On that autopen

The kerfuffle about former President Biden's use of "autopen" to sign pardons and other documents is interesting, and probably the big thing to address here is to what extent executive privilege protects the process.  Overall, if Cabinet members are in the discussion, the privilege is fairly absolute, but it's less certain when it gets down to the level of ordinary White House staffers--an infamous example being when White House staffers were called to testify in L'affaire Lewinsky.  

Also of interest is that executive privilege is stronger when there is a claim of national security.  So for all those autopen-signed pardons, I'd argue that the paperwork flow is far less privileged than for other functions.  It is, really, more akin to L'affaire Lewinsky than Biden and his handlers would like to admit.

All in all, my view is that if the President did not sign off on those pardons, they are null and void--and thus a special prosecutor ought to examine all of them.  Ouch, for President Biden, and for all those freed by his actions.

Eau de feedlot, or Eau de graveyard

Apparently Russia is releasing a "Aromat Putin" to boost patriotism,  but somehow I'm thinking the dreaded smell of a feedlot or mortuary would be a more appropriate thing to bottle in his honor.

Doubt that?  Well, Russia apparently has been forced to import a million workers to keep factories running, a number that correlates well with Ukraine's estimates of Russian casualties.  Now some of this is "we need more workers for increased military production", but I'd guess a lot of it has to do with the fact that a startlingly high proportion of casualties are fatalities, and those that are not are creating invalids.  

Whether he likes it or not, Vladimir "Smells like death" Putin is destroying his country.

Never again? "Never mind", says Russia

Russian "third rated war criminal" Sergey Lavrov commits to providing enriched uranium to Iran, strongly encouraging that rogue regime to put it into nuclear weapons and use them on Israel.

Next time he meets with Marco Rubio, Lavrov needs to be asked why his boss appears to be all in favor of another Holocaust.  Lavrov knows full well that Iran, like its sponsor Russia, is all about attacking civilians, so he has no plausible deniability here.

Here's hoping and praying that Putin, Medvedev, and Lavrov soon have an adverse interaction with the Mossad.

A plan for the Houthis

Apparently having figured out that launching rockets tended to get them shot down, Houthi terrorists have started to attack shipping as classic pirates.  Now the fine people at Powerline suggest hanging them from the yardarm, which is a good idea, but the thought that occurs to me is that the civilized nations of the world ought to provide ships with "transit crews" which would have a simple rule; if your boat is loaded with masked men with Kalishnikovs, and comes within a mile of a merchant ship, you will become acquainted with Ma Deuce.  Hope you can swim, boys.

An interesting, and terrifying, thought from Scripture

I recently read through the end of 2 Chronicles, and one thing that strikes me is that the great Passover held by Josiah is followed rather quickly by the final descent of Judah into idolatry and exile.  It mirrors, really, the previous cycles of revival and apostasy found throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and the question has come to mind of whether the revival was real, or whether it was just a superficial observance of Passover (etc.) that made little difference in the everyday lives of the people.  

I'm leaning towards the latter, and that seems to be evidenced by the fact that the sacred groves and high places always came back--as soon as the King's soldiers were gone, as far as I can tell.  

And what does that mean today?  Well, we might consider that fundagelicalism's love of programs and big events has something of a parallel here, and we ought to see if there really are long term benefits, or whether it's "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", to paraphrase MacBeth.  I must, regrettably, agree with MacBeth regarding many of these events.  There are other, better ways of getting the job done. 

Just like the original Alcatraz....

...."Alligator Alcatraz" is set to be an incredibly expensive boondoggle, though not for the reasons one would guess.  The claim is made that security will be by alligators, but when one looks at the site, there are clearly roads in and out, and it's not quite as swampy as Everglades National Park to the east.  Plus, most deportees are low to moderate security.

So where does the expense come from?  More or less because it's being built super quickly in a place not suitable to hasty building , really--involving tents (hard to insulate, vulnerable to hurricanes), generators, solar panels, and more.  This is one of many times where politicians really ought to be reminded to consult the experts in building and accounting before they sign contracts.

Well, let's get on with it, then

In what I must consider to be a huge diplomatic faux pas, or perhaps a mistake in translation, Chinese diplomats have evidently told EU diplomats that China does not want a Russian loss in its war with Ukraine because it would allow the U.S. to concentrate fully on the threat China poses in Asia, in particular with regards to Taiwan.

If that's not a great reason to support Kyiv, I don't know what is.  Slava Ukraini, and Putin delenda est.

(side note; it appears that the FSB/Putin has just killed the former transport minister of Russia after firing him....)

Berg's law

On the "Shotinthedark" site, host Mitch Berg has a list of laws, or really more aphorisms about the hypocrisies he sees, especially on the progressive left.  And so I would like to adopt, and slightly modify, Berg's Seventh Law dealing with progressive projection to use it regarding Russia, which has lately claimed via mouthpiece Sergei Lavrov that increased defense spending will destroy NATO, and hilariously claims that Russia plans to reduce defense spending next year.

In other words, bluster to get Ukraine to accept Russia's unworkable terms that would more or less re-integrate Ukraine into a new version of the Soviet Union.  

But that noted and mocked per "Darth Putin's" adage to never believe anything about Russia until the Kremlin or state media denies it, there is a big risk to NATO that most media pundits don't seem to be up to speed on; we can call it the "Tom Daschle" effect.  That effect was that until Republicans wised up to what was going on, Democrats realized that with sufficient money spent on the Dakotas, they could get compliant Senators who would reliably align with the Democrats.

Same basic thing in the poorer countries of Europe; Putin realized quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall (which he called "colonization" and a "catastrophe") that they could be bought off through vote-rigging or corruption.  The trouble with this is that NATO works a lot with unanimity, so if Slovakia or Hungary objects, NATO cannot act strongly.  

The long and short of it, I think is that nations bordering Russia and Belarus are going to need to "bring the goods" in countering Russian aggression, and they'll not be able to count on extensive help from the whole of NATO.  Moreover, the U.S. and other defenders of freedom are going to need to work to expose FSB interference in the affairs of Russia's neighbors.  

And an update: the Prime Minister of Hungary claims that 95% of the vote regarding the possibility of Ukrainian accession to the European Union is "no".  I think that's a good example of the "Tom Daschle Effect" led by the FSB (successor to the KGB).  Nobody gets 95% of the vote in nationwide referenda honestly.

A moment for rejoicing?

Just for kicks, I ran one of my posts through "Grammarly" to see if there was evidence that it was written by AI.  I was heartened to see that 0% of the content was deemed to have been written by a bot.

Now, of course, what precisely that means is, and ought to be, up for debate?  Is it simply because their natural language models are not yet mature enough to figure this out?  Is it because my writing is so far out to lunch that not even a computer would admit having written it?  

I am hoping, to be sure, that it evidences a little bit of creativity in my thoughts that is not easily replicated by a computer.  But I will let you, the gentle reader, be the judge of that. 

Missing a couple of big factors

Senator Bernie Sanders (CCCP-Vermont) has authored a column alleging that there is something unconscionable about why poorer Americans have a lower lifespan than their wealthier neighbors.  Well, yes, but really not for the reasons that Sanders notes.

Some of the known risk factors:

• The rate of smoking among the poor is close to twice that of the prosperous.
• Obesity and sedentary lifestyles are far higher among the poor.
• Drug use problems are higher among the poor.
• Finally, crime, especially murder, is far higher among the poor, especially minority populations in inner cities.

And yes, it is true that many top doctors do not choose to serve in poor communities--you have the danger factor, and quite frankly, you also have the fact that Medicaid compensation ratios don't make it very profitable.  And yes, you also have the difficulty of getting to a clinic, paying for copays, and related expenses.

But that noted, the fact remains that if you're 50 pounds overweight and huffing the cancer sticks, there is only so much medical science can do for you.  Smoking reduces lifespan by 10-15 years, obesity reduces lifespan by 3-10 years, and dying of an overdose or murder deprives that person of many decades of life.  I dare suggest it's long past time for the country to address the real drivers of shorter lifespans among the poor and working classes.

Well, duh

A study from MIT has found that those using AI "authorship" like ChatGPT  showed less brain connectivity--i.e. "thinking"--when asked to write without using help from AI than those who actually learned to write on their own.

As a former college TA (math and engineering), and as a homeschool dad who grades his kids' math, may I say the obvious?

DUH

Let's be blunt here.  Those of us who were blessed with, shall we say, "the ability that made people want to cheat from our papers", were told, if we had a teacher who cared one iota, that if we "helped" our classmates this way, we would end up truncating their ability to do the work on their own.  

In the same way, when someone cheated his way through freshman courses in college, we observed as the  poor guy learned the hard way that those courses are called "prerequisites" for a reason, and that the same person made a great pizza deliveryman, so to speak.  Really, the notion that we can obtain results without work has been disproven so many times, we ought to have finally learned our lessons.  But apparently not.

Maybe this will wake us up

It appears that Russian second-in-command Dmitri Medvedev has claimed that "numerous" countries are willing to supply Iran with nuclear weapons now that (I hope) their own native program has been shut down.

Well, for starters, since the nuclear "club" consists of the U.S.A., Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, India, and probably Israel, I'm pretty sure that it's not "numerous" countries, but rather Russia and China rattling the saber.  Remember; don't believe anything about Russia until the Kremlin officially denies it!

But if indeed Russia and China are willing to supply Iran with nuclear weapons, there are a bunch of questions that come up.  First of all, given that the weapon would almost certainly be used against Israel, we might ask "OK, so Russia is signing up to commit a new Holocaust....why?"

The next thing to be considered, IMO, is "have Russia and China considered how Iran might respond if they start to realize how Moscow and Beijing treat Muslim minorities like the Uyghurs and Chechens?".  There are probably things Moscow and Beijing do to avoid facing their own weapons, but if it's a nuke launched by someone who doesn't terribly worry about death, I don't know that such methods would deter Iranians from diverting a missile intended for Tel Aviv to land in Moscow or Beijing instead.

Really, along these lines, it strikes me more and more that the proper way to respond to madmen like Putin, Medvedev, Pooh, and Khamenei is to use not "diplomatic" language of minced words, but rather with straight talk of "I see what you are doing there, and a thermonuclear Auschwitz is not an acceptable alternative to my country.".

Brilliance from the CIA

Here is a bit on the CIA's assessment of Iran's nuclear program: more or less, they have gone well beyond the 3% concentration of U-235 needed for civilian purposes, but there is something that is lacking.  

Now since the construction of a nuclear weapon really consists of the forming of the fissile material into two sub-critical masses, combined with a housing to hold them, a set of shaped charges to drive them together, and electronics to detonate those shaped charges, what the CIA actually told Tulsi Gabbard is, IMO, that Iran was and is very close to having at worst something of a "dirty bomb" which could make an area uninhabitable for a while.  

To me, this illustrates one of the most infuriating things about the CIA; they seem to at times confuse their role in intelligence gathering with diplomacy, and they're soft-pedaling the reality that if Iran has their electronics and explosives program in a different place, then it can all come together very quickly.  It would be very funny if so much wasn't at stake, but of course, it is.

What I fear about Trump insiders...

 ...has been brilliantly illustrated by Steve Bannon, who argues that if Senator Lindsay Graham keeps "stirring it up" regarding Russia's war of aggression and war crimes against Ukraine, he "should be arrested."   Bannon is apparently unclear on the concept of the "First Amendment" and "freedom of speech", and I dare suggest that views like Bannon's ought to be rewarded by cordially refusing to allow Bannon and others who think like him to go anywhere near the corridors of power.  Too many American boys (and girls) died for that First Amendment to give it up without a fight.

This is especially the case because Bannon is more or less protesting the destruction of a key means of war crimes for Russia.  One would figure that we would see this as a good thing, meaning that a lot more Ukrainian dity and babi (children and grandmothers) will live to see a new day.

But not, apparently, in the political area where clear signs of Putin's Stalinism go unobserved or unheeded.

Slava Ukraini, Steve! May Putin soon be inhaling sulfur!

The limitations of technology in architecture

A "pencil" style building in New York City appears, in my view, to be a great picture of the limitations of technology in architecture.  How so?

Well, the residents are noticing cracks in the concrete already, indicating that the engineers' work to support the nearly 1400' tall building is insufficient.  What strikes me is that the building is only 100 feet wide, whereas the similar-height Sears Tower (*) in Chicago is over twice that width.  The key issue here, structure-wise, is that the lateral strength/rigidity is proportional to the square of the outer dimensions.  This means that, all else the same, the Sears Tower is four times as robust as 432 Park Avenue, and the stresses on the lateral support beams that much greater on 432 Park Avenue.  It makes a difference.

A side note here is that since this is not an office building, but a residential building, what we have is a building where the inner hallway/atrium around the elevators is going to be up to 35 feet from the windows.  In contrast, at a truly big mansion, Buckingham Palace in London, the windows are only about--except for the great hall--about twenty feet from the inner hallways, I'd guess.

In other words, when you try to go too tall--I'd guess a ratio of height vs. width of 10:1 or greater--you get to a point where a wonderful apartment becomes, due to a lack of proximity to windows, an unlivable closet.  So if we're talking the "Buckingham Palace Rule", we are talking an approximate upper limit of about 500 feet tall or about 40 stories. You could get some additional room for height by using the old World Trade Center's center zone for elevators and utilities--probably up to about 700 feet or fifty stories--but all in all, you're limited if your goal is to provide liveable space.

It is worth noting as well that there are additional economic/engineering and practical reasons not to build too high.  Building 100 stories high costs about five times as much per square foot as building five stories or less, and how many people really want to be looking out from their 50th story window at....someone else's 50th story window?

* Yes, I know it's called the Willis Tower now, but like any Chicagoland native who values the past, my view is that it keeps its original name, no matter what the corporate types say.