Brought to You by the Letter V

…and the number 58,318 (presuming that site can be reached during the shutdown).

Both of which have been problematic. Vietnam is pretty obvious, but far from the only example; at present, the Orange Menace is working on Venezuala (without any reference to the past and how well that has worked out), carefully neglecting any mention of the Vatican and Wien (usually spelled "Vienna" in these parts, reinforcing the goofiness of English spelling — not to mention its cultural imperialism). What's next? Vilnius? Virginia? Almost no one is mentioning the most-menacing V word hanging over America at present, though; the Magician's Assistant Method of political change is working. At least until next season (and the exploding… anatomical structures previously measured in public).

The number isn't much better. None of them was the first casualty — that was any reliance on truth. The rest were just… falling dominoes after that first one. Any reflection on current American foreign policy memes is both entirely intentional and from a rather fractured mirror.

Meanwhile, in an equally-misguided effort, the Orange Menace is trying to save inbred, incapable-of-survival-in-the-wild turkeys by starkly reducing the ability of many Americans to buy them for Thanksgiving. Of course, this won't actually save any turkeys — they've all been raised for slaughter, and will just end up in the freezer for longer. The turkey farmers, given lower demand this year, will have less to look forward to in the future, too. So I guess celebrating "American Tradition" — however historically misguided — is reserved for trust-fund kids and techbros. But that's getting into the letter T, which is a future episode of this fine educational, public-oriented-but-entirely-privatized outlet (despite the efforts of the Secretary of Education).

A Really Cheap Costume

SATIRE

So Kim Davis is back at the Supreme Court, begging — yet again — to be allowed, as a government official, to practice a particular brand of bigotry "required" by her religious beliefs.¹ Davis and her fear of somehow "blessing" same-sex relationships actually casts a rather disturbing (perhaps kaleidoscopic) light on matters at the Department of Defense/War/ExcessiveViolence.²

The Secretary of D/W/EV has a serious problem with same-sex relationships. This is at least a partial explanation for his firing of female officers in command positions, because — especially in the Navy — those officers are/have been engaging in same-sex intimate relationships… with the vessels they captained. Any marginally-attentive commander of a vessel afloat is in an intimate relationship with that vessel, and often characterized as "married" to that vessel. Since in English a vessel afloat is rigidly assigned a feminine gender — despite the formalized absence of "gender" in English grammar, referring to a vessel afloat as "it" or "he" will not make you any friends among its crew or the maritime community at large — that means these female officers were married to other females. We can't have that, and the ships are going to remain "she" for the forseeable future. Therefore, those female officers need to be forced out, before they endanger their souls with sin.

On further thought, though, maybe not. Maybe one or more of those vessels is gender-fluid, or even male-identifying transgender. Then, the female captain would not be married to a female. But I'm not sure that's better within this religious viewpoint, and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" seems both inappropriate and futile for treating the USS Shiloh as, well, a guy — just so a female marital partner is religiously acceptable. We certainly wouldn't want guided-missile cruisers being too butch and wearing pants all the time,³ and "women in combat boots" doesn't resemble "women in comfortable shoes" all that closely. Unfortunately, DOGE and the Shutdown are together preventing me from consulting with the Directorates of Euphemisms and of Naval Research for more (in)appropriate circumlocutions.

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1. Cf., e.g., Jennifer Nelson, The Role the Dutch Reformed Church Played in the Rise and Fall of Apartheid, 2 J. Hate Stud. 63 (2003) (PDF). n.b. The author grew up under apartheid. She would now be entitled to preferential treatment in immigration matters.
2. The official, Congressionally-approved name, as is required for all executive departments (and certainly for those exercising an enumerated power); the name the current Administration would like it to have, for Reasons; and, based on what has been happening of late, its current conduct. Of course, the military members who actually pulled those triggers will assert the traditional defense: Dienst ist [sic] Dienst. Cf., e.g., Maj M. Keoni Medici & Maj Joshua P. Scheel, Training the Defense of Superior Orders: Honoring the Legacy of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg After 75 Years, 2020 Army Lawyer #6 (unpag.).
3. If all of this seems ridiculous — including, and perhaps especially, the footnotes — that's how satire works. Oh, darn, I've revealed my hidden agenda. In the last footnote.

You Can't Fight in Here

This is the War Room! (even if it does look more like a press conference).

• This previously-unreleased video of Congressional hearings on the budget/shutdown negotiations is probably unduly generous, as the participants depicted here seem to be actually communicating, with an objective directly relating to their conduct. In their own way.

  That's certainly more than I can say for knee-jerk "government is best that governs least" bullshit. These morons were elected to govern (for some value of "elected" that doesn't bear too close, and possibly even cursory, scrutiny). If it were all privatized and they were at-will employees, they would have been fired by mid-March — with maybe as many as two dozen exceptions out of 538. Or maybe they just don't understand what a "mandate" is: Later achievement of a bare majority — however achieved — does not create an entitlement to a later-election quasilegislative veto over prior Congressional action. If you want to reverse something, follow the legislative process and reverse it. (If you actually have the "mandate" that you claim you do, this should be easy — or at least achievable.) Which means more committee meetings like this one in the current environment.

  Meanwhile, these morons are forgetting that the shutdown of SNAP will, if it goes on for more than a couple of days or so, impact the all-American celebration of Thanksgiving at the end of the month. (Admittedly, only for the Great Unwashed.) Of course, that assumes that any of these morons have any clue about "advance preparation time" for a major family dinner, since they've generally "delegated" that to either unpaid spouses or barely-minimum-wage staff/restaurant employees. <SARCASM> Never mind, it's just the underclass who don't matter to "Real Americans" (specifically including Joe the Plumber). We'll just find some foreign war of ill-defined objective to send them off to as cannon fodder, and then we won't have to worry about paying for it either. Maybe in Central and South America this time, since we can effectively send them by ship and won't need to have air traffic control facilities fully staffed. </SARCASM>

  Any implied relationship of this sausage to "failures of so-called AI systems when confronted with the truly unexpected" is probably intentional.

• We can, however, be pretty certain that none of the Congressional negotiators (those depicted — and not) were "gifted children" — whether identified that way or not. That entire debate presumes that an educational establishment that itself includes no (or almost no) "gifted children" can identify the "gifted" without sneering, Othering, bullying, directed at those so identified; that the implied locksteppish meme in the alternative actually makes sense for the individuals involved (that is, that "natural and ordinary variation" is less than or equal to "variation in educational methodology allowed"); and that the implied production-line educational method works in the first place, especially once one recognizes that not all post-public-education jobs are just good factory jobs (like the participants in those hearings in the previous sausage).
• One wonders, too, how effective unpaid FBI employees will be at further searches for Jimmy Hoffa in the records from decades back. Hey, maybe that points to the problem: It's not Jimmy Hoffa buried in (now-torn-down) Giants Stadium, but the relevant records that would have revealed where he "really is." Not to mention "who put him there" and "who, in turn, had a vested interest in the whole mess."
• At least at some time those FBI employees were paid a living wage — unlike the average/far too commonly artists (and authors, musicians…). Oh, wait, so many of those artists were "gifted" that there just might be some implications elsewhere on the platter about "productional-line-like educational systems not encouraging consideration of potential long-term consequences, especially to Someone Else"…
• My prescription for the headaches caused by the foregoing: Take two Tylenol and call your doctor in the morning. That's two "regular-strength," not "extra-strength," which would probably accelerate any liver damage. In turn, that reveals some disturbing (arguably misplaced) priorities about "pain relief" in the pharmaceutical and medical establishment for the last century and a half. Presuming, that is, that we can overcome the lasting effects of fluoridation, Mandrake. Unfortunately, during the shutdown, "the information on this [government] website may not be up to date".

Tiptoe Through the Tulip Bulbs

I'm shocked — shocked, I say — to hear that cryptobros lost a lot of money on a major downturn. Now all we need is some hungry sailor to eat some cryptobro's SIM card…

• Saturday afternoon was mildly nostalgic; very few people on the monorail understood why I mentioned "burning draft cards." (My hat — my last active-duty BDU hat, with an exceptionally obscure unit designator and subdued grade insignia — might not have helped.) Not surprisingly, the current Speaker alleged that the demonstrations were Marxist. I'm very much afraid that he knows no history regarding demonstrations, either in his lifetime or not quite a century past — or just how (in)correct the central authorities' kneejerk accusations of "Marxist control" proved then, either. Perhaps, though, he's been impaired of late by poor choice of beverages (and additives), on advice of Secretary Brainworm.
• At least the No Kings protesters were noticed, even if they end up getting precisely as much substantive attention.
• I'm certainly not booking any Caribbean cruises from 12 December onward. OK, I'm not booking one at any time (just not my style), but you shouldn't then, either.
• It normally takes about a decade or so to remove the "carpetbagger" label from politicians when they significantly change their residences. That's perhaps the best explanation for the "at least a decade" prospective delay in seeking elective office proposed by this guy; if he moves to where he's most qualified to hold office right now — Illinois, as Governor (since despite the commutation he's still a convicted felon) — he'll have a couple years to practice on the Cook County Council before the 2038 election cycle. He'd be breaking a campaign promise to run in 2034… oh, who am I kidding?
• With all due respect to the Chancellor of my undergraduate institution, I think he is making a mistake "engaging in dialogue" on some subjects; in this particular instance, it is all-but-formal negotiation with terrorists. That is not a winning strategy — especially when that terrorist organization has previously, and repeatedly, demonstrated that it will not in fact "engage in dialogue" but will instead seek further opportunities to propagandize based on at best out-of-context statements by those with whom it purports to communicate. Dialogue does note mean "provide further opportunities to make demands without actually listening to responses," nor "meaningless opportunity to try to explain reality to those whose minds are already made up on ideological (fact-free) grounds."

  In this, Chancellor Martin is at least being explicit that he's not agreeing to anything. Which is not at all to say that this terrorist organization won't mischaracterize "agreeing to sit at the table" as "agreement," whether tacit or explicit — because it will (which is one of the major reasons not to negotiate with terrorists). Anyone who doesn't perceive that organization, and particularly the militant wing of the IRA Department of Education, as a terrorist organization for these purposes is respectfully referred to Zillow to peruse valuations and financing options for purchase of several acres of waterfront property approximately 45km east of Mar-a-Lago.

• Meanwhile, PW continues to demonstrate its utter obliviousness with its annual list of "the world's largest publishers" that ignores at least three publishers with greater revenues than their #1. Oh, but those publishers don't sell to "the trade," so they don't count. That's sort of like ranking the biggest bookstores in the world and excluding the 'zon because they couldn't find it on a street map.

  The real point here is that this is far from an isolated instance when talking about "publishing": Virtually everyone — and absolutely all "publishing news outlets" — silently restrict their datasets to exclude things they just don't want to talk about. Or, more frequently, can't get paid to talk about… or have any present/recent conflict of interest talking about. That doesn't meet even the minimal standards of Faux News and the WSJ…

• All of the above really make me want to exercise my linguistic skills as acquired from the real experts: Senior NCOs.

If this platter — despite the current-events flavor profile of the individual sausages — somehow makes you nostalgic for the late 1960s, you need to brush up a bit on the full context of 1968. Perhaps you can ponder one of the gaping loopholes in the XXVth Amendment, too: There's no similar mechanism regarding cabinet members, only at most the President's own ability to fire them, and if we're thinking about XXV that's already in play otherwise…

I Blame the "Parents"

In a repulsive, inappropriate-for-purported-future-leaders, and nonetheless entirely unsurprising revelation (the fact of, not the timing of — the only potentially surprising part), the Heffalump "kids", who are primed to be future [Inner] Party leaders, have demonstrated appalling allegiance to bigotry in both reasoning and discourse. Worse yet, it's using the same insecure discussion method as their elders did just a few months ago. This leads to two rather distressing conclusions.

First, that it's really the "parents'" fault. Where, after all, did these kids learn all that potty-mouthed diatribe? Admittedly, they probably first heard it at recess in the schoolyard, and particularly while ganging up on the nerds and geeks and nonconformists and just generally Others. But it became acceptable language in conversation — and concepts for conversation — around the dinner table, where they heard grandma saying the same thing (in slightly elevated language) with agreement — tacit or otherwise — from all of the other "adults." Or, at minimum, the other adults who were participating in the conversation, even passively, at the [Inner] Party's "adult" table. You know, the one that the kids feeling a sense of impending power and adulthood gravitate toward at holiday dinners, instead of hanging around with their siblings and cousins at the less-cool-and-less-entitled table.

Naturally, this calls the fitness of the "parents" into question. Or, rather, it would if their unfitness (and sheer stupidity) had not been definitively demonstrated. One can only wonder what other wonderful bon mots are being exchanged away from Signal among those kids. Or between those kids and their parents. Or among those parents.

Second, and perhaps more distressingly for the future of the nation (and for any future of conversation about it), there's the demonstrated inability of these kids to learn from their parents' undoubted errors. <SARCASM> After all, future electability is a helluva lot more important than mere national security and needless potential deaths, so they should have learned that a group chat invites someone to later release a partial/edited/whatever transcript. It doesn't matter whether it's a relatively secure system like Signal or the dubious protection of "private" social-media groups: It's gonna happen. </SARCASM> But even more than the too-much-later revelation of unelectable venomous spewing:^† Why was no one stopping to think about the potential consequences of what they were saying, however firmly believed it was? Isn't their (the kids or the parents) constant diatribe against "wokeness" pretty solid evidence that consequences exist for "inappropriate" Othering? Even when that "inappropriateness" is the funhouse-mirror post hoc rationalization that it's "inappropriate" to call out perceived racism and its perceived related consequences (which, after all, hurts the feelings of those who benefit — however subtly, however indirectly, however unconsciously — from those consequences)?

The reason for (potentially, maybe) excusing, or at least minimizing, "mistakes" made by the kids is that they're supposed to learn from those mistakes. And grow up. On all evidence, at least in this "family" they do neither. Apparently, the "sticks and stones" theory of electoral politics continues to hold considerable weight. Except, that is, when wielded against one's opponents in a startlingly self-unaware demonstration of what can best be called "group sociopathy." Or, perhaps, we're just supposed to expect our government to look like a stereotypical frat house, now and in the future.

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†  Of course, this would have required these ignoramuses to actually want to, and do, some real research. To actually use education beyond that necessary to live in a company town, dig coal, and die of black-lung disease, or hold a good factory job (perhaps running a high-output loom), or fulfill the (conscripted) "warrior ethos" now so desireable. Or, for that matter, even follow down to this footnote, let alone consider any of the sources cited herein — or, that at least in this footnote, those sources that don't require them to read anything (not coincidentally, all of them). Not even just in English.

Unavoidably Delayed

Unscheduled tech challenges delayed this platter of link sausages. Don't worry, though: With modern preservative techniques, they're just as fresh and wholesome as they ever were. Admittedly that's "not very much," but at least I'm not charging more for any extra ingredients.

• Censorship pisses me off. It doesn't matter whether it's general "think of the children's morals" bullshit (all too often originating with truly upstanding "community leaders"), or just harassment of academics who (peacefully) undermine Establishment narratives (presuming he makes it out). Not so ironically, but rather predictably, many of the prospective censors haven't actually read the books themselves, and just don't get that with many entertainers, "It's an act, lady!" Hell, they're doing better in Blighty.

  Dammit, the entire point of "freedom of speech," and in general of "representative democracy," is that you just might learn something if you hear from — and more particularly listen to — people whose viewpoints vary from yours. It's rather interesting how few of those advocating censorship (and restrictive visions of "morality") have, or have had, those "good factory jobs" on which some want American education to focus (entirely unlike this guy, of course). What that implies about limiting education and libraries and bookstores and music to unchallenging, preapproved pablum is not very favorable; but you'd have to hear it first…

• …which won't happen anywhere near the Pentagon if Major Major Major gets his druthers. Fortunately, it appears that at least some media outlets give at least lip service to their constitutional role over their financial advantage. Right now, that is; we'll see in three to six months, won't we? Not at FEMA, though. Or the Department of Justice. And maybe Blighty has similar problems, so I'm rescinding the faint praise buried in the preceding sausage's ingredient list (right after sodium erythrobate), unlimited surveillance being the flip side of supressing journalistic "oversight."
• How about something a little cheerier? (Uhoh — when he says something like that it's usually anything but.) Consider the social advances that might be made by "AI"-based inventions and patents — at least while they're not hallucinating — and in music, especially the quasiindustrial kind.
• Meanwhile, musicians and authors continue to be underpaid as gamblers unqualified to either perform music or write books end up making all of the critical decisions about which ones to distribute and how to promote them. Not to mention that pay scale in the first place; it simply would not do for expectations of prosperity, or even bland middle-class comfort, of actual practitioners in the arts to take any profit-making potential away from trust-fund kids and techbros riding their luck as if it reflects actual merit, or enhances their private collections of objects in a way reminiscent of formalized magic.
• All of which is substantially less disturbing — at least to nerds like me, of whom there appear to relatively few (perhaps for the best) — than rows over the pending (purported) "Restatement of Copyright" that blithely ignores that at least in the US, we already have a Restatement of Copyright. For all its flaws, the Nimmer treatise is treated almost exactly like a Restatement, quite similarly to other (flawed!) Restatements like Conflicts of Law and Torts. Of course, the "guiding members" of the committee pushing the Restatement and I have had our disagreements in the past, especially regarding misuse of mislabelled, cherry-picked evidence to support a predisposition. It's even been in public, more than once. So I'm not precisely the most disinterested, neutral evaluator of this ALI effort; just because I believe many of its precepts and interpretations are so wrong that they're unworthy of being adopted by the ALI doesn't mean you should believe me uncritically. Which rather brings this ring of link sausages back to the first one, doesn't it?

Another Eye

…for another eye

'til everyone is blind

— Tommy Sands, "There Were Roses" (c. 1985)

I'll just cringe as they gouge a few more eyes in the Levant — a region far more volatile (and historically gefickt) than Northern Ireland — on the second anniversary of an atrocity. Remember (or, in practice, forget) that "Never Again" is meaningless unless it applies to everyone, else one ends up with purity tests for who is AmericanJewish enough to be entitled to take a turn as the bully. That the abused have a strong predisposition to become abusers themselves is at most an explanation — not an excuse, or even a particularly noncringeworthy rationalization. Of course, Mr Sands himself recognized this all too well…

<SARCASM> All that matters is protecting the right grandchildren. None of the others deserve the same consideration. It's not like that neglect encourages anyone else. </SARCASM> If that's too woke for you: The opposite of woke is not righteous anger but coma.

Of course, I could make much more inflammatory comments here. I could describe the responsibility of European elites for the inevitability of this particular situation, through their own maneuverings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without regard to more than two millenia of history (with footnotes). I could note the sub rosa need for more and more territory… by everyone involved. I could note the uniform history of theocracies creating Torquemadas — and, worse yet, post hoc rationalizations therefore (and even veneration of) — and nod at every government within a thousand kilometers of Gaza, whether overtly or otherwise. But for today, I'll just question the company being kept — historical, logical, ethical. And express the almost-certainly-futile hope for some adult behavior in the Levant (generally absent since, oh, the start of recorded history).

Sublieutenant Ogilvy Reporting for Duty

Clean-shaven (however, no imported razor blades are authorized on base!). Definitely not fat or female. And probably not being led or trained by experienced flag officers (not always a bad thing — ask the ghosts of Ypres about the benefits of moving General Haig's drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin — but not an unalloyed good thing either).

Rated I-22: The intellectually- and/or humor-impaired are severely cautioned. This blawg entry contains scenes of intense satirical content and sarcasm, and may be inappropriate for sociopaths struggling with feelings of inferiority. If you're upset that this warning only followed the opening credits, too bad — you're here anyway, might as well finish.

• Here in true-Blue Seattle, we're getting ready to resist any potential deployment of military force (after it finishes off Portland's miscreants, but they might deserve it…). I was unable to record the session I observed last week, but here's a representative example of using Native American ordnance under demonstration conditions just west of downtown.

  Of course, after forty years of the both-parties imperative for government to meet marketplace standards of "efficiency" when the purpose of government is to operate where markets cannot, even in this liberal enclave, any deployed troops will not get to where they're "needed" because the roads are somewhere between falling apart and under emergency repair.

• There is, however, one group of extremely dangerous noncitizens against whom it would be appropriate — if, in the end, probably futile — to deploy military force: Libertarian crypto dragons.
• What, that's too unlikely (not to mention too likely to include supporters of the current Administration)? Maybe the Administration should consider attacking H'wood, and specifically actors who can't show they're authorized to work in the US, and have no long-form birth certificate.

  Ms Shoard's piece rather misses the point, however. AI actors can't join unions like SAG. They won't demand residuals. They won't skip out on soul-eating publicity tours. They won't rebel against studio standards concerning "discreditable lifestyles" (at least not until being hosted on a Mac gets the opprobrium it deserves). They won't marry renowned human rights lawyers on the way to becoming "second-rate movie star[s] and failed political pundit[s]" (and probably can't be directors or scriptwriters, either — at least not without substantial… reprogramming). They won't be employees requiring constant supervision. Plus, plastic surgeons aren't the most-vehemently-pro-MAGA segment of the medical profession, so who cares if they lose customers?

• Wait a moment. The government is in shutdown. Shouldn't that mean we don't have to listen to any government official (or wannabes) for a while? That would make a government shutdown a good thing… Meanwhile, the "deficit hawks" and "debtmongers" who are actually behind this shutdown are carefully not acknowledging that the shutdown will increase both borrowing costs and borrowing necessities to end it — thereby increasing both the deficit and the cost of servicing already-existing debt (and probably the cost of issuing new debt instruments, whether in support of new spending or to replace existing ones as they mature).
• At least I'm not busy undermining American commercial music. Today, anyway; I'm taking the day off, so I'll leave it to Ms Grimes and friends (even if they weren't as subversive as some of the vinyl I've got — still).

Oktoberfestwurst

Civilization ends at Quantico. Today.^†

• Speaking of obsessions with appearances (see also the note below), I suppose I should be happy that my appearance allows me to pass as an upstanding American of northwest-European ancestry. The contrast with some other people brings the world beyond Mayberry into a videographer's focus.
• One meme that continually annoys me is celebrities (of all kinds) misusing their platforms to spout bullshit, despite their best intentions (which are sometimes, but not always, good intentions). This all too often results from a passionate and personal interest not backed up by any study or exposure beyond their own personal experiences — an argument from authority, with the authority in question being celebrity and not expertise. Two current examples:
  • Jennifer Lawrence — a talented actor — went for the soundbite and missed when she proclaimed that Israel's atrocities in Gaza are "no less than genocide." They are certainly no less than atrocities; they are certainly no less indefensible. However, precisely because the stated target is a political opponent (however virulent and unjustified its positions are), the war crimes at issue are not technically genocide — which requires as its target an ethnoreligious identity.

    Ms Lawrence is right to be outraged. But words matter, especially when they're technical terms, especially near the eightieth anniversary of establishing their meaning — and consequences. That's not just for this instance, either: It's for the future.

  • Ms Lawrence's error is misuse of a technical term (encouraged, admittedly, by all-too-common misuse of that term in general discourse, often by those who should know better). This rather pales, however, next to a celebrity author accusing the actor who played the Mary Sue character in films of that author's most-famous work of "ignorance" for stating views closely aligned with that character — even if the subplot encompassing those views never made it on screen. Perhaps Ms Rowling's views have evolved since SPEW made its way onto the page a couple decades past. Perhaps there's a (private) incident or two in Ms Rowling's past that explain her feeling threatened by those whose gender identity does not match their at-birth genitalia (I feel no need to delve into it; many people have similar otherwise-unexplainable personal reactions, distinct from outright bigotry). But proclaiming that an actor with significant on-set and full-production exposure to the film industry — not to mention an education split between Oxford and the Ivy League — is "ignorant" about the full scope of, and personal rights concerning, those issues from the security of one's Scottish castle without disclosing any nonconclusory basis is more than a bit self-defeating. Or, at minimum, self-deceptive.

    If there's oblivious ignorance in this tiny teapot tempest, it's in the author's extension of unstated personal experiences or perceptions to universal declarations of (non)rights. Sadly, that's far too common a problem; the fundamental difficulty is that "civil rights" cannot be founded on whose turn it is to be the bully.

• On a slightly less obviously emotional controversy (but in the end equally so), consider the value of "a book," whether for outright piracy or to libraries. As to the latter, it appears that the publishers have learned at least a little bit since US v Apple, Inc. — they've done much better at hiding any price-fixing conspiracy from view, just as they have with "e-book royalties are 25% of net." Why yes, I am suggesting the (probable) existence of multiple loci of antitrust perfidy in commercial publishing.
• In a result remarkably similar to "dog bites mailcarrier," a study that appears to have adequate controls has concluded that anti-phishing training for employees doesn't work. What would work better is always reading e-mail as plain text, so that any mismatch between where a link says it's going and its actual address is immediately obvious; that, however, would conflict with sales-and-marketing memes and graphic design pushed elsewhere by many employers…
• I suppose we could just continue to obsess over the unfitness for purpose of tax systems and burdens. Yeah, that's absolutely going to involve fewer hidden agendas, conflicts of interest, ignorance, and bigotry in favor of inherited advantage of original position.

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†  The contrast here with the CINC is beside the point — he's a civilian. The real problem is that the height-and-weight standards (not official) are largely established with a view toward "proper military appearance" (and fit into existing vehicles/aircraft/vessels) and not to capability as a warrior. A 177cm man weighing in at 95kg is more than 10kg over the standard but suitable as a starting running back. This is just slightly off… as was being a rail-thin football player (the other football) at the other end of the scale. "Warrior ethos" my avulsed toenails.

The contrast with the slack/missing mental fitness standards must be left for another time.

Don't Touch That Remote!

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program platter. Unlike the local Sinclair-owned ABC station. Apparently, Sinclair has no decency.

• So, the military academies may accept the so-called "Classical Learning Test" as part of a candidate's admission package. Somehow, I suspect that text neglects some parts of an education in the Classical Age, so I'm not certain that will be fit for purpose. The academies already have lots of educational blindspots; I'm not sure that encouraging candidates to have even more fits the concept of a citizen-soldier-officer.
• I suppose nobody should be surprised given this Administration's hiring imperatives and screening of acceptable journalists. Not that I've ever seen either of those in action before… oh, wait…
• One might think the current Administration has been inspired by Disney — notwithstanding that Mr Kimmel was/is broadcast on a network subsidiary thereof, and that the current corporation isn't the actual creator. Put that together with largely illogical territorial restrictions and other overclaiming of copyright rights and… it all seems quite usual.^†
• Then there's the information-security-system version of a gun-nut slogan:

  Security systems don't spill secrets;

  People spill secrets.

  Schlage didn't produce an "insecure lock" when the resident left a spare key under the flower pot by the front door. Unfortunately, the packaging of passkey systems — and especially the use of "the cloud" and "automatic device synching" — practically suggests that the flowerpot really is the best place to leave your spare key…

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†  This is probably more about civil procedure (at least in the US) than it is about the true substantive rights at issue. Burdens and types of proof, remedies, and a variety of other considerations put an anvil sufficient to knock Wile E. Coyote into next week on the scales in favor of suing under, or at least including, a copyright-infringement theory. (Oops, wrong studio…)

Who Controls the Past Controls the Future

Forty years ago, an attempted "lone-actor" assassination of a politicoreligious leader — blamed upon an out-of-power political disorganized viewpoint with trappings of religious dissent — was less successful than the recent attack on Mr Kirk. The 1985 attack was followed by months of vicious, and yet at times almost randomized, suppression of all opposition, usually asserting that all opponents were ungodly and dangerous to the very fabric of society, invoking religious orthodoxy as the foundation for determining a viewpoint's (or individual's) merit. This included cancelling-although-they-didn't-call-it-that of a prominent comedian.

If you searched your memory, or even the 'net, for attempted assassinations in the US in 1985, you're probably wondering if I was riffing on New York City mafiosi or a cult in Oregon. I'm afraid you were looking in the wrong place entirely, at events not nearly as parallel. It was that "in the US" that let you down; my source material was a few thousand kilometers distant (N.B. despite the URL, this item is not paywalled).

Why yes, I am comparing the MAGA movement as epitomized by Turning Point to extremist theocrats whose justifications for particular doctrines rooted in bigotry shifted unpredictably between the archly political and sanctimoniously religious, depending upon rhetorical convenience of the moment more than anything else. This inherent tension between two clauses of the First Amendment — free exercise and sectarian nonestablishment — is one that the Founders were themselves too close to to recognize, and their rhetoric failed them. And us.^†

The true "Orwellian nightmare" alluded to in the quotation-title of this post is founded upon an intentional rhetorical device in the service of totalitarianism — the depersonalization built into Newspeak. Most of the time, people who quote 1984 actually misquote it by inserting personal pronouns: "He who controls…" This necessarily misses the point of Newspeak, which more than just reinforcing whatever present views the Party wished to present was about removing the ability to dissent by removing the individual: No individuals, therefore no individual thought, therefore no dissent. The irony that the only path toward understanding of the magnetism of the distressingly parallel religious nationalism of 1980s Iran and 2020s MAGA/Turning Point/hopefully-not-all-of-America requires rejecting Newspeak and embracing consideration of the individual at a fundamentalist (!) rhetorical level is definitely too far from mainstream discourse in the respective communities. They don't want anyone to even have the ability to express such dissent. And that's rather my point.

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† Perhaps the greatest irony — and one in distinct contrast to the "beliefs" of some prominent Founders — is that neither the language of the First Amendment nor the language of acceptable political discourse since acknowledges even the existence, let alone validity, of choosing the ultimate disentangling of politics and religion: Rejection of religion. With very rare exceptions, atheism and agnosticism are just as much a part of the American conversation as (in America's cramped perception, anyway) sex was to upper-middle-class Victorians — that is, let's not talk about the icky thing and maybe it'll go away.

The Blame Game

Since I like to think my emotional maturity is greater than eight-year-olds excusing their playground bullying by yelling "He started it!" — or having their gang members do so for them — I'm obviously unsuited for contemporary political discourse. That said, I am completely unsurprised by the utter bullshit in both rhetoric and other reactions surrounding Mr Kirk's untimely and inappropriate demise.

It was an assassination, and worse yet a private-actor-on-private-actor one. Therefore it was wrong. That Kirk engaged in hate speech, that his organization did so, continues to do so, and will do so long into the future is just as irrelevant as a "justification" for the atrocity of assassinating a non-government actor as Hamas engaged/engages/will engage in hate speech has as "justification" for the atrocity of the Israeli response to the people of Gaza in the last two years. Put another way: There is no number of wrongs n that makes a right — and that's especially so when we've got unaccountable private actors doing the counting… or identifying what is "right."

The FCC chair can go perform unnatural acts upon himself with a splintered 2x4 for his threats and overreaction to a less-than-fully-informed comedian's speculation about the accused assassin; so can management at ABC. Kimmel's remarks were inappropriate… and entirely expected in the current media environment. The FCC chair going medieval in response because those remarks could have been interpreted as attacking an ideological group that said chair needs to at least placate violates said chair's oath of office. Hint: Comedians tend toward indecency in their remarks; that Mr Arouet had to spend a significant part of his life in exile is sufficient "precedent" regarding government misconduct in response.

None of which is to excuse Kirk, Turning Point, bigotry, or resurrection of the Know-Nothings rebranded as "MAGA." <SARCASM> Of course, you should expect that reaction from this blawg; its author is an intellectual. </SARCASM> An intellectual who despises hate speech, holds those who rely upon it to advance their (seldom entirely disclosed) agendas and self-interests not just in but beneath contempt… and who, having been professionally concerned with the consequences of active and partisan suppression of hate speech for decades, believes that the medium- and long-term effects of suppressing hate speech are worse (more often than not). So, Mr Carr: It appears that you want to add an eighth word to the seven that a misguided Supreme Court said you can't say on radio — at least when it's applied to someone other than the speaker.

Neither is it to excuse Kimmel's poor word choice (at best, if one believes him that his remarks on antisocial media were out of context) or readiness to use precisely the same mechanism as Mr Kirk did routinely: Equation of a disagreeable (even irrational) belief on one issue with membership in an unsavoury group (especially when that unsavoury group is far less than unified). There's a difference between being utterly disgusted with views and viewpoints, and attempting to excuse execution for thoughtcrime.

I therefore sentence both Mr Kimmel and Mr Carr — and, once I track them down (and their parents), the decisionmaker(s) at ABC — to thirty minutes' detention after school, during which they will write "I will not try to be Pyotr Rachkovsky in public" on the whiteboard. Unaided by any generative-AI or cut-and-paste function. Spelling counts, although I'm not going to require proper Cyrillic rendering of that proper name. And that's the end of it — the cricket paddle will be used only for striking cricket balls.