Heroes - and Zeroes - of the C-19 Crisis

Tops on the Heroes List has to be Ron DeSantis of FL - the Republican Governor whose data-driven actions may have saved the citizens of the most vulnerable state.

His actions were sensible (heck, I even suggested most of them here, in the early days):

• Forbid return of positive patients to nursing homes, unless they could be completely isolated.
• Get PPE to the nursing homes that needed it, BEFORE the hospitals. As the nursing homes were protected, they would be less likely to have their residents clog up the hospitals (as happened in NY).
• Follow the actual data, not the models.
• Sunshine is a great disinfectant. Don't limit access.
• Don't just shut down all counties. Let the people closest to the infections decide. Had SC and NC followed this, economic damage would have been limited to the hot spots - the major cities. That would have left more money to manage the crisis, without plunging into unpayable debt.

Just a short quote about actually looking at the data:

“We kind of lost confidence very early on in models,” a Florida health official says. “We look at them closely, but how can you rely on something when it says you’re peaking in a week and then the next day you’ve already peaked?” Instead, “we started really focusing on just what we saw.”

Florida was better able to do that than many states because of its routine experience dealing with natural disasters. “Many states simply did not have the data infrastructure that Florida has,” says Mary Mayhew, secretary of Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration. “We have an emergency status system that gets stood up, as I mentioned, in the case of a hurricane. Hospitals and nursing homes and other long-term-care providers are required to submit data on a daily basis, twice-daily basis, regarding their bed availability.”

The Florida Department of Health produces a report that DeSantis sees every morning: new cases, number of tests, positivity rates, etc. He also gets a rundown of the people who have gone into hospitals and of ICU usage. He can follow the key indicators down to the county level. This allows granular visibility into what’s happening. He cites the example of rural Hamilton County. It had 67 cases the other day. DeSantis was able to call the surgeon general of the state to find out what was going on, and learn it was an outbreak in a prison rather than a wider community spread.

His focus has been on “clinically significant cases,” or serious cases that might require hospitalizations, and that pointed to the nursing homes.

That's why it was so critical to fire that woman who claimed to be the architect of the COVID-19 dashboard. She was not trustworthy to stay in a position where confidence in the data was critical to decision-making.

Among the Top Choices for Zero:

• Gov. Gretchen Witmer - "You Vill Obey My Orders!" Man, if ever Hollywood wants to gender-bend a remake of WWII, she is the model for Der Fuhrer. Can't believe that she has people lobbying Biden for the VP slot.
• DeBiasio/Cuomo - it's a tossup on who is more dictatorial and clueless. Together, they have managed to screw up one of the largest economies in the USA. And, in a city known for too many people on welfare/barely hanging on, the numbers have exploded. While the summer may end the C-bug, it will also bring hungry people to the streets. Can we say Peasant Revolt?
• MN Governor Walz - apparently is taking this opportunity to crush the institution of Christian churches.
• "The churches are asking for equal treatment not special treatment, and the decision to reopen came only after efforts to work out an arrangement with the Governor were ignored. As a result, starting June 1, while a restaurant or bar can serve up to 50 people outdoors, churches remain restricted to gatherings of 10 or fewer—indoors or out. As the Becket Fund notes, these Minnesota churches plan to reopen with only 33% capacity, rigorous social distancing and hygiene protocols."

• Gov. Kate Brown of OR - has been using her temporary emergency opportunity to impose Full Left on the state. She's apparently forgotten that, however dependably Left Portland and the coast are, the rest of the state is fiercely anti-authoritarian. The recent weaponizing of Child Protective Services and licensing authority against an anti-lockdown activist is an odious example of her vile overreach.

Gov. Cuomo is NOT helped by his FREDO brother, Chris, who manages to make Billy Carter, former holder of the Most Dumbass Politician's Dumbass Brother Lifetime Lack of Achievement Award, look like a Rhodes scholar.

I'm not gonna beat the Dead Horse With a Name - Cuomo - except to say that, once the hysteria has diminished, it's going to be hard for his backers to justify the financial meltdown he caused NY state. The Big Apple is Leftover Applesauce, and it's likely to change the automatic donations to Dem politicians. The Money Tree has lost its Leaves, and this is likely to make this November very interesting.

The Dems will fight back with the only things they have left. Once you take away the money for media buys, and paying the broke-ass ground troops, you have:

• Calling in the markers of the media. Anyone who'd ever been so stupid as to give them ammunition for blackmail (most of the Left) is gonna be squeezed like your boys in an exam for testicular cancer. HARD.
• Further efforts to deny social media participants from clarifying the Lies of the Left. Expect a Virtual Killing Fields - de-platforming, denial of service targeted at disfavored sites, de-monetizing, doxxing, and all the other methods they've honed over the last few years. All who plan to hang in there should have offline sources of income, preferably something cash-based.
• Nothing to lose. ALL restraints (whatever remain) are off. 
• So, get to know your local sheriff's department, volunteer and donate to the police. You want to be someone who is known, so when the SWAT calls come in, at least a few of them will hesitate to blow your head off.
• Have that 'bug-out bag' packed and ready, keep your car gassed up, buy those burner phones now, and - generally - follow the Boy/Girl Scout motto.
• Have money stashed in an accessible place. Some cash, some debit cards not tied to you, some foreign currency (maybe Canadian). Make sure you have access to any virtual money. If all else fails, have a couple of bottles of booze - generally a good trading source.
• Start getting to know your neighbors, assuming you're not the outgoing type. They might give you the critical warning before the Left brings the hammer down. A steadfast friend is probably more valuable that any other resource. When choosing those friends, though, you might put more emphasis on loyalty than other virtues. A guy with somewhat loose morals might be preferred to a former Boy Scout type. Solid citizens are more likely to comply with State directives.

Everything may end smoothly, and with no violence. The prudent person wouldn't put all their eggs in that basket, however.

Red wave or blue swamp?

It’s a good thing I don’t have the job of predicting what’s going to happen come November, because I’d have to fire myself. It all depends on which tea leaves I’ve been reading most recently.

This time the totalitarian left has shot itself in the foot. The naked power grabs by blue-state governors have got the attention of a lot of people who, being arguably saner than I am and having better things to do, are not political junkies. People who would really prefer not to waste their time squinting at tea leaves. They just want to do their jobs, and not be constantly interfered with, and vote the same way they have all their lives. Except now – well, they may not be interested in politics, but they’re discovering that politics is interested in them. Anybody whose business has been destroyed, or whose job has disappeared, or whose life has been wrecked not by the coronavirus but by one of the thousands of wannabe dictators who are seizing this opportunity to seize power and trample on the Constitution… surely will not vote for more of the same come November!

Except if they really don’t want to pay attention, the media can keep leading them down the garden path. For anyone who doesn’t want to be bothered looking at the messy details, the media offer a convenient alternative. If the only news you encounter is what your Facebook friend just copied and pasted from CNN, maybe you think you know that everything you’ve suffered since the declaration of the Coronavirus crisis is the fault of a racist, incompetent President and a racist, murderous political party that just wants people to die. ! (Funny how that “explanation” never gets leveled at anybody with a “D” attached to his name, not even NY Governor Cuomo who, by all accounts, has been remarkably successful at arranging for people in his state to die.) With the media creating a virtual shield wall between their chosen narrative and actual facts, what are the chances that enough people will see through their shenanigans? Maybe even those whose lives have been ruined will accept the narrative that our only hope is to give the petty dictators even more power! After all, that’s what the media tells them, and they’re too busy trying to survive to spend any time looking behind the headlines.

A lot of people are really steamed. I know; I’ve talked to them. Even in deep-blue Austin, even in a state which hasn’t gone nearly as lockdown crazy as some places, there are people who are fed up with being told to sit down and shut up and do what their moral and intellectual superiors tell them.

But a lot of people should be upset and aren’t. I don’t have much of a social life these days, but I do have a handful of friends from college days with whom I keep in contact. And they terrify me. They grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance; their American History classes predated the Howard Zinn “America Sucks” attitude that took over colleges and universities and deliberately mis-educated generations of students; they are old enough to remember when people of good will could disagree on policy issues without being declared unpersons. And yet, and yet… they are complacent about the erosion of our civil liberties. They grew up free and now they’re happily enslaving themselves. How does a person get that way?

And you know what’s really scary? They are all perfectly willing to vote for Joe Biden, no matter how many times he forgets what he’s trying to say or how much word mush he produces.

Oh well. The way things are going, I’ll probably lose the last of these old friends for the crime of using “Joe Biden” and “cognitive decline” in the same sentence, and then at least I won’t be depressed by talking to them. But in the meanwhile – what do your tea leaves look like?

Bad Science Derived From Faulty Research

The Lockdown Idea - that, if government forces its citizens/subjects to cower inside their homes, fearful of leaving without extensive physical barriers and conformity-fearmongers chastising them about 'getting too close' - was apparently based on the social norms of a very small sample, of an unusual population - teenage high school students. Their interaction style was MODELED, using a computer simulation.

The primary author of this paper was Robert J. Glass, a complex-systems analyst with Sandia National Laboratories. He had no medical training, much less an expertise in immunology or epidemiology. 

That explains why Dr. D.A. Henderson, “who had been the leader of the international effort to eradicate smallpox,” completely rejected the whole scheme. 

 The structure of these assumed networks were a LOT more social than the norm. Trust me. Both as a stay-at-home mother, and, later, as an office worker, my interactions were so limited that opportunities to socialize outside of those groups were grabbed. Only as a teacher was I forced to have extended contact with large numbers of potentially infected individuals. And, in that job, I did often get sick. However, it led to my having a stronger immune system. You could probably expose the average teacher to Ebola, and they would shrug it off (not really, but...).

For example, the office worker. Most people in offices do NOT attend meetings all that much (and, most of them they do attend, are done unwillingly). It's not uncommon for such workers to spend most of their day relatively isolated, either in separate room, cubicle, or well-spaced desk area.

That's why 'water-cooler conversations', trips to the bathroom (and to just get up from a chair and walk around), and lunch-time with co-workers are so welcome. Normally, the jobs are without a lot of people time.

But, that's NOT what the researchers assumed - they believed that EVERYONE in the house interacted as much as teen girls.

Our network represented a stylized small US town and took advantage of the diverse backgrounds of the authors (1 of whom is a teenager). The population of 10,000 conformed to the 2000 Census (9) and consisted of children (<11 years of age, 17.7%), teenagers (12–18 years of age, 11.3%), adults (19–64 years of age, 58.5%), and older adults (>65 years of age, 12.5%). All persons belonged to multiple groups, each associated with a subnetwork of links that reflected their lives within the community (Figure 1, Table 1). Households were composed of families (adults with children or teenagers), adults, or older adults. The age-class makeup and size of households conformed to the 2000 Census (9). All persons within each household were linked to each other with mean link contact frequencies of 6/day. Every person also belonged to 1 multiage extended family (or neighborhood) group (mean membership 12.5, mean link contact frequency 1/day).

All children and teenagers attended preschool or school; children attended 1 class/day, while teenagers attended 6 (classes of 20 to 35 children or teenagers). All adults went to work daily, where they interacted with other adults (work group size 10–50), and all older adults attended gatherings with other older adults (gathering size 5–20). For links within school classes, work, and gatherings of older adults, we assumed the simplest subnetwork that imposes local clustering: a ring lattice in which a person is linked to 2 (for children or teenager classes and gatherings of older adults) or 3 (adult work) neighboring persons on each side along the ring. Mean link contact frequencies for children in a class are 6/day. Teenager classes, adult work, and gatherings of older adults have mean link contact frequencies of 1/day.

To represent additional within-age class interactions, such as extracurricular activities, playgrounds, bowling leagues, or friends, persons are randomly linked to an average of 3 other persons of the same age class (mean link contact frequency 1/day). Finally, to emulate a somewhat patterned set of random contacts from commercial transactions and other ventures into public spaces, we impose a random overall network across all age classes with a mean of 25 links/person to yield 1 contact/person/day (mean link contact frequency 0.04/day).

 [My bolding] 

WAY more contact than the average American.

Now, if someone wanted to suggest that quarantining teen/tween girls (the most social group of all) to house arrest, with only electronic contact available (and even contact within their household) would reduce those interpersonal contacts to a minimum, and thus halt infection pathways, that would be a useful path to pursue. However, that would probably get you thrown into SJW Jail.

Which might be worth it, if only to see SJWs heads explode.

America’s Oily Dilemma

     There have been many expressions of amazement and bewilderment over the recent news that “crude oil is trading at negative values.” This excessively simplified statement of the situation is somewhat misleading, as oil itself is not being “sold” for a “negative price.” What’s really happening is the descent of oil futures contracts – sometimes called commodity options – into the negative numbers.

     If you’ve never played the futures market – for my sins, I have – it involves contracts with two ends: the put end, which agrees to supply the commodity at a specified price, and the call end, which agrees to purchase and take delivery of the commodity. Futures contract trading goes like this:

     Smith purchases a futures contract on commodity X from Jones. The contract entitles and obligates Smith to purchase a fixed amount of X at a price of $Y (which is normally more than X’s current market price) on the contracted date. He must complete that purchase unless he can resell his contract to another willing buyer before the contracted date. By selling the contract to Smith, Jones becomes entitled and obligated to sell Smith the agreed upon amount of X at a price of $Y on the contracted date. Let’s say the price Smith pays for that contract is $Z.

     Why did Smith do this? Equally to the point, why did Jones cooperate with him? In the usual case:

• Smith believes that he will be able to sell his contract for more than $Z – perhaps as high as $A – at some point before the contracted date. Thus he could reap a profit of $A minus $Z on the contract – possibly even by selling it back to Jones – without ever having to pay for or take delivery of the X.
• Jones believes the reverse: i.e., that the going price of a futures contract on X will be less than $Z on the contracted date. If that is so, then (unless Jones actually has X to sell) he will soon purchase a canceling contract on X at a lower price $Q, the difference ($Z minus $Q) being his profit. It will become Smith’s problem to deal with the obligations and consequences of having purchased the original contract.
• Note that in most cases, neither Smith nor Jones is actually interested in X itself. They’re merely gambling on its price movements.
• Of course this omits any transaction costs involved – there are always some – but the essence of the thing really is that simple.

     Indirectly, both players are betting on a price movement in commodity X: Smith is betting that it will go up, Jones that it will go down. If it goes far enough above $Y before the contracted date, Smith will profit as he hoped, for someone – call him Davis – willing to bet that it will rise even further will be willing to purchase Smith’s contract for more than the $Z Smith paid for it. Alternately, some other buyer – call him Brown – who actually wants to take delivery of the X might purchase it in the hope that it will lower the effective price of X to him.

     Of course, if the price of X should fall (or fail to approach $Y), the value of Smith’s contract will fall as well. In that case Smith must hurry to sell his contract at a loss...possibly even back to that smirking bastard Jones. In the worst case, Smith might have to pay someone to accept the contract and its obligations. Because far worse than a mere monetary loss on the contract might be in prospect:

Should Smith fail to rid himself of his contract by reselling it, it is he who will have to fulfill it: by paying the $Y and taking delivery of the X. For the typical futures trader, that would be a disaster.

     Remember: somewhere in the great American supply chain, X is being produced and readied for delivery. And like a pipe, every link in the supply chain must have two ends: the end being fed with the commodity, and the end that takes delivery of it, whether to make actual use of it or to resell it. No matter how many links the chain may possess, the ultimate source must deliver; the ultimate destination must pay and take delivery. The flow must remain smooth or commerce in the commodity will shudder. In the worst case, it might stop.

---

     Futures contracts are traded in many commodities. Some of the best known are precious metals, oil, porkbellies, soybeans, and frozen orange juice. Dan Aykroyd’s and Eddie Murphy’s marvelously funny yet informative movie Trading Places concerns an attempt to corner the market in frozen orange juice, one of the most volatile of all futures contracts.

     Men have amassed huge fortunes in the futures markets. Others have gone to prison or committed suicide over their losses. Here’s a snippet of dialogue as Aykroyd’s and Murphy’s characters approach “the last bastion of pure capitalism: the New York Mercantile Exchange:”

     Aykroyd: Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That's the other guy's problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness. Super Bowl, World Series - they don't know what pressure is. In this building, it's either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?

     And that, Gentle Reader, is exactly how it goes.

---

     Now, concerning oil: taking delivery requires storage capacity, and just now there’s no surplus of it. So it’s deadly dangerous to trade in oil futures without due attention to the contracted dates. A single tradable futures unit of oil is 1000 barrels – approximately 42,000 gallons of oil. Most futures traders don’t have storage capacity for any oil; they’re relying on being able to resell their futures contracts before the contracted dates. So under current circumstances – i.e., the worldwide economic slowdown precipitated by the Wuhan coronavirus – where far less oil than normally is being purchased by end users, there’s a glut that’s flooding the available storage capacity.

     At this time, if Smith holds a futures contract on oil, then unless he owns a refinery he needs to pay someone to take the contract, and its associated obligation, off his hands. The alternative would be for Smith to complete the purchase and take delivery of the oil. That’s what it means to say that “oil is trading at negative $37.” The price of an actual, tangible barrel of oil isn’t negative; it’s just that at this time there aren’t enough buyers for the volume being extracted. That’s put the futures market in oil into a meltdown.

---

     When I first learned about the futures market, I was perplexed. I couldn’t find a justification for it. The typical futures trader is essentially a gambler in a high-stakes game of “chicken.” While there must be an ultimate seller and an ultimate buyer for every unit of every commodity, the overwhelming majority of futures trades never come near the associated physical commodity.

     He who educated me about futures trading put it thus: When futures contracts came into being, it was for perfectly good reasons: those who bought and sold them sincerely intended either to provide the commodity or to accept and pay for it. Those contracts had a cash value that would fluctuate as the price of the commodity fluctuates. That made them something people with lower-than-average risk aversion would be willing to trade in for their own sake: i.e., for the pure possibility of profit. So while the great majority of such trades remain remote from the commodity itself, there is actual, tangible economic substance at the “far ends” of the contractual pipeline. You just have to squint to see it.

     To close this presentation, have a delightful little piece I found this morning at Ace’s place:

     For my friends who ask how oil that was trading could be negative $37/bbl last week...

     Thomson Energy analysis - UNDERSTANDING Crude Oil trading at minus -$37

     Imagine the following scenario: You pay $500 today and commit to receiving a hooker at your house in 15 days because your wife will be traveling. This is called a Futures Contract.

     Unfortunately, lockdown came and you are locked down with your wife at home for the next 60 days. This is called “now you are fucked,” and you cannot fulfill the escort company's Futures Contract.

     So now you do not want this woman to show up at your house at all, and try to find anyone of your friends to pass off this futures contract, any neighbours or, anybody. But you find no takers because now everybody is under lockdown with their wives and families. You find you cannot sell this hooker commitment because nobody can take delivery of the girl, and there is no where to stash her. Nobody can receive the hooker at home anymore. Everyone is in full storage.

     To make matters worse, not even the pimp (Chicago Mercantile exchange) who sold you the hooker contract has more room to receive girls because his house is full of girls out of work under lockdown.

     So now you will have to pay anyone just to take the girl off your hands. So someone tells you I will take the girl off your hands but you pay me $37 to do it.

     This is called negative price when you deliver the girl that cost you $500 to the willing buyer and pay him $37 to take delivery.

     Got it? This in a nutshell is what happened to the Oil Futures Market last week.

     No need to thank me.....

     Have a nice day.

Conservative Self-Education, Part 1

I've been playing around with this idea for some time. That, for the Republic to continue, there must be an educated citizenry. A people will not chose that path that is harder, without knowing why.

That's why it's so important to MIS-inform students about their 'rights', while failing to teach them about actual Rights, guaranteed under the Constitution. For too many ignorant people, 'rights' are what you call favoritism that goes in THEIR direction.

I'm starting this series with a broad background update on today's current atmosphere in national government. It's a good start, as it introduces some concepts that most people have no clue were important.

One of those concepts being the Jacobins. Those were the fierce and partisan 'activists' of the French Revolution. Whose bloody, quasi-legal slaughter, confiscation, and terrorism of the French People ultimately culminated in their being ejected from power - permanently.

Britannica Online has an entry for them that could have been written by the Left (and probably was). It's similar to the Victor Hugo story Les Miserables, which suggests that the right-minded and principled early idealists were co-opted by those forces of Robespierre, who were solely responsible for the abuses of the Revolutionary Government.

One thing Britannica got right - like many activists, the Jacobins didn't soil their hands with actual fighting (and personal risk), but waited until the power vacuum after the fighters took over government operations. At that point, the Jacobins, like the Bolsheviks, stepped in and ousted the revolutionary group.

Then, imposed their Reign of Terror, a period so bloody and ruthless that the name still survives.

The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794),^[1] also known as The Terror (French: la Terreur), was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between two rival political factions, the Girondins and The Mountain, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution". The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris),^[2]and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.^[3]

 BTW, try using Infogalactic, an alternative to Wikipedia. You can get it automatically by installing this Chrome app. By doing so, you avoid the SJW/Leftist crap on Wikipedia.

Other topics I'm interested in (with a focus on helping poorly educated public school captives escape their conditioning and indoctrination) include:

• Just how revolutionary was the American Revolution?
• Who were the Founding Fathers, and what were their aims?
• The Documents
• Committees of Correspondence
• Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation
• The Federalist Papers
• Constitution
• Bill of Rights
• 19th Century
• Pro- and Anti-Slavery Points of View
• Court Cases that changed the law
• The Progressive Era
• The Role of Women in Progressive Circles
• 20th Century
• Ya' Say Ya' Want a Revolution - the Role of Immigration
• Woodrow Wilson - First Fascist, Racist in Charge
• Prohibition
• The Red Scare
• Harding, Coolidge, Hoover
• The FDR Years
• Post-WWII

Feel free to add suggestions in the comments.

For those wondering - I'm still working (slowly) on the Leftism 4 Beginners book. I may end up merging some of these posts into it; still working on it.

Some Strange Stuff Goin' Round

Rat Hepatitis in Humans - no, really.

The idea of pandemics that will wipe out humanity aren't a new thing. I was born in 1951, and watched movies with nasty stuff that would kill all of humanity. No biggie. (I had a hard-core afternoon habit. Found out, years later, that my parents sent my brother and me to the shows just to have a few hours alone. The result was a 10-years-younger brother, and his little sister, 2 years later).

But, yeah, killer bugs, killer storms, killer atomic attacks that turned reptiles into giant killing machines - eh. Happened all the time. Along with the Pod People - great film, BTW. The original, not that cheesy re-make with Donald Sutherland.

But, it's looking kinda dicey right now. Russia and China, out to get us. Spies in universities. Killer epidemics, possibly triggered by bio-engineered microbes.

And, attempted coups in American government - I mean, I saw those movies, and the villains were the right-wing plotters against the president. But, it turns out that the REAL villains were the Commies and other Leftists, just like Hoover and McCarthy said they would be.

Imagine that.

Meanwhile, about the Flynn Lynching - I mean, Entirely Lawful and Proper Conviction of a Horrible Criminal - the commenters are going wild on Twitchy.

It seems the judge - Judge Sullivan - apparently used a Different Set of Legal Procedures. One in which the prosecution having LOST EVIDENCE doesn't seem to qualify the accused to have his case dismissed, with prejudice. That term - with prejudice - means that the prosecution is forbidden from coming back for another bite at the apple.

Who is Judge Sullivan? He's a judge that has no hesitation in using his authority against anyone who he believes has acted improperly.

You could certainly argue that his actions were not favorable to Flynn. He has a long history with controversial trials, including the Stevens trial, where he threw out the verdict when presented with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.

His record is one in which he has upheld the rights of defendants over government attempts to bypass the judiciary.

So, that makes people wonder why he is not just dismissing the case against Flynn now.

Well, I think that ignores the pace of many courts - sluggish and in no hurry. True, Sullivan has acted quickly, at times, even ordering a plane to turn around and return an illegal alien from an attempt to deport her. The case was in his court, and, by God, HE was going to adjudicate it. So, he can act decisively, when indicated.

So, why not now?

I'm thinking about the outcome from dragging this out. By not ruling immediately on this, but waiting for the government to bring in the 'missing 302', Sullivan has brought this back into the headlines. He puts many, many employees of the FBI and DOJ in the spotlight, where they have to justify their actions - under oath.

Could this be a sneaky way of putting some sunlight on the Flynn case, and the Deep State's effort to subvert the Constitution?

Or, is he just another Leftist holdover, trying vainly to find some pretext to convict without a crime? I might think so, were it not for his actions on the Ted Stevens case. There, he called out the prosecution for their illegal and shoddy attempt to railroad the former Senator.

Most likely, any benefit this is giving the non-Left is purely accidental.

Speaking of Strange Stuff, John Wilder - Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise - has a funny, and true, explanation of what the economy is going through.

One of his previous posts on economics. John Wilder makes his points with humor - low-end, punny humor.

And, it works.

Fran posted on the Upcoming Revolt Against the Entitled Elites. He's ready, and chomping at the bit for the rest of us to reach that point.

It may not happen. It might, whether in our lifetime, or not. Either way, my ability to affect the timing, or outcome, is slight.

But, you never know. Could anyone have predicted that the decisive action of the men at King's Mountain would prove to be the pivot point it was? In just 65 minutes, the course of the seemingly unstoppable British forces were changed, and the American side survived, to eventually succeed in kicking out their Overlords.

PBS has a great show on that battle. I saw it the day my husband and I got our Lifetime National Park passes (the price has gone up quite a bit since then - we got them for $10 apiece). Very well done, and, unlike most PBS shows today, it's actually pro-American.

Assorted 2020-05-19

     First, a reminder about “law:”

     “Justice, Dr. Fastolfe, is an abstraction. Only a human being can use the term.”
     “If you define ‘justice’ in such a way that it is an abstraction, if you say that it is the rendering of each man his due, that it is adhering to the right, or anything of the sort, I grant you your argument, Mr. Baley. A human understanding of abstractions cannot be built into a positronic brain in the present state of our knowledge.”
     “You admit that, then— as an expert in robotics?”
     “Certainly. The question is, what did R. Daneel mean by using the term ‘justice’?”
     “From the context of our conversation, he meant what you and I and any human being would mean, but what no robot could mean.”
     “Why don’t you ask him, Mr. Baley, to define the term?”
     Baley felt a certain loss of confidence. He turned to R. Daneel. “Well?”
     “Yes, Elijah?”
     “What is your definition of justice?”
     “Justice, Elijah, is that which exists when all the laws are enforced.”
     Fastolfe nodded. “A good definition, Mr. Baley, for a robot. The desire to see all laws enforced has been built into R. Daneel, now. Justice is a very concrete term to him since it is based on law enforcement, which is in turn based upon the existence of specific and definite laws. There is nothing abstract about it. A human being can recognize the fact that, on the basis of an abstract moral code, some laws may be bad ones and their enforcement unjust. What do you say, R. Daneel?”
     “An unjust law,” said R. Daneel evenly, “is a contradiction in terms.”

     [Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel]

     Do Americans want “robotic law,” or law conditioned to exist in conformance to a particular moral code?

---

     Concerning “tone” and how it differs between Left and Right: It’s almost always the Left castigating the Right and its spokesmen for “incivility.” We in the Right tend to be unduly sensitive to such chidings, even when emitted by those who have made it plain that their fondest wish is our utter elimination. But the Left’s emissions are rife with every sort of “incivility,” including outright proclamations of hatred and its desire for our deaths.

     With that as our frame, consider two book reviews. The first is from The Claremont Review of Books, a generally conservative organization. Reviewer David Azerrad comments on Ibram X. Kendi’s hard-Left racialist tract Stamped From The Beginning:

     Kendi’s argument rests on two dogmatic assertions. The first is that race is in its entirety a social construct. There cannot be any genetic or cultural component to explaining racial disparities. His refusal to entertain such arguments is understandable. Discredited racial science has in the past been used to defend a hierarchy of races and, in the extreme, to justify slavery and genocide. But to acknowledge the biological dimension of race is not to endorse such sinister practices per se. Natural human equality is not based on natural human homogeneity. Natural rights are no more predicated on genes than they are on I.Q., height, birth order, or income. One can permit science to acknowledge the biological dimension of race, and social science to study the cultural dimensions of human diversity, while upholding the dignity of man and the civic equality of all Americans.

     I can’t imagine a more temperate, reasoned argument against a Leftist assertion, especially when that assertion isn’t just “dogmatic” but is contradicted by all the available evidence. Azerrad never descends to ad hominems or blanket imputations of motive. He merely presents his case.

     Now consider a snippet from a somewhat older book review:

     Not in any literary sense a serious novel, it is an earnest one, belligerent and unremitting in its earnestness. It howls in the reader's ear and beats him about the head in order to secure his attention, and then, when it has him subdued, harangues him for page upon page. It has only two moods, the melodramatic and the didactic, and in both it knows no bounds.... Its spirit, regardless of the specific doctrines it preaches, is calculated to appeal to those who feel that life could and should have more meaning than they have experienced. Yet, loudly as Miss Rand proclaims her love of life, it seems clear that the book is written out of hate.

     That’s from a review of Atlas Shrugged that appeared in the New York Times Book Review on October 13, 1957. The author was former Communist Granville Hicks.

     The above are merely two of innumerable examples.

---

     It is impossible to express any definite idea without wounding someone’s feelings. And wounded feelings, as we know, have been elevated to a currency. But might we be glad, at least, that while we’re badly discommoded by the lockdowns, we’re suffering no blather about “microaggressions?” David Thompson has some observations:

     Attention, woke citizens. During the current lockdown, do you feel a need to “challenge microaggressions” – those “verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights”? Specifically, those committed during video conferencing?

     According to Michigan State University’s Amy Bonomi, director of the university’s Children and Youth Institute, and Neila Viveiros, associate vice chancellor for academic operations at the University of Colorado Denver, the expanded use of virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom and Skype has created “a ripe setting for unconscious bias.”

     But of course. The frontier of indignation must forever expand.

     “Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

     It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.”

     Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress.

     Astonishing. Do we need any other explanation for why “Go fuck yourself” has come to be the most popular argumentative riposte in the English language?

---

     Now happily past her recent difficulties with her website, our favorite Bookworm provides some observations about the Left’s lack of a sense of genuine humor. While the whole thing is worth reading, Bookworm’s thesis is succinctly stated in a single short paragraph:

     The problem with today’s comics isn’t necessarily that they’re bad comics. It’s that leftism is inherently humorless, something summed up in the common expression that “Democrats (or progressives or leftists) can’t meme.”

     And today’s “comics” – those who have broad exposure, at least – are overwhelmingly on the Left.

---

     Well before the full Wuhan Virus madness was upon us, a certain newly elected governor was straining to eliminate the Second Amendment rights guaranteed to the citizens of Virginia by the Constitution. At that time, I penned a monitory story that I half-expected, given what I know of Virginians and their fondness for their firearms, would soon pass from fiction to fact.

     The usurpation of immense, anti-Constitutional powers by a number of state governors, founded on “necessities” arising from the pandemic, made me even more certain that my little tale would soon come to pass in some form. That hasn’t happened yet – but if it doesn’t, it might be that those governors will be saved from the noose by “Irish Democracy:”

• Civil Shoulder Shrug
• When We the People Withdraw Our Consent
• Rural America Rebels

     That’s Americanism. We don’t answer to them. They answer to us – and they had better remember it before we start locking, loading, and building gallows.

---

     That’s all I have for the moment, Gentle Reader. As usual, there’s a novel on the griddle that deserves more attention than I’ve been giving it. Not that that’s any fault of yours...but I do feel an obligation to keep this joint jumping. So in the words of a New Jersey State Trooper: “On that note, have a good day. Everybody be safe.”

Elite control and contempt.

All members of the U.S. Supreme Court were associated with either Harvard or Yale — as student or faculty — as were all four Presidents from 1989 to 2016. And when you look at a rundown of principals at America’s “newspapers of record”, the New York Times and the Washington Post, it’s a clear picture of Ivy League dominance.^[1]

The rest of the article is even more nauseating. In particular, what Mr. Willers reveals about Harvard law professors Cass Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule, and Jack Goldsmith and their smug ideas on managing our speech for our own good, as well as about Larry Summers and Kenneth Rogoff and their plans to deny us, the dregs of society, the use of "anonymous" cash.

Rogoff thinks cash "handcuffs" central bankers who are prevented from imposing negative interest rates and thereby forcing savers to spend. There is only one orthodox opinion among dirtbags like this and it's stimulus, baby. It's what makes the world go round and don't you dare spread any "misinformation" around that it's leading us to disaster.

Who are these swine?

Notes
^[1] "A Plague From Harvard." By Bill Willers, Dissident Voices, 5/19/20.

Every Now And Again...

     ...a studious follower of the news will encounter something that really rips the masks off:

     With every passing day, it becomes increasingly clear that COVID-19 won’t allow things to go back to normal anytime soon — regardless of how intently Trump and his Republican death cult are prepared to risk millions of lives in service of the stock market. The lengthy disruption will force governments to consider novel ways to get necessary supplies to people without requiring everyone to go to the store themselves — especially those most vulnerable to the virus, and the growing numbers of poor and unemployed who simply won’t have the money....

     The stories of Amazon’s mistreatment of its warehouse workers are nothing new — from peeing in bottles and being denied air conditioning to having every second of their shifts closely tracked with penalties if they don’t hit their targets. But now the virus has made things worse.

     As orders have flooded in, workers are expected to clock overtime, even as they say the company isn’t doing enough to keep them safe from COVID-19. So far cases have been identified in at least ten US fulfillment centers and three in Europe. But workers say they haven’t been given the proper protective equipment, often aren’t informed when a coworker tests positive until they confront management, and are being told to keep three feet from each other, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends six feet. Not all of the warehouses where cases have been identified were even closed for cleaning.

     The government needs to act not just to protect those frontline workers, but to ensure it has an infrastructure to respond to the needs of people across the country as the pandemic situation deteriorates. The response should be to nationalize Amazon and integrate it with the USPS.

     You don’t need to read any further to understand the agenda of the writer – or of “Jacobin Magazine.” Something developed by a private party – Jeff Bezos’s brainchild Amazon.com – has provided a highly valuable and efficient service to private citizens during the lockdown! Orders are flooding in! Its owners and shareholders are making money! This cannot be tolerated! It must be nationalized for the benefit of “the people!”

     Never mind that “the government,” that omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Servant of The People, couldn’t even produce a reliable website with unlimited funds and no time limit. (Remember “ObamaCare?”) Never mind that every enterprise run by “the government” eventually requires taxpayer subsidies to stay afloat. And never mind that, as Milton Friedman once observed, had the Soviets ever taken over the Sahara Desert, within three months there would be a shortage of sand.

     No. None of that matters. What matters is this: Amazon, because it has stepped up in the middle of the wholly artificial, Left-promoted and elongated Wuhan virus pseudo-crisis, is making money. Leftists can’t abide that. They act against it whenever they detect it...and it’s easily detected today, owing to their own machinations and gropings for unlimited power.

     The Left is anti-American by definition. The definition, of course, is individual freedom, which implies the freedom to produce and trade with willing others, to our mutual benefit. Yet we tolerate these...persons. We generally refrain from laughing at them, as they richly deserve. And when they send their thugs among us to suppress our rallies and our luminaries, what do we do?

     I’ve had enough. That “clack” you just heard is me putting a round in the breech and ramming the bolt closed. It’s time to take back our country, by any means expedient.

     Time and past time.

The Masks Are Off Dept.

     One of the tests those on the Left cannot pass is the substitution test: When they cite whites / men / Christians as the source of some problem, quote them exactly – but first:

• If they blame whites, change it to blacks.
• If they blame men, change it to women.
• If they blame Christians, change it to Muslims.

     But don’t mention those substitutions until people have had a chance to react to the “quote:” say, about two hundred words further into your statement. The reactions are always entertaining.

     Consider the following brief clip, in which a certain Dr. Carol Baker, who was appointed Chair of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in 2009, addresses the National Meningitis Association on May 9, 2016:

     Imagine if she’d said – with or without any prefatory comments – that it’s incumbent upon us to “get rid of blacks.” She might not have survived the evening. But as it was whites she targeted for extinction, her audience chuckled at her remark.

     No one dares talk about the high propensity of young black males toward crimes of violence, crimes against property, and crimes against whites.
     No one dares talk about women’s dominant role in the deterioration of families, their dissolution, their use of sexual harassment accusations to target innocent men, or the complete elimination of the rights of fathers.
     No one dares talk about Muslims’ aggressive campaign for special privileges for Muslims, including time off work for prayer, absolution from duties non-Muslims must accept, and the exclusion of secular law enforcement from Muslim-dominated districts.

     Whites / Men / Christians: If you want this to stop – if you want to eliminate preferential treatment for blacks, women, and Muslims to cease, and for bigotry and violence toward whites, men, and Christians to become unacceptable – there’s only one way to proceed: you must become as militant, as angry and as stridently vocal about it, as are black militants, feminist militants, and Muslims (all of whom are militants whether or not they admit to it; it’s in the Koran). You must undertake the same tactics: the editorializing, the boycotts, and the public demonstrations. More, you must be willing to discriminate in favor of yourselves.

     Nothing else will suffice.

The Rot Goes Deep - Obamagate is Just the Surface

I urge you to read this - The New Neocon is a long-time favorite of mine.

I add the graphic below, not because I believe that Nixon was so much worse than his predecessors, but, because Nixon has served, for years, as The Bogeyman for Democrats. His name causes horrified faces to spring up among the Properly Socialized. To couple his face with their Anointed One is a calculated and deliberate insult.

Quickies: Vocabulary Matters

     First, enjoy the following brief clip from a recent White House press briefing:

     While it’s refreshing to see the president’s press secretary backhand a reporter who persists in asking “gotcha” questions, there’s a word missing from Miss McEnany’s riposte:

Malfeasance

     Malfeasance is the term for the abuse of powers of office for wrongful ends. It’s a crime – in this case, a federal crime – that applies to officials whether elected, appointed, or Civil Service. It carries both a fine and a prison sentence.

     Malfeasance is what the FBI did to acquire FISA warrants targeting the Trump for President campaign, using the “Steele dossier” as “evidence.”
     Malfeasance is what Peter Strzok did when he “rewrote” the FBI 302 document about the interview of Michael Flynn.
     Malfeasance is what James Clapper, John Brennan, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe did in their several components of the “Russian collusion” hoax.
     Malfeasance is also what James Comey did in immunizing various of Hillary Clinton’s aides and staffers after it had been revealed that they had destroyed material evidence related to Clinton’s private email server and her use of it to disclose classified information.
     Finally, malfeasance is what Comey did in rewriting, de facto, the National Security Act and the Espionage Act to require proof of deliberate intent for the violation of those laws.

     Yes, several persons named above also lied to Congress under oath. That’s perjury. But charges of malfeasance apply to all of them as well.

     President Trump is right. They do belong in prison. But the odds are long against any of them landing there.

Specialism: Some Instructive Vignettes

     There’s nothing quite as annoying as not being able to find the tool you need for the job at hand. When the tool is a particular item of knowledge or the mastery of a particular technique, the nuisance value attains its maximum – and this remains the case even in this wide and glorious era of the World Wide Web.

     I’ve written about this particular problem before, in an uncharacteristically (for me) ambivalent mode. But I’m not the only blabbermouth who thinks it’s a matter worthy of reflection. Some writers tend to take it a bit further than others. For instance, consider this article by Shmuel Klatzkin:

     We depend on our cars to get around, but our cars are so complicated that we must send them to a specialist to get them fixed. The laws we live under are too many and too complicated; we hire a lawyer to sort things out, or, if our business requires it, several lawyers with differing specialties. Our psyches are complex, so we hire specialists in the mind to teach us to use our own brains. Our fields of knowledge are so particularized that they use different languages, largely incomprehensible to those outside their field.

     Perhaps a trifle overdone, but essentially accurate. But wait: there’s more!

     At the end of the day, though, a problem remains. Is there someone who specializes in putting together all those little parts attended to by the specialists into one coherent life? By definition, wholeness can’t be a specialty. But without it, who is benefiting from the specialized knowledge?

     Who is in charge of what the specialists can’t address — the whole person, and the community of whole people? Who could that person be if not ourselves or someone who knows us — us, and not just our problems?

     “Wholeness can’t be a specialty” -- ? Say what? Why not? Why can’t the specialist in you be you, the person in whose well-being you have the greatest interest? Who has more of an incentive to master that field, or more innate knowledge of its intricacies?

     Perhaps that does violence to the concept of a specialist. But the subject went beyond the bounds of serious discussion into the far reaches of risibility a long time ago. So once again your humble Curmudgeon must take up his leaden rapier and charge at the windmill that looms threateningly on the horizon.

---

     I own three cars: a 2011 Mercedes S550, a 2009 C6 Corvette Stingray, and a 2018 Acura RDX. (The C.S.O. insists that the Acura is “her car,” but my name is on the title and my signature on the check that paid for it, so there!) All three use keying systems of the electronic sort – a key fob with a transmitter embedded in it, without which the doors cannot be unlocked and the car will not start. Just about anyone who’s driven a car these past fifteen years will be familiar with such systems.

     But the three fobs differ in significant ways. The placement of the buttons on the fobs varies, of course, so I must look at the fob before pressing any of them, lest I trigger the “Help! Help! I’m being attacked by a crazed Albanian dwarf with a harelip and bad breath!” alarm. Also, the sensitivities of those buttons varies, such that I must not carry a certain one of them in a hip pocket. The capabilities also vary: one will unlock the associated car merely from grasping the driver’s side door handle, while the others conform to other protocols. And finally, the batteries within them vary, as do the intricate and difficult methods involved in accessing and changing them.

     It’s that battery-changing business that most recently frosted my buns.

     About a year and a half ago, the battery in one of those key fobs died. I thought nothing much about it until it occurred to me that I hadn’t the slightest idea how to get to the battery to change it. I fumbled around with the thing for nearly an hour before I was ready to concede defeat. IT was time to consult knowledgeable others.

     So where did I go for enlightenment? Why, YouTube, of course! Where else? And lo! A video on the subject was easily found. The technique involved knowing something about the inside of the fob that wasn’t visible from the outside (of course), but once that little secret stood revealed, the rest was a snap...

     Whoops! I got a little ahead of myself there. Yes, I was able to get the fob open, and yes, I found the battery, ready for extraction and replacement. But there was the little matter of securing a replacement battery yet to be handled. I didn’t have one.

     The fob required a coin-type Lithium battery of a specific variety. Who sells those? Well, electronics stores do...if you happen to live within driving distance of one, which I don’t. And of course, Amazon does, if you can wait two or three days. So I repeated a calming mantra, ordered the battery from Amazon, and set the fob aside until the replacement should arrive. When the battery was in hand, I completed the replacement, reassembled the fob, and complimented myself on having solved the problem.

     But the story doesn’t end there.

---

     About three weeks later, the battery in another key fob died.

     Surprise! This second fob doesn’t open the way the first one did. Hrmph! Back to YouTube. Search, search, search...here we are! Wait...what’s this? Great God in heaven, I have to do what? With what? And without damaging the inside of the fob?

     The procedure and hazards were sufficiently daunting that I resolved to consult a specialist: the dealer in cars of this sort. Which I did forthwith.

     I arrived at the relevant dealership, sought out the service department, and waited placidly, certain that help could not be far away. I could not have been more wrong.

     The first technician, whom I’ll call Tom, refused to touch the thing. “I’m not good with those,” he said at once. “You’ll have to wait for Dick.” He went off to fetch Dick, while I recomposed myself to wait.

     Dick arrived, took one look at the fob, and said “Wait a minute. That kind is too delicate for me. Let me get Harry for you.” And he scurried off to find Harry, while I settled back to wait a little longer.

     Aha! Here’s Harry! He looked at the fob, grunted “No problem,” and proceeded to twist it apart and extract the battery – another Lithium coin-type – with a gesture that looked something like a Freemason’s secret handshake (except with a key fob). Having exposed the innards, he gave me a litany about why it was wise of me to bring the thing to him, as most owners merely succeed in eviscerating them. “Where’s the new battery?” he said. I produced it, and felt relief creep over me...until he said “Wrong type.”

     Yes, the dealership had the right sort of battery, thank God. But you wouldn’t believe what I was charged for it. All the same, I’d reached the right specialist, and he’d solved my problem for me, at a price. I got into my car and headed home, largely satisfied, though the thought nagged me that I might want to consider putting Harry on retainer.

     But the story doesn’t end there.

---

     When I got home from the car dealership, I found the C.S.O. struggling with something women must never, ever be allowed to struggle with: our new leather sectional living room sofa.

     Sorry, ladies, but it’s true: women who attempt to “adjust” large items of furniture have done more damage to innocent furniture and the floors beneath them than all the bombs dropped during World War II. This is a man’s job – but not (you guessed it) every man’s job, at least not with every sofa.

     The sectional, you see, had “come apart.” (I forbore to ask how.) Now, this might not strike the average American husband as a crisis situation. And for many varieties of sectional sofa, including the one this new sofa had recently replaced, the reattachment of the sections is relatively straightforward, requiring nothing but the strength of ten and a pure heart. So I removed my jacket and set to the task...and discovered that our new sofa can be assembled only via a technique more arcane than the formula for Classic Coke.

     YouTube was no help that time.

     I called the furniture dealer. “Oh yes, we can handle that for you,” the nice lady said. “But we have to call our service depot and have them schedule a visit from a specialist. And by the way,” she continued in a tone of such innocence that I was minded to “check six” and rest my free hand on my sidearm, “there’s a fee of $175.00.”

     Did I mention that Dad was a Navy veteran? I don’t think the nice lady at the furniture dealer had a prior acquaintance with some of the Navy argot Dad used around me, back when. Anyway, when we had both gotten over our respective cases of shock, she made the appointment – happily, it was only three days in the future. I thanked her through clenched teeth, ended the call, and settled in before my beloved computer to order a few varieties of Lithium coin-type batteries from Amazon.

     The story ends somewhat anticlimactically. The furniture specialist did arrive as promised, and did reassemble the sofa for the specified charge. (He was apologetic about the charge; apparently he doesn’t see any part of it.) And all is now well, thanks to the services of those specialists. But ever since, I’ve wondered if there’s a niche market to be served in all this. Something that would combine facility with Google, in-depth knowledge of YouTube and Vimeo, access to a gaggle of brawny specialists, and the command of a lot of terms and expressions Navy veterans would all recognize. I haven’t yet come up with a finished concept, but I’ll keep you posted.

Human Nature, Computer Woes, and The Light at the End - Maybe?

Just how conformist are humans? Are we the fierce competitors that many predators are (cats, for example)?

Or, are we cuddly puppy dogs, working with master/pack to bring home the bacon?

The article at the above link makes a persuasive argument for the latter concept.

Another writer, Gavin Haynes, looks at two examples of Competitive Virtue-Signaling, and how that works in real life. I confess, when I read about the Ravelry uproar, my first, last, and only thought was: I just cannot believe that they are torching the site over something so far removed from its original purpose.

That I can't put myself into their shoes may be more about my disinclination to be a part of a ravaging pack of girls. Some formative experiences in middle school, and, later, in a nearly all-female workplace, turned me off the desire to be a part of a conformist group (if it ever appealed all that much to a loner like me).

Now to better things. My long computer nightmare may nearly be over.

• My replacement Pi 4 board arrived yesterday afternoon, and was assembled and put into play almost immediately. From the instant of boot-up, it worked well - loading web pages picked for their usual slowness, testing out keyboard response, loading up multiple programs and switching from one to another. So far, so good. I'll be putting it through some rigorous testing for the next few weeks, but, its safe to say that I'm highly satisfied, so far.
• I received notice that a replacement for my Seagate external drive connector will arrive today. It's held up normal backup for several months. I'd been looking for it, and not succeeding; finally, late last week, I checked into how much a replacement would be - less than $7, shipping free. I ordered it immediately (and, using a credit card with points, got it for free - double good). Fortunately, it is arriving before my replacement battery for the Macbook, so I shall be able to write an image of the drive before fiddling around with the switch.
• And, last, the replacement battery for the laptop. When first bought, I could count on a full day (or more) of use off the cord. Lately, it's been running out of power early. Last 2 weeks, I've scarcely been able to work off the tether for an hour. I checked out the possibility of getting the Geek Squad to replace it (other peripherals were covered - TV, husband's PC, etc.). Alas, on 4/30, the 11" Macbook Air was officially declared obsolete. Hence, not fit for battery replacement. The GS guy was chill - he opened it, saw that - unlike other Macs - the battery wasn't soldered in, and suggested that I buy one online and replace it myself. I put in an order that day, and it will be delivered tomorrow. WITH the screwdriver types that are needed for the job.

The moral of this story?

Always order more RAM than you think you'll ever need. That was part of the problem with the Pi.

Be wary of all-female groups - they might be a wonderful support group, they might be the Conformity Enforcement Squad from Hell.

And, if you're considering Mac vs. PC vs. Linux?

• Macs are great for those who don't want to open the box. Due to warranty restrictions, most owners will not handle even small repairs on their own. I made a decision, while other facets of my life were unduly complicated, to buy into the Mac world. I've regretted it ever since, but it was too much of a burden to switch, as I'd lose the investment in software, as well as hardware. I'm spending the time and money to keep it going, for now, but, should a bigger repair loom, I'll kick the OS to the curb, and not look back. If the hardware is reasonably sound, I'll re-configure it as a Linux machine.
• PC's have their deficits. They can be prone to failures/quirkiness, in part due to manufacture shortcuts (making the decision to build cheaply, rather than robustly). When, for some reason, the components don't mesh well together, it can be a major PITA. Additionally, as the platform is more common, so are the viruses (virii). If you're into music or art, it's not the best choice.
• Linux? Not for the beginner, unless you have an LG (Linux Guru) to guide you through the first steps. Can be a steep learning curve for the noob. When you have to install peripherals, it helps to start with the economy-sized bottle of booze (for AFTER the day's trials). OTOH, there are social media groups, Youtube videos, and For Dummies-type books.Thanks to the Maker Movement, there are even local resources. The desktop GUI has become nearly indistinguishable from other OS environments. And the Rebels enjoy Sticking It to The Man.

I live in SC. We're basically Open for Business (the last ones to be released will open by Monday), for those that survived the shutdown. Amazingly, as Charlotte, NC is about 1/2 hour away from my city, there is pressure on the NC government officials to follow that decision, ASAP. Nothing like competition to spur response time.

NC is already clobbered by the difference in gas prices - as SC is noticeably cheaper than NC, you can't find too many stations between the city and the border. One poor owner, a few years ago, had his business ruined when a border dispute was resolved in favor of NC. Once he had to raise his prices to include the NC state taxes, it wiped out his competitive advantage. He owned a worthless piece of property.

Once SC opened for business, the NC small business community raised hell with the Shutdown Czars. That, combined with the Raleigh protests, will tank further efforts to keep the state locked down.

Expect the pressure to open to spread like a teenage fad.

Political Minimax

     If you’re uninterested in game theory, you might not be familiar with the term minimax. Minimax is a common approach to many gaming situations. It’s a strategy of playing so that the maximum possible loss to the player is minimized, normally reckoned in monetary or quasi-monetary terms. In adopting it, the gamer eschews the maximum possible gain out of aversion to the possibility of great loss. The possibility of loss is a feature of zero-sum and negative-sum games, whereas in a positive-sum game – i.e., a game where all the players come out better off at the end of the game, regardless of who “wins” – it does not appear.

     Much of the decision making of major Republican figures is minimax-based. That is, it’s based on the answer to the question: “What’s the path forward along which, if everything breaks badly, the maximum political damage to me will be minimized?”

     For an example of Republican minimax strategy, consider President George W. Bush’s decision to sign the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, even though he believed it unConstitutional. Dubya believed he would suffer political damage from vetoing the bill; therefore, he left it to the courts, which he believed would rule it unConstitutional as soon as it was tested. His decision angered many in the Right, including some of Dubya’s stronger supporters, which makes it difficult to grade his strategy a posteriori. However, be it admitted that he did avert whatever degree of harm the Democrats could have done to him through the media.

     This sort of Republican decision making – “Leave the tough calls to folks who don’t have to face the Democrats, the media, or the voters” – has been common in recent years. Just now, Mitch McConnell is playing minimax with the Flynn and Russia-hoax revelations:

     In last night’s interview, McConnell appeared not just uninterested but uninformed on the scandal of Democrats weaponizing the intelligence community for partisan gain. Baier asked McConnell to comment on the case of Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor who was a major victim of the Russia collusion hoax. Here’s McConnell’s limp response:

     Well, If there were in fact misbehavior surrounding the Flynn case, the American public needs to know. And clearly that was the view of the attorney general. I gather it’s now in a rather unusual procedure of being reviewed by the district judge before whom the case was. I think we’re just anxious to get the facts. what actually happened. The American public needs to know; all of us would like to know. And one thing about Washington: you guys are so good at your job, truth always comes out, sometimes it takes a little longer than other times, but we’ll find out what in fact did happen.

     McConnell even plays minimax to shunt political risk to other Republican Senators:

     At the end of the interview, Baier asked McConnell if he agrees with President Trump that former President Obama should be called into a Senate hearing and whether he agreed with President Trump calling the scandal Obamagate. Obama’s personal role in the scandal was confirmed in additional documents released as part of the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss charges against Flynn. Here’s McConnell’s response:

     Look, that will be up to [Judiciary Committee] Chairman [Lindsey] Graham to make those kind of decisions — I think he may have addressed it already. I’m not certain… Look, that would be up to Chairman Graham to determine how to handle this. I have a lot of confidence in him and he knows what he is doing and I’m going to follow his lead.

     Game theorists would call it minimax; I call it cowardice.

---

     Republican minimaxing is one of the reasons for the election of President Donald Trump. We in the Right have become contemptuous of Republicans that lack spines. Why support such persons? Indeed, why does the GOP continue to hold them forth as the candidates and officeholders we should support?

     It has long been believed that a sub rosa agreement exists between the GOP and the Democrats: specifically, that as long as the Republicans don’t fight the Democrats and their misdeeds “too hard,” the Democrats, when in the majority, will allow them to get in on the gravy train. (Note the lack of a reciprocal clause.) The actions and inactions of prominent Republicans bear this out. To dampen the popular disquiet from this arrangement, the Republicans have usually replied – albeit not in so many words – “If you don’t support us, you’ll get them.” Until 2016, the arrangement appeared impregnable.

     But matters have become unprecedentedly serious. The Obama Administration’s abuses of power constitute an internal coup attempt by the outgoing executive administration against the incoming one. Thanks to the documentary revelations of recent weeks, the criminality of the Obamunists, including Obama and Biden themselves, is now beyond dispute. If this is allowed to pass without prosecution, then what reason would future executives that have suffered reversals of political fortunes to deny themselves the same extra-legal, extra-Constitutional latitude?

     Mollie Hemingway provides a foreboding assessment:

     McConnell is praised throughout the Republican Party for his focus on confirming originalist judges to federal courts. It’s easily his greatest legacy, and one I wrote about at length in “Justice On Trial,” my book with Carrie Severino. But he should remember that he can’t confirm good judges if Republicans are not in the majority and if a stalwart person isn’t president to nominate them. Both of those key factors are threatened by his long-time lack of interest in holding Russia hoaxers accountable for what they did.

     If McConnell and Graham want to confirm judges after November, they need to understand how viscerally outraged many Americans are by the spying and leaking scandal. They need to know that refusal to do anything about it will hurt Republicans, not Democrats, at the ballot box.

     Republican analysts, strategists, and power brokers must discipline the GOP’s elected officials:

Show some backbone.
Abandon minimax.
Stand and fight.

     If they fail to do so, We the Voters must do it for them.

What Happens If Nothing Happens?

That's the title of an astute post by Taxicab Depressions.^[1] He briefly highlights the major points of the recent and ongoing coup d'etat (sic) orchestrated by our vile political class, which group includes our for-the-most-part spineless Republicans let it be said. Then he provides a backdrop of attacks by official America on some brave citizens and some other government crimes and derelictions.

The point is that talk of lowering the boom on the most recent toads is old hat. Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth, no less, but somehow the case against her was a landmine of sophisticated and thrice-diced sorrowful objections to actually doing something about her, other than allowing her to retire will full honors and a state dinner. Just too complicated, y'all.

Taxicab Depression's list is an astute list of unaddressed abuses that paints a stark picture of the impregnable fortress behind whose walls our Beautiful People safely reside, free of accountability. On the ghastly abandonment of our brave servants in Benghazi I can point to the simple matter of the location and actions of Hillary Clinton and our communist-mentored and –advised president as it got started and played out. To this day, that information remains behind billowing clouds of smoke and phalanxes of FOIA denials. Do you have any sense after all the sturm und drang of the subsequent "inquiry" that anyone was held accountable or even that the most likely responsible people were even identified? I'll wait.

Heck, weren't there some 20 American officials who were spirited out of Libya and sworn to secrecy? Who were they, where did they go, and who zippered their lips? No one knows. To this day. The mother's milk of cub reporters you might think but the mighty engines of the MSM have not been up to the task of ploughing any furrow on that perilous bit of real estate.

My skepticism as regards the presently-unfolding Barr-Durham "prosecution" is great, not least because of the strange absence of the classic prosecutorial technique of proceeding against the small fry and then moving on up the line to reach the sharks and squids. Heck, the perjury involved in the FISA court applications and the falsification of the Flynn 302s are discrete matters that cry out for assignment to junior trainee prosecutors. Yet, nothing.

Mueller lost no time in crucifying Flynn, Manafort, and Stone and certainly had no qualms about "tipping his hand." Not that there was any hand to tip. Vindictive prosecution was the order of the day. Die scum-sucking denizens of the Trump orbit!

What we have, it is not unreasonable to conclude, is a the appearance of a Great Stall, a muffled running out of the clock. If it's clear that Trump will win the day in November again, that's one thing, and there's time to burn (provided there are no oopsies about the running of the statutes of limitation). But his re-election is anything but clear given demographic trends and Dem devotion to vote fraud. Mail-in ballots and registering of illegals and all that. So if the presidency goes to whatever clown or hyena the Dems can disgorge, then it's a certainty that, even if some feeble gesture in the direction of prosecuting the Lovely Ladies and Studly Studs of the social, banking, and political firmament is made, the new president will summarily shut down everything like a genocidal beauty salon in a flu epidemic.

No need to rush these things, I always say, and Burr and Durham can keep us all in suspense for months yet while they contemplate the spheres.

The only thing that makes me think that Durham might be legitimately pursuing an honest course is that announcing a hang-fire, "nothing here but us chickens" prosecutorial investigation would involve an eventual display of cowardice, dishonesty, political corruption, and contempt for the rule of law that no decent man would ever want associated with his name. The same for recent additions to his team of a few heavy-duty prosecutors. Were I one of those prosecutors I would not lend my name to this enterprise without rock-solid assurances that it's legit. I have no reason to believe Durham is less than an honorable man. I think an honorable man could not take a fall of that magnitude unless, perhaps, he were threatened with Skripalization or Sethrichitude.

A productive effort would be gratifying and as head-clearing for the American experiment as a squirt of wasabi sauce up the nose but, given the litany of prior finessifications, I have my doubts that this is how it's going to go down in the final analysis. Trump seems to have little sense of the magnitude of the crimes committed in the cause of removing him from power, early on having been more interested in Twitter wars with Rosie O'Donnell than being president. Sad! And his passivity in using his pardon power for his allies in the face of clear prosecutorial abuse reveals he has no concept of his historical opportunity or what it takes to cut the [garbage] in Washington, which is mountainous. Whatever happens won't benefit from presidential involvement.

So the question at the end of Taxicab Depression's post is most assuredly on the table – "What happens if nothing happens?" My answer would be that if nothing happens it will be crystal clear that the American political class is irretrievably committed to the destruction of the Constitution, the rule of law, the Republic, and the abandonment of any pretense that we enjoy a nation with a shred of popular sovereignty. Even now the Solid Ones have figured that that isn't rain they're feeling on their backs. And that the 1% view us all with undisguised contempt. Those are views that are dangerous to augment.

Notes
^[1] "What Happens If Nothing Happens?" By Taxicab Depressions, 1/30/20.