Just for something completely different, I'm in Dublin, Ireland this week (conference). So I wandered over to Trinity College to check out The Book of Kells Experience.
A nicely done exhibition. I was particularly pleased to be able to see the Book itself. In a darkened room, and only the page it happened to be turned to. But still beautiful. And lots of other stuff from the book and about it. Way cool!
Off topic
Ya know, it was really handy to be able to preview comments. Just to keep control over italics. So far, I haven't grasped what I'm doing wrong. But sometimes I get the bar with a choice of such things, and sometimes I don't.
The writer’s thesis was that the US would get better quality presidents if we had a powerless monarchy to be the focus for the people who are attracted by shiny object, which would make a president’s role more that of a policy wonk.
Perhaps a better, i.e. less contentious, way to put this is: There are advantages to separating the job of head of state from the job of head of government. One spends most of his time on ceremonial functions. The other spends most of his time managing the executive branch of the (typically national) government. (Not to say that there might be something to be said for taking the same principle down to the state/province/region level.)
The first question someone proposing such a system needs to answer is: How do you pick those two people? In Britain, for example, the chief of state, the monarch, is a hereditary position, while the head of government is (indirectly**) elected. My impression is that the other (nominal) monarchies in Europe do something similar. There are doubtless other approaches, but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable in the field to know of examples.
And this leads to the question for Britain, if they decide to abolish their monarchy: How do you choose a new chief of state going forward? I mean, you could just dump the necessary tasks in the PM. But have recent ones really demonstrated that they have the bandwidth to take in the additional work?
** It would be rude for someone from outside to describe the method as a kludge. Which is why I resisted the temptation.
My impression was that British support for the monarchy has been based, for most of her lifetime, on support for Queen Elizabeth herself. King Charles simply doesn't have that lifetime establishment of support. So he is forced (I have no idea if he recognizes it or not) to act in ways, and in circumstances, that his mother never had to worry about.
In the specific case of Andrew, it looks (from across the pond and across a continent in addition) like the Crown is going to have to throw him under the bus -- whatever that amounts to in detail. Which is probably what he deserves, but isn't going to be easy for his brother. And, if Andrew's past behavior ends up taking down the monarchy, the fiddling details will likely take years, if not decades, to sort out.
It's true that there are undoubtedly a lot of other people, especially but not exclusively in the US, who interacted with Epstein and who deserve the same. Whether they, too, will get what they deserve depends on how many names get named, and with what kind of details.
The contortions that our House Speaker is going thru, and the amount of damage he (or Trump) is willing accept, in order to avoid making the "Epstein Files" public suggest that there is a whole lot of there there. We live in interesting times.
I live in north central Texas, and I never see anything like that [Confederate flag flying off the back of a pickup].
Would that suggest that the whole point of flying those Confederate flags isn't about the Confederacy? Rather it's about "owning the libs". Thus there is no point to doing it in north central Texas -- there aren't enough liberals there to make it worth the effort.
Oh, a benevolent monarchy (or a benevolent dictatorship of any sort) actually has the potential to work pretty well. The problem is, there's no way to assure that the monarch will always be benevolent. Not to mention competent to do the job.
Which is why, after experiencing one, the population tends to develop a strong preference for some other form of government. Assuming they have heard of one, and can imagine living under it. Sometimes they deal with that by emigrating to somewhere that provides that alternative. Other times, they rise up, eliminate the monarch (and his supporting cast), and try to set up something better. It can take a few iterations to get the necessary, but not always obvious, checks and balances in place.
The extent to which these folks seem to have mush for brains (to phrase it politely) is astounding. In this particular instance, it makes me think that all that's required to get thru law school and pass the bar exam is a good memory. No actual cognitive ability necessary.
That wasn't previously my view, for all that I have a somewhat jaundiced view of some lawyers. But the ones who work for Trump, personally or as his appointees in the Department of Justice, are not only ethically challenged but, in the evidence, dumb as rocks besides. No offense intended to any rocks in the audience.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
I wonder if part if the problem is that, every 4 years, the party sees a Presidential candidate upending ongoing programs in order to do things their way. And it works for them, because they end up outspending the DNC by a substantial amount.
To get something like this in place is going to require changing where (organizationally) money gets raised and allocated. From candidate-centeic to party-centric. That, in turn, will require changing the incentives for donors. Not sure how you do that.
I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
*what this tells me about the other side is that influential people on it are unconcerned with reality.*
I wonder about that. Is it that they are unconcerned with reality? Or are they (at least many of them) just as caught up in the alternate reality as any Faux News viewer?
Certainly there are some there who will ignore anything that looks like an inconvenient fact. Not to mention those who are simply delusional. But the (mis)information bubble there is both very real and very pervasive.
And it has the huge merit that it will classify as elite a whole bunch of people that today's self-important elitists will be horrified to be classed with.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Something Different”
Just for something completely different, I'm in Dublin, Ireland this week (conference). So I wandered over to Trinity College to check out The Book of Kells Experience.
A nicely done exhibition. I was particularly pleased to be able to see the Book itself. In a darkened room, and only the page it happened to be turned to. But still beautiful. And lots of other stuff from the book and about it. Way cool!
On “Monarchy in the UK”
Off topic
Ya know, it was really handy to be able to preview comments. Just to keep control over italics. So far, I haven't grasped what I'm doing wrong. But sometimes I get the bar with a choice of such things, and sometimes I don't.
"
The writer’s thesis was that the US would get better quality presidents if we had a powerless monarchy to be the focus for the people who are attracted by shiny object, which would make a president’s role more that of a policy wonk.
Perhaps a better, i.e. less contentious, way to put this is: There are advantages to separating the job of head of state from the job of head of government. One spends most of his time on ceremonial functions. The other spends most of his time managing the executive branch of the (typically national) government. (Not to say that there might be something to be said for taking the same principle down to the state/province/region level.)
The first question someone proposing such a system needs to answer is: How do you pick those two people? In Britain, for example, the chief of state, the monarch, is a hereditary position, while the head of government is (indirectly**) elected. My impression is that the other (nominal) monarchies in Europe do something similar. There are doubtless other approaches, but I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable in the field to know of examples.
And this leads to the question for Britain, if they decide to abolish their monarchy: How do you choose a new chief of state going forward? I mean, you could just dump the necessary tasks in the PM. But have recent ones really demonstrated that they have the bandwidth to take in the additional work?
** It would be rude for someone from outside to describe the method as a kludge. Which is why I resisted the temptation.
"
My impression was that British support for the monarchy has been based, for most of her lifetime, on support for Queen Elizabeth herself. King Charles simply doesn't have that lifetime establishment of support. So he is forced (I have no idea if he recognizes it or not) to act in ways, and in circumstances, that his mother never had to worry about.
In the specific case of Andrew, it looks (from across the pond and across a continent in addition) like the Crown is going to have to throw him under the bus -- whatever that amounts to in detail. Which is probably what he deserves, but isn't going to be easy for his brother. And, if Andrew's past behavior ends up taking down the monarchy, the fiddling details will likely take years, if not decades, to sort out.
It's true that there are undoubtedly a lot of other people, especially but not exclusively in the US, who interacted with Epstein and who deserve the same. Whether they, too, will get what they deserve depends on how many names get named, and with what kind of details.
The contortions that our House Speaker is going thru, and the amount of damage he (or Trump) is willing accept, in order to avoid making the "Epstein Files" public suggest that there is a whole lot of there there. We live in interesting times.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I live in north central Texas, and I never see anything like that [Confederate flag flying off the back of a pickup].
Would that suggest that the whole point of flying those Confederate flags isn't about the Confederacy? Rather it's about "owning the libs". Thus there is no point to doing it in north central Texas -- there aren't enough liberals there to make it worth the effort.
On “Bal des Ardents”
Oh, a benevolent monarchy (or a benevolent dictatorship of any sort) actually has the potential to work pretty well. The problem is, there's no way to assure that the monarch will always be benevolent. Not to mention competent to do the job.
Which is why, after experiencing one, the population tends to develop a strong preference for some other form of government. Assuming they have heard of one, and can imagine living under it. Sometimes they deal with that by emigrating to somewhere that provides that alternative. Other times, they rise up, eliminate the monarch (and his supporting cast), and try to set up something better. It can take a few iterations to get the necessary, but not always obvious, checks and balances in place.
On “There have to be clowns”
The extent to which these folks seem to have mush for brains (to phrase it politely) is astounding. In this particular instance, it makes me think that all that's required to get thru law school and pass the bar exam is a good memory. No actual cognitive ability necessary.
That wasn't previously my view, for all that I have a somewhat jaundiced view of some lawyers. But the ones who work for Trump, personally or as his appointees in the Department of Justice, are not only ethically challenged but, in the evidence, dumb as rocks besides. No offense intended to any rocks in the audience.
On “Politics thread”
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They’ll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they’ll win some. And over time, they’ll win more.
I wonder if part if the problem is that, every 4 years, the party sees a Presidential candidate upending ongoing programs in order to do things their way. And it works for them, because they end up outspending the DNC by a substantial amount.
To get something like this in place is going to require changing where (organizationally) money gets raised and allocated. From candidate-centeic to party-centric. That, in turn, will require changing the incentives for donors. Not sure how you do that.
On “The South shall writhe again”
I notice that Trump is now demanding that the Chinese resume buying soybeans from the US. One suspects that he discovered that Midwestern farmers are seriously upset to have a major market snatched out from under them. (Especially those who didn't see it coming, and so failedto plant something else this year. Too late now to do anything but plow the crop under as fertalizer for next year.)
He seems oblivious to the fact that the Chinese have found alternative suppliers. Which is to say, they don't need to buy from us. As opposed to, say, refined rare earths, for which we (and, for that matter the rest of the world) have no alternative sources of supply.
We could develop them, of course -- "rare earths" aren't particularly rare; just challenging to separate from each other. It would just take 5-10 years, even assuming zero regulatory constraints (i.e. no environmental impact reports, no planning permissions, etc.). Can't expect Trump to grasp that, of course.
I could easily see the Chinese playing hardball on this. If only to show the wannabe his place. Hey, it keeps working for Putin, so why not?
"
it seems natural that rural culture should be similarly homgeneous
The question would seem to be: why is it Southern rural culture which is the model? Why not the Midwest? Or the Mountain West? They all have significant rural populations, too.
On “The Return of the Boat Hook”
For serious animism, one of my favorite memories is still Faith healing for computers:
Operations called Systems Programming because a (mainframe) disk drive was misbehaving. Walked in to the machine room and over to it. Laid my hands on top of the box.
Problem solved. Never did anything else to it. But Ops said that the problem had gone away.
Laying on of hands. Don't see how it could work on inanimate objects, so ...
"
I don't know about other professions, but I suspect everybody in IT spends some work time cursing when, inevitably, things don't go smoothly.
Whether they are talking to the software, or maybe the hardware. Or if they are appealing to a higher power for help. (Or maybe retribution on said recalcitrant software.). Hard to say. Possibly it varies from one individual to another.
On “What’s up, doxx?”
Actual, you know, convictions for assault might be persuasive. But just getting charged? Not so much, considering how often the charges get dropped. Not to mention that even those that get to court don't have the kind of high success rate other kinds of cases routinely have.
"
And to be picky, I don’t think there is anything to support Noem’s claim that there has been a 700% increase in these incidents.
I doubt that she has the wit for this herself, but there might be someone on staff who does. Percentages are a great way to exagerate an increase from, for example, 1 incident nationwide last year to 7 this year. Both numbers are small enough, given the total numbers of people involved, that the variation might well be nothing more than statistical noise. But it makes for great scare headlines this way.
People should be able to do their jobs without having their home addresses published.
The challenge today is this. If someone can capture your face, they can probably find some facial recognition software to get your name. I don't know how readily available such software is, but it's definitely nor restricted to police departments. And, once someone has your name, getting your home address is difficult only if the name is common enough that there are multiple possibilities. With a name like mine**, it's trivial.
Someday we may work out ways to provide a little more privacy. But for the moment, we are in stalker heaven. (And I'm wondering, now that I think about it, how the Witness Protection Program deals with this.)
** Both the other people in the country with the same first and last names are 1st cousins. No prize for guessing our grandfather's name.
On “Opinions on settings”
I'd be fine with boosting the link limit to something like 5. 10 definitely seems excessive -- if you have a burning need to share more, putting in multiple comments doesn't seem that much of a burden.
As for closing comments, I incline to something like 21 days. Anything over a month is just way too long. But 14 is a bit short.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
No question that climate change is criticality important. What it is not is an issue which will move votes. At this point, political campaigns simply cannot be about educating voters about things that the ought to care about. It has to be about getting them in side for the next election.
God willing, we will get back to a place where we can focus on educating voters. Rather than having to focus on saving the country. But we aren't there now.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
if one genuinely wanted to attack the problem one would go after the employers, who have much more to lose than the illegal immigrants.
Fact is, nobody has done it. It's now peculiar to Trunp & Co., so it's not just about Trump being a big empliyer of illehals.
The law has been in place forever. But when I.C.E. (or its predecessors) make a raid on a workplace, somehow the employer never faces legal consequences. Even in cases where the employees really are illegally here (and not merely of the "wrong" racial or ethnic group).
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
"what justification is there for its presence anyway?"
At this point: inertia.
Half a century ago, when we were a big oil importer and the Saudis essentially controlled the price of oil worldwide, there were obvious economic reasons to be involved there. Plus, at that time, some humanitarian reasons to defend the only democracy in the region (Israel).
But now, we're a net oil exporter. We still import a lot, but on balance. And these days (yes, gradually over the intervening decades) Israel has ceased to be a shining example compared to its neighbors. Even though said neighbors are still pretty appalling.
In fact, from a domestic political perspective, the majority of American Jews are no longer solid Israel supporters. Netanyahu has made manifest for them just where Israel has descended to. All we need is a generation of politicians who don't personally remember the situation from 50-60 years ago.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it."
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn't have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
On “The Qatar that plays like butter”
Trump gets along with other authoritarians, but that’s no guarantee they are always going to be bff.
Trump is nobody's friend, for an instant let alone forever. An admirer, sure. But the instant there's an advantage to him, he'll throw anyone under the bus. There are, after all, plenty of other authoritarians to admire and try to emulate.
"
Trump cheerfully stokes Islamaphobia. But I doubt that he cares about the issue of religion, any religion, personally.
On the other hand, Qatar, like the Emirates and like Saudi Arabia, are totalitarian states. And Trump admires totalitarians, being a wannabe one himself. So he has no problem making deals with them. Any kind of deals -- doesn't matter if they're in the national interest or not, as long as they benefit him personally.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I'm sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it's all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it's all torn down, that's going to be problematic.
"
*what this tells me about the other side is that influential people on it are unconcerned with reality.*
I wonder about that. Is it that they are unconcerned with reality? Or are they (at least many of them) just as caught up in the alternate reality as any Faux News viewer?
Certainly there are some there who will ignore anything that looks like an inconvenient fact. Not to mention those who are simply delusional. But the (mis)information bubble there is both very real and very pervasive.
On “The Mother-in-law defense”
In elite liberal spaces
As so often, we wonder just what definition of "elite" is being used here.
On “Brought to you by your latest captain of industry”
And it has the huge merit that it will classify as elite a whole bunch of people that today's self-important elitists will be horrified to be classed with.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.