This year and beyond

With Kyrsten Sinema blocking any changes to the filibuster rules in the Senate and Joe Manchin's refusal to support Build Back Better (BBB), two pillars of the Biden administration's agenda, Welfare reform and climate change, and voting rights protections, are going nowhere. Unless Democrat's change course they are set to loose both chambers this fall. And by 2024, with nothing accomplished, Biden (or whoever heads up the ticket) will loose the White House. That would mean another four years of Trump.   

The only possible solution I can see is to wipe the slate clean and bring two completely different bills forward. On voting rights access is secondary to counting, and that needs to be addressed as a top priority. Democrats can vote in ever larger numbers but if Republicans control whose ballots are counted, the Democrats will never win power again. With some completely new legislation focused on amending the Electoral Count Act and with a bit of luck something on impartiality in election administration and oversight, there may be enough Republicans in the Senate to overcome the filibuster. 

Pushing BBB is pointless now that Manchin has dug in; since he can't appear to back down the only way out to protect some of the provisions is to start from square one. It must be a smaller package so that Manchin can't complain about over-spending. And Democrats will have to decide on their priorities; climate change or social welfare reform. Again, some of the moderate GOP senators may think that climate change is serious enough to do something about.   

Absent this or a miracle, three years from now Trump will shuffle smugly back into the White House.       

Not quite what they expected

The Brighton Festival was a staple of my family's entertainment. So in 1979, when my mother received the festival program and saw John Williams was slated to play a concert, she bought tickets. 

The concert was, I think, in the Dome, an ornate Victorian era decor  theater in the center of Brighton.  

Some context is needed. My parents, or at least my father, were not big fans of popular music. The only contemporary music in the house was a 45 of Edith Piaf, and one of the Modern Jazz Quartet that for some reason was often played before I wend to bed when I was very young, perhaps one or two years old, to put me to sleep. It was affectionately known as "Ding-dong music", my term for the vibraphone at that age.  Otherwise it was Bach to Brahms; baroque to romantic, but nothing 20th century. Mahler, a favorite of my uncle Kurt, was tolerated but very seldom played. Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and the Magic Flute, by contrast, were routinely played alternate Sundays mornings.  But I digress. 

As we found our way to our seats, I was surprised to see a huge mixing desk in the middle of the stalls, not something one sees for a classical solo recital.  The concert began with "Westway" which starts with a driving synth keyboard riff played by Frances Monkman and the electric bass of Herbie Flowers.  It was something of a surprise to my parents, who had been expecting John Williams top be playing classical musics on acoustic guitar. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the show (I think there was a light show) and bought the group's first album, which I played as often as I was allowed at home until a year later when I bought my own record player, amplifier and speakers (the speakers I still have to this day). I don't recall my parents discussing the snafu; my father didn't care for Sky's music and my mother must have been mortified. Horizons weren't easily broadened; although since I'm almost the age my father was then, I wonder whether in five years or so I'll be similarly set in my ways.  

Rerecord, not fade away

Many who consider Trump's unprincipled pursuit power (and money) to be anathema to the office he recently held were hoping that after loosing the a bid to be re-elected in 2020, he would return to Mar-a-Lago to a life of golfing and shady property dealing. He did not.  Instead his thirst for affirmation, vindication and revenge have led him to continue his quest to be returned to the presidency.       

Had he melted from view, his more unsavory supporters, the white nationalists and the gun-wielding crack-pots (Taylor-Green, Boebert) or the simply craven (Gaetz, Hawely, Jordan, Gosar) might have been ousted or at least played a less influential role in GOP politics.  Not giving Trump the attention he so craves might have helped the GOP regain (what passed for) its senses.  That seems to have been the rationale for the Biden administration avoiding blaming Trump or even mentioning him in connection with events of January 6th.

That calculus has clearly changed. In his speech yesterday he pulled no punches. He went after Trump stridently and clearly. He laid bare the former president's flaws and the danger he and those like him represent to democracy. Biden's earlier calculus that Trump would fade away and so it would be counter productive to appear to criticize him (and by extension those who supported him) had changed. He has clearly concluded that Trump is not going away and his base is not, at least for the foreseeable future, likely to simmer down and accept the result of the 2020 election. Their rage and resentment that Trump fed to propel him into office is too deep-rooted to abate on its own; and so the risk of energizing that base by attacking Trump is moot; it remains fully energized.

Since not riling up Trump supporters is no longer an issue, the speech was aimed not at the die-hards, but the quasi independents who were members of the pre-Trump GOP. They may be persuaded if not to vote for a Democrat, at least not to vote for a GOP candidate which to all intents and purposes has become the National Front^[1] of America. Never Trumpers and Democrate can't win over all Trump's supported; but they might be able to get enough at the margin to make a difference.  Trump's base is what it is, and the only way of saving democracy from further erosion by Trump and his allies is to ensure that he doesn't get a second bite at the cherry. Because if he does, he wont by quite so inept in is efforts to subvert and exploit the highest office in the land next time around .  

^[1] The Nataionl Front (like it French equivalent the Front Nationale) is a party of white xenophobic anti-immigrant racists.

Appeal To Ignorance (Ad Ignorantium)

Jo Biden, in his speech commemorating the tragic events of January 6th attack on the Capitol, repeated  the assertion that that was no evidence of voter fraud. That's entirely true but unconvincing for many; the Appeal to Ignorance reasoning fallacy allows those who want to believe that was fraud to say that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  

It was this kind of reasoning that allowed people to say that there was no evidence that smoking was injurious to health so smoking must not be unhealthy; or that there was insufficient evidence that climate change was occurring or that if it was it was attributable to the burning of fossil fuels. Ultimately, however such reasoning falls away as sufficient evidence is gathered to dispel any doubt. 

While it might have been argued in November of 2020 that there was no evidence of voter fraud, that is no longer the case; there is now ample evidence that there was none. Those who wish to preserve democracy in America need to take a more definitive line, namely that the numerous court cases and investigation mean not simply that there is no proof of fraud, but that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there was no election fraud.   

Courage

Courage is doing what is right when is likely comes with significant personal cost. Cowardice is failing to act generally out of fear of personal loss when the moment demands.  The alt-right has been allowed to over the GOP because too many Republican members of Congress wither thought they could deal with and manager the extremists they were letting into their ranks or they underestimated the hold Trump and his alt-right followers had over voters. When it  became clear that both were misconceptions, Republican members of Congress were faced with a choice, go along or stand up for democracy and the established order they once avowed to defend. Collectively they could have done some, but it required sufficient number of courageous individuals to prevent them from being targeted and overwhelmed by the alt-right insurgents. Only a handful met that challenge. The result has been the annexation of the GOP by Trump (who has no principles but loves the power and the attention) and his alt-right helpers.  All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. 

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”  John Stuart Mill, 1867

Peace for our time

In 1938, Prime-minister Neville Chamberlain proudly declared that he'd had a good conversation with  the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler and that they had a signed agreement guaranteeing "peace for our time". He and much of Britain then, were guilty of magical thinking. 

It appears that at least among some at The Economist, a similar self-delusion is prevalent. In reviewing Barbara Walter's book "How Civil Wars Start", it praises the book's theoretical analysis which sets out  a series of conditions that have lead to civil wars around the world: when they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy; when politics revolves around identity; grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars; complacent cosmopolitans; when a large group fears it is losing status; when disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed. This, the Economist says, is well argued. 

Then it concludes that "This far-fetched conclusion [that America is at risk of civil war] spoils an otherwise interesting book". That's pretty odd given that not just some but each and every one of Walter's six conditions are met.   

1. When they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy

Efforts to put the oversight of elections in the hands of partisans in Republican battleground stats moves the country away from liberal democracy; and fealty to an individual rather than a party or a set of principles is characteristic of dictatorships. The GOP is no longer a party of principles but a party in the thrall of one man.  

2. When politics revolves around identity 

Over the last 20 years, politics has evolved into struggles over identity, wither it be any number of white supremacists groups on the right, from the KKK to the Oath Keeps and the Proud Boys, or on the left, Black Lives Matter. Almost all loud political rhetoric in the US is rooted in a struggle for identity.  

3. Grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars 

Here Donald Trump and his acolytes excel. Trump spent his four years in office lying incessantly and he taught us that almost nothing is to absurd to be believed, at least by some. When those lies are believed by a critical mass, you have a powerful movement. What was once the "alt-right" but is now the GOP generates lies, testes them on small social media platforms for their virulence, and those that work are launched into the right-wing mainstream through Fox and other right wing media platforms. .    

4. Complacent cosmopolitans

Like The Economist, the metropolitan, relatively cosmopolitans parts of the country are in denial; "that kind of thing happens in third-world countries but couldn't happen here". Yet that's precisely the kind of denial circulating on January 5th last year, until Trump and his supporters put that comforting myth to rest.  

5. When a large group fears it is losing status 

Whites in America, particularity those with little education, are seeing their prospects deteriorate. Having enjoyed positions of relative privilege for so long, the conflate their declining prospects with immigration. Understandably, they want to preserve not just their economic well-being but their way of life more broadly. They see their decline not only economically but also a decline in status. And since they see themselves not though the lens of class (which would give them common cause with many of groups on the left) but through the lens of race, they are drawn into increasingly radical white supremacist groups.  Indeed the wealthy are probably quite happy to encourage the use of identity as a conceptual frame since it divides the economically underprivileged into groups and sets them against each other, reducing their bargaining power to the befit of the wealthy.    

6. When disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed 

This is exactly what we have seen; when heavily armed protesters turned up at the Michigan State House in January last year, there could be no clearer threat of the potential for armed conflict. While some argue this was just "cos-play", that complacency is dangerous. All it takes is one small miscalculation, for someone to pull their trigger (literally) and things escalate dangerously quickly. The Waco Siege and the Bundy standoff in 2014 both show how confrontation develops from a legal dispute into an armed conflict. It is also concerning that in many places, extremist groups are tacitly supported by local law enforcement who will often to turn a blind to the increasing threat of the use of arms to resolve disputes with state or federal authorities.

All of the conditions Water argues lead to civil conflict are present in the US, and The Economist agrees with her analysis; so it is remarkable that it falls in the trap of "that could never happen in America".  At least one writer for the newspaper it seems is a "complacent cosmopolitan".  

Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on four counts of wire fraud in a court in San Jose yesterday. The case should have been about the appropriateness of business models widely used in Silicon Valley for software development to healthcare.  

Writing buggy code and fixing it after it breaks, a model arguably pioneered by Bill Gates with Windows, is, if not acceptable, reluctantly accepted by most of us since the consequences of an application behave in unexpected ways are usually not too terrible. 

But in healthcare (and self-driving cars) the consequences of mistakes from rushing a product to market are far more serious, raising the question "is a business model that emerged at the inception of the PC industry appropriate in setting where the consequences of mistakes may be deadly"?

The focus of Holmes' trial on the hurt to shareholders is unfortunate; perhaps that's what the prosecution could most easily prove. But in missing the distinction between cases where the harm is potentially lethal rather than simply annoying (or expensive), the case fails in building a precedent that might protect people from physical harm from poorly designed products that their producers know to be faulty.  At the same time it creates a needless damper on innovation in sectors where the consequences of bad design are irritating but not life-threatening.

The Capitol Insurrection: one year on

Today, a year on from the Capitol Insurrection it is worth reminding ourselves of the horror of a violent mob trying to change the outcomes of a free and fair election. 

The image of the Senate chamber being defended from rioters by plain clothed Capitol police with drawn weapons remains the most jarring image I can remember, not just from among those of the events of Jan 6th but ranking along side the images of the collapse of the Twin Towers. Both events signify the exposing of grave misconceptions; that the American homeland is invulnerable and that American democracy is safe, sacrosanct and a model for other countries.    

Looking back at my post on January 6th last year, the only thing that I think I got wrong was suggesting "we should be immensely thankful that it was just an episode". While the next election result the Republicans don't like may not lead to the storming of the Capitols (state or federal), the ground is being steadily prepared to make that unnecessary by the politicization of the institutions that oversee elections and gerrymandering. But while it may not be needed, the threat of highly organized right wing violence it still there and by all accounts is growing.

While the left is not blameless in terms of political violence, it lacks the discipline and organization of the heavily ex-military-infused far right. Compounding that asymmetry is that distinct possibility that  some in law enforcement may be more willing to make the law as they see fit rather than enforcing the laws that politicians with whom they disagree have enacted. But that is the subject of a separate post. 

For now we need simply to remember the horror of January 6th.   

     

    

Political irony, and no steal

Today is the anniversary of the Capitol Insurrection. As shocking as January 6th was to many Americans, what has happened since should be—but seemingly isn't—more so. The insurrection wasn't the cause of America's problem but the unexpected result of the confluence of a series of currents that produced what most had considered unthinkable; the possibility of a failure of democracy in a country that holds itself up to the world as its very model. Just as Great Britain took over half a century to come to terms with its decline, so it will be many years before Americans come to understand what they have allowed to happen. 

The prospects for democracy in America look bleak. The majority of Republicans, still in the thrall of Trump and the anger he and his enablers at Fox have stoked in his base, ultimately decided that their pact with the orange devil was their only route to power. So while many Republicans may have admitted privately that Trump had lost them both houses and the presidency, publicly buying into the Big Lie was their best strategy for regaining them. Their lack of steel in claiming a steal had take place marks a turning point in the decline in public trust in the institutions of democracy and order. It signals that we can pick and choose when to accept institutionally produced mandates and requirements.

That willingness to in essence 'take the laws into ones own hands' exposes a particular irony on the political right; ostensibly the party of law and order, the Republicans seem far more willing that Democrats to ignore the institutions of law and order when it suites them. There is an inherent tension between a party of law and order that also promotes rugged individualism. But that tension provides the basis for enormous fluidity; Republican run states can protest "states' rights" in opposing federal requirements yet use the power of the state to quash counties and districts in their state making similar claims of local autonomy.  Perhaps this was always the way; law and order suited Republican when it helped imposing their political agenda but are willing to ignore the law and promote disorder when those are the means to their ends.  

From individuals ignoring mask mandates, with local sheriffs announcing in public that state mandates won't be enforced, to the refusal to accept the outcomes of an election, America's democratic foundations are rotting away. Where this ends is far from clear. Many, including me, had hoped that after two impeachments and the loss of his reelection bid, Trump, and more importantly what he stood for, would subside back into the murky conspiratorial backwaters from which he emerged. But that didn't happen and the prospects that the country will be treated to a second bout of the MAGA infection look increasingly likely. So pervasive and effective has Trump's Big Lie been in undermining faith in American democracy, the chances of it  making a full recovery, were it to suffer a second Trump term, look perilously thin. Like covid, Trumpism looks set to become endemic.     

Two shillings a foot

When George Harrison finally decided he'd had enough and walked out, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were left wondering how to complete the project without him. Two things surprised me; first that despite Harrison's leaving Lennon and McCartney seem not to consider the possibility of simply cancelling the project. More surprising still was Lennon's suggestion that they simply ask Eric Clapton to fill in for Harrison.  It reinforced the idea of a status hierarchy in the group with Lennon and McCartney  at the top and Harrison and Star as second tier, almost session players. The dynamic isn't that dissimilar to the way Roger Waters thought that by the time they'd recorded "The Wall" he was Pink Floyd. 

Another was when Star comes onto the set one morning; McCartney is sitting at the piano and greets him with "Hi Rich".  Lennon also calls Ringo "Richie" later on during the filming.  Although he'd been "Ringo Star" in public, it suggested that in private he was still Richard Starky to the rest of the band.  

McCartney was clearly an accomplished self-taught pianist. What was surprising was his influences; clearly influenced by jazz and rag time, he also noted the importance of good structure and mentioned Bach as one of his inspirations. 

And of course, the cost of studio time. Despite the fact they the Beatles were the most famous band around in 1969 and probably the most lucrative for EMI, there still seemed the odd moment when "whatever they want" didn't sit happily with EMI. Instead of providing the audio recording equipment the band wanted when there were working at Sheperton, Harrison had to bring the enormous 8-track from his home studio. And when they were in the Apple studio in Savile Row, Glyn Jones remarks that the taping is costing "two shillings a foot" (in one inch magnetic recording tape).    

The changing world order

The world order (if there ever was such a thing) is changing, and not in a good way. Of course what seemed stable when I was young was simply a function of not having lived through very much change. The 1970s saw Britain grappling and coming to terms with its diminished role in the world. There was the joining of the European Economic Community (EEC), the joining and departure from the European Monetary System (EMS), the decision not to adopt the single currency, and finally Britain's exit from Europe.  There was decimalization and the first supermarket to arrive in Steyning. There was the end of Franko's dictatorship in Spain, Solidarity in Poland, the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall, German reunification.  More recent was the delegation of power to the central banks and the control of inflation.  So it hasn't really been all that stable. But there was a sense that in terms of international relations, we were moving towards greater economic integration and away from large scale military conflicts. There were the small "skirmishes"; the Falklands, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, then Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, but nothing on the scale of the two world wars, and since 1946, no use of nuclear weapons. So until the first early twenty-first century, things seemed to be moving in a generally in positive trajectory. There were hiccups like the 2008 financial crisis, but economies recovered.

Today that optimisms seems harder to sustain. Tension between China and the West over Tiwan, between Russia and the West over Ukraine, the resurgence of authoritarian regimes in Turkey, Hungary and Poland, not to mention the climate crisis, are beginning to cast a long shadow. The proliferation of a fragmented media landscape and the growth of social media is turning politics towards a toxic focus on identity devoid of a shared set of facts, let alone shared values. The collaboration of authoritarian regimes, swapping ideas on how best to stay in power and beat back pressure from the world's well meaning democracies is setting up a battle not between the ideologies of communism and capitalism, or between state run economies and market economies, but between competing systems of control, democratic representation or authoritarianism, between faith in institutions and faith in (or obedience to) personalities. And while democratic regimes believe they hold the moral high ground, their increasing inability to deliver, either economically or politically, will lead to more frustration and a further decline in trust in institutions, putting democracy itself at risk. It seems that for the twenty or so years I have left, the future looks pretty bleak.          

The 2022 F1 Season

Assuming the Red Bull and the Mercedes are as equally matched next year as they were this, Lewis Hamilton will have to find a way of dealing with Max Verstappen's driving. While I'm not a competitive racing driver, as a long-time follower of Formula 1 motor racing (and an unabashed Hamilton fan) I am worried that Verstappen has found an overtaking maneuver that is both risky and currently highly effective. While drivers generally move towards the apex from the outside of the track as they approach a corner, Verstappen, when executing an overtake, comes into the corner on the inside of the car ahead and breaks very late into the corner. While technically he may be abreast of the car he is trying to overtake on entry to the corner his excess speed and the fact that his car is now pointing less towards the apex than the car he is trying to pass means that the only way for the other driver to avoid a crash is to leave the track limits. That will either cost time or mean that if he is deemed to have gained an advantage, he will have to yield the place to Verstappen. In other words, Verstappen will make the overtake by forcing his opponent of the track in a risky, some (including me) would say reckless, move. Yet that kind of driving is often just called "highly competitive racing".  But in my view, as we saw at Monza this year then the two drivers did collide  (Verstappen was slightly behind Hamilton when the shunt happened), diving down the inside put both drivers at unnecessary risk. It forces the innocent party to accommodate the aggressor. 

Although this may be a slightly stylized representation, it makes the point that while technically in a fraction of a second, Verstappen will be ahead of Hamilton and the corner is "his", there is no way for Hamilton, who is turning into the apex, to avoid a collision unless he steers left meaning he will exceed track limits (assuming there is a runoff area). Unless the stewards begin to impose time penalties for diving down the inside and forcing the other driver out of track limits (as was the case in the first lap in Yas Marina) he will continue to use the maneuver to his advantage.

So were I in a position (which clearly I'm not) to give Hamilton some advice, it would be this; go into the simulator over the winter and try different approaches to the corner to  neutralize Verstappen's "inside lunge" overtake.

Otherwise he'll have to rely on being quicker and more reliable, which simply may not be enough for his eighth world championship.  

Verstappen wins in controversy

Verstappen's victory in the Yaz Marina Grand Prix will go down in history as one of the most controversial races ever in Formula 1. With the championship to play for, Hamilton drove a flawless race from the outset, gaining the lead before the first corner from second place on the grid. He led the entire race, but the race and his eight championship was stolen from him in the penultimate lap by a terrible decision from race control. 

Nicholas Latifi had crashed five laps from the end, bringing out the safety car. Hamilton had passed the back-markers while Verstappen had not. Verstappen used the safety car to come in for a fresh set of soft compound ties but Mercedes decided to leave Hamilton out on a worn set of hards. With the safety car having eliminated Hamilton's twelve second lead over Verstappen, he might yet have won had Verstappen had to pass the back markers, although the odds were now very much in Verstappen's favor. 

But race director Micheal Masi's inexplicable decision to let the back-markers past the safety car handed Verstappen his victory on a silver platter. With no gap between him and Hamilton and on a fresh set of softs to Hamilton's completely warn hards, it was a given that Verstappen would pass Hamilton on that last remaining lap. 

Was Red Bull's strategic decision making better than Mercedes' more cautious approach? Perhaps. But in the end, without the good fortune of allowing Verstappen to clear the back-markers under the safety car rather than under race conditions, that strategizing would have been moot.  Sadly, it was a bitter end to a great season or motor racing.

Verstappen or Hamilton?

Controversy surrounds the incident between Verstapen and Hamilton on the first lap of the final race of the 2021 Formula 1 championship in Yaz Marina. Did Hamilton gain an unfair advantage by leaving track limits at turn N?  Verstapen and Red Bull clearly think so. Mercedes, on the other hand, sees Hamilton leaving the tack not as a deliberate decision to gain an advantage, but as a necessary maneuver to avoid a collision that would have taken both cars out of the race.  The race stewards decided in Hamilton and Mercede's favor. 

While I may not be a completely impartial observer, I agree with the stewards' decision. Verstapen's move to take the position from Hamilton down the inside at the entrance to the corner was risky, some (including me) would say reckless. Coming from about two car lengths behind, he braked late into the corner bringing himself alongside Hamilton's car. Notably, he was not clipping the apex of the corner but was nearer to the middle of the track, leaving Hamilton nowhere to go.  At the apex, Verstapen was pointing his car towards the outside of the corner and Hamilton had no option but to leave the track or cause an accident that would have ended both their races. Which of course would have suited Verstapen nicely since he was leading the championship only by dint of having won more races since they were even on points. And there is little doubt that was in Verstapen mind. 

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time he'd pulled this kind of stunt. The incident at Monza in which he ended up colliding with Hamilton, bringing his car over the top of  the Mercedes and injuring Hamilton in the process looked remarkably similar. And there have been others. Verstapen seems ro have learned that there are few consequences for pushing the risk envelope with that maneuver. 

While it unclear whether Hamilton gave back all the advantage he gained from leaving the track, I think the stewards may have felt that it was about time Verstapen was sent the message that would not be allowed to take the lead by forcing another car off the track.  Whoever wins the race (still in progress) I think the stewards made the right call.     

The Decline and Fall of the American Dream

Martin Luther King had a dream. The country's Founding Fathers apparently had one too, an ideal to be aspired to, the Great American Democratic Experiment. Their dream was to create a country based on principles, not race, ethnicity and tribalism, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".  

Yet in the two hundred and forty five years since the Declaration of Independence was signed, that dream has proved elusive.  Granted the country as created enormous economic wealth in aggregate yet it remains remarkably unequal, not just in outcomes, which is to be expected, but in opportunity which should not be.

With the new millennium, a generation has begun pushing more forcefully to realize that dream, and to grapple with the sins of the past that still cast a long shadow, sometime real, sometimes imagined. With it has come a shift in culture towards compassion and collectivism and away from the rugged individualism that once was central to so many Americans' sense of identity.  

David Brooks, writing about his visit to the National Conservatism Conference, sees the right as turning to the state as the only tool left to ward off the woke evil corporate behemoths, the indoctrinating mind-control of higher education and the cultural censorship of the so called main-stream media. Some of what Brooks fears is already happening.  Conservative legislatures are gerrymandering electoral districts to their advantage, and putting partisan electoral officials in place of supposedly neutral ones. They are banning books from schools and dictating curriculum.  That may stem the tide for a while. 

But suppose the "NatCons", if (or rather when) they get the levers of power, they go further. Trump has already set the stage for a more authoritarian approach to governing. If the illiberal regimes he so admires (Turkey, Hungary, Belarus) are the template for the NatCons' philosophy, censorship and increasing curtailing of speech and thought deemed inconsistent with the national interest (i.e., their philosophy) may come next. 

Ultimately, that may not only mark the end of the American Dream as a set of aspirational principles, it may also cripple the American Dream's economic component. International trade with Europe could suffer, universities will attract fewer top-notch faculty from abroad, entrepreneurs may find other more attractive places to work. And when innovation and trade suffer, the economy follows, and as it does, the immigration needed to make up for a declining birthrate will decline. Assuming that the country does not implode in something approaching civil war, America will sink into a slow fading-away, no longer seen as the beacon of freedom it once was.  So the the GOP, I humbly suggest, "be careful what you wish for".  

Get Back

Peter Jackson's editing of the three weeks of footage of the Beatles at work, leading up to the rooftop concert, provides some interesting insights into the creative process and team dynamics.   

First, the creative process. It was quite remarkable to hear how some relatively vague initial ideas quickly came to sound like the songs everyone knows ("Get Back", for example).  While the emergence of an almost finished product seems miraculous, it is a function of, and a testament to, their experience of working together and their skill at coming up with parts that fitted so well. In the end, their competence as a group of musicians allowed them to turn in an almost perfect performance in minutes rather than the hours or days it takes less seasoned players.

The other fascinating aspect of the film is the team dynamic. In the first episode, McCartney is trying to take a leadership role (something Brian Epstien provided, at least regarding work schedules, until his untimely death) but McCartney is clearly struggling. George Harrison seems to have retreated in to a passive aggressive relationship with McCartney. McCartney's belated and rather ham-handed and attempts to placate him only make matters worse and Harrison walks out of the film (and, at least temporarily, the band).

Also interesting is the relationship between Lennon and McCartney; in a secretly recorded conversation, Lennon admits to having acquiesced to whatever McCartney wanted and seems resigned to it. Lennon also comments on how Harrison feels undervalued. It is not clear to me from that conversation whether McCartney quite understood how his behavior had affected the other members of the group.  I imagine the dynamic between Lennon and McCartney had evolved over the years (since McCartney was "hired" by Lennon into the Quarrymen and was also younger than Lennon).  

I was struck by the contrast with the Amadeus String Quartet which formed while its members were also quite young (in their mid 20s - not quite as young as the Beatles). The Amadeus Quartet remained productive, cohesive and amicable until Peter Schidlof's death led to the remaining members' decision to stop performing after 40 years together. One big difference, of course, is that Amadeus Quartet formed when its members were in their mid-twenties while the Beatles came together in their late teens.   

Peter Jackson commented on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert that his film, despite being crafted from the same raw footage, tells a quite different story from that of the film "Let it Be".  I'm not sure it does. While it is true that the members of the band were still having fun playing together at least some of the time, there are clearly big issues that aren't being addressed; George Harrison's feeling under--appreciated, Richard Starkey in some sense resigned to being "just the drummer", even tension between Lennon and McCartney over creative ideas. The joking, seemingly a throwback to their early, more care-free days as teenagers, may make the day-to-day bearable, but does nothing to resolve the underlying tensions. 

And while Jackson tried to downplay the effect Yoko Ono had on the dynamic, he may be missing the point. It's true that Yoko didn't insert herself into their work but Jackson misses two things - first what Ono says to Lennon when they are at home, although given that it was McCartney who finally called it quits that may be lees of the issue than simply her presence in the studio. She may not have said anything but while she was there, Lennon's attention was divided between her and McCartney; and since McCartney had been used to Lennon's undivided attention when they were creating together in the early days, that may have been what convinced him that they could never get back to the close collaborative relationship they once had.  The Get Back sessions were, it seems, an attempt to go back to the band's creative roots working less experimentally and more simply and collaboratively and a big part of that was the Lennon-McCartney writing partnership. If McCartney felt that they could never get that back because Lennon wasn't as completely focused on the band as he had once been, McCartney may have felt that the experiment had failed and it was time to move on. 

Returning to the issue of the dynamics and personalities, Lennon seems much less goal-oriented than McCartney and seemingly would have been happy to continue to working. But my sense is that McCartney wanted to keep moving forward, keep putting out records, keep in the limelight, and didn't see the Beatles as being able to deliver on his schedule.

Might things have turned out differently had Yoko Ono not come into their lives or had McCartney recognized his attempts to lead the groups after Epstien's death were not working? Perhaps: but the question is rather pointless.  What really matters is that, in the end, the Beatles gave us a catalog of extraordinarily creative work for which we should simply be immensely grateful.

The Rittenhouse Verdict

The jury's verdict in the Rittenhouse case has, unsurprisingly, been controversial. Much stems from the confluence of two issues; the use of deadly force and inequitable treatment based on race. As has been pointed out, had Rittenhouse been black instead of white, is it almost inconceivable that he would not have been arrested on the spot (or even shot by the police) rather than allowed to return home to turn himself in later. That (among other things) is one aspect of the racial component. Another might be his becoming a cause célèbre for Fox, which again would be unlikely to have happened were he a black teenager. That afforded him an expensive, high profile and well prepared legal defense team instead of an over-worked public defender.

However, those were not the questions the jury had to consider; it was asked rather to determine the very narrow question of whether someone carrying a weapon has the right to use deadly force to defend him or herself in the particular circumstances of the case. There were three different instances; in the first, Rittenhouse was chased by an unarmed man; in the second he was attacked by a man wielding a skateboard; and in the third he was threatened with a hand gun. In the first two, Rittenhouse shot and killed his assailants; the third was seriously injured. 

Rittenhouse was acquitted in all three instances. His defense was that even when being threatened or attacked by someone who was either unarmed or armed with an everyday object (a skateboard) he was  justified in fearing for his life and hence justified in using deadly force.  While it seems a stretch that he would be in fear of his life when set upon on by someone who was unarmed, the defense suggested that had Rittenhouse been overpowered, his assailant would have taken his gun and used it to shoot him.  Although to the man on the London omnibus, that seems highly unlikely, it cannot be unequivocally ruled out, which may explain the jury's verdict.  The jury also did not consider (or were not asked to consider) whether putting oneself needlessly into harm's way in a somewhat provocative manner made the claim of self-defense less robust. 

Ultimately, the verdict seems to pave the way for anyone carrying a gun to claim that the person they shot might have taken their gun and used it against them, making their killing justified based on that hypothetical scenario. A similar case concerning the killing of Ahmaud Arbery is currently underway and the same defense will almost certainly be used. Gun rights activists assert that the "Only Thing That Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun Is A Good Guy With A Gun". The problem with that philosophy is that who the good and bad guys are is in the eye of the beholder. The trajectory we appear to be on leads almost inexorably to everyone needing to carry a gun. That's not what I think of a civil society and is certainly one I don't particularity want to live in. 

Vic, Chief Gravity Tester

Vic, chief gravity tester and my bunk buddy, left us this morning at 5:27 after a very short illness. He was probably no more than eight years old.

Although he may have been sick for some time, he showed no symptoms until ten days ago. Diagnosed with a stomach ulcer a week ago today, we had hoped he'd make a full recovery. But despite making progress mid-week, he took sharp a downward turn yesterday from which there was no coming back.

Vic (short for victim of animal cruelty) came to us on April 1st 2015. He'd been shot three times in the head with a .22 rifle by a local teenager who thought it would be fun to shoot stray cats. Vic underwent surgery and two of the three bullets were removed. It is a miracle he survived at all. Judith rescued him from a parent who she judged was quite unfit to look after him, and brought him to live with us. She adored him - he was definitely her favorite.  

Vic was mischievous and smart. When he wanted your attention he would jump onto a counter-top and bat things—plastic bowls, plastic jars of treats, pens—to the ground; then he'd stare at you to make sure that he'd gotten your attention. I can see his face, head cocked quizzically to one side, peaking out from the alcove to make sure I was paying attention. Sometimes he just liked to bat things of counters for the fun of it, earning him the honorary title "chief gravity tester".

My bunk buddy

 

He wasn't the most social of our feline family, nor the most affectionate but he was the strongest character. While he slept in the bedroom most nights among a gaggle of cats, he'd occasionally sleep next to me with his head on my pillow.

And occasional work companion

 

 

From time to time he would curl up under my chair while I was working and very occasionally sleep in my lap with his head on the keyboard shelf or on the desk with his head on my arm.

 

 

It's hard to believe he'd only been part of the family for six and a half years - his presence was so strong that it is hard to remember a time before he arrived or imagine a time without him. His passing will leave a huge void in our lives, but he's in a much better place now than he was last night and this morning. God speed Vic. May the force of gravity be with you, always; as you are in our hearts.

 

Taking a sun bath at the breakfast table

Inflation

When demand exceeds supply, firms can either keep prices the same and stock out, or raise prices which has the effect of reducing demand.  Covid has had an odd effect on both supply and demand. For the lock down it reduces the demand services (no one was eating out or taking trips abroad) and but had little effect on demand for goods; if anything it may have risen as money not spent on services shifted to spending n goods. At the same time covid disrupted supply; less was made as firms adapted to the demands of health protection and different work practices needed to combat the pandemic. And the "Great  Resignation", a function of people having to reevaluate their priorities, made permanent some of the reductions in service provision, further bolstering demand for goods. 

The result has been a steep rise in prices with the rate of inflation more than tripling to well north of 5%. Some (including Paul Krugman) has argued that the situation is temporary since it was cased by the supply chain disruption that will abate in 2022. However, some features are structural shifts will won't return to the status quo pre-pandeminc. Moreover price rises and price reductions are seldom symmetric; prices rise quickly and fall slowly (if at all). So even if the recent price rises were a result of a temporary disequilibrium between supply and demand, once consumers have gotten used to paying more, prices may not come done much. So inflation this year and next will likely be well above the 2% target set by the Federal Reserve. 

No time to loose

A few years ago I bought several cheap but stylish watches. Each was about $20, so I decided to have one for summer time and one for daylight savings time. That way I'd never have to adjust my watch when the clocks changed. 

Early this morning the clocks went back and I put on my daylight savings time watch. I hadn't worn it since March 13^th and almost certainly hadn't adjusted for several weeks before then. 

Checking against my phone and my desktop clocks, both of which are synced to internet time, my cheap $20 watch is seven seconds fast. Since at some point last year I did make sure is was within a second or so of internet time, it has gained only seven seconds in six months or longer. 

When I think back to my second watch, a Tissot my father gave me when his colleagues gave him a new one on his retirement, that Swiss movement made by a company renowned for its accurate time pieces, had to be adjusted practically every day.  That's the kind of remarkable progress which comes with the passage of time. 

A Vigilante Society

Two stories in the news this week illustrate the United States' decent into a vigilante society; the first is the trail of Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of murder for shooting dead two people and wounding a third, allegedly in self defense.  Rittenhouse, who was not from Kenosha, Wisconsin, had traveled across state lines claiming to want to protect Kenosha property owners from having their stores looted or destroyed by demonstrators protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake, who is Black, by a White Police office (who has not been charged int the shooting). The other is the case of Ahmed Arbery, who was chased down and shot by three self-appointed vigilantes. In both cases, self-defense is being cited as justification for the killings. Yet in both, untrained civilians with no, or in the Arbery case highly dubious, legal authority took it upon themselves to mete out their own personal version of "justice".  We are in danger of substituting the rule of law for the rule of the most heavily armed. 

Time to put up

The two hold outs against passing the "Build Back Better" bill are standing in the way of the Democrats holding Congress just over a year from now.  While Congress, and Democrats in particular appear incapable of getting any legislation passed, Biden's poll numbers are tanking. 

Oddly, that may give Biden some leverage. He has only to convince Manchin and Sinema will likely follow suit - she won't want to be the one person to have sunk the Democrats entire post-Trump agenda. 

So what will it take to get Manchin on board?  How about threatening to primary him from the left?  If he sticks to his guns the Senate is lost anyway, replacing him with a progressive won't make any different to the Dem's control of the Senate.  But if he likes his job, and I suspect he does, he'll reach a compromise pretty quickly.

Thumbs down

Facebook, WhatsApp and Instgram were all off-line this morning. According to the New York Times "it was unlikely that a cyber-attack caused the issues. That’s because the technology behind the apps was still different enough that one hack was not likely to affect all of them at once."  That suggests that all three platforms were taken down deliberately by someone inside Facebook, perhaps even by the company itself. Why might they do that? Perhaps its intent is to rile up its users to by showing how much people rely on these platforms in the hope that their dismay at begin deprived of Facebook's services can be channeled into preventing Congress (or the DoJ) from legislating or ruling to curtail the company's out-sized influence.  

Hostage taking

Senator's Manchin and Sinema are holding hostage the Democrats reconciliation bill, the central plank of Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda, that would address a range of important problems and is widely popular nationally to boot.  Yet both Manchin and Sinema have been completely unforthcoming as to what they want to see.  While they might claim that showing your hand is a poor negotiating tactic, they are not haggling over the prices of a used car. They are ironing out a policy agenda in which all Americans have a stake. So that's not going to wash. 

I'm speculating that there's another reason. For Manchin it's his base and his donors; he's from coal country and doesn't want to upset workers (and owners) in the coal industry by supporting a move away from fossil fuels.  

For Sinema, it doesn't seem to be her electors' interests that she's defending (Biden won Arizona while Trump won West Virginia, Manchin's state). It has been suggested, and this seems eminently plausible, that it's her donors, in particular the pharmaceutical industry, whose interests she is looking after. Admitting that would be electoral suicide, but she hasn't got a fall back explanation for her reluctance to sign on to "Build Back Better".   

"It’s simply not who we are"

Referring to the incident in which a Border Patrol agent was seen whipping Haitian asylum-seekers President. Biden said, “It’s simply not who we are”.  The sad truth is, it's exactly who "we" or at least some of us are.  

I suspect, anecdotally, that this behavior reflects attitudes held by a significant proportion of law enforcement and those in red states.  We are a deeply divided nation and anti-immigrant sentiment combined with the "othering" of those who are deemed to have broken the law paves the way for this kind of behavior. 

Combine the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram experiment, with declining trust in institutions including in the rule of law, particularity acute among rural conservative leaning folk, and you have a recipe for violence (they'd call it "self-reliance") against those they see as outsiders. This incident and January 6th insurrection, not to mention the killing of unarmed mainly black men by self-appointed vigilantes, are where this leads. 

Vaccine mandates

 

Biden announced a sweeping and quite draconian executive order yesterday requiring employers of over 100 people to in turn require their employees to be vaccinated. While the intent is clearly in the public interest that order is a mistake. 

Those who are not not yet vaccinated are likely to see this as over-reach which will hurt Democrats in next year's mid-terms. And firms in red states where vaccination resistance is highest may well not enforce the order, setting up an ugly legal fight; that will delay the order's implementation, negating it's effectiveness (and that's assuming it withstands the challenge).  

A better approach might be to acknowledge that vaccination is a personal choice, albeit one with implications for the health of others, but internalize the externalities, for example by allowing hospitals to change more for the treatment of unvaccinated patients who contract covid, or allowing them to triage covid patients on the basis of vaccination status without liability.  The higher cost of a decision to forego vaccination would be borne by those making that personal choice while protecting their freedom to make bad choices. That increased cost might well be more effective than a mandate.  

The future of Afghanistan

There is much discussion among the punditry as to what the future holds for Afghanistan. Will the Taliban be a new improved Taliban 2.0? Starting as the end, I suspect not. Religions are inherently conservative; they are based in faith; and faith is often, perhaps even axiomatically, impervious to facts. The Taliban has promised to be a nicer Taliban, respectful of women and education; but while the Taliban leadership may be making promises it knows Western donors want to hear so as to ensure that the money taps aren't turned off, it's unclear that the foot soldiers, steeped in its peculiar brand of Islam are on board with those pronouncements. Early evidence from the country suggests they are not. Indeed it's not clear that the leadership means what is says, at least as a matter of principle. 

However there is some reason to believe that foreign nationals who could not be evacuated before the US pulled out on August 30th might yet get out without having to flee across a Taliban controlled land border.  The Taliban might want to get the "trouble-makers" off Afghan soil and avoid incurring the immediate wrath of the foreign governments on whose largess the country's economy depends. 

But for Afghan nationals the prospect is bleaker. The Taliban understands that foreign powers will not want to go into battle (again) for the sake of human rights half way round the world.  The primary rationale for the invasion twenty years ago was to deny Al Qaeda safe haven; standing up the institutions of civil society was a goal adopted only after the invasion, and one which the US may well now have realized was overly ambitious.  That provides the Taliban with much greater governing flexibility.  And they are unlikely to permit a mass exodus of those who have enjoyed a taste of freedom; that would be to admit that their world-view is not the be-all-and-end-all.  

The question has been asked whether those who have become accustomed to a less medieval form of government over the last 20 years will "push back", holding out the prospect of resistance and reform or even the possible over-throw of the newly reinstated Taliban regime. That seems based more in hope that reality.  The more likely outcome is increasingly harsh repression (much as is currently happening in Myanmar at the moment - about which, tellingly,  there is no reporting in the US media). With the US and its allies now departed and the camera crews packed up and gone, Afghanistan will be out of sight, out of mind for the West. The Taliban will then have a freer hand and few qualms about imposing its interpretation of Sharia law in the same brutal fashion is has in the past.   

Reconciliation

"Democracies evolve in a conflict of factions. They achieve greatness by their reconciliations." Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State.

Behind the fall

Two things stuck me today watching the BBC coverage of the Taliban's rout of the Afghan government; one was a surprise the other not. The unsurprising thing was seeing Taliban fighters with M-16s or similar - but clearly modern US made automatic weapons. We're quite used to seeing pictures of the Taliban with AK-47s left over from the Russians entanglement in the country so seeing American weapons brought home the point quite graphically. 

The other, and this was a surprise, was learning that the Taliban had been secretly negotiating surrender arrangements with regional leaders for 18 months, but only put them into effect just as the Americans were preparing to leave. That explains the rapidity with which they captured territory; its not that the Afghan army and police decided at the last minute they would not put up a fight; it appears the handover of power local has long been prearranged. That this wan't known or understood by the US suggests a huge intelligence failure. 

Yet despite the rush to pin the blame on the Biden administration, in the bigger picture its calculus ultimately is the same. Certainly many who might have left had the Taliban only advanced at the speed US intelligence had expected will likely now not be able to. Yet they might also have chosen to stay and the scenes of chaos may reflect that fact that more people are now trying to flee the country (following the example of their ex-president) because of the speed of the Taliban return to power than would otherwise have been the case. 

Biden was clear in his address today that the US is not in the business of nation-building. Yet that is clearly what the last 10 years in Afghanistan were all about. Osama bin Laden had been killed and Al-Qaeda's ability to train and organize had apparently be degraded to the point that it no longer presents a threat to US homeland security. So the counter-terrorism component of the US mission in Afghanistan was accomplished meaning that staying longer was only about nation-building.  

This raises the question of ambition versus what is achievable.  As a Brit I have noticed (a huge generalization of course) a tendency for America, with the best of intentions, to try and establish 'copies' of itself in other places. While numerous politicians of both parties have eschewed nation-building, that does seem to have been a goal of the post invasion strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  One might argue that the post-cold war attempt to transition the countries of the ex-USSR and the Communist block more generally to Western-style market economies and democracies was similarly an attempt to reshape those countries in its image.

The ambition may have been commendable though not everyone agrees that a foreign power imposing its systems and values on another country is anything but modern day colonialism.  But putting that aside, the ambition far outstripped what was realistically achievable.  The Brits tried to govern Afghanistan in the 19th century, the Russians tried in the 20th; and both failed. So the notion that the US would do any better may have been over-optimistic.

As with America's ambitions for post-cold war Russia, its aspirations in Afghanistan were too ambitious and insufficient attention paid to context; meaning that ultimately the attempt to turn the country in to a Western-style 20th century democracy has, after 20 years, ultimately failed.  It has been said that the 19th century belonged to Britain, the 20th to the US, and the 21st will be China's.  If that's the case, then who knows, perhaps China can find a way to impose its values and systems on other countries more successfully that its colonial predecessors?    

The last straw

As if to underscore the inevitability of the Taliban's return to power, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's president has fled the country.

And, according to the Guardian's real time reporting, within 20 minutes of his departure the Taliban had entered Kabul. 

Ghani's departure is a highly symbolic end to to the American effort to stand up Western-style democracy in Afghanistan. Its nation-building project in Afghanistan is now unequivocally at and end.  

The American-Afghan war is, to all intents and purposes, now over, just 53 days shy of a platinum anniversary.   If America's twenty year anniversary gift to Afghanistan would have been china, China might be breathing a sigh of relief.

Taliban win the long game

I have written about the US occupation of Afghanistan and the decision to withdraw (April 18th, July 14th) and there is little in broad terms I can add to those posts. It was almost inevitable that once the Americans (and NATO) forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban would take back the country.  They live there, it's their home; the Americans are there temporarily and it's not their home. That gives the Taliban numerous strategic advantages; they can be more patient, they have better intelligence; they have a better understanding of the culture and the political situation on the ground (something the Americans appear to lack); and they are hard to identify from other Afghan civilians. So their resurgence was not a surprise. What was perhaps surprising was the remarkable speed with which this unfolded, in a matter of days rather than weeks. Some have dubbed this, with some justification, another "Saigon moment" for America. 

There are a few comments, perhaps more of a post script, that might help explain the surprising speed with which the Taliban had retaken the country.

First was corruption and mismanagement in the Afghan government; corruption undermined support for the government particularly amongst the security forces, many of whom, according to the Economist, had not been paid for months. While Biden had said that it was time for the Afghans take complete responsibility for defending their country from the Taliban, it seems his administration, perhaps from incomplete intelligence, may not have understood the fragility of the armed forces' morale and commitment. That has led to desertions in the field as the Taliban advanced. 

Second, like many things (Climate change for example) the worse things get the faster they deteriorate. As the speed of the Taliban advance became clear this week that contributed to a sense of inevitability and further undermined the will of Afghan soldiers to put their lives at risk for a government many didn't believe in.  Just as the Taliban were well equipped with Russian material (AK-47s and grenade launchers) they had seized after they drove out the Russian thirty years ago, I expect we will see them driving captured Humvees and brandishing American supplied M-16s before long.  

The Russians lasted 9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day, according to Wikipedia; the America almost made it to its twenty year anniversary.  And the appropriate gift for a twenty year anniversary? China. 

Crossroads #2 - Artificial Intelligence

The NHS is addressing the shortage of medical professional by filling the gap with artificial intelligence as a was to increase the efficiency of the staff it has. While that doesn't seem on the face of it like job displacement, it really is in two senses.  First, it reduces demand for medical staff which in effect means in future, were supply to increase that additional supply would no longer be needed. And secondly, it demonstrates more broadly how human skills are replaceable by AI. It also reinforces the idea that highly skilled knowledge work is at least if not more vulnerable to AI replacement than other kinds of work. 

With potentially mass unemployment looming, two possible futures seem to emerge at least from an ideological perspective.  One involves state intervention and financial redistribution, the other leaves everything to economics and markets. Left to market forces, income inequality will rise, which in turn will fuel social unrest, populism and the further erosion of trust in institutions in general. The upshot will likely be a more authoritarian crackdown possibly with deep political undercurrents.  

Redistribution will be less unpopular in countries accustomed to more state intervention such as France Germany and even China. As a result these kinds of states will likely suffer less dislocation even while seeming to fare less well economically in the short run. And while it's true that as Keynes noted, "in the long run we are all dead" how we get there makes a difference.     

Crossroads #1 - Climate crisis

Yesterday the IPCC released a report concluding that on the basis of the preponderance of evidence, the current disruptions we are seeing to the climate (drought, wild fires, floods and other extreme weather events) and now irreversible.    

But things could get a great deal worse unless governments act now The window to avoid a catastrophe of truly global proportions is closing. 

While some may complain that the left (i.e., scientists and the elites) have been crying wolf for too long which is why no one is listening, the fact remains that this slow rolling crisis may be too momentous to stop. 

Do windmills cause cancer?

 

Of course not; that's just a right wing anti-green energy conspiracy theory, propagated on Facebook and by Fox.  But what about this: "Trump voters spread disease"?  Well that's a 'yes'; the unvaccinated mask-less "it's not a problem because Trump said it wasn't" types are the main vectors of spread for the delta variant.  How may of the Sturgis motorcycle rally were wearing masks this year - probably few or none; and how many were not GOP or Trump voters -  again probably few or none.  

But it's worse than that; not only are they disease vectors, they are also the incubators for potentially more deadly and more contagious variants.   

So when the next variant, more virulent and more contagious than delta, arrives, remember this: it's here because Trump voters refused to follow the guidelines that would have prevented it.  When it does we should call it "Trump-pox".

Fair and Balanced - who needs it?

"Fair and Balanced" is Fox "News" slogan. It's a little ironic because that's precisely what it isn't; but maybe Fox thinks that by calling their brand of distorted-realty conspiracy-theory-filled hate mongering is "Fair and Balanced" often enough, some of their viewers may even half believe it?  But that's not my beef here. 

Today I'm at my wits end with The News Hour. First Judy Woodruff, who I believe produces the show as well as presenting it, aired Kevin McCarthy spewing is usual ridiculous nonsense, about no evidence for this and infringement of freedom there.  We know his shtick now so we don't need to hear it again; in Nancy Pelosi's words he's a complete moron. But she didn't air much of Biden's speech (or any of it now that I think about it). We heard more from the mouths of habitual liars than from the President. How crazy is that? 

Ms. Woodruff, I understand you're trying to put "fair and balance" into practice instead of using it as a slogan, but frankly if one "side" is sensible science based policy and the other is wacky pot stirring and hate-filled garbage, you really don't need to be "balanced".  As Maggie Thatcher said of the IRA many years ago, they need to be deprived of the oxygen of publicity.  If you are going to report GOP nonsense, just foot-note it; mention that some nut-ball said more stupid stuff (don't air them saying it) and move on. The only people who might accuse you of being unfair are the dildos at Fox and they'd say that wherever you do; so screw them. Just report the facts and leave all the nonsense for the brain dead Fox viewers.  

Dusty Hill

Yesterday music lost Dusty Hill, ZZ-Top's bass player.  I wasn't a huge ZZ-Top fan, that is until I want to see them play. My wife, thinking I was a fan, bought the tickets and it was a bit of a surprise to both of us when we arrived - I think it was at Shoreline - and I found out who was playing and she found out I didn't like the band as much as she thought I did. But anyway, we settled in and before very long I was hooked. Just three guys, a great sound and a show. What a show! From the furry guitars, the huge chrome mic stands, the lighting. 15 years on I can't put my finger on why I was so captivated, but I remember telling my musician friends afterwards what an impression the band had made. I only listen to them occasionally these days, but I still remember how in awe I was of the show they put on. RIP Dusty Hill.

Carrying the can

 

Today the CDC is recommending that the vaccinated mask up again when indoors; that's infuriating. It means that not only did I take the precaution of getting the vaccine, I am also having to mask up to protect the unvaccinated who are too stubborn or too stupid (or both) to get a shot. More annoying still, many of those unvaccinated are almost certainly wandering around without a mask because 'wearing a mask (or getting vaccinated) is an infringement on their personal freedom'; To which I say this: your piss-ant behavior is impacting my freedom, you ignorant, selfish, whiny troglodytes.  

Why is the GOP is resisting vaccination?

 

They say it's about personal choice. Bull. It's about not wanting covid to be controlled during Biden's fist two years so that they can win back the House in 2022. Trump screwed up the initial response which left half a million Americans dead. If Biden were to been seen to have gotten covid under control and the country almost back to normal that would make him look good and Trump and his acolytes (i.e., almost the entire GOP) look like the incompetent, self-serving, spineless douche-bags they really are. So the GOP wants to keep vaccination rates down and covid alive November 2022. 

Jims Jordan and Banks, comedians

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed two of minority leader McCarthy's nominations to the select committee investigating the January 6th insurrection yesterday.  As apparently "shocking" as this was, it was completely predictable. First, McCarthy has made it clear that he is completely beholden to Trump.  So anyone who might be even mildly non-partisan was not a contender for the Republication slots on the committee.  

Jim Jordan had made it clear from his Emmy-nomination-worthy theatrical performance on the Benghazi hearings during the House's "investigation"  into Hilary Clinton's emails that he was not remotely interested in fact-finding, but sees committees as opportunities for partisan grandstanding. He'd also been instrumental in promoting the Big Lie and was involved in the organization of the insurrection, allegedly.  

Jim Banks had also made clear from his comments this week that like Jordan, he was intending to use the committee as a platform to peddle a revisionist version of events. “Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the left’s authoritarian agenda. I will not allow this committee to be turned into a forum for condemning millions of Americans because of their political beliefs.”  Hardly a voice of a serious open-minded thinker. 

So the two Jims' rejection was entirely to be expected. And equally predictably, McCarthy announced the the Republicans would do an "investigation" of their own, obviously an attempt to preempt the select committee with its own distorted version of events. We'll have two documents, one saying Trump was to blame and the other saying it was Hilary, George Soros, BLM, Antifa, and, of course, the Jews.

Indeed, one might have imagined that this was precisely what McCarthy had intended from the get-go were it not for the fact that he was apparently taken off guard by Pelosi's decision, all of which only seems to show how McCarthy, like many of his Republican colleagues, misread his political opponents and Nancy Pelosi in particular.   

Why Republicans should take climate change seriously

One of the effects of climate change appears to be the reduction in predictable precipitation in areas nearer the equator; in the Americas this means Central America. Since many Central American countries have economies that are significantly agricultural, increasingly frequent droughts will create an economic incentive to move north to places not as acutely affected by climate change.  At the same time economic hardship will lead to unrest and repression resulting in civil rights abuses, creating additional pressure to flee to less repressive countries. The result will be an increase in the number of people trying to enter the USA and the blurring of any distinction between economic migrants and political refugees. That makes climate change as much a priority for Republicans as for Democrats. 

Border walls and ramping up enforcement will only lead to greater a humanitarian disaster; the problem needs fixing at its source. Historically the emphasis has been on political intervention to support friendly (and sometimes) democratic governments south of the border but that is no longer enough. The US will need to address climate change both at its root, for the longer term through curbing of carbon and methane emissions, and through mitigation in the shorter term with initiatives to help countries whose economies are being adversely impacted by climate change.     

Republican climate deniers may have no compunction about going down in history as the cult that destroyed life on earth as we know it, but perhaps they may take notice when they realize that failing to fix the climate problem might increase the "browning of America" of which they seem mortally afraid. 

Trump and vaccines

The Economist notes that the one thing Trump's administration did get right was the relaxation of regulation that allowed much faster than normal development of a covid vaccine. But now Trunp's  supporter's and his boosters (Fox) are railing against the vaccine Trump heralded as the very thing that would save the country.  While that seems odd, it is in fact in entirely predictable.

Had Trump won the election he would be calling on everyone, his supporters in particular, to get vaccinated, and berating Fox to do the same. He would be touting it as the life-saving solution to all our problems, health and economic. 

But he lost, and now doesn't want Biden't administration to get any credit for rolling out the vaccine (something his administration completely failed to set in motion) and getting the country back to normal. He'd rather the Biden vaccination program fail so that he will have something to berate it for in 2024.  Making his supporters sicker, and more economically distressed as a result, helps stoke the grievance that he hopes will boost his standing and influence in the next presidential election.    

Forever Wars

Biden has been criticized by George W. Bush, no less, for leaving Afghanistan before "Mission Accomplished".  And it is true that the creation of a stable functioning democracy looks imperiled. The Mujaheddin outlasted the Russians in the 1980s and the Taliban (which owes its existence to the tribal conflicts between the Mujaheddin fighters) have done the same to the Americans in the 21st century, using weapons captured from the Russians.

It is fair to say that the US withdrawal may lead to the collapse of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban theocracy which is indeed tragic for a great many Afghans, women in particular.  While it has been pointed out that we still have troops in Germany, that is a flawed comparison; the US could pull its troops out of German and the Nazis would not return to power. (US forces are there for a quite different Cold War related reason). 

If, as seems likely, the withdrawal of US troops results in the Taliban reimposing their medieval theocratic regime, it will be a sad day, but only seen as a failure by those who view the US' role in exporting its model of democracy and maintaining it by force. (Some might argue that looks a lot like colonialism but that's a digression). If one takes a less paternalistic view of America's role in the world, one that does not include "nation-building", then the removal of Al Qaeda training camps was indeed accomplished some while ago. And the goal of creating a democratic state is perhaps best seen as more of an idealistic after-thought.      

Utilities

Utility, noun: "an organization supplying the community with electricity, gas, water, or sewerage".  Over the course of a century the term "utility" has come to be synonymous with "always on". Yet as PG&E is now demonstrating that is a misnomer and a misconception.  The adjective, "the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial" (which is closer to its use in economics) suggest that anything which we want or find to be of use has "utility". But to expect it to be "always on" is only a function of habit and a developed country habit at that. There are may parts of the world in which electricity supply is intermittent; and California is now one of those places.   

When a party isn't a party

When there's only water? No, not that kind of party. The Communist Party of China. We call it a party, perhaps for historical reasons, but perhaps it would be better to think of it more like part of the Chinese civil service. It's members are unelected; they are chosen in part for ideology; they are probably lots of family connections (Guanxi). It's also not wedded to any economic orthodoxy, as evidenced by the embracing of free market principles, only maintaining power.  So a bit like the British civil service of the 1950s? Lots of old boy club connections, coming from the "right background", "dependable chap" that kind of thing.  The parallel isn't by any means perfect, but perhaps should stop thinking of the Communist Party of China as a left leaning political movement. It's a now venerable Chinese institution.       

50 years ago...

About 50 years ago my parents replaced the 405 line black a while television with a wonderful ITT 625 line color TV. Some months earlier we'd been to visit one of my father's (wealthier) colleagues and I'd watched Star Trek on their color set; I remember being stunned by the blue color of the phaser beams.  But what pushed my father into getting  the new telly was Wimbledon; specifically my mother who was a huge Wimbledon fan was keen to see tennis in color.  

The set had four button, one for each channel (BBC1, BBC2, and ITV and one spare that we may have tuned to ITV South; we generally watched the London ITV broadcast) that were tuned to the channel by twisting them until you got to the right broadcast carrier wave frequency. The color was pretty finickity and the TV repair man had to come out from time to time to adjust the horizontal hold.   

I was the beneficiary of her devotion to the tournament as she'd knit while watching and I got a new pullover (sweater) every year. I can still see them to this day - the first dark and light blue, grey and white flecks, the second the same patterns but in green.   

I was reminded of all this as I set here today watching the first round of the tournament on my phone! No more TV repair people to come to adjust your set; the color is perfect right out of the box. All on a device that I can take with me where ever I go. 

We often bemoan the disconnect between visions of the future and the reality (flying cars, or even self driving cars etc...) but for me a color TV in my pocket is a wonderful example of the future having arrived bigly.