just happened to ruin the scenic view from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis. It was overwhelmingly popular in Very Green Massachusetts. Guess who won that fight.
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People who are afraid of nuclear power are probably even more motivated to resist it than the wealthy with shore-front homes on Cape Cod were motivated to resist Cape Wind. And don’t forget: Harry Reid managed to scuttle any possibility of permanent storage of radioactive waste…. that has not changed. More NIMBY.
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Fail safe reactor designs, located sensibly (not where tsunamis are going to hit, and not on fault lines) are extremely safe. That doesn’t mean they will be built. Getting to that point would require both political particles and “influential thought leaders” to be on board. I just don’t see that happening. Democrats are terrified of their extreme base, so even if the extreme I-hate-humans greens represent only 5%-10% of their base, Dems are not going to agree to widespread nuclear power installations. Nuclear is the obvious best technical approach to reducing CO2 emissions. Neither greens nor the terrified care.
Steve,
Yeah. There is that, good point.
Mining looses people at a pretty predictable rate. A full scale nuclear meltdown can be catastrophic and it then potentially goes from the safest energy technology to one of the least safe pretty quick. A coal or gas plant isn’t ever going to kill 10K’s of people all at once. It’s a difference in what the tail risks are, one is knowable through prior evidence, the other not so much. Black swans, etc.
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Nuclear has these tail risks where gas and coal do not. It’s different, so if you come close to an edge case in nuclear power then that is very bad. When the terrorists take over a coal plant, they can only cutoff power or throw some lumps of coal at the citizens.
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Don’t shoot the messenger, the public is very concerned about this. It’s probably mostly derived from an irrational connection to nuclear weapons, but what you can’t do is publicly dismiss these fears and then broadcast reactor containment buildings exploding.
My limited understanding is that the worst case scenario is a full scale nuclear meltdown, the nuclear core literally melts though the bottom of it’s containment and hits the water table, lots of radioactive water vapor / steam is released and you definitely do not want to be downwind when that occurs.
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There are lots of defenses here. But in Japan they lost power, lost cooling, there was a meltdown, they lost containment, and there was radiation released in land, sea, and air. The core did not melt though the floor so that defense may have worked, but it’s not clear they knew it wouldn’t do that.
SteveF,
The real villain in the nuclear waste problem in the US wasn’t Harry Reid, it was Jimmy Carter. He was the one that drove the banning of nuclear fuel rod reprocessing. His justification was that it would lead to nuclear weapons proliferation. The problem with that is that it’s really, really hard to make a weapon from plutonium isolated from used fuel rods. There’s way too much 240Pu and 241Pu. And, of course, we got proliferation anyway. Also, it’s plutonium that makes spent fuel hazardous for tens of thousands of years.
In a reactor that produces weapons grade plutonium, the uranium is only exposed to neutrons for seconds to minutes. The other thing is that those swimming pools full of ‘spent’ fuel rods are a serious hazard themselves. I read an article about Fukushima that claimed that removing the fuel rods from the pools was a potential meltdown equivalent risk because the rods had shifted enough after the earthquake that removing them was going to be a very dangerous game of pickup sticks, or perhaps Operation.
Ayman Al Zawahiri has apparently met the same end as Bin Laden, although by drone this time.
DeWitt,
“The real villain in the nuclear waste problem in the US wasn’t Harry Reid, it was Jimmy Carter.”
I grant that both Jimmy Carter and Harry Reid were villains. Carter was clearly the dumber of the two, Reid clearly the more dishonest. But both villains.
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“Also, it’s plutonium that makes spent fuel hazardous for tens of thousands of years.”
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I remember that there are multiple materials that cause long term radioactivity.
Yes, Reid swallowed up all the money for nuclear waste disposal in Nevada and then shut it down the moment it was ready. That’s about as dishonest as it gets, but expected from our so called civil servants in DC.
I had a lovely disc on American nuclear testing in America.
Over a thousand nuclear bombs have been exploded mostly in or under American soil, including 1 trial of fracking many years ago.
Funny to think of 1000 explosions yet all we heard about were minor issues like Chernobyl.
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So much for the so called dangers of nuclear waste and war.
angech (Comment #213847): “Funny to think of 1000 explosions yet all we heard about were minor issues like Chernobyl.”
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Seriously? You never heard of the Trinity test? Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Bikini Atoll? The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty?
angech,
There were enough above ground nuclear weapons tests by the US and the Soviet Union to cause a significant spike in atmospheric 14C. They’ve used this to track ocean mixing, among other things. That increase was a major driver for ending atmospheric tests. Think about incorporating 14C into DNA. When it decays to 14N, you have an instant mutation.
The death rate for nuclear energy is much lower than that for fossil fuels and very nearly the same as that for renewable energy sources. That observation leaves a more comprehensive cost/benefit comparison depending mainly on the relative cost of nuclear to renewables with subsidies taken into account and an estimate of the occurrence of a long tailed nuclear event versus costs to mitigate such event from occurring.
Even though a single nuclear event can be potentially more disastrous and longer lasting than bad outcome events from other energy sources, a less politicized and emotionally provoked approach would analyze past problems and events based on current technology to provide a reasoned way of going forward.
Obviously the much bigger threat from nuclear going forward is governments use of thermonuclear devices. Instead of governments limiting nuclear for peaceful means they should be urgently looking to ban under a full proof inspection system the existence of nuclear weapons.
Iran and Israel having nuclear weapons should worry people a lot more than a nuclear power plant. Putin looks like Mr. Rational compared to the Ayatollah. This would probably be contained to the Middle East but it is still a bit worrying. Pakistan and India have had nuclear weapons for decades though and managed to not shoot them off. Ironically it might be the presence of those weapons that has cooled down that not so such love affair between those countries.
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Iran though, that worries me. It’s too late at this point to stop it. The … ummmm … “negotiations” for the Iran agreement have gone exactly as I expected. The danger here is Israel taking drastic action to stop it for another decade (they already assassinate their scientists on a regular basis, sabotage their equipment, etc.) or Iran seeing it a religious duty to nuke Israel.
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The Norks don’t really worry me so much. They seem content to live in their self sufficient paradise. Send over Dennis Rodman occasionally and they are fine.
Ken,
Respectfully, I think that ship has sailed. I think banning nukes generally has more of a destabilizing short to medium term effect than nuclear proliferation. Look at Ukraine for example. Nukes aren’t going away. The only time humanity abandons a particular weapon is when we develop a better replacement weapon.
Shrug.
Mark, fatalistic arguments can be made about nuclear weapons, but the contradiction remains that many worry seemingly more about the peaceful use of nuclear energy and favor using government power to end or severely limit its use while at the same time ignoring potential intentional catastrophes from governments use of nuclear weapons.
Certainly government priorities are wrong when looking at the comparative dangers of these two uses.
Ken,
I agree with you there absolutely. My response *does* sort of miss your point.
Thanks.
DeWitt,
If I am reading correctly, plutonium is not so much a direct radiation hazard. It emits alpha particles, and a thin layer of most any material will stop those alpha particles; no penetrating gamma radiation nor even energetic electrons that could produce x-ray/gamma rays.
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The big issue is that if plutonium enters your body (inhaled microscopic dust, ingested particles in food), then the localized radiation from those materials will indeed cause cancer. You don’t die from radiation poisoning, but rather from cancer. It is really more a question of extreme (indirect) toxicity than direct radiation.
Pu-240 undergoes spontaneous fission. It is a minor decay channel, but a gram of Pu-240 emits nearly 1000 neutrons per second. I have no idea what that amounts to in terms of Sieverts.
DeWitt. “Think about incorporating 14C into DNA. When it decays to 14N, you have an instant mutation.”
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Life as we recognise it is almost constant change outside of our own time limitations.
The Egyptians, Assyrians and all other races living a mere 5000 years ago probably were different to us due to x200 reproductions.
Just like a mere 6 million years 240,000 reproductions takes us back to simians.
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Nearly every living thing is a warped version of ourselves over eons, or the other way around.
Change is not something to be feared or embraced, just a fact to be recognised..
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Mike M , the point was that nuclear explosions without war as a reason has far exceeded the nuclear holocaust predicted to make life on earth untenable (1950/60’s) yet here we all are.
Mike M,
The other radioactive materials in spent fuel rods have far higher radiation rates. The rods are extremely “hot” for decades; plutonium 240 is not likely a very big contributor to the total radiation in that time.
SteveF,
Plutonium toxicity is way overblown, For maximum toxicity, it would need to be distributed as an aerosol, which is highly unlikely from spent fuel rods.
angech,
Non-African modern humans carry 2% to 5% genetic material from the Neanderthals and other human lines of similar age. The Neanderthals diverged from modern humans about 500 to 600 kiloyears ago…. in comparison with the Assyrians and Egyptians the neanderthals were more than 100 times as distant. So I doubt a new-born Egyptian from 5000 years ago would be anything but totally normal if raised today.
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What has changed dramatically since the early Egyptians is our technology…. and that has far greater influence on us than genetic drift over 200 generations.
To the green fields beyond
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Russia has broken through the Ukraine fortifications both north and south of the city of Donesk. Ukraine pulled forces off the line here to send elsewhere hoping the fortifications built up over many years would allow the reduced Ukraine forces to hold. They did not.
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This entire front in this section is days away from collapse as Russia will now be able to attack this defensive line from both the flanks and rear. Ukraine forces will be forced to retreat quickly or be surrounded. .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t746YKHV5WE
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https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-2
Ed Forbes,
Collapse of Ukrainian defenses seems a bit like peak oil: if you predict it often enough, eventually you will get it right. You have been saying the same thing for three months.
Kansas abortion constitutional amendment (allowing the legislature to prohibit abortion) goes down to defeat 59 to 41…. not even close. Maybe the only way to get abortion laws that actually reflect the public consensus on abortion is via plebiscites; that margin is just bout the national consensus for allowing abortions in the first trimester but not after. Maybe Kansas can lead the way with a constitutional amendment allowing no restrictions during the first trimester but restrictions thereafter.
Unfortunately, many states (1/3?) do not allow ballot questions of any kind unless the legislate agrees to place them on the ballot. So there is no possibility of direct democracy resolving contentious questions in those states.
SteveF
Yep. Most people want some access to abortion.
That’s what most the world has.
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The thing about Roe v. Wade and it’s progeny is it sort of made that the floor to the level of restriction allowed. That meant no bargaining between the ones who wanted to ban it outright and the ones who (for some reason) seemed to want to restrictions at all until the at least 1 minute after the baby left the birth canal.
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I don’t know that most states are going to end up with amendments one way or the other. But this should at least show the anti-all-abortion crowd that there position is not the one held by most Americans.
SteveF, if it isn’t obvious, this is a naive question.
When you say 2 to 5% of genetic material, is that of all genetic material? If it is, what if it is 30% of the important parts? or 30% of the unimportant parts, assuming there is material in there which doesn’t do all that much?
Isn’t this susceptible to the sort of misunderstanding where it is revealed that we share 90% (pick a number) of our genetic material with lobsters?
I don’t intend this to be cantankerous.
John,
I think they mean of all genetic material came from them. I don’t know how the estimate it.
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Lots of material doesn’t do much. But they can’t really tell what parts are “important”.
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It’s not an “amount shared”. You share more than 50% of genetic material with your parents because you tons of genetic material with all humans. (And with lobsters.) But 50% came from each parent.
I was thinking more of the parallel possession of the same genetic sequences with other species.
connecting genetic sequences with functional capabilities, for example, being able to understand what is seen in a mirror, seems a challenge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they will have a lot of this mapped in another 30 years.
john ferguson,
The genetic influences are sometimes complicated, but very real. Blue eyes is one of the Neanderthal traits we see today. https://owlcation.com/stem/8-Neanderthal-Traits-in-Modern-Humans
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I think lobsters are quite tasty! But those genetic comparisons like lobsters vs humans are much broader: organisms which evolve separately over hundreds of millions of years do often preserve the functionality of certain key proteins, even while the DNA sequences that code those proteins are now very different. For example, genes involved in eye development and function are broadly conserved across a gigantic evolutionary range…. squid’s eyes look remarkably like ours…. because the benefit of having functional eyes is a huge selective advantage. And basic biochemistry is always preserved…. cells have to ‘know’ how to process sugars, amino acids, etc.
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Neanderthal genes are directly descendent from Neanderthals, and we know this because the complete Neanderthal genetic sequence is known, and more-or-less exact sequences show up in modern non-African populations, but not in African modern humans.
SteveF,
You are completely wrong. Ed’s been saying that for five months, not three!
Tom Scharf (Comment #213873): “You are completely wrong. Ed’s been saying that for five months, not three!”
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Not exactly. First, the whole of Ukraine was going to collapse. Then everything east of the Dnieper. Then Kharkiv and the Donbas. Then just the Donbas. Now he is down to collapsing defenses around Donetsk City.
Wait until they find out that their T-34’s won’t start anymore.
When even the NYT editorial board is calling you out, you might have taken a step too far into the void.
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A Cynical Low for the Democratic Party
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/opinion/meijer-trump-candidates.html
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““We know that those who wanted to topple our democracy haven’t given up and they have moved their assault to state capitols and legislatures across the country,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “Governors must help lead the way in standing up for the truth, protecting our democracy and making sure that it’s the vote of the people that decides elections.”
The governor was right to sound the alarm. So it is deeply troubling to see Mr. Cooper and the organization he chairs — the Democratic Governors Association — support and finance a cynical political strategy to support pro-Trump candidates in Republican primaries, on the theory that they would be easier for Democrats to beat in the fall general election.
Anyone who proclaims concern about the future of democracy shouldn’t come within a whiff of these democracy-denying candidates, let alone help them win votes. But Mr. Cooper and other Democratic Party groups have been elevating Big Lie proponents over their moderate Republican opponents all year, making a mockery of the American political system.
It is a terrible approach on two counts. First, it’s profoundly irresponsible: What if these election deniers actually win? And second, if Democrats believe that democracy is in danger and they need Republican support to save it — or at least a reality-based G.O.P. in our two-party system — then they have weakened their standing as defenders of democracy by aligning with those who would thwart it.”
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This has been going on for a while, and the fact that the media wasn’t even calling them out for it made it a “cynical low” for trust in the media for me. I guess they just couldn’t ignore it any longer.
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Apocalyptic Danger to Democracy! Let’s fund it! Just when you think it wasn’t going to get any more boneheaded than Defund the Police, a new low in US politics. What a bunch of clowns.
Tom Scharf,
Before the primary many of the candidate materials hitting my mailbox were Democrat funded promotion of extreme right candidates.
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In Illinois, we also can vote in whichever primary we want. We just ask for the ballot we prefer. So it’s not inconceivable that Dems might vote for the super-right wing Republicans. I haven’t heard rumors of anyone suggesting voters do that. But it’s possible.
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In fact, if you live in a largely GOP district but are a DEM it can be usually be worthwile to vote in the GOP to have a say in who makes local government. Dems aren’t going to win, so the primary is the “real” election. The opposite is true if you are a GOP living in a DEM district like Chicago. The real race for Governor is the DEM primary. So voting in the GOP primary when you are a DEM isn’t necessarily nefarious– but it has potential.
I’ve gotten scads of mailings and (how can this be legal?) texts from what appear to be far right candidates. I don’t even read them. “Look how extreme I am!”. I suppose this is yet another example of focus group wisdom without even asking a question about how it might backfire a day later. Politics has just gotten so childish, it is unbelievable. I’m moving to Canada, like really soon, unless I don’t.
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What I find hard to swallow is the media regurgitating the danger to democracy propaganda 24/7 and then looking the other way at this stuff. The strategy is a little interesting from a game theory perspective, but the casual tossing of integrity into the trash is none the less disheartening.
It’s not like this is new. In my view, integrity got tossed a looong ways back. Assuming it was ever there in the first place, which I am honestly starting to doubt.
mark bofill (Comment #213879)
I agree with Mark and I am sure I have been around much longer than Mark and probably longer than just about everyone posting here.
The political system and the media biases have been an example of the two party partisanship for a long, long time. The difference, I judge, over time has been more people have come to realize the partisanship of the media whereas before we had commentators like Walter Cronkite who was well accepted into most people’s homes as a congenial neutral truth teller when in fact he was rather far left politically. Right wing or at least non left wing ideas were pretty much kept out of the media discussion until talk radio came into being.
That more people now realize how the game is played does not mean that they show an aversion to it but rather that they chose a side and play the game.
Ken,
I think the Chicago Tribune of the ’50s was about as right as you could get without straying into the John Birch stuff my Grandfather believed.
One could be a Taft Republican or an Eisenhower, the first being seriously conservative and the latter more politely conservative.
I was a kid but I can clearly remember the arguments about Taft.
Lucia, in IL where we both live, the US House districts are becoming more Democrat thanks to some ingenious gerrymandering. My US rep had flipped from nearly 50 years as Republican to Democrat four years ago but not by large margins. On redistricting my House district has become the much desired, by the Democrats, second Hispanic voting district in IL. I live in a pretty far western suburb of Chicago and my voting district snakes as far east into Chicago as being a few blocks from the lake.
It was not that many years ago that the US representative portion in IL, Democrat and Republican, was near even. It is now estimated to be, after redistricting and losing a seat from the census, 14 Democrat to 3 Republican. The state government is entirely Democrat with a super majority legislature. It appears we are on are way to becoming Massachusetts.
It makes me wonder why the Democrats in IL spent money on Republican candidates who have no chance of winning when in fact none of the Republican candidates had a chance of winning.
john ferguson (Comment #213881)
That was primarily because of one man: Colonel McCormick who was owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
The political drift of the Tribune since then has been steadily to the left.
In IL the Democrats paid for ads proclaiming that the eventual winner of the Republican primary for governor, Bailey, was too conservative to be governor of IL. The ad was not supportive of Bailey but probably more motivated by getting the Republicans to vote for Bailey. Bailey is an election denier, although he does not talk about it much.
The Republican he beat, Irvin, was quite a ways left of Bailey but was leading in the polls until the ads and a debate where Irvin did poorly against Bailey.
I suspect that the Democrats, and particularly those in the Pritzker camp, want Pritzker to win very big in the governor’s race to enhance his chance of running for US President.
The NYT might find this cynical but I see much worse political tactics like out right lies and obvious exaggerations every day and when they favor the NYT side I do not see much if any response from them. I suppose it is best to get all righteous when the topic has little or no consequences.
Ken Fritsch,
Really fat guys don’t often win the presidency, just ask Christie. 😉
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But seriously, Pritzker seems to me someone with a huge amount of baggage, and policies which don’t play well outside a deep blue state. I will be shocked if Pritzker runs, and doubly shocked if he were ever to gain the nomination, never mind the presidency. There are a few Democrats who are even less electable (like Gavin Newsom), but Pritzker still strikes me as pretty far out of step with the average voter.
Tom
I just scan and look for the legally required statement describing who paid for the mailing. Lots of those GOP ones are from the Democrats.
Ken
Sure. But I vote in a particular county and legislative district. For a while, it was GOP, GOP, GOP. It’s changing. But still, there was a reason to vote in the GOP primary in my district even if I wasn’t GOP.
I just think politics has gotten a lot worse in the past ten years.
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The GOP can send out some supporting fliers for Pritzker. “Elect him fast before he gets thrown in jail like the rest of IL’s governors!”. I don’t think Pritzker stands a chance, it’s the same fantasy NYC’s DeBlasio had. That’s what happens when you surround yourself with sycophants in a one party state. I don’t think the US wants the politics and economy of IL, IL is only behind NJ is people moving out of the state.
lucia (Comment #213887)
Lucia, I knew what you were saying but I thought it was a good lead in for me to complain about IL politics and politics in general.
DuPage county (where we live) was once the Republican bastion you referenced, but in 2009 of the 18 county board members 15 were Republican and 3 were Democrat. In 2022 there were 11 Republicans and 7 Democrats.
You will not see those changes in Democrat bastions in IL – they remain true blue.
Genes, chromosomes, transmission of said, percentages. As JF might have said ,what a minefield.
1970 23 pairs of chromosomes, that split and replicate?
2000 Genes can be had haphazardly from either parent??
All humans came from 6 different genetic ancestors out of Africa?
Mitochondrial DNA.
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I would have thought that the 2 species branching off shared a lot more than 4% Archeic genes in common before branching off.
It is not a simple matter of how much we recombinated but how Neanderthal we were before our genetic differences evolved enough, if it did, to call us a new species.
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Humans have genes to make extra kidneys, extra nipples and gills in embryos.
Presumably lots of other fruit fly, lobster and elephant genes.
Pig and cow tissue can be shared intraspecies.
90% of the DNA coding does not even make activated genes but they are there.
That the genes we share with Neanderthals is from interbreeding is something we are all assuming in this discussion. Correct?
Kenneth
Interbreading is the explanation for some Neanderthal genes existing in non-Africans but not existing in Africans.
Kenneth,
It’s worth pointing out that these are genes that Neanderthals are known to have but Africans do not have. Other genes shared by all homosapiens and Neanderthals could have simply come from an shared ancestor.
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It is believed there are other ancient humans that may have “introgressed”. (That’s what genes introduced interbreeding after tow species or subspecies diverge is called.)
The percentages of genes or DNA in common seem to be vaguely defined. Humans and chimps are claimed to have something like 97% of DNA in common.
Mike,
Why do you think that means the percentage in common is vaguely defined?
Lucia,
“It is believed there are other ancient humans that may have “introgressed”.”
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Yup. The divergence between human and pan lines (chimps and bonobos) is said to have been about 6 million years ago, but that different parts of the genomes seem to have diverged at “significantly different times”, suggesting a long (million+ years) period of partial interbreeding…. humans and chimps appear more closely related in some parts of the genome than in others. The apparent partial interbreeding of Neanderthal and modern human lines is consistent with this kind of slow, extended genetic separation process.
Here is a more quantitative mitochondrial DNA comparison for modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans (an even earlier homo-lineage found in Asia:
(From the wikipedia article on Denisovan humans.)
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Denisovan genes are found in native modern human populations in Australia, New Guinea, and Micronesia, once again suggesting partial interbreeding of diverging populations over long periods is not uncommon.
It occurred to me that there is 100% commonality between words found in Shakespeare’s known works and those found in Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.
And yet……
john ferguson,
I don’t understand that comment. What point are you trying to make?
I thought the meaninglessness of two different species having 97% genetic commonality was a parallel example.
SteveF, your mitochondrial observations seem much more informative.
Ken,
The conversation has moved on, but I wanted to thank you for your insights and recollections in comment 213880. Thanks.
John,
I don’t know if this helps or not:
https://lab.dessimoz.org/blog/2020/12/08/human-banana-orthologs
Summary:
Introgressed is the term, as Lucia suggests, I should have used when referencing the interbreeding common genes between us and Neanderthals.
I once thought that a bone structure in the back of my skull was a Neanderthal trait, but have since found that not to be true. Also my 23 and Me gene analysis shows 100 percent Northern European ancestry with a shared introgressed Neanderthal level in the lower 5 percent quantile of those individuals tested by 23 and Me. My Neanderthal ancestry had an Elizabeth Warren awakening.
lucia (Comment #213895): “Why do you think that means the percentage in common is vaguely defined?”
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Modern humans get 2-5% of DNA from Neanderthals.
Humans share 97% of DNA with chimps.
Obviously talking about different things.
Maybe the distinction was made above and I missed it.
mark bofill (Comment #213903)
Well thanks for that. It appears my breakfast banana is a more distant cousin than I once thought.
~grins~ I suspect that John thinks comparing DNA percentages has no meaning because by some measures *all life* has overwhelmingly similar DNA. But I think the term ‘overwhelmingly similar DNA’ depends on exactly what one is talking about, I don’t think it’s as meaningless as all that.
MikeM
“From” doesn’t mean “with”.
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You get 50% of your DNA from a biological parent and none from your bio parent’s brother or sister.
You share much more than 50% of your DNA withbiological your parents (and with your bio parent’s brother and sister).
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Why can this be? Because all humans share a huge amount of DNA with each other.You’re parents already shared a lot of DNA with each other (and that’s true even if you parents aren’t banjo playing cousins from Deliverance or Hapsburgs.)
Mark,
No, if one specifies what specifically is being compared, as you suggest, the comparison could be informative.
Fair enough John.
Mike M,
“Modern humans get 2-5% of DNA from Neanderthals.”
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Well, most modern Europeans have that many clear Neanderthal DNA sequences. My understanding is there is less Neanderthal influence in other parts of the world, like Asia, but some Denisovan influence.
lucia (Comment #213908): “You get 50% of your DNA from a biological parent and none from your bio parent’s brother or sister.”
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Fair point, but 2-5% would be 5 generations ago. I am pretty sure that none of my great-great-great-grandparents were Neanderthals.
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I don’t doubt that there are clear definitions for some of these percentages. But I don’t know them and I haven’t seen them here.
mark bofill (Comment #213907): “I suspect that John thinks comparing DNA percentages has no meaning because by some measures *all life* has overwhelmingly similar DNA. But I think the term ‘overwhelmingly similar DNA’ depends on exactly what one is talking about, I don’t think it’s as meaningless as all that.”
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Right. So the percentages are meaningless without careful definitions.
So let’s say that modern Europeans have certain genetic sequences in common with Neanderthals and Africans don’t. I don’t see how that establishes interbreeding. Modern humans and Neanderthals have common ancestors. So there should be a lot of similarity in DNA. I would think that some lineages of humans would retain certain sequences while other lineages lose them.
Re: the DNA percentages.
Spouse and her sister, one with the Ancestry.Com DNA sampling and the other with 23+me, discovered a 12% +/- Ashkenazi ancestry. Since we knew who they were, and the numbers made sense, we surmised that in order for it to be 12% there could be no non-Ashkenazi participation in that line or the number would have been lower.
What was a little surprising was that Mom’s Dad was, we thought, entirely German – growing up in Southwest Illinois in a community which spoke German until it went out of style in 1914. By rights this would have put my Northern European portion at 25% but it didn’t. It was less. I’m guessing that we will find non-Germans in the line preceding my Grandfather.
Mike M,
“I don’t see how that establishes interbreeding.”
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Mitochondrial DNA shows Neanderthals separated from modern humans about 450,000 years ago, and we know that Neanderthals were present in Europe and Asia long before anatomically modern humans. This suggests the presence of Neanderthal sequences in non-African modern humans (but NOT African) could only have happened via partial in-breeding when modern humans migrated out of Africa and encountered Neanderthals about 100,000 to 40,000 years ago.
I think it is just relevant to the sequencing of when certain branches of the genetic tree diverged. It gets interesting when differences between human subgroups are detected and you want to determine if they are possibly genetically based.
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However that type of analysis (or parts of this analysis that is deemed “pseudo science”) are now off limits to discussion in polite company and academia. The mere mention of this theory is enough to ruin an academic career. Specifically the linking of changes in some factors of intelligence to genetics after humans left Africa is rather controversial, while changes to skin color is not.
SteveF (Comment #213871): “The genetic influences are sometimes complicated, but very real. Blue eyes is one of the Neanderthal traits we see today. https://owlcation.com/stem/8-Neanderthal-Traits-in-Modern-Humans“.
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I find that article to be uninformatiive. Just a bunch of vague conclusions with no real indication of the evidence.
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And by the way, the article says: “Blue eyes do not come from Neanderthals”.
Everybody goes back to Africa, it’s just a matter of when and what path. My DNA is almost entirely the Germany / France areas with older eastern European before that.
Mike M,
Sorry you didn’t find the article informative.
The article says:
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Yes, blue eyes can also come from non-Neanderthal genes, but some blue eye color does come from Neanderthal genes.
Tom Scharf,
“Everybody goes back to Africa, it’s just a matter of when and what path.”
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Sure. Hominid evolution looks like it was entirely in Africa until early humans migrated north and then east and west.
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“Specifically the linking of changes in some factors of intelligence to genetics after humans left Africa is rather controversial, while changes to skin color is not.”
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You’re treading on thin ice by just raising the issue. 😉 In this age of woke idiocy, any discussion of inherited mental abilities is completely verboten, no matter what the data say.
“.. Ukraine SitRep – On The Ground Report – Ukrainian Frontline Collaps….”
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https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/ukraine-sitrep-on-the-ground-report-ukrainian-frontline-collapses/comments/page/1/#comments
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Reading the entire article is informative
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Pisky. Meat grinder
Author: Serhiy Gnezdilov
What is there to lose, what else can be taken from me on the sixth day of my personal hell, in Pisky, a kilometer from the first street of Donetsk, Ukraine? The bodies of those who were dearer to me than my family are lying under the heat in the trenches, broken by 152 caliber. As I wrote earlier, 6,500 shells per damn village in less than a day.
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It’s been six such days already, and I can’t imagine how even a small number of our infantry survived in this barrage of enemy fire.
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No, I’m not whining.
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Two mortars 82 and 120 are working on our side.
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Sometimes they wake up and “sneeze” two artillery barrels in the direction of Donetsk.
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We hardly respond. There is no counter-battery fire, from the word go, the enemy puts artillery shells in our trenches without any problems, dismantles very strong, concrete positions in tens of minutes, pushing our defense line without pause or minimal rest.
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The day before yesterday, the line broke, and a river of 200 or 300 [killed/wounded] was poured. I will not publish any statistics, it is forbidden in our country, but you have no idea the number and percentage of losses.
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This is a hell of a meat grinder, where the battalion simply holds back the onslaught with their bodies.
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For almost a week, we have been waiting for at least some kind of help that would hit the enemy’s artillery, we, I repeat, are being fired with impunity with everything that the Russian military system is rich in, their aviation was working today.
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I am proud of the leadership of the battalion that remained here with us. The combatant is with us, everyone is with us, contused, light 300, bandaged and returned after a couple of hours to the position, if you can call these bottomless ravines that way.
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There is a war going on.
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But without a counter-battery fight, it turns into a senseless meat grinder, where an insane amount of our infantry is ground up in a day….
Lucia, your point was well taken here, but I have to admit that I was unsure of my wokeness in laughing out loud on reading “banjo playing cousins”. Is that line original with you?
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/dtcgenetictesting/neanderthaldna/
“generally reported as a percentage that suggests how much DNA an individual has inherited from these ancestors”
The “that suggests how much DNA” is not very satisfying for someone looking for a detailed definition nor is “how much DNA a person has in common with his or her Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestors”.
I do think the discussion needs a clearer definition of percent Neanderthal. I’ll keep looking unless someone posting here has found one.
The link below explains the percent Neanderthal. It is the percentage of variants – or at least that’s the way I read it.
https://www.dataminingdna.com/23andme-neanderthal/
MikeM
Yes. Groups lose sequences when they go through genetic “bottle necks”. That is– a large interbreeding population that shares genes dwindles down to a very small group for some reason. ( Can be change in climate, sudden disease etc.)
But it’s the non-Africans who broke off from the shared group and then went through a very tight bottle neck and lost many sequences.
https://razib.substack.com/p/out-of-africas-midlife-crisis
This is also known based on genetic sequencing and, well, math. So the sequences missing in African’s but present in Europeans can’t really be explained by a bottleneck.
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No one suggests so. And I was just addressing the difference between “from” and “with”.
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If European, your great-great grandparents also has about 2-5% Neanderthal ancestry. The genes were introduced a long time ago and are now dispersed in Europeans who got them “from” Neanderthals.
Ken
I think so. I didn’t intentionally borrow it from something I heard. But I would be surprised if someone somewhere has not alluded to Deliverance when suggesting some group of people might be inbred.
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The Hapsburgs who ruled Europe during the whole Austrio-Hungarian era were very inbred.
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Icelanders are as a group not very genetically diverse. Now that people do DNA, lots of Icelanders are all upset to discover anyone and other Icelander they date is related at least as closely as something like 5th cousin.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/some-icelanders-are-accidentally-dating-a-relative-and-now-theres-an-app-for-that-25175819/
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban At CPAC: “The Globalists Can Go To Hell, I Have Gone To Texas”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/08/04/hungarian_pm_viktor_orban_at_cpac_the_globalists_can_go_to_hell_i_have_gone_to_texas.html
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Didn’t bother to listen to his speech, but I found the article title humorous
Viktor Orban channeling the King of the Wild Frontier! Now that’s new and different.
lucia (Comment #213927),
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That was an interesting article. I remain unconvinced, although closer to being convinced. A model is never better than the assumptions that go into it.
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lucia: “Groups lose sequences when they go through genetic “bottle necks”.”
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Bottlenecks help, but I don’t think they are required. Maladaptive traits get eliminated, advantageous traits become more common.
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I don’t why it is impossible for some alleles to have disappeared from the African population after splitting from the Eurasian population.
lucia (Comment #213928)
My oldest son loves Iceland and the people there and has been there several times. He told me that a high percentage of Icelanders have had genetic testing done. Now I know why.
My youngest son married my daughter-in-law whose last name is the same as my great grandmother’s maiden name. We like to kid them about this, but they have no children and do not plan to have any. What I know about each family’s ancestry I do not think there is a close relationship. I have offered to pay for having their genes tested for other reasons but have had no takers. In my extended family their are some of us who have had genetic tests done, but there are a majority that say no way.
My oldest son’s best friend from high school had a gene test and found a daughter he did not know he had. His family was very accepting of this discovery and including his wife. The discovered daughter has visited her discovered family many times and the two daughters are very happy that they now have a sister.
Kansas has had a history of division over abortion, with Governor Kathleen Sebelius bankrolled by Planned Parenthood and becoming Secretary of HHS, where she partially banned abortion drugs to reduce competition for Planned Parenthood. When Bush officials did it, it made all sorts of headlines as restricting abortion.
Then they had races for state attorney general and local attorney who were conducting investigations into Planned Parenthood for not reporting statutory rape.
The campaign against the amendment talked about how there are lots of restrictions on abortion already on the books, as well as what could happen with the laws being proposed.
The state supreme court declared there was a constitutional right to abortion in Kansas. The current restrictions on abortion will likely be thrown out. At that point, this amendment could possibly pass.
Am I reading this wrong? It looks like ISW is saying Russia hasn’t seized control of the eastern provinces, but instead that they were under Russian control all along. Donetsk and Luhansk appear to be colored identical to Crimea.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
MikeM
If the traits attributed to the Neanderthals were merely mal-adaptive, they would be removed from both populations.
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Hypothetically they could. But if there is no bottleneck for the group in Africa after the split, then those alleles would have to be maladaptive in African. But if the Europeans had then when they left Africa, they must actually be adaptive in Africa.
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I’m pretty sure they have also found burial sites, extracted DNA and found Neanderthal-HomoSapiens mixes that are thought to be only a few generations from the actual mating. So there is evidence of mixing in the fossil record as well.
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There is someway they can tell when a mix is recent. (I think it’s got to do with longer lengths of snippets of DNA from each “homo” type being passed down.)
MikeM–
I should add, the DNA/Archelogy/evoution people also have access to remains from different times in history. With enough remains over time, they can actually determine if certain allelles used to exist in a population in the past and were eliminated due to adverse selective pressure, or if they increased due to positive pressure. (Selective sweeps.)
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They know that the genes for lactose tolerance and light skin had a very fast selective sweep once agriculture as introduced in Europe. (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-selective-sweep-1224718 )
Heard on TV yesterday:
“You should not take this drug if you were designated a female at birth”
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Wow. This condition is so common that it is my belief we should probably come up with a shorter way of saying this, perhaps even a single word.
DNA tracking over time certainly put the final nail in the coffin for creationism. I still laugh that I was taught Adam and Eve in religion class when I was a kid as if it was fact. As I grew older this fairy tale among others produced a feeling of intellectual betrayal, thus I left the church and never went back. Yet another example of counterproductive results when one chooses a path of lazy indoctrination.
Tom Scharf,
“You should not take this drug if you were designated a female at birth”
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Which betrays a level of idiotic virtue signaling that will not continue for very long, because soon people will start publicly mocking and laughing. Those who take themselves altogether too seriously (as do the ‘woke’ loonies) will retreat from the worst of the nonsense when they realize lots of people are laughing at them.
Tom Scharf,
“As I grew older this fairy tale among others produced a feeling of intellectual betrayal, thus I left the church and never went back.”
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I never felt betrayal, since I assumed some people actually believed the fairy tales. But by 14 I had concluded it was all a bunch of nonsense and a foolish waste of time. I still when to church sponsored social events for a couple of years to meets girls, but that was it.
Tom Scharf
Their coms people probably thought:
1) “XX chromosome will not be understood by too many people.”
2) “Woman will get us too much flak from the really angry people”.
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You know, people who are “trans” know they are trans and should be aware that they really need to speak to a doctor about things. Even if in their mind they are not “gender assigned at birth”, they should know that medically the “assigned gender” or the “XX vs XY (or whatever else)” will continue to matter. Torturing all the medical warnings to replace “man” or “woman” with really long mouthful phrases shouldn’t be necessary. Except, the really angry people get really angry if it’s not done.
SteveF “Which betrays a level of idiotic virtue signaling that will not continue for very long, ”
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Not convinced. People have been downplaying and dismissing the threat for at least a decade. Mockery actually seems to aid it because yesterday’s satire is today’s policy. I can sort of see why, because laughter means you don’t take it seriously. It’s an admission that you really don’t care. The people who do care (in very emphatic terms) are the ones being taken seriously.
lucia (Comment #213935): “If the traits attributed to the Neanderthals were merely mal-adaptive, they would be removed from both populations. … if there is no bottleneck for the group in Africa after the split, then those alleles would have to be maladaptive in African. But if the Europeans had then when they left Africa, they must actually be adaptive in Africa.”
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But it is not binary. Light skin is presumably maladaptive in Africa but advantageous in Europe. But if only slightly maladaptive in Africa, it would take a long time to disappear, especially if it is a recessive trait. So at the time of the split, light skin might have been rare with carriers being uncommon. But they would have been present in both groups. Then in Europe, light skin was selected for while in Africa it would have continued to be selected against.
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lucia: “I’m pretty sure they have also found burial sites, extracted DNA and found Neanderthal-HomoSapiens mixes …”
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Following genetics trough time would be WAY more convincing. But there would be major sample size problems.
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lucia: “There is someway they can tell when a mix is recent.”
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That may be so. If so, it might be much more convincing.
When I was a freshman in college, and not religious at all, some classmates and I decided to visit the local area churches on Sunday so we could discuss the differences we observed in the sermons and rituals. I was somewhat surprised that the Lutheran church we attended was very much like a Baptist church until I realized it was Missouri Synod. We agreed that the Catholics had the best looking girls.
“You should not take this drug if you were designated a female at birth”.
That might actually be appropriate wording. It is important that such directions be understood by stupid people. Males who identify as female might well be stupid enough (or sufficiently delusional) that they would not understand the meaning of “woman” or “female” in that context.
At worst, it is in the category of the inane safety instructions that we see every day.
MikeM
I’m not sure what you think this example tells us.
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They know light skin genes pre-existed agriculture in Europe, but at low levels. Then underwent a positive selective sweep when agriculture was introduced in Europe. The gene is not “gone” in Africa. However, other than in-migration from elsewhere, the light skin genes did pretty much obliterate the dark ones in Africa.
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So yes, selective sweeps in favor of the “better” trait can practically obliterate deletrious genes in a population. It happened for dark skinned genes in Europe. But it’s worth noting the genes that were obliterated by the sweep do exist in the fossil record for Europe. In fact, there were dominant in the record before agriculture. So we don’t just speculate it “could” happen. We know those genes were there and now are gone. (There are other details they can see n the strings of DNA themselves. The “fingerprints” have to do with the fact that during reproduction some places on the strand are more likely to “break” that others. So they see proportions of long continguous areas on DNA in fossils during the the period when the “sweep” occurred, and then shorter bits long after it’s established.)
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But in anycase, the notion that the Neanderthal genese were in the African pool but got swept out has a ginormous proble. There are none of these “Neanderthal genes” in the African fossil record. This is not a situation where they used to exist in the African population but got swept out. The fossil record says they were never there.
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Yes. Sweeps happen. But the evidence from the fossil record indicate the Neaderthal genese were never in the African population. So they couldn’t have been “swept out”.
You don’t know the sample sizes. You haven’t done the math to figure out whether there is any sample size problem at all.
It’s fine to remain unconvinced. But you haven’t been following these various articles. So yeah, having not read anything about it, you have no firm opinion. That’s fine.
Part of the reason I am skeptical of the genetics conclusions is that years ago I read a book titled “The Seven Daughters of Eve” by Bryan Sykes, who was one of the pioneers of mitochondrial DNA research. The man was obviously logically challenged. Conclusions were typically based on assumptions that were unstated, unexamined, and incapable of withstanding examination. His most famous conclusion, regarding peopling of the South Pacific simply threw out a piece of evidence that contradicted his conclusion.
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But the worst thing is directly applicable to the mixing issue. He argued that you can tell whether mutation A or mutation B came first by looking at the permutations. If A came first you can have (not A, not B), (A, not B), or (A, B). But you can not have (not A, B). (I hope my notation is obvious.) And if B came first, you can not have (A, not B).
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Then he admits that you sometimes find all four permutations, nobody knows why, and hand waves it away.
lucia (Comment #213946): ” There are none of these “Neanderthal genes” in the African fossil record.”
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To demonstrate that, you need a VERY large sample drawn from all over the continent. And even then you only put an upper bound on prevalence. Maybe they have that. I am skeptical.
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I admit to having not dug into this deeply. Perhaps if I did I would be convinced. But part of the reason I have not dug in is that in the past I did put time into it (not just the Sykes book) and concluded that the results were not to be trusted. Perhaps that has changed.
MikeM
The problem is that lots of stupid people will also not understand this. Quite a few Cis are also stupid and they won’t necessarily know what being “designated female at birth” might mean. They know they are “women”.
MikeN (Comment #213934): “Am I reading this wrong? It looks like ISW is saying Russia hasn’t seized control of the eastern provinces, but instead that they were under Russian control all along. Donetsk and Luhansk appear to be colored identical to Crimea.”
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The area outlined in black was under indirect Russian control before the war. It amounts to about 1/3 of Donetsk and Luhansk, but over half the population. Russia now controls all of Luhansk and a majority (I think) of Donetsk. Most of the red bordered area in the east is in those two oblasts, but some in the north is in Kharkiv Oblast.
MikeM,
First, there will certainly be boneheaded people writing popularized science in nearly all fields. Anthropology and genetics are areas where books of rampant speculation sell.
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A long time ago I Bell Curve and was similarly annoyed by strong claims made that were based on statistical innumeracy. I discounted that author– not the entire claim nor the entire field of genetics nor the study of the effect of genetics on intelligence. (No. I’m not going to point out the innumerate claims. I read it a long time ago. I scrawled in it. I tossed the book and I’m not going through it again.)
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So even if that guy made some idiotic claim, that would not cause me to assume all of genetics is wrong.
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Even with respect to your synopsis of the guys argument, I would need to read his specific claim, which might have more details about when mutations happened, whether he thinks sweeps happened and in what population he thinks he’s seeing something. Also– whether he is discussing mitochondrial DNA or Chromosomal DNA. (Because it makes a difference to whether that argument is illogical on it’s face.)
I’d also have to verify he actually made that claim at all. But if he did– I would need to read details to see if some escaped you when you read it.
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Of course you might say you would have to read the passages that annoyed me in The Bell Curve to conclude that my opinion is founded. That would be fair enough– of course you would. But yeah– we could both have faulty memories of something read long ago, and could even have misinterpreted what was written when we read it. So obviously, I’m not going to share your opinion of that book based on your rather vague description of what he claimed and your diagnosis that that is not reasonable.
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(I am not going to repeat the pain of reading The Bell Curve.)
Mike M,
This conversation is sounding a lot like your earlier objections to getting vaccinated for covid. In both cases your arguments strike me as extremely contorted at best.
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Serious question: Do you honestly think the broad consensus is completely wrong and there was never any mixing of archaic human genetic material (specifically, Neanderthal and Denisovan) into modern non-African populations when anatomically modern humans migrated from Africa starting about 60,000 years ago?
Lucia,
“So even if that guy made some idiotic claim, that would not cause me to assume all of genetics is wrong.”
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Of course not. The evidence for mixing of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes into modern non-African populations is overwhelming. IMHO, only the religiously motivated could conclude otherwise.
SteveF, a little more thought and I see the loophole. These people use others laughing at them to “cry bully” and there are plenty of budding Principles looking to stick it to the “bullies”. You want to be kind and nice don’tyou? You’ll be able to trace the problem back to social policy designed to remove all kinds of “harm” to things like self esteem etc starting in school. This is why laughing at them is ineffectual at best. It’s about protecting the “weak” from the “strong”.
DaveJR,
I will still laugh at them, because they are ridiculous. So will lots of other people.
SteveF (Comment #213952): “Serious question: Do you honestly think the broad consensus is completely wrong and there was never any mixing of archaic human genetic material (specifically, Neanderthal and Denisovan) into modern non-African populations when anatomically modern humans migrated from Africa starting about 60,000 years ago?”
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I think that it *might* be just as wrong as masks, shutting down schools, the claims made for the covid vaccines, climate change alarmism and any number of other areas where the consensus was wrong. Unlike those, I have not researched this one enough to be sure there are problems, only enough to know that a bit of skepticism is warranted.
“.. In the Donetsk region, Russian and DPR units took control of the town of Peski. The mop up operation let them advance towards the western outskirts of the town and come closer to Pervomaiskoe. Advancing units are expected to develop their offensive towards Vodianoe to surround Ukrainian forces in Avdeevka from the south-western direction.
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Meanwhile, the General Staff of Ukraine confirmed the growing threat for its grouping in Avdeevka amid the Russian advance to the south of the tow….”
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https://southfront.org/ukrainian-defenses-collapse/
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The Donetsk fortified section is the linch pin for the entire area east of the Dniper river. When this fortified section breaks, as it is doing, Ukraine defense lines in the far east becomes untenable.
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The withdrawal of Ukraine artillery and infantry units from this area to send west of the Dniper is looking to be a major mistake. Without Ukraine artillery support, Russia has a free hand in reducing these fortifications.
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More on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phMU_bwTqh8
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a-cvcYF4GQ
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Ed Forbes,
You’re like a broken record. Please give it a rest.
SteveF, I think the broken record is those saying Ukraine is winning. ISW’s latest reports join this trend even more than they already were. Apparently Russia has had to halt advances in some areas to deal with Ukraine counterattack near Kherson, and if Ukraine can do this on multiple fronts, they will have turned the tide.
Beyond a win for Ukraine which was unlikely from the beginning, things are not so bad for NATO.
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Russia:
Exposed their military strengths and weaknesses
Heavy causalities in men and equipment
Lost one of their biggest fossil fuel customers
Lost billions of infrastructure investment
Ongoing and likely long term international sanctions
Withdraw of western investment in their country, likely long term
Ostracized from the global community
Finland and Sweden join NATO
Ukraine has become a weapons test zone for NATO
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What have they gained? Some land in Ukraine which they already mostly controlled before the war. Worth it? Maybe for Putin but not really for Russia that I can tell, as compared to an alternate timeline where they don’t invade. This was, and still is, a massive miscalculation.
Tom Scharf,
“This was, and still is, a massive miscalculation.”
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I agree Putin miscalculated badly the resistance the Ukrainians would put up; he had expected the Ukrainian government to flee and then to quickly turn the Ukraine into a vassal state.
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But I don’t see Putin being driven from power, nor see him settling for anything less than absorbing the regions he now controls into Russia. That will likely involve displacing a lot (millions!) of ethnic Ukrainians from those areas, which is sure to have negative knock-on effects….. including lots of additional costs for US taxpayers.
MikeN
I haven’t heard anyone say Ukraine is winning.
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So a record that says that might be broken, but it’s not being placed on the turn-table. As far as I can tell, the record doesn’t exist– and so isn’t broken.
Looks like 8 of the 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump will be out of office on Jan 2. Four decided to not run for re-election (recognizing they could not win) two others were defeated in earlier primaries, one in Washington state looks to lose narrowly in the next few days, and Liz Cheney looks to lose in WY ‘big time’ (as her father likes to say), a week from Tuesday. Had these folks just stated they disapproved of Trump’s handling of Jan 6, most would still be in Congress. The impeachment vote was judged a straight-out betrayal of the party by most Republicans, and made those representatives completely unacceptable to serve in the House. Their political careers are likely over.
‘Think about incorporating 14C into DNA. When it decays to 14N, you have an instant mutation.’
Another reason to embrace fossil 12C. Lol.
Blue eyes: there are plenty of genes causing blue eyes, it’s a complex thing, not a Neanderthal thing. Admitting I have bluish eyes.
I suppose this is just word gymnastics, but.
If you are defending ground and not losing, you are winning.
If you are invading ground and not winning, you are losing.
In the instant case, I assume that both descriptions are accurate.
As am aside, when Putin was vamping on the border prior to the invasion, I attended a lecture by a guy who claimed to have up to date assessment of how it would go. Over in ten days, Russian technology was far advanced over what the Ukrainians had, Russian organizational prowess and strength vastly superior, etc etc.
He claimed his understanding was that which could be heard in the Naval War College last winter. Also derived from extensive reading on the subject.
I wonder if the part about the War College was true.
I think that for Ukraine, a stalemate will eventually be a loss since it will leave the country in ruins. And support from NATO might weaken when Russia cuts off Europe’s gas this winter and as people get tired of the endless expense.
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I don’t recall seeing anyone claim that Ukraine is winning. The most optimistic reports seem to be that Ukraine might be able to turn the tide.
Mike M,
Ukraine is obviously not winning…. more than 25% of the country is under Russian control. I agree that if the West supplies enough weapons, in the end the Ukraine will suffer continued terrible damage. What seems to me the most likely outcome is Russian claims the occupied lands as part of Russia, forms a defensive line, and threatens the Ukraine (and the West) with tactical nuclear strikes if the Ukraine then “invades Russian territory” in an effort to recover the lost lands. Followed by an essentially permanent frontier, as was the situation in Europe from WWII to the fall of the USSR.
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There seem no good outcomes available for the Ukraine, Russia, or Nato countries. Putin really messed things up.
Given the emotions provoked by this war, I do not know if it is a good idea to bring up some issues I have had on my mind about the Ukraine war from the beginning.
It is obviously wrong for Russia to invade Ukraine, but what mechanism is readily available to fix this problem without wasting all of Ukraine, maiming and killing Ukrainians and Russians and having a devastating effect on the economy’s of most of the world’s nations? I do not see one and thus another approach is required to avoid the aforementioned problems.
The current approach appears to be leading to all the negatives mentioned above occurring or worse and without any positive fix to the invasion problem. What I think gets ignored in these situations is the proposition of determining how much worse would it be for the Ukrainians to be under some kind of Russian control. Neither Russia nor Ukraine fair very well when economic freedoms and governances are compared with the rest of the world. Russia has lots of corruption as has Ukraine. I judge that some if not many in the West thought that Ukraine might be on the path to better performances in both of these categories and that this might give Ukraine an edge over Russia in deciding to almost unconditionally support Ukraine in this war. For most Ukrainians the old adage that it is better to be under the rotten government of one’s own nation than a rotten government of another nation must apply in this situation.
The questions for the US that appear to have been ignored or overlooked in the war mentality are:
1. How much suffering and destruction in Ukraine and costs to the US are we willing to witness before we would no longer support the war effort in favor of convincing Ukraine that the alternative is accepting some kind of peace offerings?
2. What are likely outcomes for the Ukrainians after a near total devastation of the nation in their efforts to recover? Would they demand a Marshall Plan – or more – from the NATO nations for fighting their proxy war and would the NATO nations agree to it?
3. What kind of government can we expect to see from Ukraine that comes out of a military mentality that has greatly weakened any initiatives to become a freer state?
4. If US offered large amounts of aid to Ukraine after the war would we be tempted to try nation building in Ukraine as part of the bargain even in the light of the most recent failures in Iraq and Afghanistan?
5. How well is the current aid to Ukraine being tracked and would any problems found be publicized for fear changing the current public support for the Ukraine war effort?
Ken,
Recent experience in negotiating a capitulation with an aggressor has not been so good. Munich, Vichy, didn’t work out well. At the same time, Thailand’s experience with the Japanese might be more of what you had in mind. On the other hand, Thailand was more a waypoint for the Japanese on the road to India.
If one accepts that Putin wants a “neutral” state as a buffer between Russia and the Nato countries, Ukraine may not be a waypoint, but the objective.
What seems likely to happen if Ukraine surrenders in its entirety is the relocation of Western Ukrainians to someplace well east of the Urals and their substitution by loyal Russians, and just enough to run Ukrainian agriculture.
With that possibility on the horizon, would you still negotiate ?
“And support from NATO might weaken when Russia cuts off Europe’s gas this winter and as people get tired of the endless expense.”
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The people are very likely going to blame the Russians, not their own governments. My understanding is that the prevailing culture in Eastern Europe was already very much anti-Russian before the war from the decades of occupation during the Cold War.
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There will definitely be some pain involved in the near term and nobody’s life is going to get better in the near term (unless you happen to own a LNG port terminal). That’s why this whole thing is just Idiocracy.
j ferguson (Comment #213971)
I am thinking more in terms of the US involvement in Ukraine as it was in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan – which were mixed to bad outcomes for all involved. The negotiation is for Ukraine and Russia to decide. Which poses 3 questions I left out of my previous post: Will more military aid from the West (primarily the US) motivate Ukraine to fight to the last man on an almost suicide mission and yet lose the war? Would such an outcome be favorable and acceptable to those who want the war to do more damage to Russia whatever the consequences for Ukraine and the Ukrainians? How close to a nuclear war should we be willing to go in escalating the war given even that we could “win” that war?
I was hoping to get some answers or discussion to the questions posed.
Ken
You are missing the forest for the trees. How do you disincentivize the Russians from * continuing * down this path? All the current tactics that I see are easily explainable by this question.
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It is very unlikely appeasement will work long term. Will Russia stop if they are appeased? Did they stop after Crimea? Georgia? Afghanistan? Chechnya? The current tactics are about preventing future suffering in NATO territory through deterrence via a proxy war now. This seems to be the only language Russia understands under Putin.
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If you want to argue that Russia will just stop once they have their buffer country, then make that argument. Nobody is under the illusion that Ukraine is better off now or later because of this.
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The fundamental problem is Ukraine doesn’t want to be under Russian control. At this point in the war we can safely say that. But why? Because Ukraine looked east and west and made a rational decision of which direction served their long term interests. Russia is not entitled to tell Ukraine how to run their own country.
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Putin sees this decision, and sees the insidious plague of western values ultimately making its way to Moscow, and decided the only option was to stop it through force. He says this over and over, he was forced to do it.
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Maybe its his own self interest and maybe he is a true believer in communism. One thing for sure is he was losing the argument on its merits. So invasion and war. This fight was going to happen unless Ukraine willingly chose to live under Russia’s thumb.
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The wave of western values isn’t going to stop, nor is Putin’s fear of it. Putin will either make a better ideological argument or almost certainly continue with this behavior. There will always be a new border Putin needs to protect.
Kenneth,
Capitulation should not be an option.
I am very concerned about our government’s long term thinking re Ukrainian. At the very least, I’d like to know if they are grappling with the sort of questions you raise.
Other than that, I don’t know what to say about your questions.
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p.s. – I don’t buy the bit about “a devastating effect on the economy’s of most of the world’s nations”. Negative, yes. Devastating? I think not.
What Tom Scharf said (Comment #213974) .
Since my questions are not being addressed in any detail, I will condense it all to a single compounded question:
How far should the US go militarily and with sanctions in supporting Ukraine and combating any further Russian aggressions and what are the costs worth enduring?
I am of the opinion that Putin and Russia are well on their way to self- distruction and our getting in the way will only prolong the process.
I do not hear any detailed strategies concerning the war, but rather simply more of the same, playing it day by day (with the commandor in chief’s: as long as it takes) and lots of talk about Ukranian bravery.
The Russian domino effect after Ukraine sounds a lot to me like rationalizations used for military actions in Viet Nam.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #213977): “How far should the US go militarily and with sanctions in supporting Ukraine and combating any further Russian aggressions and what are the costs worth enduring?”
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I think we have got it about right so far. A permanent stalemate would be bad. That certainly seems like a possibility, but it is too soon to say. Some military experts think that Ukraine might soon turn the tide, others think that they will soon start to wilt. Only time will tell. We might not have to wait too long for a better read.
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After that, everything is conditional. We can not expect specific if-then’s from the government. It would be nice to know what their guiding principles are.
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Ken Fritsch: “I am of the opinion that Putin and Russia are well on their way to self- distruction and our getting in the way will only prolong the process.”
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I don’t what that means. Self-destruction as a result of the war? If so, how? How are we getting in the way?
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Ken Fritsch: “I do not hear any detailed strategies concerning the war, but rather simply more of the same, playing it day by day”.
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That is appropriate, except that guiding principles would be nice. Also nice would be a sense that the decision makers in Washington are competent.
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Ken Fritsch: “The Russian domino effect after Ukraine sounds a lot to me like rationalizations used for military actions in Viet Nam.”
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At this point, arguably so. Had they taken Ukraine without serious consequence, it would likely be very different.
Tom Scharf,
“If you want to argue that Russia will just stop once they have their buffer country, then make that argument. Nobody is under the illusion that Ukraine is better off now or later because of this.”
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I will make that argument. The war has been horribly expensive to Russia in terms of lives lost, expense for equipment, diplomatic damage, and pushing Finland and Sweden to join NATO. I do think that, if he can, Putin will declare victory when he has complete control of the Donbas states, Crimea, and a ~100 to 150 mile wide land bridge between Russia and Crimea. Putin needs to save face to end the war, and US supplying the Ukrainians with a near-endless stream of very expensive arms will only serve to prolong the destruction of Ukrainian territory and loss of Ukrainian (and Russian) lives, and damage the US economy to boot. Even a murderous thug like Putin can learn from his mistakes, and invading Ukraine was in fact a terrible mistake.
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The war is not going to end with Russia handing back the territories it now controls, as unpleasant as that may be. Even if Putin were deposed, whoever takes his place is not going to hand back all the occupied territory. Only a very distasteful negotiated settlement will end the fighting any time soon. If the war continues into the winter and beyond, then the best and most likely outcome will be a stalemate of indefinite duration. Of course, there are plenty of worse possible outcomes, but no better ones that seem plausible.
Here I am talking about how I see the US in taking sides in confrontations between nations and quickly becoming the evil empire to the greater of evil nations we side against. It inspires the nationalism of those nations for their people to more strongly support their nation’s government/military actions and ignore their many shortcomings including wasting the lives of their young soldiers and becoming even less free people during a military “emergency”. It also does not help the nation with which we side when that nation becomes more and more dependent on us.
As an aside, another similarity of Ukraine to Viet Nam – even though we are involved as a proxy in Ukraine – is that because of a nuclear threat we limit the response in a manner that loses the war and yet inflicts great damage and costs. That is a lose-lose situation that we should avoid altogether.
What I don’t understand about the whole “gender assigned at birth” thing is that we already have the language to take care of it. We have biological sex, male and female, and we have gender roles, man, woman, mother, father, husband, wife etc. I can’t see how denying that biological sex. which is determined, not assigned, at conception, is important and can’t be changed with current technology, is somehow offensive to the people who think they were born into the wrong body. Asserting that there is such a thing as biological sex should not in any way be considered transphobic. But, of course, it is. So instead of female we get idiotic newspeak constructs like birthing person.
The most important thing wrt Putin’s survival as Russian head of state is that his fellow kleptocrats no longer have anywhere outside of Russia to spend their, as the cliche goes, ill-gotten gains. They even run the risk that property they have purchased in the West gets confiscated. Money means a lot less if you can’t buy stuff you actually want with it.
DeWitt,
They can set up multi-layer shell companies to buy things. Of course, if you can’t travel at all to other countries, then buying things outside Russia is less attractive. But keep in mind that there are many countries where the Russian kleptocrats will be welcomed…. most of the world is not involved in sanctions.
DeWitt,
The very virtuous woke want only to signal their incredible, almost limitless virtue. Which is why a mother of two, nominated to the Supreme Court, could never bring herself to say what woman is. I would venture that she won’t struggle so much with defining a woman when a statute uses the word ‘woman’.
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Yes, it is all utterly idiotic. But having rational people conclude you are an idiot is just the price you pay for signaling your very, very woke virtue.
SteveF,
I’m sure they’ll be welcome in Sri Lanka, Cuba, Venezuela and India. But if they wanted to spend their time there, how come they bought so much property in London? If you’ve got it but can’t flaunt it, it’s a lot less fun.
DeWitt,
They’ll also be welcomed in Mexico and Brazil (and most of South America), and there are lots of very nice places in Brazil for those who want a sea-side mansion and a spot for their yacht.
My non Neanderthal young birthing person. song.
Birthing person who must be obeyed. HRH novel and Rumpole of the Bailey references.
Thanks to DeWitt for the inspiration, and Gotty.
The right to abortion issue seems to be slowly biting the Republicans.
Hopefully there will only be a handful of extremist states.
One solution may be using that recent, was in Kentucky, referendum if and when they want to legislate harshly.
Give the people a say on putting it through.
Seperate to their other values.
Only NATO, Biden, et. al. know what the actual unspoken strategy is. I think it can be summed up as:
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Allow Russia to win this war, but try to make it very costly. Throttle the weapons supply to extend the war as long as possible. Support a long term insurgency.
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What we are doing now is working (for NATO) and it is throttled about right. If Russia breaks through and the Ukraine army collapses … then so be it. The war is over, there isn’t going to be a sudden escalation with no fly zones and NATO cruise missiles taking down the Black Sea fleet in a single hour. NATO doesn’t care if they lose this proxy war, but it is very important for Russia to save face. The goal is to demonstrate to the Russians a conventional future fight against NATO is hopeless. This may already be accomplished.
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NATO and Ukraine are only allies of convenience and both sides know it. Ukraine can exit this war on their own terms any time they wish.
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To answer the open ended question, NATO is not prepared or willing to do what it really takes to win a land war against Russia in Ukraine or they would already be doing so. They have always expected Ukraine to lose and are surprised as anyone that they have this opportunity to degrade Russia militarily for only economic costs.
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The west is prepared to continue an economic isolation of Russia to the extent they can. It would be insane strategically to continue to buy gas from Russia given their demonstrated behavior.
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Russia f***ed this up and now they have to bear the consequences of their own actions. Russia might do something even stupider and then things change.
I have to admit that I am a bit confused and ignorant about the current transgender issue. I personally could care less what someone wants to call themselves as long as no special treatment from me is expected in what their re calling themselves. I will judge them best I can as an individual.
I thought it important to determine if one can be considered transgender without surgery or hormones or other treatments to appear, and I guess feel more, like the sex to which they were not biologically born. The link below appears to confirm that one can be transgender without the accoutrements. In that case one would be thought of as a man who considers themselves a woman or a woman who considers themselves a man, but biologically in both cases they remain the sex they were born with and should be so considered.
Now when someone has surgery, hormone treatments and other procedures to be more like the sex they were not born to, at what point are they considered the opposite sex and should be thought of as that sex. Could we dispense with the transgender notation and have the man and woman designation regardless of how they arrived at that sex? Or, as in the example of transgender athletes participating in woman’s sports, is too much residual original sex left to make the woman or man call? Obviously at this point in time the genetic makeups cannot be changed. If the change cannot be sufficiently complete, would it be better to keep the birth sex designation and just consider that there are men who prefer to appear as women or that feel more like a women and the same for women to man considerations.
My point here is to make the designation as simple as possible after consideration of the details without making special designations or big deals out of the matter. I was thinking that considering people who think of themselves as trans species might be used to shed some light on the transgender issue. The link below discusses trans species where such people are called Otherkins. Now consider if a man told you he thought of himself as a gopher because he scurried around a lot and was always looking to get out of sight. Now in that extreme it would be straight forward to consider him a man who thought he was a gopher and in the end he is a man and should be called a man – although probably not one you would necessarily want to hang out with.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/gender-affirmation-do-i-need-surgery
https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/01/otherkins-trans-species-people-dont-identify-human-8787845/
So, Tom, how do they do this? Is it by reading minds much as you have done here?
Seriously though I am in agreement with what you say is playing out in the war. It will not be, in my view, a feather in the Western, NATO and US caps. Also you have not said yet with any detail how the post war plays out for Ukraine and for that matter the nations of the world reactions post facto.
What war sacrifices might appear insane to you. I am thinking a very cold winter for Europeans.
SteveF,
I agree with you and Mike M. It does make a big difference strategically between ending the war now after it has been made very painful for Russia as opposed to appeasing them without a conflict. The latter is asking for a future conflict on NATO territory.
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Personally I always thought this was the obvious strategy and an easy decision to make. It has risks, but doing nothing was arguably riskier. It is difficult to analyze these alternate scenarios but lack of action can be worse. Bush did something in Iraq = Bad, Obama chose to do nothing in Iraq/Syria = Bad.
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If the powers that be believe that Russia has been convinced future fights against NATO are futile then perhaps they will be open to a negotiated settlement and nudging Ukraine that way on the obvious terms everyone already knows. Otherwise let Russia continue to be degraded by their own choice if Ukraine has the will to fight.
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So for now make Russia believe that occupying all of Ukraine will be fought for every inch and NATO will keep sending conventional weapons. Make Russia believe a long term occupation of all of Ukraine will end very badly for them.
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I don’t think the economic war ends though. Europe will have a rough winter but doing business with the Russians and allowing them this kind of leverage was an epic blunder. So pay the price, and fix the blunder, and stop doing business with an untrustworthy partner.
Ah yes, Rumpole and his wife, otherwise known as “she who must be obeyed”. I watched all of his TV episodes. I sometimes referenced my wife as she who must be obeyed and in her company. It never bothered her as I suspect she thought it just another inane pronouncement by her dear hubby.
Tom Scharf (Comment #213988): “Allow Russia to win this war, but try to make it very costly. Throttle the weapons supply to extend the war as long as possible. Support a long term insurgency.”
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Do you have evidence for that? A few months ago, I was very concerned about that being the Biden strategy. But it seems that we have neither the stockpiles or production capacity to do a lot more. Which is shocking it itself.
A few months ago I pointed out a big discrepancy between the employer and household jobs surveys. It was pointed out to me that the difference could be noise in the latter, which can amount to 200-300K in any given month.
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But since March the two surveys have been diverging and now disagree by over 1.8 million jobs. The employer survey has gone up by 1.68 M jobs in 4 months (the economy is booming) while the household survey says that 168 K jobs have been lost. The latter agrees with GDP data that says we are in a recession and the fact that layoffs have been high for the last few months.
Details here: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/something-snaps-job-market-multiple-jobholders-hit-all-time-high-unexplained-18-million
He suggests it has to do with a screwed up seasonal adjustment in the employer survey, but does not give any detail.
Ken,
They devise strategy like they have always done. People with the power make decisions and change their strategy as conditions dictate. They see no advantage in making this public, nor do the Russians. You can try to infer what the actual strategy is by examining their behavior and choices. You asked questions that basically require speculation and mind reading because the strategy isn’t public. Others can debate this as well.
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NATO is not the Federation of Planets here out to do galactic justice. They are a self interested military organization given a specific task to protect its member states. They are behaving as expected in my view.
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Things are not going to end well for Ukraine in the near term for sure. At best it seems they will lose only 1/3 of their territory and then be forced to remain neutral and be “demilitarized” for the medium term. If they are fortunate the west will agree to rebuild western Ukraine and they will ultimately form close ties to the EU economically. And then … later … when Russia no longer has leverage and is momentarily weak then Ukraine joins the EU and NATO. Or it could be completely different.
Mike M,
There is an entire series of long and dry, but oddly fascinating, videos here on the military economics of Russia, NATO, and the Ukraine war.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q/videos
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The Price of War – Can Russia afford a long conflict?
Is NATO running out of weapons to supply Ukraine? (no)
etc.
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It goes deeply into the production and stockpiles of weapons. NATO isn’t going to run out of advanced weapons anytime soon and can produce more. Russia has basically an infinite number of artillery shells for the time being. If NATO wants to win this war, they very, very likely can choose to do so by turning the military crank and use their crushing economic advantage. They just aren’t trying that hard AFAICT and everyone can speculate as to why.
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But you know, Ukraine should have been smushed in a few weeks by the same type of measurements. Spreadsheets don’t always determine the outcome, but they are probably pretty predictive.
You guys are really sharp today. Tom, does anything you’ve read address the replacement of worn-out artillery barrels. I’ve read that the Ukrainians are wearing out theirs, but they are being replaced. The Russians may have a lot of artillery rounds but they also need to replace barrels, and I had read that they were not even close to keeping up.
Mr. Spreadsheet and Logistics goes into the gory detail on all things artillery:
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“Outgunned” – Artillery & The War in Ukraine – Developments, lessons, & logistics
https://youtu.be/EMEpxX7rS5I?t=2464
It’s not clear that weapons aid to Ukraine is actually aiding Ukraine. There was a plane crash that was carrying Ukrainian weapons to Bangladesh or somewhere like that. Without the plane crash no one would have known about it.
MikeN: “It’s not clear that weapons aid to Ukraine is actually aiding Ukraine. There was a plane crash that was carrying Ukrainian weapons to Bangladesh”
If you’re referring to this plane crash, although it was a Ukrainian plane, the cargo involved does not seem to be weapons aid to Ukraine. “The Antonov AN-12 plane took off from an airport in Niš [HW add: this is in Serbia] and was transporting Serbian-made defense products to the Bangladesh Defense Ministry, the customer”, according to the Serbian defense minister.
angech,
True plebiscites are available in about 2/3 of states in the USA. In the others, only the legislatures can add a ballot question…. so policies consistent with the broad national consensus (abortion until 12-15 weeks allowed, late abortion not allowed in most cases) are very unlikely to be enacted in those states. Non-plebiscite states include both very liberal and very conservative states, so I expect there will be strong resistance to moving toward the broad national consensus position in those states.
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As to whether abortion will hurt Republicans: hard to say. It may, if only because it will motivate some moderate voters who would have sat out the November election to go to the polls to vote against Republicans. I expect that would matter more in closely divided states than in very liberal or very conservative states. We will not know until November.
angech,
That broad national consensus on abortion (as I described above) has existed for decades, but I do not believe I have ever heard a politician from either party advocate for the consensus position on abortion. To do so risks loss of support from their own (dedicated and extreme) voter base, with little chance of gaining support from other voters who agree with a more moderate position. Advocating for the consensus position also invites primary challengers…. and most primaries are decided by the most dedicated and most extreme partisans. Which is how we end up with lunatics in the US Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and her equivalent on the right.
Congressional Republicans are supposedly putting together a platform akin to Gingrich’s Contract with America. If they have any sense, they will say that abortion law is up to the states and that they oppose any federal law restricting or permitting abortion. Otherwise, abortion might become a significant factor in many races.
SteveF (Comment #214003): “I do not believe I have ever heard a politician from either party advocate for the consensus position on abortion.”
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From the web site of Mark Ronchetti, Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico:
https://markronchetti.com/issues/abortion/
But such common sense does seem to be rare.
SteveF, Mark.
A sensible national consensus with some mild leeway to the occasional exception that proves the rule would be fantastic.
The roles and ethics are amazing.
I do not think that many men can or could empathise with or contemplate the position that pregnant women find themselves in.
Hence men should not be enforcing their opinions on other people ( women) generally.
A society needs rules and regulations to function and the past criminalisation of out of wedlock pregnancy and the shame that many societies foist on women combined in the past to produce enduring problems.
There are no winners, only losers, and both pro and anti fanatics should just leave it up to the women and doctors and support them with whatever decision they make.
MikeM
Do you happen to know how “gig” workers fit in here? Do their “employers” report them as “employees”? (They are usually contractors, so technically neither is an employer or employee.) If it does somehow feed into jobs reports, it could easily explain people having two jobs. If you get part time work at a grocery store, you do that. Then off hours, you Uber. You might actually prefer this too shifts at widely separated grocery stores where your commute to one is ridiculous.
angech
To be clear– do you mean that
(1) abortion should be absolutely legal at all times? That is are you advocating the individual pregnant woman and whatever doctor she find should be able to make the decision at whatever instant they want.
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Or
(2) that only women and doctors should be allowed to vote on what the law is? That they could, hypothetically make abortion illegal and so prevent individual women from getting abortions.
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Because given the *logical* of in your paragraph, it seems to start out as meaning you support (2). But the actual wording of your sentence sounds like what people say when they mean (1). And the two are very, very different positions.
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(And, by the way, in the US, the “anti-abortion crowd” contains about equal numbers of women and men. The anti-abortion woman are very visible.)
The moderate Republicans should be advocating to allow the people to decide via referendum. Abortion will hurt Republicans if they advocate near total abortion bans enacted by the legislature against the consensus position in their states, and rightfully so. If Alabama votes for a near total ban by referendum then that is OK by me, this is not a constitutional issue. I think the SC ruling was correct in this way.
Things get a bit morally stickier when the woman (oops, birthing person) wants an abortion and the man wants to have the baby because he fervently believes in the baby’s right to life and agrees to raise the child. This is not a new question and I don’t intend to relitigate it here, just pointing out that most of the debate assumes a joint decision has been made. This is not a question that can be answered by logic and science. I think the woman probably ought to get the final call here but it isn’t so simple.
Tom,
I have no idea what Alabama will do. But I suspect a near total ban on abortion will not pass by referendum in most states. Of course, this depends on what “near total ban” means.
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For example: removing ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion. So that should be allowed even with a “total ban”. (Maybe change the word to “ectopic growth”. But some people consider allowing that as a “near total ban”.
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So to understand what “near total ban” means, I need to know all the procedures the bill considers “an abortion” at all, also which of those things are not banned.
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FWIW: I would not support a ban that did not allow 14 year olds to get abortions during the first trimester. That’s definitely an abortion and I think it should not be banned. Others disagree.
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I agree the issue would not be “constitutional”. I just think such a law would be wrong.
Tom
Sure. There is assymetry in these situation. That springs from the blatantly obvious biological asymmetry.
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If there is a difference of opinion on having the abottion, I think the “birthing person””s choice should certainly trump the “non-birthing persons” choice. That is true both for the decision to have or not have an abortion.
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No matter what the non-birthing person promises, they aren’t actually carrying the embrio/fetus for the duration of the pregnancy. The embrio/fetus can’t be transferred to their womb so it’s physically not possible. Whether well meaning or not, they don’t doesn’t face health risks (whether minor or not) associated with either the birth or the abortion. The non-birthing person doesn’t even face swelling feet, the need to get different clothes, recommendation to refrain from liquor yada, yada.
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Not having an expanding belly, the non-birthing person can also escape a fair amount of social opprobrium in many cases where the woman cannot.
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Beyond that, as a practical matter, to enforce his right he needs to prove the baby is his not some other XY persons kid. The woman might just say someone else is the probably the father. Proving otherwise is evidently possible after nine weeks — with a blood test.
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Meanwhile, birthing person may well want to terminate promptly. Mifepristone which be used before 10 weeks. After that, only surgical procedures are available That’s an awfully tight window between being able to disprove a paternity claim and being able to get a non-surgical abortion.
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Regardless of method, longer wais entail greater health risks of the abortion. Making a woman disprove a paternity claim before having an abortion has potential health consequences for her but none for the man claiming to be the father.
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We could then get into “presumptive” father laws– but that would then only give current husbands any right to prohibit the abortion. (They are presumptive father’s whether they want to be or not.) I might be willing to give them some rights over their presumed fetuses. But that’s the only category of non-birthing parent who I think should have any right. I still think there should be quite a few situation where the wife still can overrule the husband on abortion (and other choices).(And vice versa.)
Mike M,
Thanks for pointing out the position on abortion of Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor in NM.
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The only available polls show the current Dem governor beating Ronchetti, and Larry Sabato has the race “leaning Dem”. We’ll see if adopting a sensible position helps Ronchetti in November or not. As far as I can tell, there is today no abortion law of any kind in New Mexico…. that means post-viability abortion on demand, up to 9 months (AKA infanticide). I hope that changes, but the Dems in NM seem adamant that it will not change; the composition of the NM House and Senate suggests there is no possibility of enacting restrictions of any kind. (My understanding is that ballot measures initiated by the voters can only refute existing legislation, not enact new legislation, so the legislature has complete control.)
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You are a resident, can you judge if the consensus position has a chance in NM?
Lucia,
I agree that women (sorry, non-gendered birthing persons 😉 ) should get to decide to get an abortion within the laws of the jurisdiction where the abortion takes place. Of course, a husband could well choose to leave a marriage if his wife ends a pregnancy over his objections, and I suspect many would. But in most cases, I expect a couple can work these things out.
Ugh. Not even in jest, no.
Woman. Woo-Man. Not ‘birthing person’!
:p
mark bofill,
I have to laugh at the idiots; I just can’t help myself.
mark bofill,
It is extremely difficult to write about the subject of pregnancy and abortion rights in a non-gendered way. I tried my best, but did occasionally give up and use “his” and “man” etc.
SteveF,
Yes. The non-birthing person may and likely will make decisions about the relationship based on the birthing person’s choice over the abortion. That goes in both directions.
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I had a long time boyfriend in college who, for some reason, at some point decided to bring up abortion. He wanted to let me know that if I got pregnant, he would expect me to have an abortion for “reasons” all of which, as far, as I could tell, were about him and none about me. (We’d been having sex for at least a year. Which is why I say he brought it up “for some reason”. )
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I conversation ensued (not angry one). I’m pretty sure he was a bit surprised by my position on the issue.
It’s all very silly. The activists want to call a trans-man a “woman” because there is a stigma attached to trans-man in their view. Perhaps this is true. However it is obviously necessary to have separate words for these types of people for different scenarios. Pregnancy, surgery, athletics, pharmaceuticals, etc.
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No matter what the language authoritarians do this requirement will not change. They could have just stuck with Trans-Man or used WomanY and ManX or whatever. So now they want a common definition used for centuries and well understood to be changed to remove alleged stigma. Are we going to rewrite a million medical books here? What do they write on the form at a doctor’s appt?
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The redefinition of existing words is an ongoing adventure into the absurd. The main reason gay “marriage” was a thing is because activists demanded to be able to use marriage instead of civil unions which in most places carried the same legal rights as married couples, but religious people objected to the term marriage which was both legal and religious in nature. This could have been resolved by changed all legal needs to civil unions and let churches keep marriage. But no.
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Negro, black, African American. Changing terms because of alleged stigma. Has anything really changed because activists forced another terminology change? The worst one is probably LatinX which nobody wants except for some uber-left liberals from what I can tell, and I have no idea what that was even for.
SteveF (Comment #214015): “The only available polls show the current Dem governor beating Ronchetti, and Larry Sabato has the race “leaning Dem”.”
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From MLG’s latest fund-raising pitch:
Of course, she could be lying. Actually she is lying when she calls Ronchetti a “far right extremist”. He would be better described as a RINO.
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SteveF: “As far as I can tell, there is today no abortion law of any kind in New Mexico…. that means post-viability abortion on demand, up to 9 months (AKA infanticide)”.
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That used to be the case. But concerns over what SCOTUS might do led the Dems to officially make all-but-infanticide the law of the land. There are reports of abortionists moving to New Mexico from Texas.
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I think that a consensus law might have a chance if Republicans can somehow gain control of the governorship and narrow control of both houses of the legislature. AFAIKT, the state Dems have purged all their moderates from the legislature.
Tom Scharf,
As long as they’re going to invent words like latinx, they could invent words for transgendered persons and leave the definitions of man, an adult male of the species H. sapiens sapiens, woman, an adult female, boy, an immature male and girl, an immature female to be what the had been for centuries. No amount of surgery and chemicals can make a biological male into a biological female or vice versa.
That also means, IMO, that using an irreversible procedure on someone before the age of consent should be considered severe child abuse. A parent has no more right to mutilate their children than they have to refuse to give them medical treatment if they’re ill.
There’s also no right in law, AFAICT, to not be offended. Hence there is no requirement to use different pronouns other than politeness.
For those who don’t keep track, Websters, to apparently attempt to “clarify” the transgender issue, has helpfully added that the definition of man is not a woman and the definition of a woman is not a man…
Tom Scharf
The difficulty is changing words won’t change whatever stigma there is. Or, even if there isn’t a “stigma” but rather just a distinction changing the word isn’t going to change that.
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The fact is there are differences between “Tran-Xs” and “Cis-Xs”. Trans-women don’t have wombs. I have no idea if Trans-men have penises of any sort, but I kinda expect that if they do, they aren’t quite “the same”.
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In terms of sexual attraction, people are going to have preferences they have. This goes for tall, short, fat, thin, blond, brunette, white, black, asian… whatever. Lots of women go for tall. You can’t lecture them into feeling short is just as good. I have a friend who is gaga for blonds. There is no amount of lecturing that could ever make her become ga-ga for dark hair. Lots of guys prefer slender women. No amount of lecturing them about patriarchy, misogyny or fat acceptance is going to make them sudden say “Oh, that 5’4″ 180 lb woman has it in all the right places!” Calling her “curvy” instead of “fat” isn’t going to make anyone not see that she is… well… not slender.
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Words do matter. You don’t want to go around hurting people. But changing words can’t always “fix” the thing that is broken.
DaveJR,
That sort of thing would get you a syntax error when coding or using a spreadsheet. It’s the poster child for circular reasoning or begging the question.
One of the better podcasts on Ukraine and other world events. Well worth the time to view.
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The latest reviews the EU threat of sanctions vs Turkey due to their trade with Russia, which is insane as Turkey trade with Russia doesn’t violate current Russian sanctions.
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As NATO/EU relationships with Turkey is somewhat strained already, sanctions imposed on Turkey could lead to a full break between Turkey and NATO/EU and fully ally Turkey with Iran and Russia.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNv_psx94I
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Russia Storming Key Town of Bakhmut. Zelensky Admits Suffering Heavy Losses. FT, Turkey Realigning
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Lucia,
“Calling her “curvy” instead of “fat” isn’t going to make anyone not see that she is… well… not slender.”
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Made me laugh more than a little…. mostly because I was expecting “fat” at the end, not “not slender”.
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When I encounter a “trans-woman”, who is 6’3″ and built along the lines of Bruce Jenner, with a voice to match, nothing about what that person says, does, or wears is going to make me think…. ‘Sure, that’s a woman’. When I encounter a “trans-man” who is 5’3″, with a body shaped like an overweight 25 YO woman and a voice to match, nothing about what that person says, does, or wears is going to make me think… ‘Sure, that’s a guy’. I do feel sorry for people so plainly unhappy in their own skin; it seems sad. But trans women shouldn’t be competing in sports against women, and they sure as heck shouldn’t be in a lady’s locker room. The whole LGBTQWERTY movement is way out of control.
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Besides they haven’t yet found sexually aggrieved groups to be represented by each letter in the alphabet, which suggests some lack of imagination. 😉
DavidJR,
Presumably neither is a monkey or a horse either.
Since early term abortion, with exception for the woman’s health, has a relatively large majority favorability, I would think that an amendment to the US constitution on the matter would be in order. Some states might want to try that route also. I believe the process, even if not successful, would smoke out those politicians who are either noncommittal on the issue or at the extremes of no abortion and late abortion.
The amendment might even be ratified in a timely manner. The last amendment (the 27th) only took 202 years to be ratified and that thanks to a paper by a sophomore in college who said it could be completed. He got a C grade for his efforts.
I also think that a US constitutional amendment on the gerrymandering problem is in order and for the same reasons of voting population favorability and an opportunity of revealing the hypocrite politicians.
I attempted to verse those reading and posting here on trans species, but some apparently were not paying attention. We should all become familiar with otherkins.
I told the story here before about a trans conversion where I worked many years ago and will not repeat the details but to say the trans person called attention to the transformation from the beginning and the company and employees were ok with it. I would see the person at technical gatherings before and after the transformation. I did have compassion for what the individual must have gone through, but after the gathering I would tell my wife that I could readily recognize the trans person before and after with the only difference being that before the guy wore pants, had a beard and was not very good looking and after the gal unfortunately looked like the same guy without a beard, wearing a dress and walking with some difficulty in high heels. The guy and the gal evidently had similar technical abilities because I saw both at our annual patent banquets.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214029): “Since early term abortion, with exception for the woman’s health, has a relatively large majority favorability, I would think that an amendment to the US constitution on the matter would be in order. Some states might want to try that route also. I believe the process, even if not successful, would smoke out those politicians who are either noncommittal on the issue or at the extremes of no abortion and late abortion.”
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That seems pretty detached from reality. Two thirds of both houses of congress and 38 states supporting that? Not a chance. And there is no deed to “smoke out politicians”. Virtually all Democrat politicians are proud to be on one extreme and nearly as many Republican politicians are proud to be on the other extreme.
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On the other hand, if you really want to tear the country apart, get such a campaign rolling.
I have to say that I appreciated the response to my questions posed on the Ukraine war. The Blackboard continues to be one of the few discussion centers where things do not get emotional or personal.
I realize that posters here see the war through different lenses and my views are going to be different than most not only on this subject but others also. It is of interest for me to get the detailed basis for how others think about these topics.
So MikeM are you saying that an issue where most US voters agree and evidently against a near total disagreement by politicians that we should not talk about it for fear of tearing the country apart? Surely you jest. Or I misunderstand.
Lucia
(1) abortion should be absolutely legal at all times? That is are you advocating the individual pregnant woman and whatever doctor she find should be able to make the decision at whatever instant they want.
Or
(2) that only women and doctors should be allowed to vote on what the law is? That they could, hypothetically make abortion illegal and so prevent individual women from getting abortions.
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Help.
What I wanted to say is that in an ideal world the woman should have the right to make decisions about her life and the lives she is to bring into the world.
Beyond that simple statement of personal right which we all aspire to, lie the problems of society and others individual rights.
These issues, religious, moral and religious moral impose rules and regulations forcing choices on people by the society they live in.
One either obeys, rebels (criminal) or resists.
Some people choose to leave.
The underlying sad refrain to many other issues than just abortion.
Doctors” are just facilitators or not depending on their own views, not .
Women as a voting group are a manifestation of a society.
One of the saddest things medically are the women who are ostracised when they have a female baby, how indoctrinated are they to not even like their same sex.
Ditto re banning abortion.
Kenneth,
“…are you saying that an issue where most US voters agree and evidently against a near total disagreement by politicians that we should not talk about it for fear of tearing the country apart?”
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I don’t think there is a plausible route to an amendment. So I am not at all worried anyone will try to pass any such amendment. The reason we have laws that almost uniformly don’t match anywhere near the broad consensus is, well, because most politicians are considerably less principled than prostitutes, and far less honest. (Florida, I note, is the rare exception, with a 15 week limit with no restrictions…. pending a final ruling by the Florida supreme court… a district judge temporarily blocked the law from going into effect.)
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There is little upside for politicians to support the public consensus on abortion, because the most motivated voters (and often single-issue!) sit at the extremes, and will punish any politician who strays from an extreme position. If the current governor of NY came out in favor of a 15 week limit, explaining that it is broadly supported by the public, she would lose support of the extreme left, and probably even lose the general election. If Sarah Hukabee Sanders (candidate for governor of Arkansas) came out in favor of the same 15 week limit, she could lose the general in November, in spite of Arkansas tilting heavily toward Republicans.
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The same effect applies to other contentious issues as well, but abortion is the most extreme case. If getting elected and re-elected is what politicians most want in life, then the lack of sensible laws on abortion make perfect sense.
angech,
“One of the saddest things medically are the women who are ostracised when they have a female baby, how indoctrinated are they to not even like their same sex.”
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That is horrible, and I do hope it is not common in Australia. I had three sons and three daughters, each quite different from the others, but I love them all. I can’t imagine a child’s gender would make a difference to a parent.
Another of the Republicans in the House that voted to impeach Trump two weeks before leaving office (Rep Herrera Beutler) has apparently gone down to defeat in Washington State, edged out by a Trump endorsed candidate. Herrera Beutler nearly made it through because the vote against her was split between two other Republicans; without that split of the Republican vote she would have lost in a landslide instead of a fraction of a %.
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So 10 voted to impeach. Four did not run for re-election, three have already lost in primaries, Liz Cheney is almost certain to lose her primary in WY, and two of the 10 (one in California and one in Washington State) survived primary challenges.
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That vote for impeachment seemed to me weird, because Trump was never going to be convicted by the Senate; it ended political careers with absolutely no effect on the outcome of the impeachment process. Maybe they thought Republican voters in their districts would view their vote as a plus.
Tom,
I listened to the podcast you linked to and it was very well done. One area that was ignored regarding gps guided munitions was regarding the survivability of the gps system itself.
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Per wiki,
“.. As of 25 June 2022, 78 Global Positioning System navigation satellites have been built: 31 are launched and operational, 3 are unhealthy or in reserve, 41 are retired, 2 were lost during launch, and 1 prototype was never launched. The constellation requires a minimum of 24 operational satellites, and allows for up to 32; typically, 31 are operational at any one time. A GPS receiver needs four satellites to work out its position in three dimensions..”
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If Russia is in a major conflict with an enemy who who relies heavily on gps and finds itself at major disadvantage, it would be in Russian interest to take out the orbital gps system.
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Such an orbital strike would make much of the earth orbital space unhealthy due to the huge amount of debris generated by both strike weapons and the destroyed satellites.
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Russia is focused on defending its borders and possible actions in neighboring areas. The US is configured to fight in areas far from its own homeland. As such, Russia is much less reliant on orbital satellites than is the west, so can function much more effectively without satellites than can the west.
angech
Based on this I have no idea what position you advocate for abortion. Are you saying in the ‘ideal world’ it should be legal up to the moment after a baby emerges from the birth canal? Or something else? Only you can tell us because I’m asking your position.
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Huh? In the US, no doctor is required to provide an abortion just because a woman asks. They get to have their own views on this. They aren’t just “facilitators”.
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Of course. But you seemed to possibly suggest only women should be allowed to vote on this subject. Or you seemed to suggest even wouldn’t couldn’t make the decision for other women. Do you take either position? Once again, I’m asking your position. Because you are posting words that sound like you are trying to communicate a position. But what that might be is totally unclear.
I’m not aware of this happening much in the US. I’m pretty sure doctors don’t ostracize women for having a female baby. Either does society. Maybe occasionally some unusual families really, really, really want boys. But I have, in my life, never heard of women in the US being ostracized for having a girl baby.
I’m guessing you are saying you think banning abortion is a medically sad thing? Or not?
But I still don’t know what degree of prohibition or permission you support. Most American’s support legal abortion in the first trimester.
After that support drops– but some think it should be allowed until the moment the baby has emerged from the birth canal. And some think it should be banned.
I think it should be legal by woman’s choice during the first trimester at least.
There is little doubt that everyone has worked on or is working on anti-satellite weapons, and anti-anti-satellite weapons. Russia has recently launched “satellites” right after US launches their secret high value miltary satellites and they get in a very close orbit to take a very close look.
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It’s not very hard to take the next step to just taking the satellite out. Russia has their own GPS system. Even easier than taking out GPS satellites is just jamming the GPS system locally. I don’t think it is a particularly strong signal.
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Its yet another arms race at a different level, nothing really new except the cost for rockets and anti-satellite weapons is rapidly dropping. Russia knows how to build rockets, but isn’t progressing lately. The US has invested huge amounts of money into anti-ICBM interceptors and these can theoretically also be used to take out anything Russia launches. I don’t think anyone will know how robust that stuff is until the shooting starts.
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The defense department has no doubt thought about these things but who knows what the plan is. High value satellites likely have some forms of defense but we aren’t likely to know what that is. The plan may be to simply launch a lot of replacements as necessary for simple things like GPS. Some of these systems will be vulnerable. If all else fails then they just have to use dumb artillery which can still be quite accurate if it has a spotter. There are also laser guided bombs, terrain following cruise missiles (Tomahawk), and so on. The US is not dependent on one technology. They obtained pretty good accuracy on ICBM’s with inertial guidance without satellites 50 years ago.
India banned doctors revealing the sex of the baby for fear of girls being aborted.
MikeN,
India is neither Australia, nor the USA.
Would like to talk about Trump raid but since I did make some comments on another issue I would like to answer like this.
Lucia, Advocate?
I do not wish to advocate, never have and never will.
In an ideal world the question of abortion would not arise.
My position on abortion, as a person, as a doctor and as a member of society?
Personally I do not believe in abortion.
Practically as I said the choice belongs, and always will, to the mother.
Societies set their own rules.
Medically the earlier steps are taken the safer for the mother.
A compassionate and caring society should allow abortion up to 16 weeks for social reasons and possibly 20 weeks for severe foetal problems like anencephaly.
Doctors are people and can agree or refuse, I think I said that previously?
Unlike US wedding cake shop owners.
“I think it should be legal by woman’s choice during the first trimester at least.”
Total agreement.
angech
It happened last night. My opinion on whether it is justified or an abuse depends on the details. If it violates the 4th amendment, I’m against it. But I don’t think there is a blanket exemption from prosecution or investigation for former Presidents, Vice Presidents, congress critters or other.
I haven’t read details so I have formed no opinion.
Angech,
But you are writing posts that sound like advocacy. You are, in fact, using the precise statements advocates for unlimited abortion at the mother’s choice use to say that unlimited abortion should be legal. (By unlimited I mean “up to the second of before the baby is entirely out of the birth canal”.
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But it does. And, more over, you are posting. It is better if you post clear statement rather than obscure ones.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214033): “are you saying that an issue where most US voters agree and evidently against a near total disagreement by politicians that we should not talk about it for fear of tearing the country apart? Surely you jest. Or I misunderstand.”
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I am certainly not saying that we don’t talk about it. I am saying that raising the stakes beyond all reason is counterproductive.
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What you propose is actually quite extreme. First off, it is a one sided, pro-abortion proposal. You could make it more even handed by also banning post-viability abortion, but that will only double the number of determined opponents. Enshrining a right in the constitution could lead to courts expanding that right and striking down conscience laws.
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I am skeptical that there is a position on abortion on which most voters agree. There is a large minority that wants to ban all abortions, a large minority that wants no limits, and a large minority that is somewhere in between. At best there is a compromise to be had. The nature of that compromise will vary from state to state and might vary over time as each side tries to make progress.
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Forcing a final showdown likely would tear the country apart.
MikeM
I agree with this. So I think trying to get an amendment into a constitution is likely futile.
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However, I don’t think someone trying would tear the country apart. If by “try” you mean suggest one should be made and try to collect together some people who suggest we try to amend the constitution, people try to get amendments all the time. They just fail so far away from viability that you barely notice anyone is trying. No vote in congress. No constitutional convention. Yada, yada.
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I think a federal abortion amendment attempt would just fail. But tear the country apart? Nah.
Lucia,
The off-the-record explanations from the DOJ are that Trump may have illegally removed classified documents. That strikes me as rubbish, because the president has absolute authority over declaration of classification status. (This unlike Hillary, who did not have that authority.). To suggest Trump broke the law over his handling of classified documents is farcical. This is a simple fishing expedition, and will not end well. Kevin McCarthy has already said he will investigate the DOJ’s actions against Trump when he is speaker in January 2023. I think simple defunding to a level which requires firing of 70% of the DOJ would be more effective than investigations, since the DOJ will for sure refuse to answer any questions.
lucia (Comment #214047): “However, I don’t think someone trying would tear the country apart. … They just fail so far away from viability that you barely notice anyone is trying.”
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I agree. Ken Fritsch seems to think that such an attempt could actually be viable. So my “tear the country apart” comment was assuming the counterfactual of a viable attempt.
SteveF,
Shouldn’t it be “The president had absolute authority over classification status”
Is there any chance that this stuff was moved after he’d left office?
Democrats doubling down on “rules for thee but not for me”. There is no line they can cross nor law they can break for which they are held accountable. Those who won’t bend the knee better be whiter than white because the jackbooted, or suited, thugs will be paying you a visit to see what they can dig up.
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I guess we shall find out what the ballot box has to say, or whether it still has the power to say it. Either way, I don’t like where this is going.
The linked poll article has a 60% of those polled in the US favoring first trimester abortions with a fall off in favorability beyond that point. It has 69% of those polled not in favor of repealing Roe V Wade.
The current Supreme Court found that since the US Constitution was silent on abortion that the states had jurisdiction. I would concur with the general judgment that for the Constitution to have meaning it cannot be creatively interpreted and further that the process of changing it is through the provisions for amendments.
I think what I am hearing here is that our system of a republican and constitutional form of government with some democratic principles thrown in does not really work. The two-party system we have allows a small minority from both parties to control otherwise democratic actions and the alternative to creative interpretation in our republican form of government, i.e., amendments, are for pipe dreamers.
While that view may be a realistic take on the current situation, I do not believe that we should avoid testing what some may think is the way these things should work and at least have a discussion.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-on-abortion-in-5-charts/
Here it comes again, that tired old chant: No one is above the law.
Except Hunter Biden.
mark bofill (Comment #214053): “Here it comes again, that tired old chant: No one is above the law.
Except Hunter Biden.”
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And Hillary. And Bill. And the FBI bigwigs who cheated to get FISA warrants so as to push the Russia collusion hoax, and … oh never mind.
https://babylonbee.com/news/hunter-biden-breathes-sigh-of-relief-as-fbi-raid-team-passes-by-his-house-on-way-to-mar-a-lago
Ken Fritsch,
You’re looking at the polls in a too limited fashion. I posted a while back on this pointing out that of those who favor abortion, ~30% want unlimited abortion on demand. Then there are the ~20% who want no abortion at all, ever. That leaves, at best, ~50% who want limited abortion. That’s not going to get you a constitutional amendment. A Federal law trying to reimpose Roe v. Wade would most likely be declared unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court. It’s up to the individual states, as it should always have been.
john ferguson,
ABC News headline, Jan 20, 2020: “Trump leaves White House hours before Biden’s inauguration”
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So unless he snuck back in, undetected, and departed with boxes of documents some time after Joe Biden arrived, he was still president the last time he was in the White House. Everything the House and the DOJ are doing is a fishing expedition. This is all unprecedented, and far uglier than anything associated with Watergate . IMHO the Dems pursuing Trump is doing terrible damage to the country, and will have very bad long term consequences.
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And BTW, there is no law, no matter its text, that can disqualify Trump from running again; the qualifications for the presidency are natural born citizen and over 35. The SC will instantly strike any effort to prohibit Trump from running based on anything else….. he could be elected sitting in a Federal prison cell, then pardon himself on January 20, 2025.
Reading between the lines and donning my tin foil hat, I suppose it’s possible Trump did procure documents that shine light where light is not wanted and he’s holding them back for 2024.
The FBI better have iron clad probable cause to force open Trump’s safe. If this was a fishing expedition then that is not going to go over well. This decision had to be made by the Attorney General is my guess.
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As I have stated many times, I’m not going to be particularly sorry to see Trump go down but this has to be done ethically and seen to be fair with how Clinton/Server was handled and Hunter Biden are treated. You cannot politically persecute Trump because he is a disreputable clown. This is a pretty dangerous phase for the DOJ, they better handle it correctly. I’m not particularly confident they will.
SteveF,
I don’t have any problem with him running again.
Dewitt
I agree with Dewitt.
In the path always used, you need 2/3 of states to pass an amendment.
I would vote down an amendment to totally ban abortion. I would vote down an amendment to guaranteed unlimited abortion.
And I’m not even sure I would want an amendment that guarantees abortion in the first trimester. I favor that law. But I am also aware of the pace of technology. If we invented artificial wombs and they were safe, and transfer was safe for the mother, I would not guarantee abortion.
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I would likely favor a law that provided for transfer a fetus/embryo to an artificial womb at the DNA father’s discretion and expense if he wished to take over full custody and acknowledge paternity along with its financial responsibilities. (The mother might be able to object that if the father is insane, currently incarcerated, drug addicted, previously accused of child abuse and so on. But otherwise, she would have to prove these objections in court to some reasonable standard.)
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He would be granted custody at that point. As it is the father’s request, I would also require the Dad to also put 3 months support in escrow. (Yep. Not being real kind to indigent fathers who don’t have parents, friends or some church group who might help him put up the money. But the kid needs to be supported.)
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After the baby is born, the mother could retain standing as “parent” in courts. The courts could hammer out support agreements (so the father might be awarded child support.) She could also try to get some custody or visitation with some visitation granted immediately. But for the first year, the father would be given full custody unless you could prove he was a bad parent (as in drug addicted etc.)
The constitution was made very hard to change intentionally. The set of laws/rights that even the legislature and states cannot override cannot be subject to the whims of slim majorities and the culture and passion of the moment. As to whether the extremes are being given veto power over the majority I would say that the constitution is the best weapon against those extremes in most cases. Freedom of speech is an example.
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Abortion has majority support in the abstract, but that is different than getting the kind of support necessary for a very specific policy actually written down. The more it is defined, the less support it will have. Regardless, the first step in getting to a point of thinking about a constitutional amendment is the demonstration that states themselves support that type of policy in large numbers.
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For example, many states banned affirmative action by replicating almost the exact language of the constitution. This passed constitutional muster and was supported in many states.
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Although I would support a constitutional amendment for abortion, I also don’t think the reality of leaving this up to the states is the end of the world. Driving across a state border is inconvenient, but it’s not forcing women to have babies. If states started prosecuting women for having abortions then I would much more fervently support a federal solution.
NYT: At the last minute, a lobbying blitz left the bill’s new corporate minimum tax rife with exceptions.
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Well, knock me over with a feather. Shocking, just shocking.
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This happens every time, the revenue generating parts of a bill are not so secretly axed but the spending parts are not. Very aggravating. I am so sick of mega-spending bills.
True to form, Hillary is fundraising off the raid with “but her emails” merchandise and goes on to talk about defending “our democracy” and “our values”. A stark reminder from a serial offender that “their democracy” and “their values” are corruption and a lust for power.
Tom Scharf,
And the carried interest deduction survives to live another day. Maybe this will mean that Democrats can’t use failure to eliminate that deduction as a club to beat up Republicans when/if Republicans regain control of Congress, but I doubt it. When is a politician a hypocrite? It’s when his lips are moving.
As far as a corporate minimum tax, given how the Alternative Minimum Income Tax worked out, I don’t see how it’s a good idea. And that’s not to mention the argument that any corporate income tax is a bad idea to start with. The only thing I can think of that would be worse would be a wealth tax that applied to unrealized earnings like stock ownership.
For anyone still interested but not enough to actually read The Bell Curve, the problem is that Hernstein and Murray were mostly looking for differences in population IQ score means. But instead of using the t-test or Z test to see if the population means were significantly different, they put the populations on the y axis at either end of an x-axis and calculated R^2 as if the data were distributed more or less evenly in a straight line along the x axis. Just for a start, the x axis end values had precisely nothing to do with the two populations.
For some things it’s quite likely that the population means were, in fact, significantly different, but without access to the actual data, we’ll never know.
It seems that Trump was cooperating with the agency looking at the records issue and that he turned 15 boxes of documents over to them. So it looks very much like the highly theatrical raid on Trump’s home was just an excuse to go fishing through documents hoping to get something on Trump.
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Governor Larry Hogan, no friend of Trump, has issued this statement:
https://mocoshow.com/blog/governor-hogan-statement-on-fbi-search-of-mar-a-lago/
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Spot on. This has the potential to blow up big time on the FBI and Garland.
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Does Trump have the right to make public the search warrant?
I see two sides to the abortion issue that think come down to some rights, or at least issues, that need US Constitutional protections. One involves the unborn and late term abortions and the other involves the woman rights and early term abortions.
There are 5 states that had and have no restrictions on abortion timing and now we are seeing several states that have severely restricted abortions. Maybe there are those who are OK with these developments on the basis of only caring about protecting one of these two rights in their states, but do not count me as one of them.
Lucia, it is Ken Fritsch, aka Kenneth, in moderation again. Maybe this time I did something worse than changing my name.
I would not be so quick as some are to take Trump’s side in the search of his home. I would want to see more background information on the matter.
I think that those politicians who are running in not deep red voting areas that have taken the Trump election denial pledge could be in big trouble with many independents and some Republicans. I do not think that conspiracy theories without an inkling of evidence will go over big with those who are not Trump worshippers. The abortion issue is going to play against Republicans candidates in not so red voting areas and particularly those who want near complete restrictions.
I do not see a Republican gain in the mid terms as a slam dunk as some do. I believe there are indications of a tightening of the races already.
I think the issue is that I will not take the FBI’s word that they had probable cause. I do not trust them on this particular subject. They may very well have probable cause, but I will judge that for myself. They need to be forthcoming with that information.
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The definition of a fishing expedition is not charging Trump with anything related to this probable cause (removal of documents?) and using what was found in another charge. If this happens then half of the US will explode against the FBI.
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The spectacle of CNN having the “expert” Andrew McCabe explain this action to the public is farcical. Not exactly the right messenger.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #214070): “I would not be so quick as some are to take Trump’s side in the search of his home. I would want to see more background information on the matter.”
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You’ve got that backwards. The benefit of the doubt belongs to the citizen,not the authorities. There does not to be any sound basis for the search rather than a simple subpoena. And certainly no basis for being so theatrical about it.
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Ultimately, this is not about Trump. It is about you and me and anyone who would challenge the power of the existing regime.
Here is a real problem the country faces: Federal bureaucracies lean politically (overwhelmingly) to support Democrats and support the policies Democrats advocate. The result is that bureaucrats do exactly what Democrats want when Democrats are in power, but fight at every level to resist acting on what Republicans want to do when Republicans are in power.
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The only solution seems to me a revision of civil service rules to make all bureaucrats 2 or 3 levels below political appointees subject to immediate discharge based only on the judgement of political appointees. Keeping your job would then depend on convincing political appointees that you are not actively (or even passively) resisting the direction of the0 administration in power. There are only ~4,000 political appointees at the Federal level, but if they can extend their influence down 3 levels, then half a million of more bureaucrats would be facing bad consequences for resisting an administration’s directives.
Welcome Ken Fritsch. You are now unmoderated. 🙂
(There was a typo in your email.)
Tom Scharf
I have the same position. But I recognize they need not have supplied the public this information prior to the search. But the search has now happened. We deserve this information by tomorrow night and no later.
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A judge must need to supply a warrant… right? If not something is seriously wrong. If yes, it ought to be possible to learn what argument and evidence the FBI supplied said judge. And the judge should be named and any court case info unsealed.
Tom Scharf,
“They may very well have probable cause, but I will judge that for myself. They need to be forthcoming with that information.”
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Don’t hold your breath. The DOJ will NEVER be forthcoming with information about their political shenanigans. They are little better than Brownshirts when it comes to targeting political opponents. It is why the organization needs to be largely defunded.
Lucia,
“We deserve this information by tomorrow night and no later.”
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There is not a snowball’s chance in Hell that we will ever get the information you want. The DOJ conducts itself like a bunch of politically motivated thugs, because, well, that is what they are, starting with the lead thug… the execrable Merrick Garland. IMHO, defunding the DOJ is the only appropriate response.
Good sense from Alan Dershowitz on the raid:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3594412-justice-department-should-have-subpoenaed-documents-not-raided-trumps-home/amp/
The judge was apparently Bruce Reinhart. Tin foil hat intensifies!
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“Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018.”
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https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/judge-who-approved-fbi-raid-on-mar-a-lago-once-linked-to-jeffrey-epstein/
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In other rumors. Trump was already cooperating with the FBI on the security of papers he held. The FBI accused his lawyers of being less cooperative the second time around.
Once upon a time Civil Service employment was at will. Employees were not allowed to appeal their firing. But thanks to JFK, we not only got federal employee unions, but the end to employment at will and the ability to appeal a dismissal. Insubordination should not be an appealable reason for dismissal.
According to the Washington Post, Trump should have a copy of the search warrant and he can make it public. Surprised that he has not.
Lucia
“But you are writing posts that sound like advocacy.”
Sorry.
Your position is the one that is most sensible.
Re Trump and Churchill
They have sown the wind,
Now they will reap the whirlwind!
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214081): “According to the Washington Post, Trump should have a copy of the search warrant and he can make it public. Surprised that he has not.”
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The search warrant would probably not be very informative. What matters is the affidavit used to get the warrant. Trump does not have that.
angech (Comment #213331) July 9th, 2022 at 8:42 pm
Less than 150 days to a change in the house.
Jan6 committee, tree and witness huggers , have to get everything wrapped up quickly for the third trial by the DOJ (Garland?)
-All the props seem to be in place, news agencies on side and DOJ lining up people to charge.
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Was this comment really 32 days ago?
SteveF all your nightmares at once, Trump likely to run and therefore lose?
Those deep staters really have it all worked out.
angech,
I do think Trump is about the only Republican who could lose the presidential election in 2024, because he has extremely high (>50%), strong negatives among likely voters, and because he will conduct himself just as childishly and obnoxiously during the campaign as he has since 2016. But short of a serious health issue, I think there is no chance Trump will not run in 2024. The guy is far too self centered to ever even consider that his candidacy might be very bad for the country.
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Someone like DeSantis would be a far stronger candidate and a far more effective chief executive, and could make real progress toward dismantling the administrative state. DeSantis is as smart as a whip and he usually gets the better of the leftist media when they distort what he says and does, cooly pointing out their distortions and deceptions, countering with a clear presentation of the facts. But with Trump running, no other candidate has a plausible path to be the Republican candidate.
SteveF
I agree with you on all points re: DeSantis but I’m not so sure he couldn’t win
The link below has good details on search warrants. I would think that knowing what was in the Trump warrant could provide some background information in lieu of delayed future information. For example, was it so worded that it could be used as part of a fishing expedition for Jan 6th and did it mention the safe that Trump says they broke.
I am of two considerations in the current Trump matter. First of all no person is above the law fits well with my view of the US public being too easy on politicians when it comes to wrong doings on their part. Politicians wield lots of power over the people and thus I do not see why they should not be given special scrutiny over their behavior. Secondly I think that the FBI for a long time has had too much power, too much discretion in how they use that power and too opaque in their carrying out their mission. When it is said that what they are doing to Trump they can someday do to you I would say in reply: well, as a matter of fact they can already do it to people like me and have done it. The love affair between the FBI and conservatives might be over. If that leads to defunding, diminution of its power or cancelling the FBI it would be fine with me.
When I first heard Christopher Wray interviewed my thought was here is a guy who cheerleads for the FBI and is not someone who is in a reforming and even controlling mood. He was, of course, appointed by Donald Trump.
https://www.adamsluka.com/what-is-a-search-warrant-and-in-what-situations-are-they-necessa.html
I’d prefer DeSantis simply because I shudder to think what kind of madness the establishment would justify to oppose another Trump presidency. At least DeSantis could defuse that rabid hatred to some degree.
“if police do happen across evidence of a crime or contraband in the course of performing a search for specifically listed items”
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This is the loophole for fishing expeditions. This isn’t a secret, it is a known technique to get search warrants for low level criminal things to search for other things they don’t have enough evidence for yet. Totally legal if enough plausible deniability.
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Low level things like “might have papers from the National Archive”. What on earth could be in those papers that they need a search warrant for to retrieve? Why didn’t they go the subpoena route? It’s the only paper copy? Trump couldn’t have copied them? Etc.
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Garland needs to publicly justify this raid, period. He doesn’t have to, but if he cares about the perception of the FBI he will. If this was a fishing expedition then Garland won’t publicly justify it.
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As I recall HRC wiped her server before it was turned over. Within days of being told to retain records. Remember that? It was an accident, ha ha. The FBI didn’t raid the facility.
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I want measurable standards in political prosecutions, I’m OK with tough standards, but not one sided ones. The FBI must justify their actions in political prosecutions, we have seen what happens when they get to hide their behavior with the previous Trump investigation. Fool me once …
Tom Scharf,
“If this was a fishing expedition then Garland won’t publicly justify it.”
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It obviously was, and he obviously won’t. Ever. Garland is an unprincipled political hack and always has been. Just like Eric Holder was and is. Democrats ONLY put political hacks in charge of the DOJ, going all the way back to before Bill Clinton.
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There was absolutely no justification for not issuing a subpoena instead of getting a warrant… unless, of course, the goal is a fishing expedition.
Indeed, Tom. I just want to see the same standards applied to everyone. If politicians are above the law, that standard applies to all of them. It is crystal clear right now that one side can commit “crimes” that, at best, are investigated as lightly as possible with no consequence. The other gets hammered for even a sniff of similar behavior and more besides. Kenneth might be happy to see any politician held accountable, but that’s just being a tool for a budding tyranny.
David J R, the other side of that argument is that supporters defend wrong doings by the people on their side with the rationale that the other side gets away with it. A better approach is to clearly point out when politicians on the other side are getting away with it and how that happens and at the same time retain your credibility by pointing out wrong doings by people on your side.
Otherwise it becomes a game of both sides hypocritically defending wrong doings – which I see a lot of currently. If a precedent is set by pointing to wrong doing on your side it becomes much easier to nail the other sides wrong doing.
Part of the problem is, as I have stated here many times, that too many US citizens are too easy on their politicians and excuse them for wrong doing. It gets worse when a politician is, or nearly is, worshipped. In my book no politician should ever be elevated to those heights.
I found it curious that Steve Liesman on MSNBC today was very optimistic about the Federal Reserve getting a handle on quelling inflation. All because inflation for July was “only” 8.5 percent instead of the predicted 8.7. He thinks the Fed can now back down on their rate hikes. He and guests on these shows never delve into issues of whether these changes are statistically significant. Liesman is famous (notorious in my view) for defending the Fed’s doings with data and graphs and his interpretations thereof.
I have seen reports that the classification issue is fake news. Supposedly Trump declassified everything he took with him, which was his right as POTUS at the time. Disputes with the National Archives are normally resolved by negotiation, not seizure.
The only thing that makes any sense is a January 6 fishing expedition using the dispute with the National Archives as probable cause. The problem with that is that it’s not at all clear that anything they find could actually be used as evidence, depending on the exact wording of the search warrant. But, of course, since they almost certainly plan on leaking anything that looks bad for Trump, they don’t need it to be admissible in in court.
Sorry about being off topic… First satellite pictures of the Saki Air base before and after the attack. Total devastation, aircraft, weapons stockpiles, buildings … all the infrastructure is gone. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557442169081937925
Russell Klier,
No need to apologize. It’s an open thread. Nothing is off topic.
I might have an explanation for Liesman’s optimism on inflation. No less experts than the President and Vice President said today that the July report showed no inflation. Actually from just a second ago there has been nearly zero inflation. The media should call those two out but I suspect when it comes such matters they are dumb a$$es also.
But why would not Trump point this out? There still would be the archives issue, but it would put the government tactics more in question.
WSJ Opinion, free link:
The FBI, the Judiciary and Trump
Given the recent history of abuse, it’s foolish to assume the bureau is now acting appropriately.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbi-the-judiciary-and-trump-11660074004?st=i9uxvjpsf0it8hi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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“But of course in the United States the rights of an individual—even one who refuses to accept legitimate election results—are not supposed to be decided by politics. When the individual is Donald Trump, recent history suggests that neither the FBI nor even the federal judiciary can be relied upon to protect such rights.”
“One reason no one can remember such a case is because a President, acting under his Article II constitutional powers as commander in chief, is the authority on what material in the executive branch is classified and what is not classified.”
“Some have suggested a double standard in that the FBI just seized documents from Mr. Trump’s home, but in 2016 exonerated Hillary Clinton on her handling of classified materials and her use of a home server without even giving Justice prosecutors a chance to do their lawful duty to determine whether charges should be brought. There’s the additional issue that Mrs. Clinton had been only a cabinet secretary and any limited authority she had over classifications would have been delegated by the president.”
“The former FBI lawyer who admitted to doctoring an email that other officials relied upon to justify secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser was sentenced Friday to 12 months of probation, with no time behind bars.”
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We shall see. One would expect the FBI to be rather diligent here, but one would also expect them not to take such action over just documents. If they are playing an ends justify the means game, it will end very badly for them. I have exactly ZERO sympathy for the recent pleas of worry about online threats to them. Zero. They have rightly earned the distrust of America.
The attack on the airbase in Crimea is out of missile range, so it’s quite unclear what happened here. If Ukrainian forces were able to penetrate and sabotage the airbase then it isn’t a very encouraging sign for Russia. There have been quite a few mysterious fires in Russia controlled territory.
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It is an ongoing question of whether Russia can pacify the occupied population one way or the other. I have seen very little info on this.
Tom Scharf,
“We shall see. One would expect the FBI to be rather diligent here, but one would also expect them not to take such action over just documents.”
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No, we shall not see; they will tell the public nothing. What we will see, yet again, is that the DOJ and FBI are run by a bunch of partisan hacks who absolutely can’t be trusted to ever tell the truth about what they have done, what they are doing, and what they plan to do. “Liars” is far too kind a description; corrupt, dishonest sacks of dog excrement is probably closer to an accurate description. De-fund and fire is the only solution.
Merrick Garland:
“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of Justice Department and of our democracy,” Garland said. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor under my watch. That is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.”
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Really? How about a subpoena instead of a search warrant? How about kid gloves and kisses for Hillary and her dishonest staff, and instead a warrant for Trump?
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I can’t imagine that a more dishonest political hack than Garland exists anywhere in the world. He is an utter scumbag.
Does anyone understand what this documents kerfuffle is about? I have not paid any attention until recently and have not attempted any internet research.
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The boxes of documents were supposedly packed up by the GSA and shipped to Trump. That makes sense. But I can not make sense out of the rest of it. Maybe my assumptions are wrong.
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I assume that the White House has a reasonably efficient filing system.
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I assume that classified documents are so marked and filed separately from other documents, with extra security.
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I assume that official government documents are so marked and filed separately from the President’s personal papers.
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I assume that the GSA has procedures for packing up the outgoing President’s personal belongings.
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I assume that if the outgoing President told the GSA to pack up all the White House silverware or all the art hanging on the walls, he would be told that is not allowed.
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I assume that the same would apply to official government documents and, especially, classified documents. In particular, I would hope that GSA employees would have no way of laying hands on classified documents.
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So how can Trump have documents that he is not supposed to have? And why would such documents be in the boxes packed by the GSA? Perhaps they were misfiled?
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The only other possibility I can think of would be a handful of documents that Trump may have personally removed. But that does not fit with the business about the boxes packed by the GSA.
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So can anyone here set me straight?
———-
Addition: Real questions. Until I started to think ab out it, I did not realize how little I understood.
Mike M,
I understand nothing. I’m waiting to have a period of time to try to find discussions of the details. Most news reports are do not discuss specifics. (I’m not sure the reporters have them. I have no problem with them not waiting– but I am still awayre they don’t have them.)
Lucia,
I think the details will never be released, so no matter how long you wait, discussions will likely be uninformative.
Garland is apparently seeking to release the information using the “ongoing investigation” excuse for not doing so. So I guess that’s a confirmed FU then.
DaveJR,
Sounds like there is a ‘not’ missing from 214106.
I think it perfectly appropriate that Merrick Garland be investigated by a Republican-only house committee in January 2023, then impeached for dereliction of duty on a strict party-line vote.
WSJ says they did subpoena the documents and didn’t get them.
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I’m withholding judgment on this action for now but am skeptical to say the least. It is clearly within the realm of possibilities that Trump did something rather idiotic. He has thus far kept all his stupidity legal. My view is that the DOJ should release this information to attempt to engender trust. The usual suspects will say the usual things no matter what, but I don’t want to see a post-hoc justification.
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Trump should know what documents were taken, and he isn’t saying anything either.
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Edit, WSJ:
Attorney General Garland Asks Judge to Release Trump Search Warrant
https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-asks-judge-to-unseal-mar-a-lago-search-warrant-11660245559
“The Justice Department asked a judge to unseal the search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, raising the prospect that details of the extraordinary search could soon become public. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he approved the decision to seek the warrant.”
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We don’t really want the search warrant, we want the evidence used to obtain the search warrant.
It’s the same old sleight of hand.
“When applying for the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, the FBI was required to submit an affidavit explaining its investigation. This document—likely more detailed and informative than the warrant itself—is unlikely to be released publicly, said Alan Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department national security lawyer.”
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Garland: “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” Mr. Garland said, adding that “the men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated patriotic public servants every day.”
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Peter Strzok: ‘Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.’
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I have a two word response to Garland’s crap, ha ha. These guys do live in a different world than half the country and I do wonder if he really understands how explosive these actions could be. Tread.very.carefully.
Here is something on the Presidential Records Act:
https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html
So there are personal records that are the president’s property and that are not Presidential records, which are public property. There is probably room to argue about which is which and whether records were filed properly.
Trump ordered documents declassified on his last day in office, once he realized Barr had failed him. This declassification order was ignored. Trump may have copies of these documents which were about the FBI’s spying on Trump. The FBI would want to secure these the same way the secured Ashley Biden’s diary.
The FBI was onsite June 3. If a subpoena was good then, it should have been good enough now.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/trump-got-grand-jury-subpoena-spring-voluntarily-cooperated-home
“.. Two months before his Florida home was raided by the FBI, former President Donald Trump secretly received a grand jury subpoena for classified documents belonging to the National Archives, and voluntarily cooperated by turning over responsive evidence, surrendering security surveillance footage and allowing federal agents and a senior Justice Department lawyer to tour his private storage locker…”
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“.. Trump signaled his full cooperation, telling the agents and prosecutor, “Look, whatever you need let us know,” according to two eyewitnesses. The federal team was surprised by the president’s invitation and asked for an immediate favor: to see the 6-foot-by-10-foot storage locker where his clothes, shoes, documents and mementos from his presidency were stored at the compound.
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Given Trump’s instruction, the president’s lawyers complied and allowed the search by the FBI before the entourage left cordially. Five days later, DOJ officials sent a letter to Trump’s lawyers asking them to secure the storage locker with more than the lock they had seen. The Secret Service installed a more robust security lock to comply…”
Ed Forbes (Comment #214113),
Thanks. That Just the News piece is the clearest thing I have seen.
Other sources either leave it vague as to how the documents got to Mar-a-Lago or say that Trump removed them, as if he personally carried the boxes out of the White House and put them in the trunk of his car. But as for the boxes Trump returned, Just the News says:
The other boxes would seem to be ones that Trump claims are his personal papers and that the government wants to paw through because Orange Man Bad.
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Definitions of “Presidential records” and “personal records” here: https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html#2201
There is obvious room for interpretation.
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Although some reports claim the returned boxes had classified material, other sources say “possibly” classified. It seem that part of that is that Trump declassified a lot of stuff but some declassified documents did not have the markings removed. Hence the wording:
It’s backfiring. This is why the arrogant FBI and DOJ needs to deal with public perception * for their own interests *. This may be why they moved today to release the (useless) search warrant:
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“According to a Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action survey, 83 percent of likely Republican voters said the F.B.I. search made them more motivated to vote in the 2022 elections. Over 75 percent of likely Republican voters believed Trump’s political enemies were behind the search rather than the impartial justice system, as did 48 percent of likely general election voters overall.”
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Trump will play the victim card, he may be a clown but he does this even better than the best wokester cry bullies out there. He may even be a victim! None of this is helpful.
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It’s amateur hour in DC right now. Garland is in over his head. Somebody attacked the Cincinnati FBI office today and ended up getting shot to death. I don’t like him, but I’m telling you, this Trump vendetta is a serious mistake.
Tom Scharf,
The release of the warrant will provide zero information about the motivation for seeking the warrant. Garland will never disclose what the DOJ is really doing. He is a dishonest, unprincipled hack who is an inappropriate choice for heading the DOJ. Will the next Republican president choose a similarly dishonest hack who spends his time pursuing Democrats by any means available? Looking more and more likely.
I suggest that Federal law be changed so that 1) Every piece of information, including any affidavits, provided to a Federal magistrate or judge by any Federal agent to justify a search warrant be provided to the target at the time of the search, and 2) The target of any Federal search warrant has standing to sue the Federal government and its agents in a jury trial if either a) no charges based on results of the search are filed within 60 days of the search, or b) if charges are filed but the defendant is acquitted by a jury, with no qualified immunity for agents involved nor their supervisors two levels up (that is, personal financial liability if a jury finds the warrant was not justified, and criminal liability for any false or misleading representation to a judge or magistrate to obtain a warrant).
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That would stop the harassment and the fishing expeditions; Federal agents need to have personal liability for the system to reform itself.
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As things stand now, your house can be ransacked, even destroyed, your property taken, and you have neither an explanation nor any legal recourse. It is way out of control, and needs to be severely limited.
I suggest Josh Hawley to head the DOJ under the next Republican administration.
SteveF (Comment #214122),
You are proposing the effective elimination of searches by federal law enforcement agencies since you are proposing that they be required to have enough evidence to convict before getting a warrant. Might as well abolish the DEA, ICE, ATF, and FBI. Bad idea.
At this point, I think we can get a broad strokes picture of what has been happening. The frame for everything is that the FBI (and other parts of permanent Washington) is out to Get Trump on the basis of Orange Man Bad. Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.
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The GSA packed up boxes of Trump’s papers and shipped them to him. Some of the boxes were clearly personal while others were arguably Presidential and shipped by mistake. The Archivist sought the return of the latter and, after some back-and-forth, Trump complied. Somebody came to the the conclusion that some of those papers were “possibly classified”; perhaps on the basis of content or perhaps because of markings that were not removed. I think we can conclude that whatever was found provided no plausible basis for charges since otherwise charges would have been filed.
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So the FBI decided that the “possibly classified” documents were evidence that Trump had classified documents and got a subpoena for any such documents he might still have. Trump complied with the subpoena, the FBI found nothing, and they left empty handed and brokenhearted.
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But the FBI was not to be denied. If there were no classified docs in the papers, then Trump must have hidden them. So they got a search warrant. It appears that they did so on the basis of dirt provided by an informant. We need to know just what the informant supposedly saw, whether he is reliable, and whether he was recruited (or was a plant) or came forward on his own.
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My guess is that the FBI will still be empty handed and brokenhearted. Unless they plant something.
George Washington was an upright and honorable man, albeit a slave owner. I think it time to rename our capital city after somebody more appropriate. I suggest Burrtown.
I think the democrats have Trump beaten in crying victim, purely because their voice is louder than his. They still like to pretend they’re just the little guy fighting the machine while their opponants are dragged out of their homes in handcuffs and they double down on lawlessness and corruption.
Mike M,
“You are proposing the effective elimination of searches by federal law enforcement agencies since you are proposing that they be required to have enough evidence to convict before getting a warrant.”
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No, nothing like that. I said that if they get a warrant and it does not lead to charges, then they should be potentially civilly liable in front of a “jury of their peers”. If a jury finds a warrant was not justified, then the agents are held responsible for their bad judgement. Federal agents would have absolutely nothing to be afraid of if they can show a jury good cause for getting a warrant. Fishing expeditions would, of course, turn out badly for them. Same thing with a failure to convict….. they would have nothing to fear if they could show the jury that the warrant leading to charges being brought was justified, but if not, they would be held liable for their bad judgement. Would the number of requested warrants drop? Of course. As I think they should. Right now their are no consequences for harassing private citizens based on flimsy claims. There ought to be substantial consequences.
Mike M,
“My guess is that the FBI will still be empty handed and brokenhearted. Unless they plant something.”
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And that is why all involved should be subjected to civil liability. They are bad people motivated by politics, and they need to be held to account.
Biden likes to brag that month over month inflation was 0.0% for July. Such data, not seasonally adjusted can be found here:
https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Monthly_Inflation.aspx
A couple things to note. One is that the data are very noisy. For the first seven months of this year, we have 0.8, 0.9, 1.3, 0.6, 1.1, 1.4, 0.0. The other is that there is a seasonal pattern. This century, inflation in Jan-Mar has only been negative twice, one of those being Mar 2020. In Nov and Dec, inflation is negative 70% of the time.
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Inflation was pretty low in Aug & Sep 2021, so it seems a good bet that the year over year rate will move back up before a drop for October.
I think the official reason for keeping warrants secret is for privacy concerns of the perpetrator. This prevents the police from performing speculative searches with the intent of damaging the alleged perpetrator’s character through inuendo. Same thing with keeping identities of who is being investigated a secret. Thus, calls for information seeking a “person of interest”. If this is the intent, then the perpetrator should have the right to unseal the warrants and I see no reason why they shouldn’t have access to the underlying affidavits in some reasonable timeframe.
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There are penalties for bad searches. All data retrieved gets thrown out and in some cases the entire case will be tossed (fruit of a poisoned tree). I don’t know how often this really happens and a bad search is a judgment call.
So, what’s in the “highly classified” documents exactly? Seems to be little curiosity on this subject. Whatever it is, it is likely to be giving Trump leverage somehow.
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NYT: “… which was carried out as part of the government’s effort to account for documents that one person briefed on the matter said related to some of the most highly classified programs run by the United States.”
I will speculate without evidence that it is historical data damaging to the “deep state”. Trump is keeping the documents to unveil at a time of his choosing, say somewhere around Nov 2024. Could be photos of Area 51!
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It doesn’t seem to make any sense they are just some run of the mill stuff. I don’t think Garland would have signed off on that. Whatever it is, it is not intended to be seen by the public, we can’t handle the truth.
SteveF,
I doubt that you are unaware of the big increase in lawlessness in our major cities. A major cause is that police can not do their jobs if they are worried about being held liable for honest mistakes.
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It is the job of the courts to ensure that search warrants have proper foundation. The police, even the FBI, are entitled to rely on the judgement of the courts.
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If the police mislead the court in getting a warrant, that is a different matter. Then the individuals responsible should be held to account, both civilly and criminally. At least in general terms, that is already the case. Maybe we need stricter rules as to what the cops must disclose to the judge. Maybe we need to improve enforcement. But the principle is already there.
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Typically the affidavits used to get a warrant are not disclosed until trial. Then they can be challenged by the defense, with the remedy being exclusion of evidence. That is of no value for somebody who is actually innocent.
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What happens if the case never goes to trial? Does the target of the warrant ever get to see the affidavits? I suspect that the answer is usually “no”. If so, that must change. And the target must have recourse if the cops obtained the warrant by improper means.
Tom Scharf,
“If this is the intent, then the perpetrator should have the right to unseal the warrants and I see no reason why they shouldn’t have access to the underlying affidavits in some reasonable timeframe.”
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Sure, but unless charged, the target never gets to see the affidavit(s) leading to the warrant. And if there is never any disclosure of the affidavit(s), there is never the possibility of the target disputing the claims/representations made in the affidavit(s), and so never any possibility of any consequences for agents for fishing expeditions or for political targeting.
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IMO, the system is stacked heavily against the target, and that needs to change. Federal agents of all kinds must be held to meaningful account, and not given free hand to get search warrants, as it seems they currently are given.
Also, retrieving pieces of paper through a search warrant makes almost no sense. Trump obviously could have copied this stuff and hidden it away somewhere else. I also doubt this was the only copy of such evidence in DC. So why the search to retrieve them?
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What makes more sense is that the DOJ knows Trump has some damaging evidence that he will likely reveal later and this is a pre-emptive defense of their agency’s bungled handling of the evidence. It’s like a bad Hollywood movie.
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NYT, paragraph 14: “The Justice Department did not seek to release the affidavits — which contain much more information about the behavior of Mr. Trump and evidence presented by others — that were used to obtain the warrant.”
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“Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believed remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.”
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Leaks to the NYT by anonymous sources are just attempts by the government to spin the story. We know from the FBI’s Russia collusion behavior that these leaks are typically authorized, see Andrew McCabe. Garland’s statements to date are just euphemisms and bureaucratic blather. The NYT’s vetting of these sources is rather selective and often simple parroting for a desired narrative, Capital police bashed to death by extinguisher!
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Trust in media at record lows, leaks and spin aren’t likely to be very effective.
These situations are why I have always said that many government documents and processing of them are made opaque for later leaking and spinning and further that those processes and need to be made transparent from the start.
When the government claims a national security or some other reason for opaqueness that claim should be reviewed by two independent bodies either of which could make the documents public.
If this makes getting the work of government done more difficult, I say good.
Mike M,
I understand that judges (and magistrates) are supposed to make sure search warrants are legitimate. But judges, a) are human like the rest of us and often hold political opinions that might influence their determination, b) generally trust Federal agents, and c) don’t and can’t investigate anything.
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They get a sworn affidavit and issue a warrant… if the search does not lead to charges, there are no consequences for even a completely false affidavit, never mind for a misleading representation in an affidavit that could be legitimately contested if the target ever got to see it. Judges and magistrates are in no position to actually evaluate the predication for a warrant.
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Only argument before a jury, where Federal agents have personal risk of liability, can be counted on to discipline Federal agents.
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The issuance of multiple warrants under FISA against Carter Page via dishonest/distorted/incomplete representations by the FBI shows exactly why search warrants are a big problem and need to be reined in. In that case: the applications were dishonest, and the target was actually Trump and his inner circle via the “two hop” rule, not Carter Page.
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It is a bit like the old saw: “A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor asked them to”. The difference is that the indicted ham sandwich will get his day in court, the victim of an illegitimate search warrant will not. If no charges are brought against Trump, he will never get to see the affidavit, and neither will we. That is a big problem.
“Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believed remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.”
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Utter rubbish. Trump had complete authority to declassify anything he wanted, so unless he went back to the White house after Biden was sworn in and took documents, there is no case to be made about Trump mishandling classified documents. It is all lies all the time from the DOJ.
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Far more likely: Trump had declassified information about the DOJ and FBI that they do not ever want exposed.
Mike M. (Comment #214132)
Instead of percent inflation, I personally think presenting monthly price inflation as 1.008, 1.009, 1.030 ….. is instructive because when you multiple all together you get the compounded price inflation rate year to date which in this case for the first 7 months of 2022 by your data is 1.05914 or 5.914%.
Politicians and most of the media have never understood noisy data and what it means for predicting the future and the uncertainty thereof. I see this all the time by media and politicians using insignificant changes in data to spin it for their agendas. Showing a small portion of a graph is another way that is used to exaggerate small changes in data.
Oh brother.
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WashPost: “Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.”
“Late Thursday night, Trump said on social media that he agreed the document should be made public. In another post early Friday, he called the nuclear weapons issue a “hoax”.
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Apparently the hyperventilating Twitter narrative is now that Trump was going to sell nuclear secrets to Saudi Arabia, or something. Reading between the lines it seems more likely it is about the state of Iran’s nuclear program, which our brave anonymous leakers and media parroters spin with vague and grave “nuclear secrets” statements.
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“But Garland has stuck with his practice of not discussing ongoing investigations.”
BS. It is unlikely in the extreme these are unauthorized leaks. First examine who is getting them. NYT, WP. If the data was so sensitive then nobody would be talking about it even in these vague terms, it has now become a one sided spin contest. I’m sure Garland is really upset about these leaks and people will be held accountable.
Ken Fritsch,
“Politicians and most of the media have never understood noisy data and what it means for predicting the future and the uncertainty thereof.”
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The MSM is mostly run by innumerate dunderheads, so my expectations are low. Politicians are just dishonest scumbags, innumerate or not.
Tom Scharf,
“Reading between the lines it seems more likely it is about the state of Iran’s nuclear program, which our brave anonymous leakers and media parroters spin with vague and grave “nuclear secrets” statements.”
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If accurate information about Iran’s nuclear weapons program was made public, then the Biden administration couldn’t afford to coddle Iran any longer in the hope of getting some kind of “triumphant historic agreement” with a rogue state that sponsors terrorism.
SteveF (Comment #214140): “Utter rubbish. Trump had complete authority to declassify anything he wanted, so unless he went back to the White house after Biden was sworn in and took documents, there is no case to be made about Trump mishandling classified documents. It is all lies all the time from the DOJ.”
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Not that simple. The President can not declassify things just by thinking it. There is a procedure that must be followed. If that was not done, there is an issue. But most likely a very minor issue.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214141): Instead of percent inflation, I personally think presenting monthly price inflation as 1.008, 1.009, 1.030″.
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That is called the Consumer Price Index. I am sure that you can find the numbers without too much trouble.
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9% is not a small change. For most people, it is massive.
Came across this vid on what infantrymen have to put up with .
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mwR5C2mQpU
???????? TOS-1 “heavy flamethrower” working on Pisky Ukraine ????????
Mike M. (Comment #214147)
My point being that by using the data in that form one can more readily calculate the year to date compounded CPI . We normally see the year over year percent change but I think year to date has value. We are on pace for a near 10% annual CPI increase.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214149): “I think year to date has value. We are on pace for a near 10% annual CPI increase.”
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To each his own. I don’t see much value in YTD, especially if not seasonally adjusted. 6% through 7 months is not really on pace for 10% annual since monthly increases are highest in Q1 and often negative in Q4.
I read the warrant: zero information about what was taken, and zero information about what motivated the search. They are claiming Trump absconded with classified information, which is weird considering that he had sole authority to declassify any and all documents. It is a witch hunt, of course.
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This, I am sure, will turn out badly for Merrick Garland. He should prepare himself for the torment Republicans will give him, including impeachment hearings…..torment richly deserved, and for a broad defunding of the DOJ and FBI.
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Just when you think Democrats could sink no lower, they surprise yet again.
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Trump is a jerk. Merrick Garland is corrupt and evil.
It sounds like the warrant pretty much let the FBI search anywhere they wanted for pretty much anything they wanted. Fishing much?
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Dan Bongino, who has served many search warrants, says that usually the target’s lawyer is a big help since he wants the cops to get what they want and get out with minimal disruption. He says you shut the lawyers out when you are going fishing.
” The President can not declassify things just by thinking it. There is a procedure that must be followed. ”
I think he can, and that classification is in service of the chief executive.
The procedures are pretty detailed, with different agencies given the opportunity to argue against declassification.
Merrick Garland will not be impeached.
Most of the elected Republicans support the effort to get Trump.
They did nothing with Lois Lerner when she was targeting Republicans at IRS.
MikeN,
“They did nothing with Lois Lerner when she was targeting Republicans at IRS.”
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She took the 5th and retired, and even Obama criticized her obviously illegal activities. The fact that most incriminating evidence, which would likely have implicated many others at the IRS, ‘was accidentally lost’ and that those up the chain of command were not fired was the real scandal; it was political rope-a-dope, something the Obama administration was extremely good at.
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Remember that just before leaving office, Susan Rice attended a meeting with Obama, Biden, CIA, FBI, etc, were the strategy to undermine Trump and his administration was agreed on….. Rice then wrote herself a ‘memo’ about the meeting, claiming Obama insisted everything was to be done according to the law. It was a pure fabrication to avoid future legal liability, of course, but it shows a level expertise in avoiding culpability for dirty politics that puts Trump (and most Republicans!) to shame. No doubt Obama was genuinely horrified at the prospect of Trump taking over and by the knowledge Trump would be appointing a conservative to replace Scalia (instead of Merrick Garland!). It was payback time for Obama.
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The situation with Garland is very different from that with Lois Lerner. Garland is pursuing Trump using flimsy justification, and simultaneously protecting Biden and his drug addled son Hunter, in spite of overwhelming evidence of multiple felonies, improper influence peddling, failure to pay taxes on millions of dollars of income, and Biden being compromised by Hunter’s many foreign ‘deals’ (with 10% going to the big guy, of course). Republicans in the House are not going to let all that go when they gain control. I can’t say for sure Garland will be impeached, but I’d say there is a very good chance he will be when his complete failure to pursue the Bidens is documented. If the House can demand copies of Trump’s taxes and banking records, it can do the same for the Bidens.
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Trump is an obnoxious, offensive a$$hole, with the judgement of a spoiled 6 year old. But Biden is a criminally corrupt politician, who is being protected by a criminally corrupt Attorney General. Payback time for House Republicans.
Curiouser and curiouser.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/breaking-trump-describes-process-how-he-declassified-documents
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Such impromptu declassification did not originate with Trump. Bush and Obama also did it.
So it looks like any criminal charge against Trump would be problematic.
Salman Rushdie is in the hospital, following a knife attack in Westchester county NY. Severely injured in the abdomin, face and neck, he wiil likely lose an eye and and may not be able to speak after he recovers. The attacker was, of course, a crazed young Muslim man.
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Much of islam is rejoicing over the attack:
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In much of the Muslim world, large majorities believe apostates, homosexuals, and anyone who wants to ‘leave the faith’ should be killed. “A religion of peace” (according to Obama) it most certainly is not. This is a continuing clash of civilizations; to quote Sam Harris: “Islam is the mother-load of bad ideas.” Which is as true now as it has been for a millennium and more.
Mike M,
“So it looks like any criminal charge against Trump would be problematic.”
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Sure. But it was always a politically motivated fishing expedition, not a legitimate “investigation”. Federal judges will laugh out of court any charges against Trump for ‘espionage’ and ‘mishandling secret documents’ etc.
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Or as Megyn Kelly said: “Bullshit! This is all about Jan 6!”
I am not impressed with the standard procedure of officials (Garland) speaking with sanctimony about their glorious ethics while they knowingly or with a wink/nod approval allow their biased narrative to leak to the press. This narrative cannot be refuted without the underlying evidence.
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I am also not impressed with the standard procedure of the media to credulously quote these anonymous “officials” with “knowledge of the matter” without any printed justification for why we should believe these people at all. They make absolutely no effort to establish these source’s credibility or more importantly make 0.000000% effort to state why this source might potentially be biased.
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This has been going on now for decades. I just don’t trust it anymore. What generally happens is these sources are stating things that could be deemed as true if you squint your eyes very hard, but they leave out all counterfactuals, and are obviously pushing a specific narrative. Trump is selling nuclear secrets if you fill in the blanks, but they never actually said that. He maybe has a report on Iran’s nuclear weapon progress.
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After being clearly and willfully misled in many cases, the media takes no action to expose these sources, and make no changes to their behavior. They rely on a now nonexistent trust from their readers. They then wring their hands worrying about loss of trust in institutions as if the fault lies with the public because of alleged misinformation.
Even if the documents, said to be secret at varying levels, are considered for Trump to be declassified, does not the issue of having these once classified documents stored under less than secure conditions present a problem and something to be used by an aggressive DOJ to go after Trump. Or does a declassified document mean it can legally be revealed to the public by whoever controls the document and thus the need for security is moot? Or even further out there would the DOJ pursue Trump in court over potentially damaging the US by holding these documents regardless of their classification?
I would think at this point in order for the DOJ to retain credibility it will have to charge Trump with something and that something must be something they have had in mind based on the information they had before the search warrant. All should be revealed when and if Trump is charged. For DOJ credibility that would have to come sooner rather than later.
Of course, Trump could reveal more details about these documents, or least his memory of those he had in his position, and why he stored them where he did.
Ken Fritsch,
“I would think at this point in order for the DOJ to retain credibility it will have to charge Trump with something and that something must be something they have had in mind based on the information they had before the search warrant.”
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I doubt Trump will be charged over documents. He may be charged over Jan 6, with the charge tied to “insurrection against the United States”. So Dems can claim he is constitutionally ineligible to run for the presidency again. It is rubbish, of course, but if Trump is tried in Washington DC, he will be convicted of whatever charges the DOJ conjures up. That may or may not matter, since any conviction would be appealed and likely ultimately overturned by the SC. Still, Dems are desperate to keep Trump from winning in 2024, so they will do literally anything they think makes Trump’s re-election less likely.
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Merrick Garland has to be very careful here: Republicans will control the House in January 2023, and if Garland has charged Trump, there is a real chance the DOJ and FBI will have their budgets cut severely; so severely that continued operation of those agencies will be difficult or impossible, with massive layoffs inevitable. Could not happen to more deserving Federal agencies.
I mentioned Mass v EPA recently and how it was wrongly decided. That same thinking is coloring the commentary on the warrant, saying that every document from the Trump Administration is covered by the warrant. I don’t think this is the correct reading of section c.
Again, ‘Any foreign truck or auto, including any minivan’ would not include US minivans.
SteveF, I do not share your optimism about the midterms or congress doing anything about the FBI and DOJ. There has to be much more education of the public in these matters as their general thoughts about government are aways to the left of you and way left of me..
I believe recent polls show the momentum going to Democrats currently and making a Republican gain in the House no longer a slam dunk. We should be thinking about how much damage can be done with the Democrats controlling the House and with a larger majority in the Senate. If this happens with a bad economy it will not say much about the appeal of the Republicans to the voters or their disdain of the Democrats.
Mitch McConnell considered the Tea Party Republicans a bigger opponent than Democrats. He stepped into plenty of primaries to keep out those candidates, as he does now with Trumpers.
There are some NeverTrumpers who were on the conservative side of the split, like Quin Hilyer, but not many. McConnell and Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy support the FBI’s actions against Trump, and were probably in on it.
I see a lot about defunding the DOJ and FBI as a knee jerk reaction to some of the actions of the current departments even by sensible people here.
Simply put the answer is not defunding essential, country protecting organisations which have lost their checks and balances but by restoring those checks and balances and cleaning out the people who let them be ignored in partisan actions.
Like belling the cat very difficult to do.
As evidenced by that lawyer getting off recently.
We need something between capricious political correctness and over enthusiastic common sense.
It may not happen.
My sense of what is right and the desire to right things is not shared by as many Americans as I had hoped.
A large body of people living under the ideas of the original founders must still have some input by the weight of their views over time.
Hopefully and practically.
Angech,
The FBI didn’t lose their way, they were never going the right way to begin with. They were arguably political gestapos from the beginning, more or less, or at least since Hoover.
angech,
The FBI and the DOJ have been turned into political weapons. The DOJ simply refuses to enforce any law that the Biden administration disagrees with…. and there are many. The agencies have been turned against “political enemies”, with broken-door, pre-dawn raids and handcuffed perp walks for those who are in opposition to Democrats, and refusal to prosecute even the most blatant crimes by “political friends”…. that is, Democrats.
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It is not just a problem with political appointees, the political rot is evident all the way down; the reality is that people who want to work for the Federal government are people who believe in government… AKA Democrats. The problem is the same at all Federal agencies, but only the “police-state” agencies can do so much damage. I do believe substantial reduction in the size of those agencies (defunding) will help. Holding the individuals at those agencies personally liable for over-the-top enforcement would also help. Laws prohibiting the worst of their actions (like pre-dawn rains against elderly non-violent targets, hand-cuffs and leg irons for a former Trump advisor at an airport who posed zero risk of fleeing) might also help. But broad defunding of these agencies which are clearly damaging the country is both sensible and needed.
There is a topic that has never been explained to my satisfaction…
How is it that the US population was deceived into thinking the vaccine protected you from getting Covid? The country believed that we were 96% sure of not catching it if we were vaccinated.
We spent billions of dollars for hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine on the basis of it stopping the spread of the disease.
Was Pfizer just wrong? Were they lying? What did Dr. Fauci know and when did he know it? What did Trump know?
Is anyone going to jail over this?
Many stopped being careful [not me!] after getting the second shot. My wife’s brother went on a fishing trip after his dose, caught Covid and died. Who does his wife and children sue?
The original vaccine data showed over 90% effectiveness against getting symptomatic disease. They did not test unless symptomatic, which probably upped the number. There are reports that big pharma knows how to game double blind trials to get better results. But the main factor is probably that the vaccine does prevent infection for a short time (a couple months) after vaccination.
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The original trials were scheduled for a two year follow up, which would have provided far better data. But the EUAs were granted after just a few months and then the trials were foolishly truncated, preventing the acquisition of meaningful data over a longer time frame.
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At the time, I criticized ending the trials, which brought me scorn from most denizens of this site.
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We still don’t seem to have decent data on the duration of protection against severe disease or whether boosters enhance that.
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Fire Fauci!
Defund the CDC!
Mike M. (Comment #214177)
“I criticized ending the trials, which brought me scorn from most denizens of this site.”
I was ridiculed by “most denizens of this site” for being skeptical and continuing precautions like wearing a mask and avoiding indoor crowds.
SteveF,
Friend who retired from career with another agency which loaned him to FBI for a long term project toward the end tells me that he believes that the majority of FBI personnel are Republicans, and yes many even Trumpists. And of course they are no more advocates of , nor participants in, criminality in their activities at the FBI than anyone else.
In short, your condemnation of the current constituency of the FBI seems a bit over the top.
john ferguson (Comment #214179): “the majority of FBI personnel are Republicans”.
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Quite believable. And they will spend their careers in field offices or similar low echelon positions in the bureau.
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The main problem in the FBI is probably concentrated near the top. The top several levels seem to be hopelessly corrupt. Not corrupt in the sense of taking bribes, but corrupt in the sense of diverting the Bureau from its proper purpose. And that corruption has surely penetrated deep into the ranks via individuals who correctly perceive what is required to get ahead.
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At this point, I doubt that the FBI can be salvaged without radical surgery. That probably includes dismemberment.
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I suppose that the FBI does much that is useful. But I honestly have little idea as to what that is. It seems to me that most useful federal law enforcement is done by other agencies, such as ICE, DEA, ATF, and the Marshals Service.
angech (Comment #214173)
Angech, you do think more like most Americans in this matter, than some do here. In a previous post I pointed out that for any changes to the system to occur would require some education/re-education of the people. Unfortunately that usually comes from the prevailing intelligentsia and they would be more of a mind like yourself, i.e., reform the system – and a reform that never happens since the problem is the system.
Most of the people of the US, and the world for that matter have been convinced that their are some parts of government that cannot be reduced in power much less replaced by alternatives that would not require a bended knee to government power. These ideas that what we have can be completely overhauled with new ways of thinking about it should at least be a part of a national discussion.
On the matter of defunding the police, I was hoping the discussion would get to the root cause of the problem at which defunding was aimed. That problem is political machines that run most large urban areas and are one party rulers who seldom fear being voted out of favor. I would personally favor localizing security provisions in urban areas where local communities which often have much different problems and needs would have control.
Mike M.
Current Director is Republican, appointed by Trump. What you suggest in the rest of your paragraphs seems unknowable without actually working there and i suspect is nonsense.
Friend was very near the top of the organization and is Republican as well although not a Trumpist.
That vaccinations for Covid-19 did not prevent a newer variant of the virus from causing more infections than the original version is really something for which I do not think the drug companies can be blamed. Nor do I think the lasting power of the vaccinations is blameworthy. Most of the hyperventilating about the vaccinations and the effectiveness thereof was done by politicians who do these exaggerations routinely in order to get the sheep to obey their orders. The vaccinations have prevented the seriousness of the infections and deaths.
The original vaccine protected against the original strain very well. Unfortunately the virus mutated to much more transmissive variants and the vaccine couldn’t keep up. Nobody knew where this thing was going, and it was both disastrous (global unrestrained pandemic with huge transmission factors) and fortunate (lower variant mortality).
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Your brother in law can sue the same people as others who got the flu and died, or others who got endless varieties of other fatal diseases. That is to say, nobody. The duty for most is reasonable care, the government does not guarantee a safe society. If he took a vacation because he thought a vaccine was a prophylactic then he was misinformed. The CDC has never said this. The simple story is science failed to stop covid. The odds of dying are lower a month or two after a vaccine but that is highly dependent on age bracket and general health.
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Perhaps we will get a nasal vaccine eventually. However almost everyone has chosen to do what your brother in law did, begin to live their lives again knowing there is risk. Nothing wrong with wearing a mask and avoiding crowds, but it does look like you cannot wait out covid.
I’m sure the FBI has plenty of good people, mostly the typical law enforcement types. The perception of the FBI is disproportionality affected by their behavior in these high profile political prosecutions. This behavior will stick in public perception for decades which is why it needs to be handled very carefully. The DC version of the FBI may not accurately reflect the entire organization.
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The DOJ on the other hand is much more political.
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I think it is beyond dispute that Trump is a bad actor, maybe even criminally if evidence is found, and also that Trump is being persecuted by his political opponents and the media. He is uncannily able to turn political misfortune into his benefit by exploiting the overreach of his opponents. I’ve never seen anything like this. I wish he would go away, but not via persecution.
john ferguson (Comment #214182)
August 14th, 2022 at 9:19 am
John, you are making my point about the problem being the system in these instances.
I had a major disagreement with an editorial writer at the Chicago Tribune a few years back about the IRS coming down hard on conservative non profits. He claimed to have libertarian instincts, but spent a lot of time defending Obama and in this case was defending the Obama administration against any blame. I pointed out to him in a published letter to the editor that Obama favored the power of government much the same as Nixon did and that, while Obama may be considered by many of higher moral character than Nixon, abuses of government power occurred in both their administations.
MikeM
I’m not stunned you continue to hold your original opinion. But I still think your opinion is not wise. I think what you call “truncating” the trials was wise and saved many people at the time. I don’t see any particular ill effect from allowing the vaccine, which was effective against the original variant to be used while the original variant was still in circulation. Waiting until it was gone and other variants had taken its place would have been extremely stupid.
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The fact that the virus mutated to get around vaccines or even natural immunity is, to my mind, evidence that supports the decision to get the original vaccines out there rather than wait as you would have preferred.
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Scorn? I would say people aired their opinions which differed from yours. Mine still differs from yours. I think you were wrong then and I think you remain wrong.
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Sure.
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With a new disease we will always not have decent data in any timely manner. Heck, Monkey pox is now circulating. We don’t have “decent data” on whether this was mostly because of some mutation or mostly because of opportunity or both. We don’t have “decent data” on whether smallpox vaccination immunity really lasts a lifetime. (We do have fairly good evidence it protected against previous mutations of monkey pox at least while vaccinations were fresh.)
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Not having decent data is unavoidable in some situations. We often need to act under uncertainty in life.
Russel
I think you are rather mistaken about what you were critizied for.
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No one even criticized you for making your own choices for yourself. No one even criticized you for saying you might advise the same as others.
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What I and other said is you don’t get to dictate our behavior. You were told by many that your option is to continue to protect yourself. But you needed to claim things like “I was good for so long, now others should be good for my sake” and use that as a justification for saying young healthy people sacrifice their lives for you.
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As far as I can tell you weren’t harmed by my behavior and I wasn’t harmed by my behavior. It remains my opinion that you don’t get to go around dictating others behavior for your own benefit. You do get to modify your own behavior for your own behavior.
Ken,
I wouldn’t argue against anything you say above. The problem is systemic. And it’s true that reliance on the power of government leads to misapplication of this power and that too is endemic.
I do believe that there’s a deep state which has authority is some places that is frequently mis-applied and politically so. And this is very hard to deal with because the intention of the miscreants is innocent in the sense that they think they are doing what is supposed to be done. Honest but wrong.
I think I’ve recounted my adventures in permitting including the officer of the Wisconsin DNR who was doing his damnedest to deny us a permit to expand the Watertown Wastewater treatment plant in accordance with Federal Regulation telling me that he saw it his primary duty to prevent further development in Wisconsin and our project was understood by him to enable further development.
Legislation has enable both Federal and State governments to operate their own review, internal adjudication, and appeal systems and confine your problem to their kangaroo system for at least 18 months before you can take your appeal to the judicial system. Often the project can’t stand the cost of the delay and is simply given up.
I wish I knew what could be done about it. I think the French proved that picking up the pitchforks, knocking down the bastille, etc only led to Napoleon.
Trump may have thought that violent uprising by people who didn’t really understand the underlying problem would get the job done. But it didn’t and probably won’t if we get to that.
No matter what we do we are going to be subject to abuse from within the government be it led by Democrats or Republicans.
in the ’70s, a group of us used to eat lunch with Dave Padden in Hickory Hills. I believed the Libertian view then and still do, but have given up ever achieving any semblance of it. It’s too late.
the horse is not only out of the barn, but probably gone forever.
the drive for big government seems almost universal. Where in the world has any polity been able to resist it?
This service was brought to you by Woke Reductionator ™.
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NPR: “It’s quite the challenge. What we’ve been trying to do as best as we can is stick with what we know. In the United States, we know that people assigned male at birth who have sex with men and people assigned female at birth, including at least one pregnant person, have been affected by hMPXV in Oregon. We know that cisgender men and nonbinary people are affected by hMPXV. While most identify as gay or queer and report close contact with people assigned male at birth, we have cases that also identify as straight and bisexual and report close contact with people assigned female at birth. ”
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Woke Reductionator: “Gay men have 94% of monkeypox cases”
john ferguson (Comment #214182): “Current Director is Republican, appointed by Trump.”
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So what? There are Democrat swamp critters and Republican swamp critters. The important part is “swamp critter”.
john ferguson (Comment #214189)
August 14th, 2022 at 10:30 am
John, you must know that during the time of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the classical liberals the world went from powerful governments to one’s more akin to individual freedoms and freer markets. The current trends can change again but certainly not anytime soon.
Interesting that some government agencies like the FBI and the CIA held favor with conservatives and Republicans during the Cold War because they felt they were holding the Communists at bay and with not so much favor coming from the Democrats and liberals who thought those agencies were going after leftwing groups. There appears to currently be a reversal of favor happening. Maybe some day they will figure out that it is the system that is the problem.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214192): “you must know that during the time of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the classical liberals the world went from powerful governments to one’s more akin to individual freedoms and freer markets.”
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I sure don’t know that. There was not all that much in the way of government before the industrial revolution. There just wasn’t much to govern. There was also not all that much in terms of liberty and markets. Poverty is like that.
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I suppose that GDP might have grown faster than government spending in the 1800’s. But that would be because subsistence farming and barter economy don’t contribute to GDP.
Tom Scharf,
Also,from other reports, mostly promiscuous gay men are getting Monkey pox. At least until the time monkey pox vaccine becomes available and you get a vaccine, if you want to avoid an evidently painful disease, it’s a good time to stay away from gay festivals, gay raves, or other big gay social events and especially avoid sex with people, particularly males, who are attending or have recently attended a big gay social events.
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And, if you are a gay man and are inclined to sex with another gay man, you should be alert to the possibility that the other gay man may recently have attended a big gay social gathering.
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That’s not much of a sacrifice of straight men and women.
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The ‘woke’ aspect of the messaging really is these news stories be tortured.
Mike M.,
I know people in the Pfizer vaccine trial. That trial was not terminated. They were still participating the last time I checked. What was ended was the placebo arm because if they didn’t they would indeed effectively end the trial as everyone, whichever arm they were in, who was eligible would get vaccinated and end further participation in the trial. And you’re wrong about only testing symptomatic people. If you were symptomatic, you were supposed to get tested immediately, but everyone was tested at regular intervals, including blood samples.
Approving EUA’s was necessary. A wait of two years would have resulted in many more hospitalizations and deaths and the vaccines, when finally approved, would have been far less useful.
John Ferguson,
“Friend who retired from career with another agency which loaned him to FBI for a long term project toward the end tells me that he believes that the majority of FBI personnel are Republicans, and yes many even Trumpists.”
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Really? Was he stationed in the Mobile Alabama office? Odd that every bit of evidence we have seen out of Washington DC (all the disclosures from the Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense, and more) indicate a broad loathing for Trump and for his supporters (“We will stop him.” “I could almost smell the Trump supporters.”, etc.)
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Even odder: I have not heard of a single FBI agent turning in his badge over the endless pursuit of all things Trump. Maybe only non-supervisory FBI agents are Republicans. Or maybe the agents are Republicans in the same fashion Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney are Republicans, that is, in name only. Or just maybe your friend is mistaken. Did these agents come out and tell your friend they were Trump supporters?
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It is clear the FBI and the DOJ have pounded Republicans associated with Trump in every way possible whenever possible. Democrats in clear violation of laws get kid gloves and kisses. So I guess the question is: who am I gonna believe, your friend or my lyin’ eyes? I think I’ll go with my lyin’ eyes.
Mike M.,
I’m sure the participants in the Boston Tea Party and the storming of the Bastille, among many, many others, would have heatedly disagreed with you.
lucia (Comment #214188)
“No one even criticized you for making your own choices for yourself.”
Lucia the “No one” part of that is just not true.
Best analysis I have read so far:
Greg J. Marchand MD@MarchandSurgery Replying to @ScottAdamsSays
“Actually we’re all good now because Trump declassified the documents the FBI planted so they cancelled each other out.”
Classified material is not relevant to the warrant. These are just used to rouse the public that Trump is up to no good.
Yes SteveF, probably Rinos.
Russel,
Who criticized you for making choices for yourself? I don’t remember anyone doing so.
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You previously just claimed “denizens” did so. I don’t know who those are supposed to be.
Russell Klier,
To second lucia: Cite please. It’s all here on the site.
Below is a link to an article about the Industrial Revolution in England by Mises and how historians misinterpreted what occurred and importantly the conditions prevailing before industrialization.
https://mises.org/library/popular-and-wrong-interpretation-industrial-revolution
Dewitt Payne
Is there a way to search for old posts. I didn’t keep records. They were about 18 months back I recon.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214181)
August 14th, 2022
“Angech, you do think more like most Americans in this matter, than some do here. In a previous post I pointed out that for any changes to the system to occur would require some education/re-education of the people.”
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Desire for change is borne out of unhappiness or boredom.
Radical change usually occurs from the former when enough people get enough momentum up to push changes through.
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The current politically correct movements are due to boredom, a frivolous desire for change when it is not needed.
Not enough people care to be bothered to oppose them.
When the fabrics carefully built up over decades fail, a corrupt City Hall, A corrupt leadership of vital organizations then when enough injustice is perceived, then we may see the will of the people expressed for good or bad.
Education of people, in the good sense that you propose, can be controversial.
Where it has problems is thinking that people need education to vote rationally.
The amount of education is finite and already present.
People do not vote in what educated people see as a rational way.
They vote with the education they have, which is what they individually know to be sufficient, to make decisions based on family, wallet, religion and desires. Gut feelings and fear.
That is a democracy and one has to accept the mostly good that evolves.
The wish to improve it often leads to unintended consequences.
DeWitt, one of the complaints I believe in the Declaration of Independence was that the king had failed to provide adequate judicial access – not enough courts or sufficiently frequent sessions.
This smacks of the possibility that the idea of government wasn’t the problem so long as what it did was necessary and not oppressive.
john ferguson,
They were paying taxes but not getting much benefit. Hence, taxation without representation.
Russell Klier,
You could try a search engine, but it will probably miss a lot. There isn’t a search feature here, so you’ll just have to go back, open posts and use the find in page function of your browser to search for your name.
Many people ‘remember’ things that didn’t happen or didn’t happen the way they remember. Isaac Asimov kept a daily journal. When he reviewed it to write his autobiography he found that there were a number of things that didn’t happen the way he remembered. If it can happen to Asimov, it can happen to anyone. Memory is very plastic. See the recovered memory disaster, for example.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #214209)
Paying without receiving the benefits was part of it but lacking control over the assignment of cost and benefit, was as you say, the crux of the thing. Our present plight seems more that we’ve lost control of (or influence over) the activities of regulators who have been given a form of carte blanche to deal with the rest of us as they please. I wonder if the problem isn’t this as much as the provision of government services themselves.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #214197): “I’m sure the participants in the Boston Tea Party and the storming of the Bastille, among many, many others, would have heatedly disagreed with you.”
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Government does not need to be large in order to be deemed oppressive. It only needs to be seen as unfair and unconcerned with the well being of the people. One of the main causes of the French Revolution was a series of poor harvests.
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john ferguson (Comment #214208): “This smacks of the possibility that the idea of government wasn’t the problem so long as what it did was necessary and not oppressive.”
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Right. A number of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence used constructions like “He has refused his assent to laws” and “He has refused to pass other laws”. Others dealt with interference with colonial legislatures and courts. There was no complaint that taxes were too high, only “For imposing taxes on us without our consent”. The consent of Parliament to taxation was an ancient principle in England.
Russell,
It’s not easy to search the comments. What search phrase would you use to find what you are looking for? I could try it on the database end.
angech (Comment #214207)
August 15th, 2022 at 3:22
I have a different take on how the voting public looks at issues and power of their governments. Ideas about these things originate, or are least articulated, by a very few individuals who might be considered philosophers, whether by official designations or by practice. The ideas filter through the prevailing intelligentsia who come in the form of academics, members of the media and others like writers who communicate directly to the public. The filtering is a relatively slow process whereas actions of the public acting on these ideas -and not always in a rational manner- tend to come in spurts of action that might appear make the process faster than it really is. That observation ignores the ebb and flow of these actions and their lasting effects.
The current intelligentsia feeding the public ideas favors a great deal of government control over people’s lives and viewing that as a longer trend is what is discouraging to those who favor much less government and more individual freedom. While looking at the current political picture may be a more immediate and fun endeavor it is not what drives the long term trends but rather is driven by them.
Governments prior mainly to the industrial revolution tended to be controlling and autocratic. There was a period of respite when some of the ideas of individual freedom, free markets and free trade were seriously considered by the intelligentsia. Following this period came ideas of Marxism which made a rather fast entry into the intelligentsia with the advent of socialism, facsism and communism. Even with the great failures of the practical applications of these ideas, the intelligentsia remains in the camp of the powerful governments that the offshoots of Marxism required.
It is quite shocking to realize how faulty our memories actually are. You tend to realize this more when you get older, ha ha. The reality is that the big bag of goo in your head isn’t an infinite storage device. It will effectively compress memories and merge them with similar events from the past and purge things that are similar enough that they don’t need to be stored at all. What did you eat for lunch 9 days ago?
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I don’t think they really understand these mechanisms very well. I’ve read the conversion from short term to long term may happen during sleep and I suspect a lot of the memory errors happen during this process. There also seems to be an intentional or unintentional process of purging older memories. Memories from 5 years and younger seem to be completely absent in most people, strange. Certain traumatic memories may get their own special storage area. Where were you during 9/11, Bin laden’s death, or the Shuttle disaster? Where were you 11 days ago at 2 pm …. duuuuuh?
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I try not to argue over me or my wife’s memory of something any more. “I don’t remember it that way” works better than “It didn’t happen that way”.
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There is also kind of strange things like remembering how things smell or feel. Can’t do that with a camera or any other device to my knowledge.
You can go back to each thread, then do a text search on the page (Ctrl-F). It’s a bit tedious. I’m not sure proving or disproving that somebody said something mean on the Internet to somebody else will be especially revealing.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214215)
Re: Memories.
I think I have a tendency to “improve” my understanding of what happened so as to make a better story.
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Eventually, I connect with someone else who was there and discover that although my version is a lot funnier than his, it probably no longer has much to do with what actually happened.
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As to smell, we used to take a hike (late ’40s) on a woodsy trail in Minneapolis which I remember had a very nice pine odor to it. Last time we walked it, maybe ten years ago, I could barely make out the smell. My daughter told me it was still there, the problem was with me.
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It may be a condition of human existence, but I can still make out bad smells without any trouble.
John, I like to call those stories parables and a great parable instead of being just good might well require some changes from memory. Not saying that changes were made but Jesus Christ made great use of parables – so we are in good company.
I would say over 50% of the problem is the perception that the governing class looks down with disdain on the governed. This disdain is both real and unreal IMO.
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It’s very much real with the demonstrated behavior of much of the governing class. The reaction to Trump, their endless blather on “democracy”, the condescending views that the governed aren’t even capable to know what their own life priorities are, etc.
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The unreal part is “why” the governing class does this. This behavior serves no known useful purpose for the goals they profess to want to achieve. Intentionally annoying the peasants is just not wise. It’s clearly counterproductive and yet it continues.
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My view is they do this because a dysfunctional culture has taken root where it is a higher priority to them to obtain peer class status by crapping on the rubes better than their peers. This has always been with us, human nature, but it is usually not so public. Basically a very toxic form of virtue signaling, but the signaling is that you are repulsed by your out group much more than the next guy. Social media algorithms then focus on that as “engaging” and the cycle gets worse.
It’s an open question of why we think something smells “bad”, it may be a learned behavior. Dogs don’t smell poop and think it’s disgusting. It just seems to be like different colors to them. Using smells to identify food, mates, or predators is definitely a thing though.
Tom Scharf,
“The unreal part is “why” the governing class does this.”
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Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in positions of power usually want more power. This lust for power is enabled by obnoxious, almost unlimited arrogance. This started with a racist dimwit named Woodrow Wilson, who considered the Constitution mainly an impediment to the ‘progress’ he wanted. The arrogance has only become worse with each iteration of ‘progressive thought’.
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Read text messages between people at FBI…. ‘obnoxious arrogance’ is almost too kind a description. Consider Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” comments. Read the nonsensical university ‘scholarship’ underlying today’s woke culture; it is not just nonsense, it is contrary to factual reality. (Fact: women are born with a uterus, transgender ‘women’ are not, and so are not women at all… they are men who don’t want to be men.) The endless lust for power among ‘progressives’ does not ever give quarter, not even to the the most obvious factual reality like what a woman is, as the recent Senate hearing on appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court so clearly shows.
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Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Progressives dominate primary education, entertainment, the MSM, the Federal bureaucracy, and nearly all universities, where, it is important to note, progressive madness grows day by day. Which is why it is critical that ‘progressives’ do not have political power at the Federal level.
SteveF (Comment #214221)
Hillary’s deplorables remark probably cost her the election, but of course it wasn’t at all uncharacteristic of her.
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You suggested that I didn’t like Trump in a recent post. I can’t tell one way or another, but with Hillary, it’s pretty plain. I don’t like her.
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And to those who say everything would have been better had she been elected, I say there is no way to know, but we could very well could have been at war with some other country within the first year of her presidency. In this area, Trump doesn’t get nearly the credit he should.
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I’m sure you will be surprised that I am in agreement with the rest of what you’ve written above. I’m just a bit confused on the best way to deal with it.
John Ferguson,
I don’t like Trump at all; he is a very unpleasant person who was not nearly as effective in office as he should have been. Were I offered a free round of golf with Trump, I would decline. He is incompetent, and seems unable to judge people. He surrounded himself with staff and cabinet who were spending most of their time trying to block desperately needed policies. “Back stabbing swamp creatures” is a fair description. He ultimately got rid of most of those, but it cost almost 2 years of a 4 year term. He completely lacks self discipline and focus, and that lack of discipline cost him multiple policy successes. Worse of all, there seems zero chance he is capable of improving, so if re-elected his next term in office would likely be as frustrated (and frustrating) as his first. No, I really don’t like Trump.
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Trump’s only saving grace is that he can usually at least see what policies are needed. In contrast, any conceivable Democrat (‘alzheimers-joe’ Biden, “mindless-cackle” Harris, or any of the many awoken mental dwarfs) will actively pursue destructive, even dangerous policies that are almost always the exact opposite of what the country needs. If Trump had a primary opponent in Florida, then I would vote for his opponent. But if the choice in 2024 is Trump or continued national damage by the woke left, then I will vote for Trump.
SteveF (Comment #214223)
I understand. I thought the personnel turnover continued through his entire term, and might have been even greater had the few heavy-hitters didn’t talk him out of them.
Also note McConnell never put the Senate in formal recess, preventing Trump from making recess appointments.
Magical thinking and the war of attrition in Ukraine
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbQ-IdjeVss
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Well worth the time to listen
Ed Forbes,
Looks to me like Russian offensive and defensive moves are designed to gain control of 100% of the Donbas, plus maintain control of most of three other oblasts, securing their permanent 100-150 mile wide land bridge to the Crimea. I suspect that is where the Russians will declare victory and incorporate those regions into Russia.
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They are already “Russifying” those areas: switching to Russian rubles, issuing Russian passports, getting rid (one way or another) of Ukrainians who resist. The possibility of a negotiated settlement looks now to be zero. Whether the Russians will face significant armed resistance/terror attacks in those areas is not clear, but if so, Russia will not be as tolerant of terrorist as the USA and Europe.
Steve
Talk is floating about that once the plebiscite to join the Russian Federation is held, Russian conscripts can then be transferred to the area as it will then be “internal” to the federation. This will free up the professional contract forces currently doing rear area security as the rear area support and security can then be done by the conscripts.
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Manpower has been a real issue for Russia as it has not been legally allowed to use their conscripts in Ukraine as it is outside of the federation and no war has been declared.
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Not declaring war on Ukraine limits what forces Russia can bring to bear. I haven’t found any good explanation as yet why Russia has taken this approach. Obviously an internal political reason, but none that makes sense to me as yet.
My experience with government workers has been a mixed bag. I believe that those workers who deal directly with the public do not have to worry as much about pleasing their customers as workers in the private sector do. Having said that there are government workers who want to do their best job and please their customers. They probably do not have to attempt to please, but their natural instincts allow them to do it. I also believe the next level up in the worker chain of command can be a mixed bag because I see whole operations where the attitudes of the workers are much the same but very different from operation to operation in how they deal with their customers.
As an example, there are 3 Illinois Driver License operations that I have dealt with over many years with not only myself but the entire family. The operation in Lombard (which I have not frequented for a while) the worker attitude seemed to me to be my job is a pain and I want you to know I really do not care about you. The operation in Naperville was fairly efficient but not particularly friendly. The one in Aurora has been consistently friendly and efficient where the workers go out of their way to be helpful.
I think it would be fair to extrapolate those observations to operations like the FBI and DOJ. These people have near guarantees of employment there as long as they wish to stay. Government bureaucracies in general do not reward creative thinking and particularly if it is out of the box. There organizations are run with rather rigid operating rules where efficiency is not a top priority. Mises wrote an entire book about government bureaucracy where he blamed their weaknesses on the very nature of the system that even a well-intentioned bureaucrat could not fix.
SteveF (Comment #214221)
Tom Scharf,“The unreal part is “why” the governing class does this.” Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those in positions of power usually want more power.”
Ken Fritsch
“I have a different take on how the voting public looks at issues and power of their governments. Ideas about these things originate, or are least articulated, by a very few individuals who might be considered philosophers,”
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Stepping back a little I think we are lucky enough to live in societies that allow a little personal freedom to explore ideas, but not too much.
There is still an iron fist in the velvet glove of most democracies, just that we have an illusion of some freedom.
In regards to absolute power there is an element of absolute fear in people who hold it by force, the Putin’s and Kim’s of this world.
How can they ever sleep easily at night knowing that one of their own might take the chance to usurp them. The corruption mentioned might well be due to the fear of losing power rather than the fact of holding power.
The current Democratic reaction to challenge is illuminating.
In doing so many corrupt things when in power to hold onto it including weaponizing the FBI , they have to keep going for fear of what will happen from the mob if they lose power.
angech,
Democrats do have much to fear if they lose control of Congress.
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Biden family corruption, which is both significant and until now completely protected from real investigation, will be finally investigated, although the DOJ will not cooperate at all and will continue to refuse to bring charges for a multitude of Hunter Biden’s felonies. When the scope of Biden’s personal corruption is shown, and his dementia becomes ever more obvious, we can count on Democrats in 2023 to force Biden to not run in 2024.
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Biden’s refusal to enforce immigration laws, and his delivery of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants by charted planes and buses to cities all over the country will be finally brought to the public’s attention, highlighting the millions of new illegals the Biden administration has literally welcomed into the country, while ignoring immigration laws. Biden administration hacks in charge of this outrage will be questioned by Congress but will say nothing of substance.
Well my adventure into searching historical posts is not going well. It is quite tedious and I am about to end the endeavor even though I haven’t found the thread I am looking for ……but I did cherry-pick a few erudite comments worth repeating:
“Sadly, there are far too many freedom hating totalitarians like Russell Klier in this country.”
“Utter rubbish. I didn’t say you were a Democrat, I said you appear to be a totalitarian, and everyhting [sic] you write confirms it.”
“It is a garbage argument in support of a completely idiotic idea. And fortunately one that most people will simply ignore. I won’t waste any more time arguing against such an idiotic idea.”
“Russell, is your middle name Algernon?”
“This is just fear mongering on your part. It’s irrational.”
I can report that I did not draw these comments as a result of any personal attacks by me and I did not respond with any ad hominem attacks of my own.
Big surprise:
“The Justice Department objected on Monday to making public the affidavit used to justify the search of former President Donald J. Trump’s home in Florida, saying its release would “compromise future investigative steps” and “likely chill” cooperation with witnesses.”
““Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses,” prosecutors wrote. They added that releasing the affidavit could harm “other high-profile investigations” as well.”
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This may all be true, but I just don’t give them the benefit of the doubt at this point. It also harms the targets of the investigation when you mislead judges and manipulate the justice system.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214237)
“This may all be true, but I just don’t give them the benefit of the doubt at this point. It also harms the targets of the investigation when you mislead judges and manipulate the justice system.”
Tom, you assume that judges are being misled and justice manipulated on the basis of what information which might be accessible to the rest of us?
This, and the theory that the FBI has been weaponized by the Democrats seem highly unlikely.
There may be a better example of exactly what you are considering, but the case of the purloined papers isn’t it.
It seems to me astonishingly simple. Trump left office in 2021 and took with him documents which rightfully belonged to the the government to be held by NARA. The government alerted Trump to the problem, he surrendered what turned out to be some of them, the government learned that the surrender was incomplete and returned to discuss the surrender of the rest of them, they were not surrendered and the government subpoened them, they were still not surrendered hence the non-violent visit to collect them.
A judge had to approve the raid based on information contained in the affidavit which would necessarily have based the need on evidence of probable cause that a crime of necessary gravity had been committed and information necessary to a prosecution of person or persons involved in the crime would likely be recovered in the raid.
Whatever would make you think that such an affidavit would be available unredacted to the public?
john ferguson (Comment #214238): “Tom, you assume that judges are being misled and justice manipulated on the basis of what information which might be accessible to the rest of us?”
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Tom’s statement is evidence that he has been paying attention, unlike some people. We know that the FBI has engaged in massive anti-Trump misconduct with respect to the Russia hoax. Also, many other examples of misbehavior, such as the Whitmer kidnapping plot, Hunter’s laptop, etc.
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john ferguson: “This, and the theory that the FBI has been weaponized by the Democrats seem highly unlikely.”
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The FBI is acting in defense of the oligarchy (or establishment, uniparty. elites, deep state, ruling class, …; no single term really captures it). The oligarchy used to control both parties and could count on protection from both parties. Trump changed that. He is a danger to the oligarchy and those who serve the oligarchy. The Democrats are now the one party that acts as the tool and protector of the oligarchy. As a result, the mainstream media, the foreign policy establishment, the FBI, etc. are now firmly aligned with the Democrats. But it is not party that motivates them. It is preservation of their own power and position.
John Ferguson,
“A judge had to approve the raid based on information contained in the affidavit..”
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That same judge recently (June 22 of this year) recused himself from a civil lawsuit (Trump V Clinton) because his history made the appearance of bias against Trump likely. He is, by the way, a hired magistrate, not even a confirmed federal judge… with an already acknowledged appearance of bias against Trump.
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“….the government learned that the surrender was incomplete and returned to discuss the surrender of the rest of them, they were not surrendered and the government subpoened (sic) them, they were still not surrendered hence the non-violent visit to collect them.”
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Please provide documented evidence that this is what actually happened. AFAICT, without the subpoena and the affidavit, that description is 100% anonymous hearsay, not fact. If the anonymous sources that make those claims are working for the FBI or the DOJ, then they are guilty of felonies and should be prosecuted; all information leading to the search warrant, including the affidavit, can’t be leaked to reporters.
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But I am guessing the DOJ and FBI won’t investigate any leaks to reporters, nor even officially comment on those leaks, no matter if true or false. They will, however, continue to leak whatever information they think will most damage Trump, no matter if true or false.
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The search warrant is just like the rest of the pursuit of Trump by Democrats: it is biased, unprincipled, and often illegal. After years of hearing endless and completely false suggestions that “Trump is an Russian agent in cahoots with Putin”, I think a very large measure of skepticism is warranted whenever the FBI and DOJ attack Trump.
I’d forgotten why I quit reading here in 2016.
It is true that reliable opinions can be built from fragmentary evidence, but what I’ve been reading here lately seems to depend on seeing things through highly colored lenses, many of which simply aren’t there.
I’m out of here.
good luck all.
john
John Ferguson,
“I’m out of here.”
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Sorry to see you go. Even more sorry that you believe hearsay, apparently without question.
John,
Respectfully, I don’t understand why you need to bail, just because you disagree with some of the viewpoints being aired. You could just say something like ‘agree to disagree’ and leave it at that.
Shrug.
[Edit: You could ignore those viewpoints entirely in fact.]
john ferguson (Comment #214241) said “I’m out of here” …He left too soon, he should have stayed for the fun part, personal insults…they come next. (see comment #214236 above)
Russell, nobody wants to talk about how insulted you feel.
Shrug.
I’m specifically referring to the investigation into Trump Russia collusion when the court was misled by the FBI to authorize “spying” on Trump officials, also the altering of an email by a Clinton lawyer who was later found guilty of a crime, and many other examples of the FBI either misbehaving or showing biased behavior. Much of this was uncovered before, during, and after the Mueller investigation.
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Trump may be guilty, what I am saying is I am not going to assume this is true based on media coverage and anonymous leaks from partisans, nor am I going to assume the FBI has acted properly to get a search warrant. I would be shocked if they were sloppy here given the political pressure, but it’s not out of the question.
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I don’t live in a world where the FBI’s and DOJ’s prior behavior is irrelevant to the current circumstances. It matters, and this is how it matters. They can reclaim credibility by behaving properly.
Tom Scharf,
“I would be shocked if they were sloppy here given the political pressure, but it’s not out of the question.”
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The issue is that we will never know…. the DOJ and FBI will never actually disclose what they told the judge. So it will be anonymous “people familiar with the situation” who make unsupported claims that will be endlessly reported, and nobody will be able to refute those claims, because no documents will ever be released. “You just have to trust us” is not going to work.
“Whatever would make you think that such an affidavit would be available unredacted to the public?”
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Maybe because people are attacking FBI buildings with AR-15’s and making violent threats to the FBI. Maybe because they have lost complete credibility with a large number of people, and 47% of people polled thought the DOJ and FBI’s action were politically motivated and not about following the law.
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One can claim the DOJ actions are proper law and order, but one cannot just dismiss half the country * not believing it *. The way to fix this problem is transparency. Showing your law and order cards has downsides, but obviously not doing so also has downsides and these needs must be balanced.
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Affidavits are eventually available. It’s in the public interest to do so now because the situation is very volatile.
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Releasing the documents will just be another firestorm no doubt, but I keep telling people, if this turns out to be a fishing expedition for Jan 6th then the sh** is going to hit the fan. Trust in the DOJ and FBI will crater for a generation.
The first link below relates that an affidavit for a search warrant is available to the defense after criminal charges are brought, but that if charges are not brought (or I assume delayed for a lengthy period of time) the affidavit can remain sealed on a permanent basis. This situation appears to me to be rife for defaming a person secretly (with leaks coloring the affidavit contents) with no recourse for the person being defamed – and all I guess in the name of better efficiency for the prosecutors. I suspect that an affidavit could be redacted to protect the prosecutors process and made public, but that route is probably seldom taken because it might be become too complicated for a judge to bother. I suspect there is a legal procedure to request that an affidavit be unsealed just like any other judicially sealed documents.
If I interpret the second link below correctly, it appears that in California the public can see a search warrant and all connected documents, which I would assume includes the affidavit, in a brief time after the warrant is executed. If this is so I think digging for the rationale for the California approach would be well worth the effort.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/us/politics/affadavit.html
https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-sections/16-arrest-search-warrants-supporting-affidavits/
California:
Regarding Kevin Clinesmith and his minimal punishment for doctoring a document, he was allowed to plead that he thought his change to the document still reflected a true statement.
He had the e-mail say something like Carter Page is not an asset.
One detail that I think gave him a small out, is that the CIA had told Clinesmith that Page was not an asset. It was in the IG report that they said they don’t use the term ‘asset’.
Tom Scharf,
“Affidavits are eventually available. It’s in the public interest to do so now because the situation is very volatile.”
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While I completely agree it is in the public’s interest for the affidavit and any supporting documents to be released, I very much doubt that will happen.
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As Ken Fritsch points out correctly, an affidavit leading to a Federal search warrant is never released unless charges stemming from the warrant are filed against the target, and then only given to the accused, not the public. The DOJ has already argued strenuously for no release in opposition multiple legal requests by news organizations.
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It is a rotten business, ripe for exploitation by anonymous leakers and unscrupulous political hacks like Merrick Garland.
We now have a leak that states that Garland waffled for weeks before authorizing the application for a search warrant. We also have a leak that says that the search had to be executed rapidly. Legal representation for Trump was excluded during the search and cameras on the property disabled. But then the FBI doesn’t record audio or audio/video for their interrogations either.
Something stinks to high heaven here.
Russel,
The thing is, while those posts show you were severely criticised for your position, you failed to include what you’d actually been saying should be done.
Scroll back. I think you’ll find you were proposing inflicting rules on other people. And you were advocating that other people should be required to comply with said rules for your sake and the sake of people like you.
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You weren’t merely advocating taking strenuous precautions for yourself.
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Were people sometimes less than polite to you? Sure. But if you look through you’ll also find a post where you said someone who died deserved to die from Covid. Sure, you weren’t attaching anyone present when you wished for someone’s death. But you saying a person deserved to die for taking a different position from you on Covid triggered quite a bit of impolite behavior in your direction.
The alleged perp may not want the affidavits made public. If a rogue prosecutor was doing a bogus investigation that a person was a child predator then I would suggest the person would not want it made public while the prosecutor might. As it sits now, the prosecution can always leak the evidence in a narrative that suits their purpose. It would seem to me that the target of the investigation should be allowed to get the documents and make them public.
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The counter argument here is something like a mob informer or other confidential source. If the mob got the affidavits then the informer’s life may be in danger.
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I would say the documents should be made available to the target of the investigation except under very rare circumstances that require a high bar to clear.
DeWitt,
This is what is frustrating for me, the DOJ gets to set their own narrative with effectively condoned leaks while the target of the investigation gets no access to the data to refute it. Leaks have become so common in these type of cases that something needs to change. It’s also entirely believable that Trump may not want the evidence made public if it is not favorable.
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I will give Mueller credit for being about the only human alive who was capable of keeping leaks from happening in such a high profile case. The Supreme Court until recently was also tight as a drum.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #214252)
August 16th, 2022 at 2:45 pm
DeWitt, I took that leak piece in the WSJ as pushing the narrative that Garland is very thoughtful person who probably would not push a weak case. It was the opposite of a hit piece that is usually a feature of MSM. I see it as a leak favoring the DOJ with the assistance of the WSJ news department.
Lucia, it happened again with my post going to moderation.
aka Ken
Ken,
Usually it is a typo in your email address.
SteveF, I do not type my email address but rather tap it in. When I get moderated it has been when I am using my tablet, but I use it frequently without moderation.
Ken, your post should be ok now. Every typo version of your name/email should soon be recognized by “the wordpress bot”.
They leaked that they had a high level source in the Kremlin providing info on Trump. This was the insurance policy, allegedly.
As expected, Liz Cheney lost by 30+% in the Wyoming primary. Now she can stop wasting time on a futile election effort, and focus 100% on the Jan 6 committee effort to get Trump.
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Looks like Lisa Murkowski will be a permanent fixture in Washington DC; Alaska’s ‘four-advance’ jungle primary, and jungle general election, combined with a ranked voting system will make it just about impossible for a more conservative Republican to ever replace her unless that Republican comes out ahead of her in the jungle general election. Democrats will always select Murkowski as their second choice over a more conservative Republican, so unless a more conservative Republican gets more first choice votes than both Murkowski, and whoever the Democrat is (forcing Murkowski into third place and eliminating her from the race), all the Democrats second choice votes will go to Murkowski…. putting her over 50% pretty much every time. This scheme makes extreme candidates (left or right) less likely to win election, so count on it never being adopted broadly.
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The same jungle general/ranked voting system may elect Sarah Palin to the House between now and November, because she did come in ahead of a less conservative Republican (eliminating him), and his second place votes, when distributed, will likely put Palin over 50%.
Thinking more about the reality of leaking supposedly secret government information, it seems, with leaking becoming more rampant and agenda utilized, that current rules and customes should change accordingly.
First of all I strongly suspect that a goodly portion of documents deemed secret are so called for the convenience of the agency making the secrecy call. In the name of transparency this part of the process needs high priority changes that I judge best accomplished using independent calls on the secrecy needs and making clear the why a specific document needs secrecy. After the fact reviews of secrecy calls should be made and the results made public. None of this will happen if it is expected that these agencies are going to reform on their own or be pushed by politicians. It would have to come from the public. Unfortunately the public is not there yet and appears to remain of the mind that these agencies are pure of thought and purpose and must be left uncritically to carry out their duties. This attitude changes periodically on a partisan basis depending on whose ox is being gored.
In the current Trump warranty discussion and media reporting there is considerable information coming out in the media that must have been part of the dealings and documentation that were supposed to have been kept from the public. I would think that honest journalism would at least clearly report that their information came from a leaked source.
The leaking issue should be given much consideration in making more government secret documents and information available to the public. There are obviously no repercussions for leaking, and while it may be “against the law”, in reality it has become part of the system.
SteveF (Comment #214263): ” This scheme makes extreme candidates (left or right) less likely to win election, so count on it never being adopted broadly.”
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That is often cited as a reason for jungle primaries and ranked choice voting. But I have seen the claim that the opposite is actually the case. I don’t know if that is so, but the jungle primaries in CA and WA do not seem to have any moderating effect.
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Simple models based on the assumption that people vote in accord with a one-dimensional, monotonic left-right scale usually don’t work very well. So we shall see how things play out in November.
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The fact that Murkowski previously got turfed in a Republican primary then got elected as a write-in candidate indicates that she will be very hard to unseat, regardless of the voting system.
Mike M,
“….but the jungle primaries in CA and WA do not seem to have any moderating effect.”
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Jungle primaries in places like California are not going to make much difference. It is the combination of a jungle primary where three or more candidates make it to the general election, and ranked choice voting in the general that can reduce the chance of an extreme candidate getting elected, because ranked choice means voters who’s candidate places third or lower in the general election still can vote against extreme candidates.
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In California, only two advance to the general, so either two Democrats, or a Democrat and a Republican. Either way, Republicans in most places in California remain frozen out of influencing the person elected to office unless they are willing to not vote for a Republican in the jungle primary and instead vote for a ‘lesser of evils’ Democrat in both the primary and the general. Republicans in California mostly have bad choices. Maybe they should move to Texas. 😉
The ability of the media to legally keep their anonymous sources confidential might need to be reviewed. I understand the need for this, but the question is whether we are now at the point where the abuse of this system for partisan ends has exceeded the benefits. I don’t see the media self reforming here because of the incentives in their industry.
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I would suggest that sources that were shown to misleading or wrong should be able to be exposed. Certainly an industry so devoted towards truth and justice would not object.
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For now I just don’t put much weight behind these sources anymore.
My guess is ranked choice voting would not be kind to Trump.
The heart rending eulogies for Cheney in the legacy media are a bit much. Cheney for President! Oh brother. Everyone knows this is hopeless in the extreme, just spin. I find nothing particularly wrong with Cheney’s stance, however she went a bit far with her rhetoric and became a useful tool for Democrats and the media. Pretty much unforgivable to the tribe.
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You don’t have to like or embrace Trump, but you also don’t need to grandstand on the Jan 6th committee to the adulation of the opposing side either. It is sophomoric to believe that in politics that being openly disloyal to the tribe is not going to cost you. There are a few examples of successfully doing this, but they are quite rare and usually require a very large reservoir of political capital.
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I’d prefer everyone was an independent thinker and we disposed of the tribal politics, but it seems politics is the most severe from of tribalism from what I can tell, except maybe some sports rivalries, ha ha.
SteveF (Comment #214266): “It is the combination of a jungle primary where three or more candidates make it to the general election, and ranked choice voting in the general that can reduce the chance of an extreme candidate getting elected”.
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We shall see. Jungle primaries were supposed to do that. Ranked choice was supposed to do that. Now it is the combo that will do the magic. In the Alaska Senate race, only two candidates got more than single digit support. So the result may not be any different than with a simple jungle primary.
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For the Congressional seat, both the general special election and the primary for November were held yesterday. Vote totals are incomplete, but a simplistic analysis would have Palin winning the second round in a landslide, unless the other Republican is a RINO.
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FWIW, I would like to see a voting system that works against polarization.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214269)
August 17th, 2022 at 11:23 am
You said in this post mostly what I was about to post.
Cheney could become a Democrat. She could remind them that her daddy said deficits no longer matter. There is a lot of chameleon in politicians, but I doubt the love affair with the Democrat party would last beyond the first time she forgot the progressive party line.
There are numerous items about Jan 6th that people in general would be interested in hearing the committee bring to the floor and Cheney would have increased her credibilities if she had taken it upon herself to do so. I think as a politician she thought she would weaken her arguments against Trump. I do not think she was being very honest and imbued with integrity by failing to get beyond Trump.
SteveF (Comment #214263)
August 17th, 2022 at 8:06 am
“As expected, Liz Cheney lost by 30+% in the Wyoming primary. Now she can stop wasting time on a futile election effort, and focus 100% on the Jan 6 committee effort to get Trump.“
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This is one thing I do not get in US politics.
Cheney has stated she is out to g.et Trump at all costs.
Openly
Kizinger supports her stance to chase Trump to the gates of hell.
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How can an independent fair commission allow such people on it
How do fair and honest people allow themselfves to sit in judgement of someone they hate.
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Surely the courts or Supreme Court or the people of AMercica should stand up against injustice of this nature?
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I don’t get it and I don’t want to get it.
angech,
The Jan 6 committee is run by the US House, controlled by Democrats via simple majority; the courts have no control over the internal workings of the House (or Senate). There was never going to be any attempt to make the committee fair or reasonable, nor to give Trump a chance to be defended in any way. It is nothing but a political show trial, and I think pretty clearly demonstrates the political impasse we have in the States: Democrats are not looking for fair or reasonable, they are looking to keep power at any cost. This is not really much of a surprise, since progressives implicitly reject the legitimacy of all that happened in the past in the name of ‘progress’, including the political structure of USA, which is a republic, not a democracy. The endless cries about Republicans resisting “our democracy” shows pretty clearly that progressives reject the Constitution and the political structures it describes. If you are feeling generous, you could assume some progressives don’t understand the constitution, but I suspect most simply reject it as illegitimate.
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If the DOJ actually brings charges against Trump, then the Courts would become involved, with rules of discovery, required disclosure of conflicts of interest, required legal representation for the accused, no hear-say testimony allowed, and no willful misrepresentation of facts before the court (attorneys on both sides are “officers of the court” and subject to immediate retaliation by the judge…. up to time in jail… for misrepresentations before the court). In other words: none of the rubbish that is going on in the Jan 6 committee would be allowed. All of which explains why Trump has so far not been charged with anything.
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But even with normal legal requirements, you should be aware any charges would be brought in Washington DC, where 19 out of 20 voters oppose Trump, and don’t want him running for office again. The chance a Trump supporter could get on the jury is near zero (the prosecution gets to reject a certain number of jurors without cause…. they will reject all Republicans), so the DOJ knows it can almost certainly get a conviction in DC, even if their case is weak.
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What is not clear to me is if a political hack like Merrick Garland can appreciate the social/political damage he would do by charging Trump over very minor issues like returning records, and convicting him using by a jury of 100% partisan Democrats in DC.
SteveF,
It’s unlikely that any trial of Trump would actually be held in DC for precisely the reasons you list. Trump could request, and would almost certainly be granted, a change of venue.
DeWitt,
No doubt Trump would request a different location. But why do you think a DC district court judge would grant it? 10 district judges were appointed by Democrats and only 4 appointed by Republicans. The chief judge is an Obama appointee, and would make sure the case was assigned to a Democrat. (If I sound jaded, that is because I am. I absolutely do not trust lefty Federal judges to be non-partisan in a politically charged case.)
SteveF,
Failure to grant a change of venue is appealable. The DC district court judge is not the final authority.
DeWitt,
You are right. The DC circuit Court of Appeals (dominated by Dems) may not grant a change in venue, but the SC likely would.
Florida would be perfect! Almost 50/50. What a wild ride that would be on that jury.
This is your typical framing bias by the NYT:
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“One of Donald J. Trump’s most trusted executives stood before a judge on Thursday and pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, admitting that he conspired with Mr. Trump’s company to carry out a scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish perks — even while refusing to implicate the former president himself.”
“The plea deal does not require Mr. Weisselberg to cooperate with the district attorney’s broader criminal investigation of Mr. Trump, and his admissions will not implicate the former president. His willingness to accept jail time rather than turn on Mr. Trump underscores the extent of his loyalty to a family he has served for nearly a half-century, and it helped stymie the larger effort to indict Mr. Trump.”
“In refusing to cooperate against Mr. Trump, Mr. Weisselberg fended off intense pressure from prosecutors.”
“After they obtained the tax returns, they continued to scrutinize Mr. Weisselberg, hoping to pressure him to cooperate. When they did not receive that cooperation, they indicted Mr. Weisselberg and the company in the tax scheme, bringing charges in July 2021.”
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Note the casual assumption that Trump is guilty (of something!) without any evidence, in fact there is nothing but counter-evidence. It is simple to see how this article could be completely rewritten with an opposite spin as a prosecutorial abuse story. “No evidence” blah blah blah.
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Apparently Weisselberg had some leased cars, apartments, etc. that he didn’t properly report on his or his company’s taxes. The NYT’s seems convinced Trump is personally involved in a conspiracy to hide these perks, or something. Prosecutors charged Weisselberg with these somewhat common CEO type offenses after he refused to turn on Trump for whatever else he may know, unspecified.
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It would seem the state of NY is just finding anything they can against longtime Trump associates to try to dig up dirt on Orange Man Bad.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214269)
August 17th, 2022 at 11:23 am
The WSJ had an editorial on Cheney this morning much along the lines of Tom’s post.
Tom Scharf,
Unlikely it would be in Florida, but if it were, you could count on the DOJ to argue for the deepest blue district in the state, and then do their best to exclude any Republican from sitting on a jury.
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They are not looking for fair and reasonable, but rather to keep Trump from running again. The last trace of fair and reasonable at the DOJ disappeared when Trump came down the escalator at Trump tower in 2015. A 40% cut in DOJ and FBI funding, with far deeper cuts in Washington DC, would be a good start in reforming these politicized organizations.
Corrupt FBI destruction of evidence continues
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“”.. “In a plea deal filed Wednesday, a former FBI agent pleaded guilty to paying a business to “wipe” his computer to make the hard drive unavailable for forensic examination.
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According to court documents, former agent Robert Cessario was charged with “corrupt destruction of record in an official proceeding” in connection to the corruption trial of former state Sen. Jon Woods of Springdale.
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In the plea deal, Cessario stated: “I erased the contents of the computer hard knowing that the court has ordered that the computer be submitted for a forensic examination. I did so with the intention of making the contents of the computer’s hard unavailable for forensic examination. At the time, I knew that the contents of the hard drive were relevant to an official proceeding, that is, Cause No. 5:17-CR-50010, United States v. Woods et al. I corruptly performed and had performed, the erasures with intent to impair the integrity and availability of the computer hard drive and its contents for use in that official proceeding.””
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https://www.sgtreport.com/2022/08/fbi-agent-pleads-guilty-to-destroying-evidence-to-frame-pro-trump-political-prisoner/
Ukraine pushes occupied areas to vote in favor of Russian Federation
( or that will be the effect anyway)
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Ukraine requires citizens in occupied areas to starve
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“According to the Interior Ministry’s spokesperson Alyona Matveeva, a person can be convicted for urging people to support the Russian military, taking or distributing Russian humanitarian aid, or providing Russia with information about the Ukrainian military.”
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https://newspunch.com/ukraine-begins-arresting-people-who-distribute-russian-humanitarian-aid-you-must-leave-them-to-die/
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You can’t make this stuff up, i.e. it’s not from The Onion or the Babylon Bee. California is in the process of taking over the fast food industry.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-new-war-on-burger-bargains-11660862026?st=hbawv5hzw9wwqfk&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
As if you needed more evidence that the government of California is wholly owned by labor unions.
DeWitt,
The crazy left rules in California, and that is not going to change.
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https://www.ocregister.com/2018/04/06/with-california-taxpayers-facing-a-1-trillion-unfunded-pension-liability-lawmakers-focus-on-foam-and-plastic-straws/
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The crazy left is the reason California is losing seats in Congress.
Walensky of the CDC admits that mistakes were made in their reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic and some on the right were quick to evidently think this is good news and about time. Well, that is not exactly what the CDC has in mind. They think they were not restrictive enough and they need more money and they are getting into the striving for equity by proposing more government funding for that cause.
Defund the CDC.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-and-walensky-double-down-on-failure-covid-pandemic-evidence-data-lockdowns-mask-mandates-restrictions-public-health-experts-11660855180?
Hindsight says that there is an argument to be made for more restrictive measures in the * exact same * pandemic. If we knew vaccines and anti-virals were going to be available by a certain time then it would make sense to have more restrictions early to protect the most vulnerable groups to save the most lives, which is essentially the CDC mission.
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If would also make sense to wall off the entire country the moment we knew a global pandemic was coming to delay the initial spread.
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We didn’t really know those things of course, and the CDC’s mission isn’t to trade off economic and public health measures because that is not their expertise.
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So to sum it up, of course they would say that. What they can actually do and control is not epically screw up the early testing and isolation response to the next pandemic so that there is widespread community transmission before anyone really knows it.
Ken Fritsch,
Funny how Federal agencies always say if they err at all, it is on the side of not being nearly enough like brown-shirt thugs. Oh, and they need much more money to avoid that unfortunate outcome in the future.
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The things they really did wrong:
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1. Kept kids, at essentially zero risk for severe covid from attending schools.
2. Kept insisting, against all logic, that having had the illness provides no protection against future infection.
3. Insisted, with zero evidence,’lock-downs’ would reduce the spread of the virus.
4. Insisted, with zero evidence, that idiotic virtue signaling with cloth masks and 6 ft ‘social distancing’ would reduce spread of the virus.
5. Insisted anyone not vaccinated was little more than a murderous thug, and should be scorned, even if they had already recovered from the virus.
6. Insisted that anyone refusing vaccination should not have gainful employment.
7. Insisted, with zero evidence, that air travel posed a severe risk of viral transmission, which could only be reduced by virtue signaling with a cloth mask…. except when eating or drinking, where the virus was not allowed to leave a person’s body.
8. Critically important information, like the true risk of re-infection, and the change in risk with age, was either hidden or not discussed. They were willfully trying to mislead the public to whip up ever more fear.
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I could go on, but that is enough to get the basic idea: just about everything they did was ridiculous, illogical, counterproductive, or damaging, or a combination of these things, and ALWAYS took away both personal liberty and personal responsibility. Defunding the CDC is the only sensible response.
SteveF,
There was also vilification and social media ostracization of anyone who tried to make a case that the mask and lockdown regime was not the best way to go. See the treatment of the Great Barrington Declaration and its signers, for example.
Government policy, where one size fits all, ignored the fact that the elderly and infirmed were those in the population much more susceptible to suffering from Covid-19 than others, yet it was nursing homes that got hit hardest by Covid-19 and the worker, businesses and the young school age populations that paid unduly for the restrictions.
Governments have been slow to let up on restrictions and special considerations that were in effect for the emergency. In fact they are actively looking for a new emergency to replace Covid-19. That might be climate change if enough sheep can be convinced.
A reasonable person might see ways by which government might have done better in the Covid-19 pandemic, but that is forgetting how inefficiently governments operate and how power infatuated they become in a crisis. I say next time it would be best for the government to stay out of the way and allow an efficient distribution of data and analysis to flow freely without a hint from government about a preferred outcome.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214289):
“Hindsight says that there is an argument to be made for more restrictive measures in the * exact same * pandemic. If we knew vaccines and anti-virals were going to be available by a certain time then it would make sense to have more restrictions early to protect the most vulnerable groups to save the most lives, which is essentially the CDC mission.
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If would also make sense to wall off the entire country the moment we knew a global pandemic was coming to delay the initial spread.”
Sounds rather like what Australia and New Zealand did.
BTW current deaths per million (of course USA has had an extra winter and deaths probably vary a lot by state): USA > 3000, Aust 510, NZ 570
NZ, Australia, and a few other places do have very low death rates compared to Europe and the USA, about in line with initial estimates of effectiveness of the m-RNA vaccines; had most people in Europe and the been USA vaccinated before the virus became widespread, death rates would surely have been more like NZ and Australia.
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But I think doing what NZ and Australia did was never really an option for the USA. Island nations can do that sort of thing a lot more easily. Of course, I don’t believe the enforcement actions that went on in Australia would be politically practical in the USA either, not to mention that the Federal government doesn’t set the rules for individual states. And what if vaccines and anti-virals had not become available? Staying indefinitely isolated and with severe personal restrictions on travel doesn’t seem like a reasonable option. I sure hope the staff (AKA numbskulls) at the CDC doesn’t imagine policy like NZ adopted could be adopted in the USA.
Andrew Kennett,
Walling off was not an option for the US. For one thing, by the time that anyone recognized that there was an epidemic, there was already community transmission in New York and New Jersey. China could, and still does, get away with a strict quarantine, but the US couldn’t.
As far as death rate, by the time NZ and AUS had widespread disease, it was the omicron strain which was far less virulent than all previous strains. I’m not sure vaccination had much to do with it.
Walling off could have had a different outcome if the later variants were more virulent.
Hindsight is everything in the would of, could of, should of.
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Isolating the virus at the source could have huge effects, almost to the point of exterminating the virus. The first place to look would be China’s late response, after that the virus spread by the global travel routes almost exactly by travel density. It’s arguable there is nothing Europe and US could have really done once it broke out of China.
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However it seems that exponential transmission is a real thing and slowing it early can have big effects later. The question is whether we have enough expertise to recognize when lockdowns are really needed, false alarms will not be tolerated very many times.
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The lockdowns did “work” to not overwhelm the healthcare system early, flatten the curve! It is debatable whether they would ever have really become overwhelmed or changed the outcome in a different path. “Overwhelmed” healthcare systems that have no effective treatments available don’t change outcomes.
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The real point here is that there was a lot of uncertainty, and we should be working to put systems in place for surveillance that allow that uncertainty to be reduced for better decision making.
Paul Ehrlich could not have been more wrong:
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https://quillette.com/2022/08/20/the-unexpected-future/
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A lot of frightening stuff, with huge elderly populations in many countries which can’t reasonably be supported by falling populations of working age people.
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I don’t agree with some of the article, and I think it does not properly address an obvious solution: People will have to work until well past 65 to avoid economic decline. Full Social Security and Medicare benefits between age 70 and 75 looks like a plausible approach… though surely unpopular with those who’s benefits would be delayed.
Once you start looking at what could have been done in the pandemic without reference to the cost, it becomes quite easy to use the analogy of the 10 mph speed limit with 100 % surveillance to reduce traffic deaths to near 0 – even though you might get some people of the one death is too many mind to go along with such draconian measures.
Do we have any idea as yet of the cost of all the government measures in attempts to mitigate the effects of the pandemic? I do not believe we do nor do I think those favoring those measures are in any hurry to look. The CDC might take on the task so that Fauci would not appear so naïve and far removed from the economics if he is around for the next pandemic.
For example, can they figure out a way to tell if a virus is airborne within 8 months of a global pandemic? Can they figure out a way to know if masks are effective against a specific virus through … errr … “science”. Can they work on mucosal vaccine technology now?
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I’m not talking about a hundred one-off studies after the pandemic begins where 99 of them have already drawn their conclusions before they write them. Basically be ready to characterize a virus quickly so better decisions can be made.
Tom’s post reminds that the mantra of the pandemic, “follow the science”, might well have been in the case of the pandemic, as well as some other emergencies, “science follow the government mandates”.
Unless the public were willing to use N95 masks properly fitted, the mask mandates amount to something more like virtue signaling and an easy means of discovering recalcitrant individuals. There are a number of individuals who I see, as evidently being very cautious for personal reasons, continuing to wear masks that are not of the N95 level of protection and who have no guidance from the government agencies on the matter.
The airborne issue for the Covid-19 virus is a prime example of the government agencies being very slow in allowing the results of scientific analysis to become widely available to the public or of using the results in a logical manner. I see numerous examples of science that bears directly on government direction where parts of scientific evidence is either ignored or the uncertainty that it presents is either not explained or is ignored. This is not always a matter of transfers of information from the science community to the public but of the messages coming out of the science community. It results in a situation whereby information is not falsely presented by rather not or only partly presented.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7#
Ken,
I saw a one or two people in the audience at a recent dance competition wearing those blue masks– not N95. Presumably they feel cautious but at the same time they want to go to a large competition and watch. It really makes no sense. This a totally elective social event. If they are worried they would be better off staying away. Next best, wear the N95.
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No one dancing wore a mask.
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I am hoping for a booster for omicron and or something more than “original” variant. They need to
(a) get boosters that work with new variants out more quickly
(b) get nasal spray boosters and
(c) be working on vaccines that use parts of the virus that evolve less rapidly.
Honestly, the CDC examining its own past decisions has an obvious conflict of interest. Yes, they do need to look at their own history, but for credibility, you need some outside group. I’m not sure who that would be. Oh. Well.
The FDA has told mRNA manufacturers to make boosters targeting BA.4 and BA.5 and the original strain. These will be available in Sep-Oct. The bigger question is whether they will be any more effective than what we have now. If this formula was a lot more effective then I think we would already know about it. I think it will be marginally more effective against severe disease and likely remain very ineffective against infection. My guess is we will need a mucosal vaccine for a big step change. I haven’t seen anything on why this isn’t being done, probably it’s very hard.
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Vaccine evangelism has pretty much gone away. The bitter taste it left for many people remains. People got fired for not taking vaccines, and it was celebrated. The CDC sat on data showing natural immunity was more effective than vaccines with delta for 6 months, only to release it a week after the SC ruled on the ill advised OSHA vaccine mandate.
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I believe there can be conditions where vaccines should be mandated, but it was the dogma and authoritarianism that too many embraced along the way that is concerning. Appearing “confident” seems to be ridiculously important to public authorities. It’s a false economy though, they end up losing credibility when they are wrong. Short sightedness in politics is more contagious than covid.
Looking back I would say the most surreal part of the pandemic was the FDA advisory board lining up one after another and saying that initial vaccine priority should be sorted by race first, then age. That was nutty and not confidence inducing to say the least. In this case having the states being the final authority was a blessing and almost every state then “followed the science” to sort by age and immunocompromised.
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It’s all a curious case study in psychology of how bizarre dogma can take hold within small groups, no matter how well credentialed and self aggrandizing they are.
What was surprising to me, but probably shouldn’t have been, is the opinion of one of the ‘experts’, Sobsey, that there still isn’t sufficient evidence for him to believe that COVID-19 is being transmitted by aerosols.
At this point, I would think the burden of proof should be on Sobsey to show that aerosol transmission doesn’t make an important contribution. Good luck with that. I don’t think it’s possible to explain superspreader events by anything but aerosols.
Good piece at WSJ.com:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-supporters-detractors-are-mirror-images-mar-a-lago-search-fbi-investigations-law-personality-cult-candidates-complicity-11660919395?st=7for8cic0jfc5x6&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
In short, their contrasting positions allow both sides to not have to look closely at themselves.
Tom Scharf
Yes. One big problem during Covid was the agencies have some strong ideas about “messaging”. But Covid was (and still is) a new disease. By definition there will be limited empirical data about the disease and treatment. I get that they maybe think it’s more “calming” or something to give a “clear message”. But many people aren’t stupid. And they do figure out that some stuff is not entirely known.
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I will take the bivalent vaccines when the time comes. But my position is the same as before. I don’t think it should be mandated. This time I don’t think it will be.
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Mind you, I don’t understand people’s aversion to getting the vaccine. I think taking it is the wiser course. But that’s different from thinking it should be mandated or that people should be villified.
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I also think the CDC’s behavior has lead to distrust. I think the “messaging” on natural immunity should have been to remind people that to gain natural immunity, you first need to get sick. And the vaccine does seem to reduce the risk of severe infection.
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They also needed better messaging about the treatments. I know people who are utterly unaware that some treatments exist. (Sure, you many not need to take it if you are young and so on. But I think the message of “test yourself when you think it is at all possible you are sick” and “you should probably get treatment if you are over 60 should have been hammered home.”
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I mean… pretty obviously, nearly everyone has gotten Covid to some degree at this point. Some may have avoided it. But, I mean Fauci got it. No amount of “messaging” is going to make people not know that the current vaccine does not prevent infection at this stage.
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Denying that natural immunity does exist (at least for the strain you caught) and is or can be better once you have recovered has made people dubious of the CDC. It makes people think that the CDC is willing to mislead to avoid letting the “wrong side” have “a talking point”. That’s not a good look for the CDC.
Lucia,
“It makes people think that the CDC is willing to mislead to avoid letting the “wrong side” have “a talking point”.”
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Spot on, and why the CDC needs to be mostly defunded. They are unwilling to do the things the public really needs: honest, unvarnished information about risk levels for different people, especially the elderly and the unhealthy, the most likely means for transmission, the existence of immunity from earlier infection, how vaccines are now essentially unable to stop infection for more than a month or two, and most of all, admission that many if not most of the policies they recommended were somewhere between destructive and ineffective. They should have said from the very beginning that virtually all minors are at near zero risk of severe illness, and that only the very elderly and/or very infirm are at significant risk.
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Instead we got mandated vaccine injections, firings, suspension of rent payments, endless masking/social distancing, etc…. most of which are probably both unconstitutional and very unwise. All 100% politically motivated. Shame on them.
SteveF,
What’s sad is that we found out how little we actually know about the transmission of respiratory infections. And worse, how much that we thought we knew that was wrong.
As far as the lockdowns, everything that had been published prior to this pandemic was that lockdowns weren’t likely to work. But when highly simplistic models seemed to show that they would work, they went all in and simply refused to pay attention to what was actually happening.
More bumbling by the FDA and the Biden administration on monkeypox. We know the smallpox vaccine works for monkeypox. The government has over a million doses in stock. But the FDA and the CDC are throwing roadblocks in the way.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bumbling-biden-fails-the-monkeypox-test-covid-trump-vaccines-jynneos-stockpile-rct-doses-smallpox-medicine-public-health-treatment-11661108794?st=uridmml5ucoa2xt&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
*sigh* More evidence that more government is not the solution to every problem.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #214309): “What’s sad is that we found out how little we actually know about the transmission of respiratory infections.”
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Indeed. Although it might be more accurate to say that the public found out how little the experts actually know.
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DeWitt Payne: “And worse, how much that we thought we knew that was wrong.”
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More like “how much the authorities pretended to know”.
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I was in Toronto during the SARS outbreak. Toronto was hit harder than any other city outside the Far East. People were worried, but kept calm and carried on. Totally unlike what happened in 2020. I was then convinced, even more so now, that the reason was Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health at the time.
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Basrur was magnificent. She was a continuous, calm, trustable source of information. She never exaggerated risks; she never minimized risks. She never pretended to know what she did not know and she was willing to say “we don’t know”. She never concealed anything. So people believed her, listened to what she said, and acted accordingly.
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The exact opposite of Fauci, Birks, et al.
“The Biden administration’s haphazard monkeypox response may cause hundreds of thousands of Americans to suffer needlessly.”
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Uh, no. The problem is the reckless and irresponsible behavior of a small subset of gay men enabled by public health authorities who are too politically correct to call out the bad behavior.
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Every time the monkeypox virus gets transmitted to and replicates in a new host, it gets just a bit better at infecting people. The people who are actively transmitting it are in effect conducting a public experiment in gain-of-function research. It must be stopped before it succeeds.
Mike M,
Monkeypox has been around for a long time in Africa. The recent spread to mostly gay men in the West is new, but I would be reluctant to say that is likely to enable “gain-of-function”. Unlike COVID, this virus is not new.
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The CDC absolutely should be yelling from the rafters about the risk that monkey pox poses to those involved in promiscuous sex, and the fact that will be mainly gay men is very non-PC to talk about. Another case of the CDC simply refusing to do their job. Defund them is the only plausible answer.
Mike M.,
Speaking of gay men, remember when the Mayor of San Francisco refused to close the bath houses that were gay hook up spots during the early part of the AIDS epidemic? Yet we practically shut down the whole country for a much less virulent disease. I also remember reading somewhere that being HIV positive is considered a badge of honor in parts of the gay community.
I found this statement from Ken’s linked Nature article bewildering:
“Other viruses long suspected of being airborne — including influenza and common cold viruses — will also be scrutinized. In September 2021, the US National Institutes of Health awarded Milton a multimillion-dollar grant to conduct trials that will determine whether airborne or droplet routes lead to influenza infection.”.
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What …. ????
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What are they doing with their time and funding? They have spent trillions on this pandemic over years now and they still are guessing on the proportions of how it is delivered, the most fundamental issue for personal risk reduction. I am starting to wonder if gargling bleach might have been the answer all along, ha ha. Now that I think about it they would never, ever, test that because … things.
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It’s as if they cannot even fathom a way to test this except through 9 month long population level observational studies. I will harp again that a lot this might be cleared up with challenge testing and/or animal testing. I am deeply disappointed in their ability to work this fundamental stuff out. Yes it is probably hard, but we can solve hard problems.
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The mRNA vaccines though were a glorious success, so mixed results. So get better at your weaknesses, and the first step to do that is recognizing them.
MikeM,
This is still part of the Biden administration’s misstep. They could direct the health authorities to be more clear about who is getting this and how. Public service announcements need to be more clear.
They actually need to convey some doubt about precisely how much contact is required to get it because they don’t really know. Articles suggest hugging is ok. Might be. But honestly, I would advise anyone I knew to stay the heck away from gay festivals where many of the men were little more than g-strings and everyone is hugging and draping their arms around each other. Maybe that’s not enough contact– but we don’t know. And just resolving to not hug people won’t help because huggers come up to you and hug. They just do it.
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I’m reading articles that suggest wearing fetish wear– like bondage stuff might “help”. Well, we don’t know how much it would “help” if you still have sex using the uncovered bits.
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Until you can get vaccine (and if the administration doesn’t continue to screw up too much, that shouldn’t be later than October) if you are gay just avoid having tons of promiscuous sex and especially going to gay festivals where you might be tempted.
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And for that matter, given the potential for break out happening, avoid tons of promiscuous sex even if you are straight! I know it’s hard for public messaging to cut into this– but it should still be a BIG part of the public message. (Saying vaccine is on its way might also be motivating to people.)
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Honestly, if I was a mom and my kid wrestled in highschool, I would be worried. That might be an irrational worry. You can’t keep your kids wrapped in cottonballs, but I’d worry!
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They need to get vaccine into people. (Evidently Trump administration pre-ordered in case of an emergency. But somehow, we didn’t get that all delivered.)
SteveF (Comment #214313): “Monkeypox has been around for a long time in Africa. The recent spread to mostly gay men in the West is new, but I would be reluctant to say that is likely to enable “gain-of-function”. Unlike COVID, this virus is not new.”
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It has been around a long time in animals in Africa. Occasionally someone catches it from an animal and it might spread to a small number of other people. But the virus is poorly adapted to people, so it does not get far. Any evolutionary ‘improvements’ that occur in those people become extinct when the chain of transmission ends. The next time the virus jumps to people it has to start adapting all over again, but it is another dead end.
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This time is different. There are now a huge number of generations of the virus propagating in humans. We can be certain it is becoming better adapted to humans. Unless we drive the nascent human strain into extinction, it will very likely become a much bigger problem.
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Unlike with the Wuhan virus, this is a case where agressive public health measures can actually make a difference. The required measures are a miniscule inconvenience compared to what we have recently endured. Education is important, but is not enough. The types of events at which the virus spreads need to be shut down, with arrests, fines, and jail if need be.
Mike M,
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Donno Mike, sounds to me like monkeypox has been infecting humans for quite some time: https://borgenproject.org/monkeypox-in-africa/
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“…with arrests, fines, and jail if need be”
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Not unless the people being arrested, fined or jailed were conservative, heterosexual, white Republicans. So, no, nothing like that is ever going to happen. The CDC could actually help by doing their best to warn and educate gay men. But they won’t, because that would be too non-PC for the CDC…. remember, they are so very woke that they only talk about “pregnant people”, not pregnant women.
SteveF
Yes. They need to be much more clear about the fact that it is spreading among gay men.
Every dang article I read spends more time talking about how it isn’t really a “gay” disease and isn’t really “sexually transmitted”. But are fair points.
BUT, boots on the ground, empirically, currently it is spreading among gay men. (Or as all articles say “MSM”. New to me acronym!!)
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That was also true of HIV. And gay men can largely protect themselves through their own choices. They only will if they know the risk. So this messaging that seems to spend more time on “it’s not really a gay disease” or “it’s not necessarily sexual” is probably counter productive. Those should be the footnote!
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On the MSM…. do all gay guys know MSM refers to them? I had to google. If people being subject to the “messaging” don’t know what an MSM is, the message is not going to be successful!
They don’t want to create stigma by describing what behavior might increase the risk of contracting Monkeypox, but if you ask the very same people who should be prioritized for the vaccine then they will be much more forthcoming.
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CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/interim-considerations/overview.html
“Certain gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, or transgender people, who have had any of the following within the past 14 days: sex with multiple partners (or group sex); sex at a commercial sex venue; or sex in association with an event, venue, or defined geographic area where monkeypox transmission is occurring”
The (M)ain(S)tream (M)edia is at high risk of Monkeypox!? I’m having mixed feelings about this. I had never heard of this new and completely unnecessary euphemism.
Men who have Sex with Men. See
https://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment-guidelines/msm.htm
Wow Tom, thanks for asking. I thought MSM meant MainStream Media too. It’s a good thing I’m not into mainstream media anyway, but that could have led to some … awkward .. misunderstandings otherwise.
SteveF (Comment #214319): “Donno Mike, sounds to me like monkeypox has been infecting humans for quite some time: https://borgenproject.org/monkeypox-in-africa/”
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But it sounds like it sporadically jumps to humans rather than circulating among humans.
The virus can’t adapt to humans unless it circulates among humans.
Mike M,
We will see.
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If the virus is not transmitted via aerosols, then it would seem relatively easy to control outside of the gay community. Compared to covid, it seems pretty low risk.
mark,
I knew from context they writer who used MSM didn’t mean mainstreammedia. So I googled.
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That’s why I wonder if the gay community (who needs to hear the message) knows what MSM means. I didn’t. You didn’t.Seems possible for there to be confusion.
Lucia,
Yep. You are probably right. It’s probably not the best acronym to use for people to readily understand and get an associated takeaway message.
SteveF (Comment #214326): “If the virus is not transmitted via aerosols, then it would seem relatively easy to control outside of the gay community.”
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It is basically the smallpox virus. That was highly transmissible, although perhaps via droplets not small aerosol particles. Monkeypox is hard to transmit, probably because it is poorly adapted to humans so a very large dose is needed. That will almost certainly change; probably already is changing.
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It is relatively easy to control now. We can not assume that will last.
MikeM
Well…. in the sense that cowpox, camelpox, taterapox are also smallpox.
I suspect it “is” smallpox in the same way chicken pox “is” herpes.
This is an interesting article on finding small pox in 1400 year old Viking teeth.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200723143733.htm
The strain back then was evidently closer to camelpox and taterapox. (How else would I have ever even heard of those two?)
It would be nice if the US manages to get our stores of vaccines into people’s arms. The key group of people are actually waiting impatiently for it.
More:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/10761/
“An extinct version of the smallpox virus dating to 1,400 years ago prompts speculation about viruses becoming more lethal over time.”
On Ukraine, there are some interesting observations being brought up. One in particular caught my attention.
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The view that Russia will have succeeded in the demilitarization of Ukraine and is in the process of the demilitarization of NATO.
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This observation is supported by the following points:
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1. Ukraine has lost or consumed its entire pre war stock of Soviet era heavy artillery ammunition, making its Soviet era artillery entirely dependent on supply from EU x-Soviet nations from their old pre NATO stockpiles.
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2. Ukraine has lost almost its entire pre war stock of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and aircraft. As such, Ukraine is now entirely dependent on EU and NATO for resupply of these systems.
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3. Per the above, and that Ukraine will lose the war, Russia will successfully demilitarize Ukraine.
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4. Both US and NATO have historically had insufficient stockpiles of ammunition to fight extended high intensity wars. At the high point of the Cold War, which is also their high point for ammunition stockpiles, NATO was estimated to only have sufficient ammunition for 3 weeks of high intensity combat. Current Ammunition stockpiles are not higher than that of the Cold War era.
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5. EU x-Soviet nations have transferred almost all of their old stocks of Soviet era artillery ammunition and Soviet era tanks, APC’s, and aircraft to Ukraine.
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6. Quantities of NATO artillery transferred to Ukraine have been in very low numbers of the low hundreds.
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7. Quantities of US and NATO weapon and ammunition transfers to Ukraine have peaked and are declining. The US and NATO stockpiles have been drawn down approaching critical levels, so both are forced to reduce transfers to Ukraine.
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8. US and NATO, especially the EU, industrial capacity is insufficient to quickly replace the NATO stockpiles transferred to Ukraine.
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9. The EU and the UK are on track to implode economically this winter due to Russian response to EU scansions on Russia.
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10. Due to the EU and the UK imploding economically, having transferred a major part of its weapon and ammunition stockpiles to Ukraine, and having offshored a major part of its heavy industry, the EU and the UK are rapidly becoming “demilitarized “, which also “demilitarizes” NATO.
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Something to think about.
Ed Forbes,
And in other news, the sky is falling. At least that is what some say.
“the demilitarization of NATO”
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Psychotic. I stopped reading.
The evil dwarf Fauci has announced he will retire in December, before Republicans gain control of the House (and perhaps the Senate). Wise choice; Republicans will hammer him over earlier false testimony before Congress, funding of gain-of-function research on bat viruses, refusal to even consider that CoVid could well be the product of that GOF research, willful misleading of the public, and consistently doubling down on failed COVID public policies. I hope he decides to retire in October instead of December…. or even better, tomorrow.
Ed Forbes,
At some point voters in the West will come to realize that spending vast sums of money to keep very corrupt Russia from taking over 20% of slightly less corrupt Ukraine is not worth the price, making a negotiated settlement at least possible. But I suspect that will not happen with Biden’s foreign policy crew in charge…. so maybe some time after Jan 2025.
Putin wants ALL of Ukraine. The Ukrainians violently object. That leaves no basis for negotiation.
So far both Europe and the US public support is holding steady for Ukraine as we approach the 6 month anniversary of the one week war.
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After Six Months of War in Ukraine, Momentum Tilts Against Russia
https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-six-months-of-war-in-ukraine-momentum-tilts-against-russia-11661247003?st=9c39gytxqutia0z&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
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This reading is a little optimistic in my view. It does seem to be a bit pointless to have an endless slog where the outcome may not change, but … stubborn humans.
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If Russia wants all of Ukraine and intends to keep it for more than a week then they will need to devote a huge amount of more resources to do that. A hostile occupation of the rest of Ukraine doesn’t look likely and would probably be a huge mistake tactically.
It’s the slowest start to hurricane season in 30 years, not that this fact will be covered by the environmental press. This isn’t particularly meaningful as most of the action occurs over the next two months. Everyone predicted an above average season, it could still happen, but not likely.
https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/ace-20aug22-vs-others-wood-MSU.jpg
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For the inevitable “a hurricane finally showed up, it’s climate change!” article, here are the trends for the last 50 years:
https://climatlas.com/tropical/
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Good luck finding the climate change signal.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214338): “If Russia wants all of Ukraine and intends to keep it for more than a week then they will need to devote a huge amount of more resources to do that. A hostile occupation of the rest of Ukraine doesn’t look likely and would probably be a huge mistake tactically.”
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Indeed.
I think that Putin’s hope is that the West will pull the plug and force Ukraine to sue for peace. Then Russia will get to pretty much get to name their terms. Those terms would likely include the disbanding of Ukraine’s military, a ban on Ukraine forming alliances with any country other than Russia, the arrest or exile of prominent Ukrainian leaders, and Russia having a say in Ukraine’s governance. In other words, Ukraine would then be a client state of Russia.
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I would not be surprised if Russia were to return most or all of the occupied territory to Ukraine. That way, maintaining order would be the problem of the Ukrainian puppet government, paid for by taxes on the Ukrainian people.
The EU will be forced to throw up its hands in surrender to Russia or face implosion of it economy. Russia has the stronger hand in the economic war between the EU and Russia. Rampant inflation combined with closing of industries and no energy for heat in winter will devastate the EU.
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“ Europe Could Face 5 to 10 ‘Difficult’ Winters With Soaring Energy Prices: Belgian PM”
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“.. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Monday warned of harsh economic times throughout Europe and energy bills that are expected to continue rising due to Russia’s attack on Ukrain…..”
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/europe-could-face-five-to-10-difficult-winters-with-soaring-energy-prices-belgian-pm_4683001.html
More on EU energy disaster
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“.. Europe’s parallel power crisis has gathered pace across the summer. This is being driven by nuclear availability issues, depleted hydro levels & declining thermal output (both due to fuel access issues & plant closures). Power prices across Europe are surging to record levels, now materially outstripping the rise in gas prices.
The price of TTF gas for 2023 delivery closed last week above 237 €/MWh (70 $/mmbtu), up 120% since the beginning of July! Power prices rises across the same period were much more aggressive. We’ve run out of adjectives to describe the pace of this price surge.
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Acute power market tightness across Europe has been a key factor dragging up forward gas prices across the last 6 weeks. Europe needs more generation output to keep the lights on and the only remaining option is gas…”
..
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/23/europes-power-crisis-overtaking-gas-crisis/
The question is how much will be the accumulated cost for continuing to fund the Ukrainian military and perhaps eventually the Ukrainian population’s very existence with no end in sight for the war. Continuing the war remains a very popular enterprise in those nations supporting or seeming to support the Ukrainian effort. Their are no war casualties in the supporting nations and it is only the ongoing and potentially increasing monetary cost of military equipment and sanctions that could eventually slacken or end support for the war effort.
We have seen the gradual escalation of war and aftermath of war costs before that end up being huge and the public eventually wondering why the effort was ever made and their looking for parties to blame for a war that at one time was popular with them. Much of the population of Western nations have lost their sense of fear of the eventual consequences of their governments overspending and are enamored with their governments apparent magic in printing money to pay for emergencies. All of these developments make me think that the Ukrainian war could become very costly for the West and particularly the US before it ends.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214344): “The question is how much will be the accumulated cost for continuing to fund the Ukrainian military and perhaps eventually the Ukrainian population’s very existence with no end in sight for the war.”
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That is certainly a very important question. But it is certainly not the only question. An equally important question is: What is the alternative?
The outcome of most wars is things are measurably worse for both sides. There is little doubt that will be the case materially for this war too. Exactly how to value the tactical/strategic gains and losses is a bit difficult.
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The deterrence of further Russian advances into eastern Europe has value, as opposed to a non-degraded and emboldened Russia that was alternately handed Ukraine on mere threats. The sovereignty of Ukraine has value to them, obviously. The expansion of NATO has value to NATO.
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Throwing epic amounts of money into an incinerator has negative value, to say the least. The world is not better off for this war and it’s hard to see how Russia is better off, but Russia’s perception of value is different. They will probably achieve their objectives here but at great cost. My view is those objectives were never truly in danger in the first place, but they see things differently.
Tom Scharf,
“Everyone predicted an above average season, it could still happen, but not likely.”
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The great thing about catastrophic climate predictions is that when the predictions are completely wrong, nobody is called to task, but if the predictions are even very slightly correct it is the end of the world. All so stupid, all such a waste of time.
The US administration could be more forthcoming about the possible developments in the war and the military, humanitarian and sanction costs that could potentially be endured. They could point to previous wars in which the US was directly or indirectly involved and how those conflicts had initial support that faded over time.
Some of this truthfulness might lead to a questioning of the US role and involvement as the world policeman and moral arbiter. Unfortunately that kind of questioning and honesty are not something governments do well without popular prompting or it somehow in a particular instant being to their political advantage.
Mike M,
“Putin wants ALL of Ukraine.”
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I think you are completely wrong. So does Henry Kissinger.
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Putin is a murderous thug, but has said many times over multiple years that he wants the Ukraine to not be part of NATO and not be part of the EU. He also doesn’t want Crimea isolated and without fresh water, nor Russian speakers in the Ukraine to be hammered by the majority Ukrainian population. That is about it.
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A year ago Putin would have settled for a negotiated agreement. The USA and NATO were not interested. So now we have a horrible, stupid, and senseless war, with maybe 30,000 dead soldiers and civilians… so far… a real risk of famine in the third world, and where we will spend untold $ billions we don’t have to support a Ukrainian government that is, perhaps, marginally less corrupt than the Russian government. No to mention the real risk of a nuclear holocaust.
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In the end, I believe 1) Russia will control 15% to 20% of Ukrainian land, and use nuclear weapons, if needed, to ensure they keep it, 2) the economies of Russian, the Ukraine, the USA, and Europe will all be damaged, 3) the Chinese will be laughing, and 4) there will be likely be an indefinite stand-off at a militarized border between the rump of Ukraine and the Russian occupied territories in the East. And a new cold war. All so stupid. So wasteful. So unnecessary.
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Finally, I note that outside a couple of cities which were under long bombardment, Russia has been remarkably restrained. They have not destroyed the electric grid and all power generation stations (which would not take more than a couple of days)… the lights remain on and the internet still works in most of the Ukraine. They have not specifically targeted Ukrainian leadership with bombings and rocket attacks. I think Russia wants to preserve the Ukraine as a national counterparty they can negotiate with.
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If that changes, the Ukrainian people are in for a very bad winter.
Understanding the Ukraine situation requires one to go outside MSM for news.
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Ukraine: military situation update with maps, August 22, 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYhsVXlEnCQ
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Status with above detailed map. Pro Ukraine, not too biased.
MUCH better than ISW which is pure Ukraine propaganda.
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Map From a more Russian viewpoint
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUnc496-PPmFZVKlYxUnToA
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Blog that gives very detailed discussion of world and Ukraine developments.
https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal
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Tom Scharf (Comment #214334)
“the demilitarization of NATO”
“Psychotic. I stopped reading.”
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If Germany and the UK, both linchpins of NATO, commit economic suicide, this will greatly reduce NATO power. If the EU as a whole goes down this path it will wreck NATO.
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you consider this “psychotic” ? ?
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The EU is going to see high double digit inflation over the next number of years unless it surrenders to Russia and successfully begs Russia to restore oil and gas deliveries. There are few, if any, reasons why Russia would need to relent on restoring full fuel deliveries with the new markets Russia has developed.
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Restricting fuel deliveries to the EU keeps prices high and Russian enemies, NATO, down.
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Looks like the Ukrainians are getting badly beaten in this war, so bad they have had to start their football season /sarc
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2022/8/23/russia-ukraine-war-new-football-season-starts
Yes I know the games are well away from the front line etc but still a sign their heart is still in the fight after 6 months.
Europe’s powers gave Ukraine no new military pledges in July, data shows
Europe’s military support for Ukraine has been decreasing since April, according to data from the Kiel Institute.
https://www.politico.eu/article/data-show-europe-waning-military-support-ukraine/.
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As I noted previously, EU aid to Ukraine has peaked, leaving Ukraine with an increasing lack of needed logistical support.
> to fund the Ukrainian military and perhaps eventually the Ukrainian population’s very existence with no end in sight for the war.
US is paying Ukraine government’s salaries and pensions as part of their aid packages.
Can I sue Joe Biden? Sort of a real question.
It seems that Biden is about to attempt to steal about $900 of my money (and the same from every other American) to give away, mostly to his supporters. It is not just bad policy; it is plainly illegal. So how can this $300 billion theft be stopped? It obviously has to be done via the courts, but who has standing?
Mike M,
“It seems that Biden is about to attempt to steal about $900 of my money (and the same from every other American) to give away, mostly to his supporters. ”
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Can you be a little more specific?
I assume Mike M is referring to student loan forgiveness. I have the same feelings on this subject as he does.
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$10K per borrower free money if you make less than $125K / year is rumored. I saved for, and paid for my kids education. I’m not getting a dollar back. As has been documented many times this give away goes to the upper middle class as 2/3 of people don’t have college degrees.
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How about we make the * costs * of college cheaper instead? There is almost no incentive for these places to reduce costs when they are backed by federal loans, and academia is a heavily blue constituency so they rarely address things like removing credentialism for jobs that don’t need it.
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On a related note I received a mailer offering reduced rates on student loans from a private company about 6 weeks ago. What I believe they were doing was buying up student loans in anticipation of this give away. No doubt the borrower would not get the benefit of this giveaway after he “sold” his student loan.
Yes, I was referring to the student loan giveaway.
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If Congress were appropriating the money, then Tom’s comments would be spot on. Bad policy, grossly unfair, but legal. But Biden attempting to do this on his own is theft. I think that it easily clears the bar of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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OK, I took a moment to consider if the above is immoderate. It is not. Impeachment and conviction is warranted.
Apparently the legislature somehow gave the executive the ability to do this. This is far too much money to not pass through Congress IMO, and the payoffs can cynically be seen as targeting a friendly voting block. People without college degrees will be paying for this through their taxes. The media will ignore this as they pretend they represent the downtrodden.
Mike M,
Biden, like Obama before him, has operated outside the law for the whole of his term in office. Always the illegal activity is designed to help Democrats win elections. In this case, it is a straight-out bribe for indebted former students to vote for Democrats…. because there is the implicit promise of complete debt forgiveness in the future if Republicans are denied control.
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There will surely be lawsuits over the Federal government assuming student loan debt, but I can’t guess how that will go. This action seems illegal on its face, but by the time the SC gets around to addressing that illegality it is very unlikely the debts would ever be transferred back to the students. Yes, Congress could and should impeach and convict for this lawlessness. But no, conviction is absolutely never going to happen.
According to this article, a student who also obtained a Pell grant will get $20K erased. Also other “goodies”, such as forgiving debt up to $12K after 10 years of payments rather than 20, and a lower limit on payment cap, described here as “5% of … discretionary income…down from 10% today.”
I’m amazed at how much discretion for such handouts has been ceded to the executive branch. I would greatly appreciate a repeal of all such provisions by the next legislature interested in curbing executive power…but it seems that such will never happen, because there likely isn’t enough support to overcome a Presidential veto.
It is illegal for Biden to issue a blanket cancellation of student loans:
https://thecollegeinvestor.com/35892/is-student-loan-forgiveness-by-executive-order-legal/
Ouch…
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The European gas benchmark now trades at what would be an equivalent of $410 per barrel of crude oil, which highlights “the debilitating economic impact on the region,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said this week.
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https://strangesounds.org/2022/08/europes-gas-price-is-now-equivalent-to-410-per-barrel-of-oil.html
It will be interesting to see how the legal case ends up. Congress could of course make a law for or against it at any time. Apparently McConnel brought up a law recently to forbid it, but it ended up the way everyone expected when you are the minority.
Make a law and then allow the executive branch to arbitrarily apply it. There no longer is a semblance of the rule of law. Call government documents and processes secret and then arbitrarily leak information. Make a law and then arbitrarily decide whether it will be enforced. When will a larger number of voters decide that government has become a joke and is hiding behind platitudes like the rule of law and democracy.
Not only do we have the above mentioned problems after passing the law, the programs that the laws engender are becoming major failures and do not come close to living up to the promises given during the legislative process. Student loans were taken over by the federal government with the promise that they would make money for the government. Student loans have allowed colleges to raise tuitions well above the CPI. Many graduating students are finding that the degree is not getting them close to a hoped-for job. Was that deceptive and fraudulent advertisement? The answer in practice is no, because the government does it all the time and we have come to accept that that is what the government does.
Th time is coming when the discussions turn from discussing these issues around the edges to looking at these issues as basic problems with (too much) government.
The law Biden claims allows student debt forgiveness is only for “national emergencies”, and was originally intended to protect former students in case of war, where they would be drafted and so could no longer work and pay off their student loans. Unknown to most people the USA remains under a declared national emergency due to COVID, a national emergency which Biden never plans to end. You see, national emergencies allow laws to be ignored, which is what Biden most wants to do. Two observations:
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1) All this sort of rubbish is enabled by congress passing poorly written laws,
2) Democrat administrations have always and will always use poorly written laws to allow policies which are illegal on their face and clearly contrary to the intent of Congress when those laws were enacted. With Dems it is not a question of wanting to follow the law, and certainly not a question of following the intent of Congress, it is a question of how to get away with illegal policies.
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I sure hope the SC justices are watching this absurd “COVID emergency” unfold, and are willing to put a stop to it… endless false emergencies ought not over-rule both the law and the Constitution. But I very much doubt they will.
SteveF,
But of course Biden ruling by diktat is not a threat to ‘our’ democracy. Only Republicans are a threat.
I’m pretty sure a loan forgiveness is taxable income. Maybe that will give all those new IRS agents something to do.
And of course, even if there is still a “Covid emergency”, this step is not materially connected to the type of emergency. Unemployment is fairly low. It’s not like 2020 where lots of people were afraid to go out– people are going out. Without masks.
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This step isn’t a step that would anyway reduce the “emergency”.
“loan forgiveness is taxable income.”
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WSJ: “While debt forgiveness is often treated as income for tax purposes, the canceled student debt will be exempt, like some other federal student debt forgiveness programs.”
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As far as I can tell there aren’t any counterarguments to this heartfelt forgiveness move from the truth worshiping legacy media, it’s entirely upside. Nobody has to actually pay for it from what I can tell, and only the suffering people making $125,000 / year ($250K / couple) can qualify.
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Here is literally how CNN covered it:
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“Republicans pounce (bold title)
For Republicans, the decision could be a chance to activate a working-class base, including many voters who may not be college graduates and will not benefit from what the GOP is branding as a government bailout for the elite.
Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in the Senate, laid out a rhetorical checklist for his candidates, warning the plan would worsen inflation, reward far-left activists and do nothing for millions of struggling families. He sought to enlist every taxpayer who will not benefit from loan cancellation as a critic.”
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And I thought the pounce narrative was just a meme.
For reference, remember CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s rant on Obama mortgage loan forgiveness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k
DeWitt,
“But of course Biden ruling by diktat is not a threat to ‘our’ democracy.”
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But of course, there is no such thing as ‘our democracy’ in the USA. We have a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Biden ruling by diktat is indeed a threat to ‘our republic’ and to the constitution upon which it is founded.
Lucia,
“And of course, even if there is still a “Covid emergency”, this step is not materially connected to the type of emergency.”
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Sure, but here is no continuing national emergency, as everyone recognizes except or a tiny fringe of “all-covid-all-the-time” crazies. The Orwellian nature of the endless “national emergency” charade, and the danger it poses to the rule of law, seems not to even register with Democrats. I think the next Republican president should declare the unlawful flow of immigrants into the country a “national emergency” and put the shoe on the other foot.
SteveF,
We don’t have to wait for the next Republican President, Trump already did exactly that in 2019 to transfer funds to build his border wall. As I remember, he was warned that it was a double edged sword.
So what will Biden’s give away cost? Estimates range from $300 billion to $600 billion or even higher. When pressed, the White House claims that they don’t know. That is either an outrageous lie or, even worse, the truth.
Mike M,
Corruption of the currency and long term inflation are inevitable. Funny how a tax increase and hiring 80,000 new IRS staff to net $200 billion over 10 years (but with huge up-front expenditures for green boondoggles) ‘reduces inflation’ (eyeroll), but giving away $600 billion today, funded by the Federal printing presses leads to not a single mention of inflation. And don’t forget the next round of “Federal emergency” student debt forgiveness, which will be even more costly and a more obscene buying of votes. Dems are bad people doing very bad things to the economy for bad reasons. They don’t care at all about the country, only ‘progress’ toward destruction of liberty and personal responsibility. Makes me want to hurl.
“funded by the Federal printing presses leads to not a single mention of inflation”
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How wrong you are, ha ha.
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The Atlantic: Actually, Canceling Student Debt Will Cut Inflation
Biden’s targeted loan forgiveness will help, not harm, the economy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/biden-student-debt-cancelation-stiglitz/671228/
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My advice is to take a pass on this article.
High school cheer leaders are usually at least cute, if nothing else. The Atlantic is a terribly ugly cheer leader for stupid, destructive policies. I don’t usually bother reading anything in the Atlantic; when you’re finished you’re less informed than when you started.
And for something different regarding the “Big Bang “. Time to buy shares in popcorn. 🙂
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Personally I have always thought that “dark energy” & “dark mater” were just a fudge to make the math work, but the math is way beyond my math skills to comment on. But making your theory require forces you can not detect is a major red flag as far as I am concerned.
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https://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Excerpt form linked article. Well worth a read.
“..In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”….”
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I particularly find the idea that red shift is light affected by “friction “ as it travels long distance in an imperfect vacuum interesting
Ed Forbes,
We couldn’t detect neutrinos when they were first proposed. But we could detect their effect on the momentum of the other particles involved. We didn’t find out that neutrinos had a rest mass until relatively recently. So they travel at slightly less than the speed of light.
We can see gravitational lensing where we can’t see visible matter. And we can’t even explain how and why galaxies formed in the first place unless we postulate that there is a lot more mass than we can see. The density fluctuations in the early universe as measured by the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background are too small. Modified Newtonian gravity theories don’t explain as many observations as dark matter/dark energy.
It’s still possible that there’s some other explanation, but nobody has found it yet. And a lot of people have been looking.
Ed Forbes,
Read Thomas Kuhn’s famous book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”… which I had to read in my senior year (early 1970’s) for a course on the history of science. Kuhn’s book describes almost exactly what has been happening in cosmology… ever growing evidence that the dominant theory (what Kuhn calls the dominant paradigm) is simply mistaken, combined with ever more strident resistance by “leaders in the field” to any suggestion the dominant theory might not be right. He even describes how discrepancies between observed reality and theory are either ignored or discounted to avoid facing them. The conflict is only resolved when the paradigm shifts to a new understanding of physical reality…. which unfortunately can be long delayed by the resistance of “leaders in the field”, who more often than not never accept a shift in paradigm, and go to their graves vigorously defending views that are contrary to observational reality.
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FWIW, I have believed for a very long time that cosmology has been in the early stages of a Kuhnian revolution for decades, but with very little progress toward a better paradigm due to overwhelming resistance by established astronomers (AKA leaders in the field). What has changed since Kuhn’s early insight is that science is ‘bigger’ and funding is public…. making it more political, and so more controlled by the powerful, than 75 years ago. Consider, for example, the truly ‘astronomical’ cost of the James Webb telescope… public funding, solicited and approved by the leaders in the field, is the only option today. The arm-wave nonsense currently in fashion in astronomy (dark energy, dark matter, near light speed expansion, and even the Hubble red-shift) all fairly well scream that we don’t at all understand the universe at large scales of distance and time. Maybe the James Webb telescope will finally force the field to re-evaluate its (nutty) premises and move toward a better understanding, but there will continue to be strong resistance from many with vested interest (personal and career) in maintaining the current paradigm. So progress is not guaranteed, no matter what the data say.
DeWitt,
That distant galaxies (red shifts over 4) look pretty much in structure like near galaxies is inconsistent with dramatic expansion. In addition, those very distant galaxies (with distance calculated from red shift) subtend proportionally smaller angles in the sky with increasing distance, not larger angles, as big-bang/cosmic expansion requires.
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I suggest that a measure of skepticism about the standard big-bang/dark matter/dark energy paradigm is more than justified. Of course, many in astronomy will go to their graves insisting the current model is correct; they have far too much invested to do anything else. Which reminds me of “You can lead a horse to water…”
SteveF (Comment #214381): “ever growing evidence that the dominant theory (what Kuhn calls the dominant paradigm) is simply mistaken, combined with ever more strident resistance by “leaders in the field” to any suggestion the dominant theory might not be right. He even describes how discrepancies between observed reality and theory are either ignored or discounted to avoid facing them.”
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I have not followed the dark matter/energy stuff closely, but that does not sound like what has been happening. There does not seem to be an ignoring of discrepancies: the dark matter and dark energy hypotheses are a direct result of those discrepancies. Yes, those seem like somewhat desperate attempts to fix the standard theory. But I am not aware that anybody has a viable alternative or that there has been any suppression of such theories. For now, dark matter and energy seem to be the best theories that we have.
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It is to be expected that an old theory does not get dropped until there is something better to take its place. Quantum theory, wave mechanics, and QED were all accepted rather quickly. Yes, there was initial resistance to the idea of quantization, but that was at first every bit as ad hoc as dark matter and dark energy.
We were still wondering if there was life on Mars when I grew up.
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Cosmology and astronomy have grown tremendously over the last generation. The Viking missions, the initial Mars lander, rovers, and now drones, Apollo, and a whole host of other solar system missions, discovery of innumerable exoplanets, and of course Hubble and Webb telescopes. Then there is the dark side such as demoting Pluto from planet status, ha. Planet elitists!
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It’s just like anything else, the more we gather initial data with new instruments the more questions we answer … and the more new questions we generate.
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The biggest disappointment is that so far everything looks like dead rocks and innocuous balls of gas.
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The initial launch of the SLS is scheduled for Monday, this took 10 years and >$10B, a bit of a boondoggle.
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Check out highlights from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. There are some really good high res 4K versions out there as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPH_gDMarw
SDO 4K:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tmbeLTHC_0
Steve, one of my statistics professors covered Kuhn extensively. He was also one of my International Relations and Political Science professors. He had a bit of pessimism towards established dogma.
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One of the main points in his courses was that as public administrators one will always be required to evaluate and make decisions based on reports and recommendations by experts, many of which will have particular and biased positions. Unbiased science did not exist and one had to review these reports and recommendations with a healthy dose of skepticism.
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I find the concept that the speed of light is not a constant, but dependent on its spectrum wavelength very interesting. I should think that this will provoke some discussion in the field.
Ed Forbes,
Space having an index of refraction greater than one is a far, far bigger stretch, IMO, than dark matter. That’s basically the ether resurrected. Cold neutrinos, i.e. traveling at only a small fraction of light speed, wouldn’t be detectable either, but at least potentially exist as neutrinos do have a rest mass.
SteveF,
Lerner has been claiming that observations prove there was no big bang and the universe is static since at least 2014. But how do you get a cosmic microwave background without a big bang? Explanations for that, like previous universes, are really a stretch and even less falsifiable than dark matter/dark energy.
https://www.universetoday.com/157264/the-latest-webb-observations-dont-disprove-the-big-bang-but-they-are-interesting/
Lerner’s claim that galaxy apparent size isn’t increasing the way it should at high redshift is based on surface brightness, not subtended angle, so it’s not definitive proof. (Lerner, Eric J., Renato Falomo, and Riccardo Scarpa. UV Surface Brightness of Galaxies from the Local Universe to z~ 5.” International Journal of Modern Physics D 23.06 (2014): 1450058 )
If the Hubble and the Webb telescope didn’t produce observations we didn’t understand, they would have been a waste of money. The Big Bang and ΛCDM aren’t dead yet even though they may not explain every observation.
Mike M,
It is the addition of ad-hoc, invisible, ‘magical’ materials and forces that is the real issue. It is the standard response when the dominant paradigm is not able to explain the observations. Some things are very clear: 1) distant galaxies are red-shifted and this is confirmed by multiple methods, 2) the degree of red-shift is proportional to distance, 3) there is a ‘cosmic background’ radiation (equivalent to ~4 Kelvin, IIRC). Those observations are firm and at least consistent with ‘the big bang’ and a mysterious expansion at speeds approaching that of light. But the big bang and cosmic expansion are NOT consistent with many other observations, and Webb is only making those other observations more difficult to ignore. An expanding universe pretty much demands very distant galaxies subtend ever larger angles in the sky, but they don’t…. they subtend ever smaller angles the greater their red shift.
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I strongly suspect that the ‘big bang’ will ultimately be refuted and replaced with a more accurate understanding, but I won’t hold my breath waiting.
DeWitt,
I read the ‘Panic’ article that one of the links above points to. That article does very strongly suggest that the more distant galaxies are indeed subtending ever smaller angles. Did you read that article? Suppose the universe is actually infinite, and the red shift continues to grow with distance…. so the extreme red shifting and the average concentration of galaxies happens to correspond to a blackbody emitting at ~4K. Or maybe energy lost by light traveling great distances (AKA red shift) shows up as a background emission of a~4K blackbody. Which is not to say either of those suggestions is correct, only that explanations other than near light speed expansion of the universe are consistent with the most solid observations.
SteveF,
The simplest explanation of why the early galaxies subtend smaller angles is that they are, in fact, smaller.
Lerner is mainly trying to drum up funding for his fusion company LPPF. I would take anything he writes with a 40 pound bag of water softener salt. He cherry picked the Allison Kirkpatrick quote. She has since changed her Twitter name to Allison the Big Bang happened Kirkpatrick.
https://www.cnet.com/science/space/no-james-webb-space-telescope-images-do-not-debunk-the-big-bang/
And the title of the Panic! article is a play on the name of an emo band: Panic! at the Disco.
And the CMB temperature is 2.725K.
SteveF,
Here’s the actual Panic! At the Disk article on observations from the JWST: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09428
And from the JWST observations:
Which is exactly the opposite of what Lerner claimed, as I remember. It’s also exactly what you would expect from galaxy formation shortly (in cosmological terms) after the Big Bang. I’m not going to bother looking it up.
Zigzagging back to Ukraine
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It seems the new US $3B aid package to Ukraine is for orders for new equipment and ammunition to be delivered mostly in a medium to long time range, not from existing stores.
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I would assume from this that the US is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel on its existing stocks.
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Ukraine is short on ammunition now. Ukraines inability to reply to Russian artillery strikes is causing extremely high Ukraine casualties as all the Ukrainian troops can do is to hunker down and take it without response. This leads to a war of attrition where Ukraine suffers all the losses.
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Without a massive influx of replacement artillery and artillery ammunition, the losses in Ukraine will continue to be one sided.
I watched a Nature (I think) program on TV a week or so ago that talked about an energy field that existed before the Big Bang that had some very minute unevenness that caused the rapid expansion that existed before the actual Big Bang.
I have also watched similar TV programs that talk about dark matter and energy and how the existence of these entities were prime movers in galaxy formation. There were no provisos that these concepts were not entirely proven.
https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2022/03/033.html#
SteveF (Comment #214390): “It is the addition of ad-hoc, invisible, ‘magical’ materials and forces that is the real issue.”
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Indeed. For 20 years quantization was an ad-hoc, invisible, magical addition to classical physics. There is nothing wrong with that.
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SteveF: “It is the standard response when the dominant paradigm is not able to explain the observations.”
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Of course it is. I don’t see where any other response is practical. As time passes, the issue gets better defined, people look at it from different angles, and eventually somebody comes up with an alternative.
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SteveF: “I strongly suspect that the ‘big bang’ will ultimately be refuted and replaced with a more accurate understanding”.
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Very possible. Or maybe we will get more direct evidence of dark matter and energy. Either will likely require breakthroughs and will be revolutionary.
DeWitt, where did this come from?
I used to lug 50 pound bags or blocks of salt to my basement water softener but age has reduced that to lugging 25 pound blocks.
DeWitt,
Look at figure 4 in the paper: all the trends in galaxy structure with red shift based on Hubble were reversed in the Webb data. The authors also note that spiral galaxies we are seeing in the Webb images, from 12 billion years in the past, appear shockingly, structurally just like nearby spirals that are believed to have evolved over many billions of years…. putting the evolution of those very ancient spirals before the assigned time of the big bang. Great, galaxies which evolve before the big bang. And nobody is laughing.
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Yet the claim remains (remarkably!) there is nothing to worry about; the basic theory is absolutely right, in spite of the reversal of the trends in the Webb data…. those distant galaxies that look really small instead of really big are just really, really, really tiny, so even though they are magnified in size many times by the expanding universe, they still look small in the Webb images; and way smaller than galaxies nearby. Right.
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This is not science. This is people who have not a clue what is going on struggling to make new data fit a flawed understanding. What they need is a new understanding.
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As many times before, we will have to agree to disagree about this.
Mike M,
“Or maybe we will get more direct evidence of dark matter and energy.”
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And maybe Biden isn’t demented. IMO, the existing theory of the universe is inconsistent with both reason and data. Bad combination.
Mike M,
BTW, quantize energy was plainly evident (eg, the photoelectric effect) before Einstein’s time. Understanding it was a revolution in thinking, yes, but I believe comparable to the revolution in thinking astronomy needs right now.
SteveF (Comment #214400): “BTW, quantize energy was plainly evident (eg, the photoelectric effect) before Einstein’s time.”
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Plainly evident in hindsight. At the time, it literally took an Einstein to realize what it meant. Among the people unwilling to accept Einstein’s proposal was Max Planck. Einstein finally convinced Planck at the 1911 Solvay Conference.
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There may well be an impending revolution in thinking. But revolutionary theories can’t be called forth on demand. Until that happens, people have to muddle on the best they can within the existing theories.
Einstein did not accept quantum theory. God does not play dice – or some such comment,
https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/legacy/quantum-theory
Lucia, I think we might have the same medical group which was DuPage Medical and is now Duly. Anyway when I went for my physical last month my doctor said I should get my second booster and when I told him that I was waiting for a booster that was effective against the newest variants he shook his head in agreement with what I said. Before I left he repeated that I should get my second booster. I now get repeating notices from the medical group stating that I am overdue for a booster.
They must be of a mind that patients can no longer think for themselves.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #214402): “Einstein did not accept quantum theory. God does not play dice – or some such comment”.
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Einstein most definitely accept quantum theory. He had a problem with quantum mechanics, specifically the Copenhagen interpretation.
Ken,
I get notices for “recommended” stuff too. I like individual doctors I see at Duly. But the “system” is disappointing.
Mike M,
“But revolutionary theories can’t be called forth on demand.”
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Indeed they can’t. But they can be inhibited when believers in the dominant paradigm control the purse strings and exert pressure on organizations and publishers to discredit or ignore alternative ideas.
SteveF (Comment #214398)
August 26th, 2022 at 3:03 pm
Look at figure 4 in the paper: all the trends in galaxy structure with red shift based on Hubble were reversed in the Webb data. The authors also note that spiral galaxies we are seeing in the Webb images, from 12 billion years in the past, appear shockingly, structurally just like nearby spirals that are believed to have evolved over many billions of years.
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Thanks SteveF
Certainly a concern.
SteveF (Comment #214406): “But they [revolutionary theories] can be inhibited when believers in the dominant paradigm control the purse strings and exert pressure on organizations and publishers to discredit or ignore alternative ideas.”
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Definitely true. I have no doubt that happens in some fields. Do you have any evidence of that in cosmology?
MikeM, I was using the more general definition of quantum theory which by most definitions includes quantum mechanics. To be fair to Einstein, in his discussions with Schrodinger, I believe he accepted the results of quantum mechanics but did not agree with the uncertainty and probability involved; he was looking for something more deterministic. He attempted to disprove Schrodinger’s cat concept with an entanglement theory.
There is something in their discussion that is analogous to dark matter and energy controversy – with quantum mechanics being a more mature version of it.
I could not find a link to some letters I once read between Einstein and Schrodinger. I was expecting the younger Schrodinger to be assertive and argumentative and Einstein to fit the image of his older self as a mild-mannered pipe smoking and tousle-haired older person. To my surprise the roles were just the reverse of what I expected. Schrodinger was deferential to Einstein and Einstein came on strong and assertive.
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/quantum-theory#
SteveF (Comment #214406): “But they [revolutionary theories] can be inhibited when believers in the dominant paradigm control the purse strings and exert pressure on organizations and publishers to discredit or ignore alternative ideas.”
If money is granted by the government and the government has a definite POV on the research and is pushing legislation based on certain outcomes, the research has a good chance of being biased, not by dishonesty but by ignoring some lines of analysis that might put past results in doubt. Climate research is readily seen in this mode.
It can happen outside government involvement (not as easily as with government involved), but that would be research entirely in the private sector and in the academic community. I do not know whether cosmology is free of government influences vis a vis direct or indirect grants. At least its research does not have any direct relationship to government policy.
Of course, if a science community wants continuing interest and funding it must avoid calling all or most of the important scientific questions answered. On the other hand, if vast amounts of money are spent on research that comes up with the wrong answers, those wrong answers, while an essential part of how science operates, might put off future financing for research in that field.
“Climate research is readily seen in this mode.”
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The worst offender by far at this time is the social sciences. It’s no longer even science as far as I can tell. The sectors under this umbrella that do actual science would do themselves a favor by distancing themselves from the zealots.
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If anything needs defunding in the public sphere, it is this poison.
I look at arguments such as “Big Bang “ as if I were evaluating a project proposal wanting funding. I would not necessarily be well versed in the science details surrounding the proposal, but the decision to fund would be mine. Dueling experts on project proposals are common in policy arguments.
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One question that immediately comes to mind is if “Big Bang” theory was a brand new theory proposed today, what evidence exists that would support it?
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If the new papers are correct on what the new data shows, would the current evidence support “Big Bang” as solid science if it were a brand new theory proposed today? The new papers suggests not.
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I pay practically zero attention to cosmology, string theory and so on. I like things when they start to bear fruit in the form of application.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214411)
Well, I guess I was not even thinking of social science as a science.
Seriously though the soft sciences like social science and to a degree climate science and cosmology have the problem of no convenient control experiments like the harder sciences and it is an entirely different realm that the soft scientists run amiss by acting as if their science is hard.
As layperson who is not deep into cosmology I do have to admire how the science uses the physics and chemistry going on in the universe as their laboratory to better understand the universe.
“I like things when they start to bear fruit in the form of application.”
Always the engineer.
Mike M,
“Do you have any evidence of that in cosmology?”
The evidence is apparent lack of progress over decades. Abnormal galaxy rotations have been known for decades…. only response: there is this hypothetical magical stuff we can’t see, which does not in any way interact with other matter or with electromagnetic radiation, but which does exert gravitational attraction. Oh, and that magical stuff always physically arranges itself around a galaxy so that each specific galaxy undergoes motion exactly as we observe. Remarkably smart this magical stuff.
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Then there is this other magical energy force which is utterly new to and clearly unrelated to all the rest of physics, but which pushes everything apart. Except any experiment which might quantify it is bound to fail because it only applies force under circumstances which can’t be duplicated. Surprisingly enough, the described magical force just happens to validate the existing big-bang model. You can never disprove it; you just accept it or be defunded.
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This is not science. This is crap. Astronomers are people who do not at all understand what they are observing, but who are desperately trying to make data fit an existing model by ‘making shit up’ as they go along. The goal is always to preserve that model. What they need is a better model, one that represents a more complete understanding and which is consistent with all known behavior of matter at smaller scales of time and space.
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Don’t hold your breath. Multiple decades with no progress means progress may well be a very long way off. Somewhere in the endless expanses of dark matter and dark energy, Thomas Kuhn is probably laughing.
Lucia,
“I like things when they start to bear fruit in the form of application.”
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Sure, but Webb cost $10 billion through 2021, with continuing cost of $200 million per year through end of life. Surely we can expect more than pretty photos for such an expenditure.
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in fact, all of astronomy is a creature of public funding. Astronomy needs to produce better understanding, or we might as well put the funds to better use.
“Sure, but Webb cost $10 billion through 2021, with continuing cost of $200 million per year through end of life. Surely we can expect more than pretty photos for such an expenditure.“
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It’s like a Billionaire with a super yacht.
A road construction to the mayor’s farm.
Or a friend with benefits.
You may not want a photograph, need a yacht or a road.
But so many people benefit from jobs, plus the continuing spin off of those occupations for years or decades.
Yes, it’s worth it.
angech,
When a billionaire building a yacht he spends his money. He sometimes earned this by creating valuable things other people wanted. (Or he inherited it from someone who did that.)
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When the government builds something, the tax people. Those people then can’t buy things they want. Had they bought the things they wanted, that would have also have created jobs and spinoffs.
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They are different spinoffs. But there’s no particular reason to think there is a net benefit when the government spends a s**t wad of money on something.
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There is only a net benefit if the government spends on something that turns out to be useful.
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You may very well be able to advance an argument that the
Web telescope does just that. But your argument doesn’t support the claim that the Web telescope does that. So, if you want to tell us what’s good or important about the Web, try again.
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Cuz the government could hire people to dig holes with spoons and a different set to fill the holes back up using spoons. That creates jobs, and those people create spin-off jobs when they buy food. But that program would not be a net benefit– because the money would come from other people who would then not buy something and not create jobs they otherwise would create.
angech,
“Yes, it’s worth it.”
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Value, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Spending that $10 billion (the cost of Webb) for clean water infrastructure in the poorest parts of Africa may not be of value to you, but it is to me. IMHO, astronomy is a backwater of nonsense and arm waves which is in desperate need of reformation. Simply put: the field needs to do a lot better in terms of progress. A very reasonable first step: “We don’t have clue what is happening at vast scales of time and distance.” At least that would be honest.
Lucia,
“Cuz the government could hire people to dig holes with spoons and a different set to fill the holes back up using spoons.”
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Yup. But it is even worse than that. The people being employed (astronomers with advanced degrees, engineers designing Webb deployment equipment, people building that equipment, administrators supervising all this) are surely smart and talented enough to do other things that would add real value to the human condition (AKA earn their keep), and certainly more value than people digging holes with spoons…. only to be re-filled with spoons.
The thing is sometimes you can justify something with just “curiosity” or “beauty”. If that’s the justification, then someone should say so.
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But angech’s economic argument as stated is extremely weak. If it were strong, he could find evidence of actual spinoff directly related to the Web telescope per se.
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Maybe there are some. I don’t follow cosmology or string theory at all. So if there are spinoffs, I don’t know what they are. But I probably wouldn’t even if there are some. (If someone told me spinoffs, then i might become interested in the area. )
Lucia, your replies to angech were dear to my libertarian heart, but I was not at all sure what angech was talking about.
Spin offs are actually unintended consequences and probably not the most efficient way to accomplish the consequence.
Ken,
Yes, spin offs are unintended. But if something happened to cause enough useful spinoffs, it would still be worth the expenditure.
Postit notes were unintended but made 3M a lot of money.
A charming story with a happy ending…
1.A Russian correspondent publishes pictures of himself with PMC Wagner soldiers in camo outfits. PMC Wagner is a group of Russian mercenary tugs accused of war crimes. The occasion was “a visit to an alleged headquarters building in Popasna in eastern Ukraine by the group’s owner, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin”.
2.Ukraine intelligence identifies the location from the photos and launches a strike…. probably US supplied precision guided HIMARS rockets.
3.Photos are published of the area in ruins and the Russians carrying away dead bodies.
The whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin is unknown.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2022/08/15/ukrainian-forces-photobombed-russian-mercenaries-with-rockets/
https://central.asia-news.com/en_GB/articles/cnmi_ca/features/2022/08/16/feature-01
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62547403
Russell Klier (Comment #214425): “A charming story with a happy ending…”
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A rather bloodthirsty way to describe the deaths of several dozen people. And yet, I agree. The Wagner Group is evil. Sadly, there seems to be no reason to believe that Putin’s Chef was still present when the missiles hit.
Economics
Value for money.
“People who are surely smart and talented enough to do other things that would add real value to the human condition”
angech’s economic argument as stated is extremely weak. If it were strong, he could find evidence of actual spinoff directly related to the Web telescope per se.”
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For the average person with no interest in space and science space exploration is a waste of time and resources.
Spin offs, like Teflon, GPS, CT and MRI scanners for cancer and
disease can always be invented by other smart and talented people.
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My point was not to make a strong economic argument, just a commentary on the human condition.
One seemingly pointlessly digs and fills in holes, rides a train to work and back, cooks MacDonald’s acts or builds space cameras.
Curiosity
Beauty
Adding value to the human condition
World peace.
War in the Ukraine.
Yes we could all do more to spend money wisely to benefit other people and we should, but we don’t.
“There is no particular reason to think there is a net benefit when the government spends buckets of money on something.”
Economics is not my strong suit.
Suffice it to point out that money is a form of exchange which is supposed to produce benefits to both sides.
Always at a cost to both sides as well.
Net benefits v net costs.
Hopefully benefits out weigh the costs.
The actual spending of money by a government for people to dig holes means they have money to feed and clothe themselves and get a little exercise and self respect when there are no jobs around.
In Australia it is called a work for the dole scheme.
The Webb Telescope does not have to have any spin offs to produce benefits.
It employed hundreds of scientists who would not have a job otherwise in their area of expertise digging holes in space, their wives and kids were looked after plus all the technical people , truck drivers, rocket scientists who need rockets, cooks teachers and cleaners.
Sure they could have built other things but 10 billion dollars went on people and equipment and jobs which in turn kept an economy turning over and probably produced 100 billion in all the ancillary things that that money was spent on.
Trips to Europe, trips to Disney, etc etc.
Should not have written all this.
Breaks the golden rule.
When in a hole stop digging and stirring.
angech (Comment #214427)
August 28th, 2022 at 8:40 am
When parties voluntarily make a transaction both sides have to see it as a benefit to their side of the transaction or no transaction can be made. When the transaction is between government and a private party it is no longer voluntary and it might well not be considered a benefit to the private party.
When you talk about government funding of activities that may have no benefit to the public but to create jobs you make the mistake in not considering how those funds might otherwise have been used. You are looking at the seen and ignoring the unseen – which, by the way, is done quite frequently by politicians and rationalized by Keynesian economists. What you say is pretty much the party line, although you might want to read up on the Keynesians and how to better nuance what you write.
Spin-offs can and do come from many purposeful activities and particularly where research and development are involved, but that potential occurrence is not necessarily an optimum means to justify one avenue of activity over another for funding. After all the spin-offs are not known when the funding is provided.
In the private world where transactions and funding are voluntary between private parties, benefits to both parties are to be considered. When the government is involved where the funding comes from is not voluntary and spin-offs may well be invoked by politicians looking for support from part of the voting population to whom the funds will flow. This tends to work best where the involuntary collection of funds is rather diffuse and the recipients of the funds is clear cut and they well know who they are and the magnified amount of monetary benefit to them.
Kenneth,
“This tends to work best where the involuntary collection of funds is rather diffuse and the recipients of the funds is clear cut and they well know who they are and the magnified amount of monetary benefit to them.”
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Yes, but it is not just expenditures, it is also the promulgation of rules, regulations, and laws. I am currently on Cape Cod, where one of the more desirable catches for a fisherman (or woman), commercial or private, is called a striped bass. In my youth these were quite plentiful, but there were overfished, and several
decades ago became a species subject to national and state rules to avoid overfishing. So far, so good.
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But what has actually happened was not so good: There are now “slot rules” for this species. A private fisherman can only take a fish between 28″ length and 35″ length (they grow to well over 45″). The argument was that immature fish have to be protected and very large fish (which generate the greatest number of fertilized eggs) also need protection. But in fact the slot rules are just BS: commercial fishermen (licensed by the state), can take any size fish. So the regulation (like many, many regulations) has been corrupted, and doesn’t primarily protect the species, it primarily protects the interests of commercial fisherman. The only protection is that there is a maximum total catch allowed (xxx tons), after which the entire fishery is closed. Since the fish (whole, uncleaned) is worth about $10 per pound wholesale at the dock, a good size fish is worth hundreds of dollars to a commercial fisherman, and private fisherman are prohibited from taking them. I have seen 30+ lb stripers tossed back into the sea.
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I know I am preaching to the choir a bit, but most all activities of government which restrict individual liberty strike me as harmful, not beneficial.
NASA and the entire defense industry can be thought of as engineering welfare programs. Lots of high paying jobs producing things that don’t always have immediate benefits. You think GPS is up there solely so Grandma doesn’t get lost?
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There are lots of things that come out of these programs that are useful. Whether they are worth it is not an easy question to answer. People tend to like having weather satellites in Florida during hurricane season. Telecommunications, semiconductors, nuclear energy, and on and on and on. The argument can be made that these things would have eventually happened in the private sector anyway, but certainly not with the same urgency. The private sector just isn’t going to launch rockets to the moon in the 1960’s or build colliders for fun.
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There is a need for basic R&D and some of the scale needed can only be provided by government. What quantity is too little or too much? That’s easy, somewhere between zero and infinity, and opinions will vary.
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Personally I support the space program (obviously), but completely understand those who think social programs are more important. There’s room for both.
Space exploration is definitely more of a general knowledge endeavor. Because it’s there. Also at a fundamental level the long term survival of humans very likely depends on N>1 planet occupations. One planet is a single point of failure.
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Human space travel is more of a vanity project than robotic explorers. I would put the Webb telescope and the LHC in the same boat. Perhaps there is some spin off potential here, but mostly this is strictly a curiosity endeavor. I see nothing wrong with this.
angech
Sure. But
(a) the Webb telescope is not space exploration.
(b) it’s not entirely clear all of these are spinoff sfrom space exploration. They definitely aren’t spin-offs from studying “cosmology”.
If you want to give me a justification for the Web telescope provide examples of spinoffs from the Web tellscope. Not something else.
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Throwing in the notion that the “average person” doesn’t appreciate things is not going to suddenly make me feel worried you might think I’m only “average” relative to you being “insightful”. Give me real evidence for your position.
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Ok… but if that’s your intended point, then actually say something about “the human condition” rather than just giving an economic argument!
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I get that someone might see beauty in cosmology. Not me, but someone. But I am utterly mystified by how the Webb telescope adds value to the human condition, advances world peace and most especially, affects the war in the Ukraine!!
Yes. I’m not asking you to give a full economic analysis. I’m just asking that if you try to give an economic justification (as you did) you identify some benefit. You. did. not.
But what you don’t seem to get is my scheme to hire one group of people to dig holes with spoons and another to fill the hole with spoons has this exact benefit. Meanwhile it has the cost of taxing people to pay for both the hole digging and refilling.
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So you need to point to a net benefit, which includes costs. Otherwise, we might as well just replace the project for the Webb telescope with the hole digging/refilling exercise?
Yep.
Angech,
I’m pretty well convinced that the Webb telescope did not spin off MRI. I’m also googling to find any connection between MRI and space exploration. Can you provide any evidence MRI spun off from space exploration?
I find this:
http://www.uprightmrideerfield.com/the-biggest-breakthroughs-in-mri-history
That and other similar articles don’t mention space exploration at all.
When the government selects projects to fund it is important to understand the actual rationale for the selection. It seldom is the Civics 101 “isn’t this a wonderful opportunity for the human race” reason but something much more political. The race to put a man on the moon was more an image thing for the US in the cold war. Using space for satellites was initially for spying purposes. The very useful part of using satellites required some research and development by the private sector and needs arising from the private sector. Plus we now know that private entities can do with space that at one time many thought was only in the domain of government. The internet was originally to be used exclusively by the military and its development if left in the hands of government would have foreclosed on the creativity required to make it what it is today.
Lots of funding for projects with positive spin-offs have come from military initiatives, but if your overall accounting for the military included the wasted efforts in military actions and nation building, military funding overall doesn’t look so good – even with spin-offs.
It should also be remembered that government basically only selects and funds projects and it is the private sector that is expected to make them a success. Also if government projects do not live up to expectations or fail the usual aftermath is to double down with more funds. If this occurs in the private sector people get fired and enterprises go bankrupt or in some cases get sued.
No private entity would ever take on satellite development from scratch. The amount of science and development from rockets to communications is way beyond private industry. Satellites were carried on the backs of ICBM development which was definitely not about world peace.
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Something very useful may eventually come out of quantum mechanics. I’m still waiting. Quantum computers, quantum encryption, faster than light communication using quantum entanglement. Semiconductors use quantum mechanics but it’s not obvious they really needed to understand what was going on to do a lot of the work anyway.
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Maybe when we figure out how to steal energy from parallel universes and then dump all our waste into them we will all be happy we funded the basic science.
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SLS launch window Monday morning starts at 8:33 am EST. Depending on how you measure this is the most powerful rocket ever built, that is until SpaceX’s Starship gets to orbit.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214435): “Something very useful may eventually come out of quantum mechanics. I’m still waiting.”
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Transistors, semiconductors, LED’s, MRI, lasers, a great deal of modern chemistry, probably a lot more.
Lucia
“Can you provide any evidence MRI spun off from space exploration?”
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possibly
“NASA Contributes Research and Technology To the War Against Cancer”
MRI and CAT Scans.
Digital signal processing was pioneered at NASA for use during the Apollo Lunar landings to computer-enhance pictures of the Moon. This technology was used in a broad range of Earthbound medical and diagnostic tools, including advanced body imaging techniques known as CT, CAT Scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
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When in a hole stop digging and stirring. Yep.
I am following your advice.
Angech,
I googled, found nothing and asked a question. That’s not hole digging.
angech,
But thanks for the detail. Knowing why you thought that helped me google more.
In fact, the public relations blurb you found rather overstates. Here is a more direct question to NASA.
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/home/mythbuster/myth_mri.html
This is straight from NASA (and not their public relations/ad writers.)
Yes. NASA, like tons and tons and tons of other groups has worked on ‘image processing’. The tons of other groups include the military, and the movie industry. “Elements” of the digital processing– some by NASA– have been “incorporated”.
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By the way, MRI was invented in 1945. NASA was created in 1958.
Tom, if we limit our imaginations to current thinking on how money is spent and look at only the seen and not the unseen what you say has validity. If only part of the trillions of dollars spent on defense over the years were instead available for the unseen, we do not know how much productive (as opposed to a non productive defense) benefits could have accrued.
If private consortiums were allowed to freely exist to take on major research and development projects, I do not share the opinion that those endeavors would not include some projects that are now thought to occur solely by government force and monopolizing the purse strings and not by voluntary means that might require better rationale divorced from politics.
Tom/Ken,
I think military R&D has had many useful spin-offs.
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However, the justification for the spending isn’t usually given as the spin-offs.
The justification is having an effective, battle worthy military. That may contribute to “world peace”, but only in the sense that if we are not as weak as Ukraine, then Russian will be reluctant to invade. We want to be able to defend ourselves, and to do that, we need technology that goes beyond “self defense”.
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And rather obviously, military advances aren’t always used for self defense. The do get used for overtly aggressive moves.
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The problem with Angech’s attent to justify the Webb telescope (or studies in cosmology generally) is he’s trying to give economic justifications– which are tenuous– and some of the examples of benefits require quite a bit of explanation to show they are even benefits. If you claim world peace is a side benefit of these big telescopes of cosmology, you really need to explain how the advance world peace. And given the expense, you need to compare that to how some other expenditure might do more.
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And then when claiming a “benefit”, you need to link to something that is more than NASA puffery which they contradict themselves on their more substantive communications.
“digital image processing to allow computer enhancement of Moon pictures”
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Image enhancement would have happened anyway because there is low barrier to entry, it is somewhat obvious, not particularly challenging for most needs, can be done by small teams, and there is a need for it in many industries.
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Putting up satellites has a rather large barrier, etc. One way to compare the influences of government investment is to compare technological progress in other societies that don’t invest and/or have repressive regimes. Africa and the Middle East over the past century.
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There is feedback cycle between government investment and private industry progress. A skilled workforce is mandatory among other things. They need to be incentivized if possible. China is now investing heavily in technology and is better off for it, part of this investment is stealing everything they can get their hands on to catch up. It’s working for them.
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Everyone wants to do this, but not everyone has an economy and tax base to support it. Chicken and egg.
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Software for example. The US leads the world in software development. Why? Was it the Apple II or the defense industry? Initially the defense industry and then then private sector took over. However the private sector found plenty of skilled people available. Now we have Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, etc. and it can be strongly argued that the initial jump start in that tech sector paid off enormously.
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I am mostly libertarian and don’t like big government or government picking winners and losers, but I am also not blind to the history of economical development of technology and the large hand the defense industry has played in the lead the US now has.
Ken,
The question of the opportunity cost of government investment is valid. Had we invested heavily in agricultural development maybe we would have similar leads in things we cannot even imagine, or perhaps if we didn’t tax so hard then we would be even better off now. One can always argue for and against something with imaginary alternate timelines.
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There is nothing stopping private industry from teaming up and doing great things now. They occasionally do this but it is always a squabble with mistrust it seems. The defense industry is mostly just teams of private contractors doing all the work, just commandeered as a forced team by government.
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I think it all comes down to trying to invest wisely. There is little question that government investment is rather cumbersome and essentially corrupt, but it sometimes works anyway. Ironically the thing that seems to work the best is “we better work harder to protect our tribe from that other evil tribe over there”.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214444): “The question of the opportunity cost of government investment is valid. Had we invested heavily in agricultural development maybe we would have similar leads”.
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We did invest heavily in agricultural research (and continue to) and huge advances resulted.
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That said, yes there is an opportunity cost to government spending. But there is also a role for the government to play. To pick an easy example: The transcontinental railroads would not have been built without government support, both direct (subsidies) and indirect (controlling the Indian tribes).
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Markets are spectacular at achieving local optimization but not as good at global optimization. But governments can marshal the resources and operate on the time scale needed for the latter.
Tom Scharf,
“There is nothing stopping private industry from teaming up and doing great things now.”
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Well, no, but private industry does tend to be motivated by identifying a market where they can sell their products for a profit. Improved technology does often lead to marketable products, but most always the focus of private research is profit for the company, not altruistic “betterment of humanity”. Private research as a fraction of sales (and profits) in most private industry tends to be small, and laser focused on salable products. You might remember the story of Shuji Nakamura and how the company he worked for (Nichia) initially wanted to stop his “wasteful” research on short wavelength light emitting diodes which ended up revolutionized multiple fields…. including my own company’s. Private industry is a tough taskmaster when it comes to funding research.
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Here is the thing that most surprises me: there are many non-profits and foundations (some with truly huge endowments), but these seem very rarely to fund research on improved technology for the betterment of humanity. Rather they tend to get involved in very mundane things to help poor people in developing countries, or, more often, they spend their resources advancing crazy lefty/green policy goals, not funding technology at all. Most of the improvements in humanity’s lot have indeed come from improved technology, yet the non-profits and foundations that are explicitly dedicated to “improving humanity’s lot” seem not at all to focus on technology.
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Strange, but then again, I find the left… which controls most foundations and most non-profits…. consistently pretty strange.
I find justification for the huge amounts we spend for military defense mostly a circular process. When you spend that kind of money on the military you are well going to become a target of other nations. And the why of this is because we spend a lot on military defense. The belligerency this causes for the US calls for more military spending by the US – and on and on it goes.
If we set an example for the world by concentrating on a free market and free trade and drastically reduced military spending we would be doing what we do best and the belligerency would greatly subside -at least for the US.
Bari Weiss interviews Bill Barr:
https://www.commonsense.news/p/bill-barr-calls-bullsht
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“BW: If the firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey wasn’t obstruction, how would you describe it? Do you think that it was unwise?
AG BARR: I would describe it as something that should have happened long before. Everyone I knew in Republican and Justice Department circles, including me, was advising Trump at the very beginning of his administration to fire Comey before we even knew his role in Russiagate. It’s because Comey, in my opinion, has some of the personality characteristics that can lead people, like J. Edgar Hoover, to run the F.B.I. according to their personal whims. I thought it was dangerous and that he should go.”
…
“AG BARR: Yes. I think it’s (“deep state”) overdone, as many conspiracy theories are. But there definitely are people in the government, as there are in many of our institutions, who are very willful and are willing to sacrifice the values and processes of the institution in order to achieve some higher political end. And they do it. There are pockets of them in the Department of Justice and unfortunately, some in the F.B.I.
People say, “what do we do about the FBI?” The F.B.I. is like all of our institutions. I wish the F.B.I. was the extent of the problem, but government institutions are generally infected by this. All our other institutions—the medical profession, journalism, science—are also being politicized.
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Very interesting read. He talks candidly about his views on Trump and the 2020 election “fraud”.
I believe there are several roadblocks involved here:
Firstly, it is excepted by most private concerns that the government will continue to operate in the areas they currently do and take money that they might have otherwise invested. There are also private concerns that want to keep this arrangement because they can profit more easily from it by the government’s ability to forcefully appropriate money to be used by their cronies in the private world. Government would have to be convinced to reduce its size and reach for private concerns to be motivated to do what the government currently does.
Secondly, I believe that the government frowns on too much concentration of economic power in the private world whereas in contrast they rationalize increasing the concentration of power in government. This would require some change in thinking and some has occurred in redefining monopoly power in the private sector.
Thirdly, there are also many people in the US who feel that it is government mission to be involved directly or through regulation in most aspects of the economy, R&D and people’s individual lives and further have little or no trust in the private sector. These people are in a minority when it comes to full implementation of their ideas, but unfortunately that minority is growing.
Lastly, there are those in US governments of a mind like the revisionists in China, who saw the attention getting and power of those in the private sector, that resulted from their partial freeing up the economy, was becoming an affront to the power of the Communist regime and that it had to be quelled. The progressives come to mind here – a minority but with much influence on the main stream media and those in academia.
Pertaining to an earlier conversation we were all having on trust in the FBI, Barr commenting on the Trump raid says:
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“… I haven’t reached a conclusion on that until I get the information. What happened with Russiagate essentially created the condition where people are going to think the worst and not give the F.B.I. or the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt.”
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Barr does make a valid point here:
“Number one is that I think a lot of the attacks on the F.B.I. are over the top because a decision like this (Trump raid) is not made by the F.B.I. In fact, I don’t think the F.B.I. would push a decision that it’s best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half. The decision would be made at the Department of Justice, by subordinates of the AG, and ultimately signed off on by the AG. The F.B.I. would be told to go and execute it. I think the idea that the F.B.I. is the problem here is misplaced.”
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He’s throwing Garland under the bus here I think.
Railroads helped by crony capitalism made some cronies very rich. Railroads were overbuilt and many not built well and required rebuilding. There were over 130 railroad failures by 1874.
https://mises.org/library/crony-capitalism-and-transcontinental-railroads
James J Hill was the exception who built the Great Northern railroad without land grants or government grants and aids. The only railroad he had with a history of government involvement was what he purchased in Minnesota.
Tom Scharf (Comment #214455)
August 29th, 2022 at 2:43 pm
The FBI wrote the affidavit and search warrant. Barr is in no position to throw Garland under the bus.
The problem is that those in the administrative state are well protected and even a very few bad actors can have great leverage.
This part: “I don’t think the F.B.I. would push a decision that it’s best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half”
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I think he is saying this was pointless and incendiary. Trump had the documents, he could have copied them, moved them, or burned them and getting them back wasn’t going to change anything in reality. My reading of the minds is he is saying Wray would not have made this decision, but Garland did. He’s pointing to political motivation. Of course I could be completely wrong for a change.
Tom
I see this the same way. And the defense industry has always had a hand in technological development and not just in the US.
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I also agree with you the image processing that NASA claims somehow links it to MRI (whose invention predates NASA by quite some time) would have been done by someone somewhere.
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I don’t doubt that space exploration sometimes has some spinoffs that benefit people. It would be impossible for that not to happen given they do have projects that require them to develop things and to do some research and development. But I’m pretty sure it’s hard to justify their mission or its costs based on the “spinoffs”.
MikeM
I favor agricultural research. We need to eat. With food, we need surpluses on average so that famine doesn’t happen during low years. The improvement required do require formal programs and in my opinion favor collective action rather than having individual farmers try to come up new strains themselves.
Tom Scharf,
“He’s throwing Garland under the bus here I think.”
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Sure. And Garland is most deserving of that.
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Garland is a like a jilted lover; he is never going to forget or forgive. He will be a holy warrior against the GOP until he is out of office. And that is clearly why he was selected for AG: someone who could be counted on to hammer conservatives (and Trump specifically) without question and without regard to the country’s best interest. Unlike William Barr, Garland is a small person with a very limited intellectual view, who will be quickly forgotten. But the social damage he does to the country will be more difficult to forget. Thank Mitch McConnell for not letting him serve on the SC, where the damage he would have done was far greater.
Lucia,
“I favor agricultural research.
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But the truth is human population is approaching it’s peak, and will soon (within ~20-30 years) start to decline. There will be plenty of food available so long as governments don’t willfully reduce food consumption… something which already seems to be going on in multiple places (Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and more). The technology to feed all of humanity (and feed them very well) already is in hand. The only doubt is if insane government policies will lead to famine and death.
I was thinking the same when I first heard about the documents. I was thinking also about the legality of copying classified documents. If there is no copying for security reasons than the only method of tracking the documents would be via consecutive numbers or other code for the document ID. By the way, would not that have been a way to determine what Clinton might have gotten rid of – or Trump. But if she had the documents on a computer is not that same as a copy. Are classified documents on computers? And further do you have to end the person who put them on the computer?
I suspect that Trump and H Clinton were probably very sloppy handlers of classified documents and their handlers were very sloppy handlers of those two. Or, on the other hand, maybe they, like me, thought that most classified documents really do not contain damaging information if made public.
If there is a trial how can classified evidence be presented without revealing its contents and if it is revealed it would no longer have classified status.
All that has transpired indicates to me that the classifying of documents is not a serious (or necessary) business.
Trump has recently been talking about nullifying the 2020 election results and being install as president or having another election. He is totally nuts and if the Republicans do not break with him they are going down with him.
The twenty dollar bill [probably now the 100 dollar bill] theory of economics. tm angech
When I was younger I thought of the possibility of just throwing a 20 dollar bill away at random in the streets of my city.
Anyone could pick it up and buy themselves a treat, have a bet or a beer or buy some food for their kids.
I could not do it.
My materiality got in the way.
I could not physically separate myself from my perceived sense of loss.
The Webb Telescope does not have to have any spin offs to produce benefits.
“But what you don’t seem to get is my scheme to hire one group of people to dig holes with spoons and another to fill the hole with spoons has this exact benefit. Meanwhile it has the cost of taxing people to pay for both the hole digging and refilling.”
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I get it
If the Government, hence the people, decide to tax themselves 20 billion dollars and spend it on both projects the economy is 20 billion dollars better off.
What I am saying is that the expenditure by the government on any project automatically benefits people [someone in the community is people.
Hence spending 10 Billion on whatever you like, like throwing 20 dollars away, benefits someone somewhere and who knows, we could be a lucky NASA scientist and have a job as part of our skill set that suits us.
You want me to make a strong economic argument?
The current response to Covid was exactly that.
Except they were throwing away 100 dollar bills.
I was not trying to make a strong economic argument.
I was saying it is short sighted to say that because space research does not return value for money in one view, that in another view that value for money is always there in the value to the people it employed.
Just by spending it.
On whatever project.
That’s all.
angech,
I didn’t say it did have to have them. I said it’s supporters have to identify benefits that justify the cost. They aren’t self evident. I personally am uninterested in cosmology so my reaction to learning more about that is “meh”. But others get to differ. Not all funded projects have to bring value to me personally– but ideally, they should bring value to enough tax payers to be worth the tax burden overall.
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These telescopes are expensive.
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Maybe on someone’s balance sheet. But in reality, no one is better off. The true economy is not better off because nothing of value was produced. No one got anything of value despite toiling. People would have been better off toiliing at something else.
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No. I’m observing that you tried to make an economic to support spending on the telescope. It was a bad one. No one made you try to make that argument. But for some reason, that’s the argument you tried to make.
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It may or may not be short sighted. You could possibly make an argument that it is– but so far you have failed.
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Of course the people employed likely were happy to be paid. But they also all would likely have been employed doing something else — and they would have been paid for that. So there is no net value.
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You continue to make economic arguments. And they continue to be similar to the jobs digging and filling holes with spoons argument. The are poor arguments that don’t show value for the telescope.
Seed corn sellers and researchers back in the day when I was on the farm were DeKalb, Pioneer, Funk Brothers and Pfister and all were privately owned. Hybrid seed corn was invented by a farmer named George Carter.
Two of my father’s cousins produced a hybrid seed corn called Fritsch Brothers on their farm and sold it locally. We planted it on our farm and when we planted plots of the other 4 seed corns for comparison, Fritsch Brothers performed as well or better.
It’s on. Something big is definitely happening in Southeast Ukraine.
NASA’s FIRMS [Fire Information for Resource Management System] provides near real-time active fire data from MODIS and VIIRS. The last 24 hours has a tremendous number [hundreds] of fire hot spots in this area. I have posted a JPEG of the last 24 hours here… https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1564432823708225540?s=20&t=wwSxQFzSK5iIVo_u6JiO0w
If you are not intimidated by the NASA system you can go to the live map here….
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2022-08-29..2022-08-30,2022-08-29;@33.7,47.4,12z
Additionally, The US is once again flying a spy plane over the Black Sea. It’s been on station all day. It’s a sophisticated Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk at 55,000 feet flying off Crimea in “No Man’s Land”, call sign “FORTE10”. I posted a JPEG of the track here…. https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1564433848565469186?s=20&t=wwSxQFzSK5iIVo_u6JiO0w
If it is still airborne you can catch it live here….
https://www.flightradar24.com/FORTE10/2d40bc88
Biden has already been canceling student loans. People who work in certain public service jobs have their loans forgiven after 120 payments. The student loan payment deferrals during COVID emergencies counted towards this total with $0 payments.