Rear Ends and Third Parties

 I've been rear-ended twice in about 3 years, both times in leased vehicles. No major damage or injuries in either.  Both times I'd argue a third party caused it.  Both times on Reston Parkway.  In the first a car very quickly moved from the lane on my rear into my lane and over to the lane on my left. I had to brake sharply, and the man behind me was unable to stop in time.  In the second, I was stopped at a light.  When it changed I anticipated the vehicle ahead moving out, but the driver opened his door and tossed the remains of his coffee out before starting off.  Took a couple seconds, but in the time I took my foot off my brake and then put it back on when he didn't move.  While the driver who rear ended me said she was at fault, looking at a broken fingernail, I think what may have happed is: she looked up, saw my brake light go off, looked down and missed my brake light going back on.  

A Ponzi Scheme? No, a Howe Scheme

 While I'm sure she didn't invent the idea, Sarah Howe did precede Mr. Ponzi in bilking people out of their money by promising unrealistically high returns and paying them off with the deposits from later suckers.  That's from this Jstor piece on women's banking.

(I didn't realize the Homestead Act gave women the right to homestead as well as men.)

Price of Using the Internet Is Eternal Vigilance?

 Someone said "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance". 

Maybe we should update it.  Just got a message supposedly from Paypal asking for money. It's a scam, but one I've not seen before. 

Maybe I Should See "Hamilton"?

 I know the musical is good but today I wrote a letter to the editor of the Post, in the course of which I looked up the lyrics of one of the songs--The Room Where It Happens.   Makes me think I should see it.  Is it available on Netflix? 

"Aging Software"?--Tufekci Is Wrong?

NYTimes columnist Tufekci had a piece  discussing Southwest Airlines problems in managing their airplanes and personnel.  I just looked it up online on Thursday evening, finding to my surprise the Times has a featire in their comment system called NYTimes replies where she responded to some of the comment.

She puts the blame on "aging software" used to schedule pilots and crew.  I'm not sure why I immediately objected to the term, but here's my thoughts:

"Aging", which I am, means to me a deterioration of abilities, your body goes, your mind goes, you go. But software, once written (and debugged) remains the same, essentially forever. It's a set of ideas, of data, of information, which may be lost or destroyed, but will always do what it was capable of doing at its origin. 

Tufekci also uses the metaphor of building a structure, but using shortcuts, skimping on the foundation, etc.  Saving money now but setting the stage for problems later.  That's also wrong.   She mentions "technical debt", which is an interesting concept, but seems to me to conflate problems. 

I'd suggest the Southwest problem is a problem of "aging", but not in the sense I outlined above--deterioriation.  Consider the mature individual, the completed building, the proven software--each fits its environment, fulfills its function. There's a match of thing and context. Obviously the match isn't perfect; it may be flawed, corners were cut on the building or the software, the individual ends in the wrong occupation, with the wrong spouse, etc.)  As time passes, the building and the individual will deteriorate, they'll require maintenance to stay functional. But not the software, except as bugs appear. 

So the term "aging" has two sides: change for the worse in the entity discussed and change in the environment in which the entity operates, impairing the match between entity and environment.

For Southwest I suspect their software dates to the airline's early days, when it was doing point-to-point flights, basically within California.  It's expanded vastly over the years, getting lots of plaudits from customers.  The consensus seems to be they failed to spend enough on upgrading their software.  News media doesn't die into details, so we don't know whether the software ran into capacity limits, whether the system was never changed to use new technology (like generating text messages to personnel), whether the fundamental data model was flawed in light of the new environment and the impact of very bad weather, or whether all of the these factors were at work.

At the end there's a mismatch of capacity and environment. For humans the capacity declines and the environment changes. For software the capacity stays the same while the environment changes. 

New House Rules for Farm Bill

 Under the new House rules, each bill must have a single subject. I'm wondering how they'll describe the farm bill.

Chevalier--I Remember It Well

 The snowstorm of February 11, 1983, that is.  My fiance and I had a meeting with a priest to arrange for our wedding later in the year.  When we came out of St. Mathews it was impossible for us to get out to Reston, so I got a hotel room.  The next morning we got a cab out to Reston. It had to drop us off about a few hundred yards from the house, so we trudged through the snow, me in my loafers IIRC. 

The Politico story says that the snowstorm shut down DC, enabling Nancy Reagan to set up a family dinner with the Shultzes, over which the relatively new Secretary of State bonded with the president, and which led eventually to Reagan's opening to the Soviets.

That's what happens when the unexpected hits; the people who are confined together form bonds.  Notoriously, Clinton and Monica started their bonding during the government shutdown. 

Loft Living and Office Conversions?

 Some discussion in media about conversions of office towers into residential space. 

Back in the day, 1960s or so, converting warehouse loft space into residences for the arty crowd was a thing.

Before that converting urban houses to commercial uses was a thing.  I remember in Greene NY in the 1940s we patronized 2 groceries, 1 hardware store, and a movie theater all converted from houses.

Covered With Night

 The book, Covered With Night,  is quite good.  The author uses the murder of an Indian by one or two white settlers in colonial Pennsylvania (1720s) as a way to describe and contrast the different societies and views of justice of the parties involved (various tribes, Quakers, British governor, etc.) It won the Pulitizer in 2022, deservedly.

Given the subject and approach, not to mention the prize, you'd expect it to be modern historical writing, and it is, meaning there are no heroes or villains, complexity is embraced, attention paid to women and bit players.

I recommend it. I do think it's a little one-sided, no doub because of the available source material.  The author shows the colonists as sometimes trying and usually failing to understand the ways of the Indians. Fair enough. It wasn't a total failure, but...  She does not try the reverse, to show how the Indians tried and failed to understand the colonists.   As I say, there's likely no source material for that.

Republican Priorities--Ag?

 One priority, according to the new chair of House Ag, is 

"Along with that, he says the committee is learning from the disaster payments that have been made outside of the farm bill baseline to be looking at how to incorporate more of that relief in a way that provides certainty for farmers and ranchers and for the lenders providing them with access to capital."

That's according to an Agmos interview.  That's the way it goes--everything becomes a precedent--in this case the exercises in executive creation of programs by Trump and Biden become rationales for changing, presumably increasing, current programs. 

I'd not that on the one hand Thompson wants greater oversight and audit of the Biden actions, but on the other he's willing to use them to justify program changes before he sees the results.

I think I'm starting the new year in what my wife calls a crotchety mood.

The Joys (sic) of Manual Labor

 Ever since I left the farm, my experience of manual labor has been mostly at my discretion.  That's key.  Even when it isn't, as when we get a big snowstorm and I have to shovel out it's not too bad.  I can tell myself I'm fighting the elements, along with some (not many, the softies) of my neighbors.

Gardening is a hobby with a reward of vegetables, so the work involved is just a prerequisite to a payoff.

There have been times when I really got into using my hands.  The family farm was populated with my father's constructions and improvements: hen houses, brooder houses, range shelters, milk house, cow shed, equipment shed, 3 stall garage, etc. My attempts were more domestic, dining room table and chairs, light box, book shelves, etc.  That was all after I bought my house and before marriage.

This last week or so has brought me back to manual work, not building anything, but repairs around the house. It's been a change from my usual winter routine of reading and TV, but enough to remind me of the satisfaction that can come when you fix something, not as well or nearly as quickly as the expert who does the work for her living, but "good enough fo,r government work", as we used to say.

A Test for "Vertical Farming"

 Starting to see articles on problems that "vertical farming" enterprises are encountering.  Basically it's energy costs, which have gone up recently. Unfortunately energy costs can be quite variable, as anyone who lived through the 1970's can attest. I'd also expect a lot of variation as society digests the conversion to renewable energy sources.

(I was dubious of vertical farming from back when it just was pie in the sky, relying on the sun for energy.  In the very long range, if we get to cheap fusion energy, vertical farming may indeed become economically feasible. But that's a long way away.)

What Robots Learn From Us

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution wrote something, a mere sentence, which impressed me, impressed me so much I misremembered it as "what will robots learn from us?"  (Cowen wrote "A.I.s" but "robots" is the term I like, which I think can include all forms of artificial intelligence.)

It's a good question--mostly robots and other forms of artificial intelligence learn what humans have already learned, at least the humans living in the world of robots, etc.That means, by definition, that they will be biased. 

I wrote "mostly" because for example robots which learn to walk, learn what it means in terms of their motors, gears, and levers--their bodies--not what it means for humans to walk  So robots do experience the world somewhat differently than humans. Possibly robots won't learn some things from us; it's hard to say.

Merry Christmas

 Hope you get more than you deserve, as the theology of this day goes. 

Professor Evaluations

 I follow a fair number of professors on Twitter, mostly historians. I occasionally see tweets complaining about the student evaluations they receive. 

I don't have any sense at all of how student evaluations compare with other evaluation setups, like reviews of products on the Internet, or reviews on Yelp. You'd think it's likely that the evaluations would be somewhat similar--that is, my perception of product and service reviews is that they tend to be more favorable than my intuition is.  Certainly when I evaluate I tend to lend to the positive so I assume that's true of others.

Sometimes the evaluation reported in the tweet is critical, and often the reaction is dismissive.  I suppose that makes sense--if you get some criticism which is useful, it's not going to irritate you enough to tweet about.  But the dismissive bit strikes me as reflecting insecurity and aggravates me enough to blog about evaluations.

Anyhow, I remember an evaluation I got once from my presentation on some program; don't remember which one.  It was mixed, to the effect Bill knows his stuff, but he drones in a monotone. 

😀

It was, and is, true.  It was useful.  IIRC this was near the end of my career in making presentations, and likely accelerated it.  It was much easier to sit in the rear of the meeting room whild one of my employees made her presentation and pat myself on the back for putting her forward. 

Tesla Self-Driving Good Enough for Me

 I struggled to find the NYTimes article I want to comment from.  Turns out it 's over a month old, on-line, but just published in the print version today. It's a ride-along with the owner of a Tesla self-driving car, something of a beta test as they try to improve their software to be safe for wide release.  The owner has a specific location which apparently gives the current software fits, a left turn with 3 lanes of on-coming traffic into a specific lane of another 3-lane road.

My reaction to the description: it's good enough for me to buy.  I've leased my last two cars, on the mistaken assumption that I might not be driving in the future (the future keeps receding, but it's coming). Anyhow, that means I know I've driven about 5500 miles in 2 years.  Granted that part of the figure is the result of reduced activity from the pandemic, but as I age I drive less.

More importantly, the proportion of my driving which occurs on routes I've used before keeps increasing.  I don't know what it is, but likely 95 percent or more.  That means if I buy a self-driving car it can quickly become familiar with my routes, and familiarity means the software can handle more and more situations.  Also, as an older driver I'm more cautious than the average bear (much to the aggravation of some of my fellow drivers), so I'm both more likely to pay attention to the car's operation and less likely to be frustrated as the car responds to new situations by slowing and/or stopping--something which I've seen reported as a problem. 

So the bottom line, there's a niche out there to sell self-driving cars; it just needs to be identified.  Once such cars get into the niche, the process of expanding their capabilities to expand the niche can proceed much faster.

Tax Returns Public?

 I feel conflicted about the possible release of Trump's tax returns.  It's a slippery slope; release his and pretty soon you're releasing returns of all candidates, even for dog catcher.  The system BT (before Trump) was pretty good; candidates released tax information but they could fudge a bit around the edges. As long as they paid obeisance to the idea of public knowledge, they could get away with the fudges. (No, I don't have cases to cite, but just a vague memory of some candidates in primaries doing so.)

On the other hand, my great grandfather's taxable income was released back in Civil War days and published in the local paper, along with everyone else's. Why should we be different.

[Had an interruption to blogging because of house problems.]

Fifth Act--Relying on Connections

I blogged earlier about  Eliot Ackerman's Fifth Act,  Thinking about it some more--one thing stands out is the reliance on personal connections. In the chaos of our exit from Afghanistan, personal connections were everywhere.  Initially it was the personal connection of American soldiers, diplomats, and contractors with those who had worked with them.  The Afghani asked their friends to help. As the days passed and the panic spread, Afghanis who had no such history contacted Afghanis who had the connection: a friend of a friend, a cousin, a neighbor.

Once contacted the Americans, like Ackerman, relied on their own connections. An ex-soldier contacted an old comrade still in Afghanistan.  As the days passed, the calls for help spread, asking any acquaintance who might have any pull over the Marines at the Kabul airport for help.  Sometimes the calls go to the chain of command but those at the gates have more power; the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is eventually at the mercy of and relying upon the grunt, the lieutenant at the gate.

In the situation, the bureaucratic rules get bent and broken, which I imagine is common in extreme cases.

I also see the whole process is dependent on the internet--the appeals for help may be phoned, but the logistics needed to coordinate the arrival of a group at the appropriate airport gate at the time when the right American is there; they all rely on forms of internet communication: email, Twitter, Slack, 

I assume our exit from Saigon back in the day was somewhat similar, but without the internet the connections were much more limited.

The Doomed Quest for Clarity in Government

 The Senate has passed a bill to: "expand and update an existing law on plain language requirements for agencies" which is to apply to all writing which the public might read, i.e., contracts, applications, etc. etc.

Why do I say it's doomed?  We've had almost 55 years worth of campaigning on the subject with no claims of victory.

I remember Jimmy Carter, who had a drive for "Plain English". See this website.  At that time we had to include in the clearance package for regulations a certification that the regulation had been reviewed for plain English. It turned into a rubber stamp exercise.  That's the way it goes in the bureaucracy.  The bureaucrat is most concerned that the document be acceptable to those who clear it, to her bosses whether in the chain of command or with veto power (often the lawyers). Those people are years removed from a personal concern with the clarity of government forms. 

Looking Ahead to 2024

 Sen Sinema's switch to being an independent is viewed as a way to avoid a Democratic primary which she would likely lose.  So if she runs as an independent in 2024 it may be a 3-way contest, possibly splitting the Democratic and independent vote and permitting the Republican to win.  There's lots of possibilities--if it appears Sinema will run, does that mean the Democratic and Republican primaries will be more favorable to the more radical candidates?  

I've also seen discussion over the adverse Senate map for 2024--Tester, Manchin, Brown, Rosen, and AZ are all chancy or adverse.   A Democratic who has rose-colored glasses might predict that by Nov. 2024 the economy will have picked up, having dodged a recession next year, and we can compare the country to 1984.  And Biden will have become popular, and the Republicans will have been flailing in Congress to do anything.  And if the Republican presidential candidate is Trump, or someone equally as unpopular and incompetent (hard to imagine, but don't underestimate Republicans), we could be looking at a landslide.

I estimate the probability of that outcome as <1 percent. 

Why I Envy the Young

 I clicked on this discussion and demonstration of the physics of a ball on a turntable. Though my capacity to absorb the new is limited these days, it's still interesting, just a phenomon--forget the equations.

It's an example of why I envy the young.  There's so much material online to learn from these days.  In the '40's and '50's there were books.  Popular Mechanics might have been the magazine closest to some of the Youtube videos, but still miles and miles away. But with the visual examples and the ability to drill down into subjects, today's world is an autodidact's dream.

There might be tradeoffs--amid all the possibilities and attractions could an autodidact focus enough to contribute to knowledge, but still.. 

Churches--Merging and Splitting, and Also Tech

 I've mentioned some of my paternal ancestors were Presbyterians, so I've a little knowledge of how that denomination has split and merged over the centuries. 

In my youth there was movement towards the unification of many Christian denominations; it was being pushed by the National Council of Churches.  It was generally liberal, based on Social Gospel, internationalism (World Council of Churches), etc.  

Beginning in the 1970s or before it seems the tide has changed; instead of churches flowing together from tributaries into one big body of common belief, the water is rising and flowing back into the various tributaries.  

The recent split of the Methodists  is just the latest instance of secession movements. 

There seems to be a broader phenomenon of institutions growing larger, then splitting.  Back  around 1970 we had a lot of "conglomerates"--companies buying up other companies into one big outfit.  Even GE under Jack Welch was adding different lines of business. But there too the tide has turned, and selling off branches now seems the trend, at least in older parts of the economy.  The new tech outfits like Amazon and Google have expanded.  When and whether the acquisition process will reverse remains to be seen.

Complexity of Modern Life

 Had to go to my bank branch today and talk to a real person, who was very helpful BTW.  It was the first time in years.  I had told a bank rep on the phone earlier that I was confident I could follow the instructions in their online tutorial and manage the matter online.  

I was wrong.  Whether it's bad memory or fact, I got very confused, partly because of what I perceived as changes in the way the website operated, partly because the software I was running didn't work according to my expectations.  I thought, if you can fill out some fields in a form on line, you ought to be able to fill out all of them online.  As it turned out, filling out the remaining fields with ink was fine.  

I think part of what's happening these days is the addition problem--we add new programs or new features to old programs and we change the organizations.   But the new or changed is not tested to be consistent and compatible with the old.  The builders of the new have a different take, a different approach,, to their construction, so users/clients/customers find their expectations are faulty.  

My wife and I experienced that today, but when I read posts on the FSA employee group on Facebook I see county office employees (and presumably their farmers) having similar problems with what Congress and the administration do. 

My Inner Puritan

 Why did we need to double the size of our houses in the last 50 years?

Why did we need to increase the proportion of SUV's and pickups we buy to 80 percent of new vehicles?

Why does the average American family spend $1700 on clothing in a year?

Road Rage, Then and Now

My cousin remembers the experience in the 1930s of riding with her father driving.  He was a reckless driver; she says he had "road rage" before the name.

For those who don't remember the days before the interstate, and who no longer regularly drive in rural areas, two-lane roads were standard.  In hilly areas, such as upstate New York, that meant a lot of blind curves, and no-passing zones.  On long drives, like that from Maryland to Minneapolis, or even North Fenton to Ithaca, those zones were frustrating to those of us who are impatient.  Find yourself behind a car whose driver was old, or cautious, or law-abiding (those were more common in those days than now), on a road with lots of traffic coming towards you, with a number of curves or hills, you'd get more and more frustrated, each time you swerved over the middle line and saw a car coming, or ran out of the dashed passing line and into the double white line.

Eventually either the slowboat in front of you would turn off, or you'd take the chance of passing when you really shouldn't.

Afghanistan and US

 Just finished Elliot Ackerman's "Act Five, America's End in Afghanistan". I liked it very much. While the title might imply it's all about the exit from Afghanistan, it's not, not entirely. The construction is different: the thread which drives the narrative is a series of attempts at coordinating through calls with friends and strangers the permissions and logistics of getting Afghans who worked for America and their families onto the planes after the fall of Kabul.  The desperation of the efforts contrasts with his description of the vacation trip with wife and children. 

Another thread is composed of episodes from his tours in Afghanistan (serving first as a Marine officer with the 1-8 (regiment), then as an officer working with paramilitaries (Afghan troop and US special forces), and finally as a CIA paralmilitary officer doing the same. A third thread covers episodes from his life outside of Afghanistan. These threads provide context for his calls.  He weaves his threads together into a nice tapestry, colored with thoughts on America's two wars (he served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan).

He's critical of all the administrations--Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden for their decision, but most of all critical of Americans for the growing separation between society and the military, and the growing inolvement of the military in partisan politics.  It was published in this summer, when we still feared the outcome of the 2022 elections, which went better, more quietly, than we thought then.  

Loss of Authority

 Was thinking about the question of authority--who has it, what does it mean, etc.

Seems to me "authority" has drained away from the people and organizations which had it in my youth. It's perhaps particularly so in the family--as the patriarchy has decline, so has the authority of the father (maybe it's the same thing).

Surveys of the public on their respect for various institutions, police, schools, churches, etc. show a decline over the past decades.  As further confirmation, here's an ngram of American sources (the graph is a smoother decline if you leave the setting at "English").

The Return of Covid

 This NYTimes piece says it may be returning. People mostly aren't masking--the Post mentioned very few masked at last night's state dinner. And they aren't boosting.

(I got my fifth shot, the co-valent booster) the other day.  I sometimes mask, sometimes don't.)  We seem to be accepting of  roughly 300 deaths a day, or maybe 100,000 a year. What does the future hold 

The Visual Revolution

 Discussing our childhoods with a cousin, we both had the experience of Life magazine. For me it was a new perspective on the world.  Before another cousin passed on a few old copies of Life in the late 40's, I hadn't seen many pictures.  Newspapers at that time didn't print many photographs, certainly nothing in color. What pictures I did see were mostly advertising illustrations. 

There were, of course, the newsreels at the movies, but we didn't go to them very often, usually just to Disney movies maybe four or five times a year.

The same cousin who provided the issues of Life also passed on a few National Geographics.  Both magazines were a revelation, in their different ways.  For one, my definition of decolletage is linked to Sophia Loren. 

Since the 1950's we've become a much more visual culture, between the internet, cellphones, and streaming video. I don't know what the change means for other aspects of society, though likely today's childen will never have the same feelings as I did in viewing Ms. Loren (whose wikipedia entry images doesn't include any low necklines.)

Different Browsers, Different Strokes

I use Chrome as my default browser. There seems to be some setting(s) which inhibit accessing certain urls/sites. In some cases when I click on a url the page will start to load a bit, showing maybe a geometric figure, but no content loads.  In other cases there's no activity. 

Possibly connected, sometimes I get a message about the site not being secure--i.e., not using https.  Some of the time I can understand; it's an small website, likely not regularly updated, but some of the time it's idiosyncratic, a site which I can access some of the time, or almost all the time.

Today I tried to access a wikipedia website, which froze.  So I switched to Firefox and had no problem.  

When I look at the settings in Chrome, I don't see anything which is likely the cause. 

The Rise of Individualism

Is there a relationship between the decline of amateurism, most recently seen in the NCAA's new rules on name, image, likeness (NIL) and the desire to work remotely?

I think there is.  Both were subjects in today's newspapers. Today's not a good blogging day, may expand my thoughts later.

The Enduring Greatness of Jim Brown

 When my family first got a TV, the NY Giants games were the ones mostly on TV, so I became a Giant fan. I remember the games with the Cleveland Browns and the greatest NFL back, Jim Brown (who once scored 6 touchdowns against my alma mater, setting a record that lasted for 40+ years, and he didn't just score TD's, he kicked the extra points as well).

When I got to college, I worked in a dorm kitchen along with a man from Long Island.  At that time lacrosse was very much a niche sport; I think it was popular on Long Island and upstate NY where Native Americans continued to play. As good as Jim Brown was at football, he was better at lacrosse, as John told me at the time and was ratified by the lacrosse people.  

Changing of the Guard

 We're seeing a turnover of House leadership for the Democrats. That's good; we need younger members and younger leaders. Sen. Schumer seems to have been effective in the Senate, but there too I'd like to see newer leadership. 

While there's a reasonable argument that some people of my age and above still have good judgment, and that judgment is the most important attribute of a leader, I think it's mistaken.  Leadership is many things, judgment only part of it. So somehow I'd like to see the Democrats come up with a new candidate for the presidency in 2024, but one with good chances of winning, and one who will help candidates for other offices on the ballot. Maintaining control of the Senate will be difficult; the map is against us.  Continuing to make progress in state legislatures and governorships is very important. 

Passing of an Era--1980?

 Currently reading Sen. Leahy's memoir. He entered the Senate in 1974 and was barely re-elected in 1980. It's an easy read, anecdotal and more about persons than policy or procedure.

One point--Reagan's victory in 1980 swept out a bunch of Democratic senators; only Leahy and Gary Hart of the 1974 Watergate class survived in the Senate.  Was this the turning point to partisanship?  He mentions Carter's farewell address, which included a warning against single-interest organizations. I think the reality is that organizations trying to influence Congress have become more and more specialized over the years.  For example, we used to have the "farm lobby", composed of three big national organizations--Farm Bureau, Grange, National Farmers Union. But over time single commodity groups have become more important and more wide-spread.

I've got a couple books in my library queue about the growth of partisan politices; both of which I think go back to the 1990's, but not before.

Thanksgiving Memories

 On a farm, with animals, Thanksgiving Day is like any other.  The cows have to be fed and milked, the manure has to be moved to the spreader and spread, the hens have to be fed, the eggs have to be gathered.

Since we raised chickens, that, not turkey, was our Thanksgiving entree.  It was still special; you might expect we were eating chicken regularly but not so.  Chickens laid eggs, that was their role in our ecosystem.  As you only eat your seed corn in desperate times you don't eat your egg layers.

The usual menu IIRC was chicken, mashed potatoes (bought), and green beans (canned from the garden), with pie for desert. 

Typically it was just the four of us at the table, which might mean conflict.  Or not.

After the meal and some rest, the routines resumed.  More milking, more feeding, more egg gathering, cleaning and packing.

What Are Humans?

Two possible pictures of humans:

• humans are like plants, developing from seeds and easily manipulated and suppressed.  Think of Japanese bonsai, or how seedlings will fail under adverse conditions.
• humans are talented and adaptable, coping with and exploiting every sort of environment.  Think of Nazi concentration camps and their survivors.

Okay, now think back a century or two and consider women--which picture comes closer to describing their situation?  Patriarchal suppression or exploiting separate spheres? 

The Clarity of Hindsight

 The consensus of historians is the cause of the Civil War was slavery.  Evidence includes the assertions of many Southern leaders, as documented in the secession resolutions.

A few people have worried about a new civil war. I don't share that worry, but out of my contrarian spirit I wonder this: if we were to have a new civil war, what would be the cause? 

[Added: my point is that everything is clearer in hindsight.]

SCOTUS Standards

 NYTimes reports on a letter sent to Chief Justice Roberts claiming a leak of the decision in 2014 in the Hobby-Lobby case.  Although the writer relates it to the leak of the Dobbs draft decision this year, I don't see it as such.  I'm sure over the years justices have told friends and relatives which way a decision went, before the release of the opinion. Speculation on the Dobbs decision focused on whether it was an attempt to freeze or change the decision: a different thing.

What's concerning is the efforts to lobby the justices by becoming friends, efforts which Roberts and Justice Kennedy rebuffed, but Scalia and Thomas were open to. But I don't know where you draw the line; I can't expect justices never to make friends with interests which will come before the court.  The friendship of RBG and Nina Tottenberg is an example: while she claims  to be an objective reporter, it's clear to anyone where her sympathies lie.  

So what's the standards Kennedy and Roberts used? 

Make the Ivory Castle Into a Museum

 Politico has a piece on the fight for space on the Mall for the various museums. Everyone wants recognition.  In the old days we had the Freer, then we added an Asian art museum and an African Art museum underground. But these days, following in the paths of the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American Art and Culture Congress is now trying to add museums for Latinos/Hispanics and Women on the Mall, despite laws which would prohibit the proposed sites.  In my lifetime we've added memorials for the Vietnam war, the Korean war, and World War II as well. We've added monuments for Ike, FDR, and MLK on or near the Mall, as well as the Holocaust museum.

What's next?  The obvious one is a "National Museum of Asian and Pacific Islander X".  But how about honoring the brave veterans of our longest wars, if not the bloodiest?  I think the potential demand is infinite, and it's an easy way for Congress to please an interest group.

Given the unending demand, I suggest we start repurposing buildings on the Mall, starting with the Administration building for USDA. When I joined ASCS in 1968 Chet Adell used to call it the "ivory tower", an indication of his disdain for the decisions made there (he was a key figure in implementing them). It's the only bureaucratic HQ on the Mall--so tear it down and use the site for a couple of the new museums.  Once we've set that precedent, we can go onto repurposing other of the structures.  

Bureaucrat Love

 Love to see this:

Over my years in the public and private sectors, I've had people tell me: If only the government could work like business.

Well, the team at @USEdgov and @USDS built a Student Loan Forgiveness portal that processed 8 MILLION applications in the first 30 hours without a crash. https://t.co/VaaoTMVycg

— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) November 15, 2022

Win, Win, Taxpayer Lose

 The Times had an article yesterday on the lawsuit against the Trump organization.  As I understand it, two employees have pled guilty for fraud--not reporting as income benefits they got from company, like tuition for kids, cars, etc.  But the suit is against the organization so the government must prove that their manipulations of the accounts to provide these unreported benefits were "in behalf of" the organization. Apparently it's a big issue.

With my bias against TFG it seems clear to me.  It was a "win, win" deal for the two employees--they got more compensation from the company through the manipulation without doing anything more for it.  What did the company gain? Presumably the employees were providing services worth their total compensation.

For example, assume the employee got $500K in taxable income, making $350K after taxes. He also got $250K in benefits under the table, the taxes on which would have been $75K  So the employee nets $600 K, the company pays $750K, and the US gets $150K  The US should have gotten  $75K more. So it's a win, win for the two employees, a loss for the US taxpayer.

How about the company? It's simple accounting, if someone loses, someone must gain. So who gained the $75K--I say the company, assuming a free market for the employee's services.  In such a market to hire the employee they'd have to pony up $825 in taxable gross salary and benefits.  

No to Trump

 I've mentioned the conservatives at Powerline blog breaking with Trump.  They apparently got a lot of flak about the break from the people commenting.  So they did a quick poll on whether Trump should be the candidate in 2024.  The results suprised me--very strongly anti-Trump. So the Republicans are shifting away, perhaps, and definitely you can't judge the readership of a blog by its commenters.

The Ghost in the Administration

 I've read more books on the Trump administration than I should. The books usually  treat some people worse than others.  Jared Kushner and Ivanka do well sometimes, very poorly in other books. And so forth for other major players.

One player who seems to have been able to survive without major enemies, or at least without participating in major controversies. is Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin.  The sole issue in my readings for which I remember him being criticized  is his opposition to banning travel from Europe early in the pandemic.  

Otherwise he seems to have operated quietly, not being criticized by Trump when everyone else was.  I may have missed some criticism since I wasn't conscious of his invisibility from the beginning.

His memoir would be interesting, to see how he did it.

Post-Election Thoughts

 I'm expecting the Republicans to control the House, assuming that Kelly will win and Masto lose, and fearful Sen. Warnock will not be able to repeat his runoff victory.  

I'd also predict there will be at least one senator leave Congress during 2023-4 due to health.

I'd predict the 2024 nomination will be between DeSantis and Youngkin.

A "Giant Anvil"?

 A quote from John Hinderaker's post-election analysis:

"At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States."

 

Election Day

 My wife, my cousin and I are all uptight about the results of today's election. Of the three of us I may be the most relaxed.  As I see it, we've survived Nixon, Reagan, and Trump so far, so we can survive a possible Republican control of Congress for 2 years.

What happens in 2024? Who knows. I wouldn't bet on Biden, Harris, or Trump winning the presidency, although I would bet on the Republicans winning the Senate in 2024 (the map really really favors them--so much so Mr. Thiessen in the Post speculates that if the Republicans pick up 4 Senate seats this year, they'll have a good chance at 60 in 2024--that's disastrous). 

But predictions tend to extrapolate the current situation into the future, which may not be true down the road.  People will get tired of Trump, and Trump-like pols.  I've already seen a post at Powerline blog, the most conservative one I follow, hoping Trum isn't the nominee in 2024.  

It's all very interesting. 

9600 Baud--Those Were the Days

 Kevin Drum delves into the past to get his telescope working. In this case the past is likely >30years. And the lesson is, even with IT, don't judge everything by its looks.

I remember the actual original mo-dem (modulator-demodulator).  Never bought one, but used one, very briefly.