Footlong Follies

Been busy doing statistical analysis of something cautioned against via cliché, so this sausage platter has not received an awful lot of care. As if anyone could tell from contemporary news cycles…

• Legal lore has it that a moderately competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. A chain-store sub sandwich, however, requires more. It's possible that:
  • …smoked turkey and roast beef have qualified immunity, because there's no established statutory or judicial provision subjecting them to indictment for their discretionary condiments
  • …the US Attorney in question does not qualify as "moderately competent," so the legal lore doesn't apply
  • …this grand jury had exactly as much confidence in the rule of law as the US Attorney in question has expressed for the past few years on Faux News
  • …changes in culture have made the legal lore incorrect — ham sandwiches are generally beyond a contemporary grand jury's experience, due to the increasing prevalence of wraps and fancy variants like panini
  • …this grand jury did not find probable cause that the accused was doing anything other than providing free food to law-enforcement professionals
  • …the accused's intent was to return nonconforming merchandise to the sandwich store (that is just out of the picture in the photo in the linked article), and even this grand jury couldn't find probable cause otherwise
  • …someone on this grand jury was him/herself an immigrant, or perhaps the child of one, and persuasively whispered "Jim Crow" (or "Bull Connor"?) in the jury room
  • …the accused is or is related to a veteran and this grand jury had had enough
  • …this was a hammer in search of a nail, unable to find K Street on a map (further impaired by general reliance on dubious "GPS turn-by-turn directions")
• At least Denmark understands that books need to be just a little bit cheaper without further reducing authors' compensation while enriching noncreative distributors — like streaming has done for composers/songwriters/performers — without the corollary.
• Every so often, it's worthwhile reminding enthusiastic bookbanners that they need to, at minimum, carefully and closely read what they wish banned for themselves. Even when it's a notorious "forgery" (better description would be "propaganda sponsored by the Security Detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs"). Of course, actually reading goes very much against the mindset of the enthusiastic bookbanner, so perhaps I'm asking too much. I'd definitely be asking too much of the educational hierarchy in Oklahoma.
• We could just worry about government lies from the perspective of a government official. We'll just carefully forget to consider that (a) those lessons came at the hands of the party that individual is now representing, (b) that the lies were in the service of much the same policy imperatives that individual has supported (and continues to do so), (c) that individual didn't live through Vietnam and Watergate, so he has no concept of gambling occurring in Rick's casino, (d) that those clamoring to get into government (whether officeholders or challengers) don't have a better track record — including that individual, (e) that contemporaneous models for multiple-choice exams disfavor more than four choices.

Gov Mander's Territory

Gerrymandering is once again a thing. These battles between unaccountable gatekeepers — the elected legislators who pass the bills are almost never those who actually draw maps; instead, it's a combination of outside hired guns who lie about their actual purposes and "senior party leadership" seldom in elective office — demonstrate utter ignorance about, invidious stereotyping of, and contempt for voters.

Voters and districts do not belong to elected officials. Elected officials belong to the voters.

A distressingly-large, even dominant, aspect of gerrymandering is a result of continuing to apply eighteenth-century social concepts to even the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first. During the eighteenth century, "born, lived, and died within 25 miles of point X" was the default; by the time the Voting Rights Act was passed more than half a century ago, it described only a minority, and today that minority is even smaller. During the eighteenth century, for those who "worked," the "workplace" was within two miles of the "residence" for well over 99% of the population; by the time of the VRA it was somewhere between 40 and 60% (depending upon the definition of "worked" and of the "workplace"), and today — even with the COVID remote-work-from-home disruption — it's probably less than 25%. Education, court appearances, government offices, libraries, shopping for both necessities and discretionary/luxury goods, internet access itself… the list goes on. And it's going to continue to change.

I therefore suggest, in an effort to prevent the legislators of America from being a burden on their voters or country, and for making them beneficial and responsive to the Public, that we minimize use of maps at all.¹ This modest proposal is to eliminate "first past the post" elections in all federally-established multimember electoral allocations and in as many others as possible, and instead use a combination of proportional representation and ranked-choice voting. Regardless of the exact mechanisms chosen, this would ultimately show far greater respect for the voter who, say, lives on the north side of Austin, Texas, but commutes to school/a job on the south side of San Antonio, or vice versa; or Baltimore and DC. Even more relevantly, consider other pairings like Naperville and Chicago, Redmond and Seattle, San Mateo and San Francisco — all of which represent a far-more-common circumstance than two major nationally-known cities whose centers are only an hour's drive apart (traffic permitting!).² The map is not the territory, and it's long past time that we actually acted like it — especially regarding elections, when many of the relevant boundaries have drawn themselves through behavior decades or more after being put in place by all-too-often marginally-literate sailors.

Of course, this is merely a "modest proposal": The probability of it even being taken seriously by people who have obtained power based upon electoral maps asymptotically approaches that of the current Administration nominating any current law professor at Columbia to any Supreme Court vacancy opening before the end of this year.³

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1. "Eliminate" would be even better, but there are multiple Constitutional problems with that, beginning with the fiction of "states." Rigid federalism is all well and good until somewhat gets hurt by the fights on the playground, like a little over a century and a half back… This particular modest proposal requires only statutory change, because the power of internal allocation is in fact committed to the states. See U.S. Const. Art. I § 4; cf. also Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (declaring a federal right to voting equality within a state, but ultimately after remand deferring to state determination of methodology and division except when the methodology or division implicates another established federal right).
2. I'm afraid that the voter who lives in Kansas City, Kansas and commutes to Kansas City, Missouri; or lives in New Jersey and commutes to New York City or Philadelphia; or lives in Vancouver and commutes to Oregon — that is, has substantial personal and community connections to multiple states simultaneously — is SOL under the Constitution as it stands. Of course, voters who live in New Jersey are SOL for a lot of other reasons, albeit not nearly so compellingly as those who live in Illinois (let alone Cook County)…
3. With all due respect — no, with virtually no respect whatsoever: Bite me, Senator McConnell. Better yet, read both your oath of office and U.S. Const. Art. II § 2 cl. 2, and consider that they refer to the body as a whole and not any subpart thereof.

Leaving Aside the Illegality…

…as in this fairly clear restriction that's a century and a half old…

• …the Orange Menace — or, more probably, some ineligible for the death penalty insiders — has determined to mobilize the National Guard, turning them from civilians to soldiers, to patrol for crime in DC without adequately determining their objective. Since I can't stop him/them from doing so, in the best traditions of military strategy all I can do is suggest an appropriate target for those patrols — a part of DC with rampant crime that the local authorities have shown neither capability nor interest in controlling. The initial target for an appropriately surgical strike against rampant crime is actually quite close to the White House, thereby presenting a cognizable threat and further justifying use of national-security assets in protecting against it: The stretch of US Highway 29 between 9th Street and 21st Street.

  K Street.

  Some offender-profiling efforts are probably appropriate. Channeling Jessica Williams for a moment, from a classic Daily Show piece that is mysteriously not available for free/easy streaming, profiling should extend to

  [P]eople you suspect of being white-collar criminals. You know, walking around in tailored suits, slicked-back hair, always needing sunscreen if you know what I'm saying.… Look, I know this isn't comfortable, but if you don't want to be associated with white-collar crime, maybe you shouldn't dress that way.… [I]t is a hard fact that white-collar crime is disproportionately committed by people who fit a certain profile. So if you are, say, [a] white, Upper East Side billionaire with ties to the financial community like Michael Bloomberg, you've just got to accept being roughed up by the police every once in a while.

  Further, such targeting would arguably evade the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act, as it's hard to envision a greater threat to public order than influence-peddling and bribery (however mischaracterized as "lobbying," "public relations," and/or "petitioning the legislature or executive") a few hundred meters from the seat of government. It would certainly be more excusable than use of military assets to prosecute the entirely-civilian-law-enforcement War on Drugs, and probably more effective too (even when being undermined by other military "mission priorities" with all too similar policy rationales).

• Unfortunately, the US is far from the only source of such problems, chafing at process restrictions on doing what… a certain element… is utterly convinced is not just advisable, but a policy imperative. Sadly, this unsigned editorial at The Guardian is far too genteel in responding to attacks on the European convention on human rights — a convention that goes not nearly far enough, set against the backdrop of not just occasional but default governmental conduct across the continent not so very long ago. Orwell was right: The object of power is power. Attacks on the ECHR Over There, and parallel attacks on "civil rights" Over Here, are not about the merits of policies that are being "impaired," but about restrictions on might equalling right.
• Maybe we'd all be better off if we just relied only on science to set policy. Or maybe not, given that the same sort of people are also trying to influence "science" — or, at least, publishing about it. The courts certainly haven't done anything about it (citations to parallel US difficulties too numerous for a blawg entry, very much starting at the top).
• At that, neither Europe nor the US is as enthusiastic about things as the PRC.

  At least, not quite yet.

Imperfections

Things are slowly returning to normal in the Sharknest, which reflects a rather disturbing linguistic slippage of "normal."

• Professor Sarat muses on the propriety of jail terms, using as examples two… apparent sociopaths. Professor Sarat is well known for his opposition to the death penalty — an opposition that I share because, having been inside the machinery short of and including death, I will not tinker with the machinery of death — which is all well and good. This short piece, however, fails to acknowledge two brontosaurii in the room, both of which are busy trampling the greenery (and leaving herbivore droppings everywhere).

  First, and perhaps most obvious, the purple and orange-striped beast: If not prison, what? Does that alternative do a better job with "punishment" than does prison, is it equally (or more) administrable, and is it equally (or more) ethically acceptable in a context of imperfect human imposition of punishment? (That the death penalty fails all three of these inquiries is not coincidental.) This is the argumentation problem underlying most attacks on public institutions: There's seldom equally-rigorous consideration of potential substitutes — not even when the substitute is "we don't need it at all!" Life and policy and society are not binary Oxford-style debates…

  Second, a bit better camouflaged, the mottled green-and-grey-and-brown beast: What is the objective of imposing adverse consequences upon those convicted of criminal offenses (leaving aside, for the moment, those guilty but not convicted or pardoned for no good reason)? If that objective is not uniform, how do we tailor what we do without undermining "adverse consequences for getting convicted of criminal offenses," especially when we've got imperfect humans involved in the "convictions"? (Don't even think about proposing hallucinating "artifical intelligence" as an alternative…) Whether under the classic "four distinct purposes" model underlying "modern" criminal jurisprudence or another rubric, the individual psychology of the offender inevitably would destroy uniformity, even coherence — and that's no way to win a struggle.

• In an entirely expected result of the initial hearing, the Army demonstrated that it cannot be trusted with aviation anywhere near civilian aircraft. Even moreso when Army aviation standards and culture are such that they can't tell when they are near civilian aircraft.

  This is, in part, a problem with training methods. "Local area familiarization" should largely be handled through intense simulator sessions, especially when that interfaces with "daily life that isn't about the Army." That will not eliminate the need for at least some actual flights, but it should vastly reduce them — to the point at which they can be scheduled and routed to avoid "daily life" or, as in this instance, "needless death." The incentives for doing so, however, are minimized by both historical and cultural pressures, especially within the Army aviation community. (BTW, don't think the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy are off the hook here — just ask any resident of the southern end of Whidbey Island, including the orcas, about that! Their pressures are different in detail and extent, albeit not in kind.)

• On this blawg, my few persistent readers have probably noticed over time that I try to apply scientific standards where they fit. (They don't fit in evaluating individual works in the arts…) But what are they? Is a free spirit of inquiry enough, or does it require something more? Do standards require adjustment, or is the problem not with the standards imposed on science but the standards imposed on scientists and their careers? Can I write a bunch of obvious rhetorical questions?
• It's not limited to "the sciences," either. History professors have similar problems, reinforced by watching government officials fall off the edge of the world (which is nonetheless round — eppur si muove, figli di puttana) based on fundamentally inaccurate and dishonest data collection (that doesn't even meet any need of the organization collecting the data).

Eminences Grís

These fat bangers are well past the expiration dates on their labels.

• It's always amusing (and almost always disheartening) to watch thinly-disguised partisan-but-self-interested cheerleading, especially regarding elections more than a year out, from the perspective of the "opposition" party. Right now, that amusement is primarily concerning the Jackasses (although locally it concerns the Heffalumps) — especially the refusal to engage with fundamental factors, instead focusing on minutiae. It's fascinating to see "analysis" of Mamdani's primary victory and successful candidates' obsession with "image" that won't engage with the primary problem both parties have: The widespread near-senility of party gatekeepers and candidates. Unless and until the party mechanisms agree that "retirement age means from elective office, too," we're going to have these problems — and that's not happening any time soon, as internal advancement to "gatekeeper" status, not to mention "party consensus candidate" status, is almost entirely by seniority. (And I'm saying this as well within that "retirement age" demographic.)

  Militaries are frequently, and rightly, criticized for being prepared to fight the last war, and for selecting leadership from those successful in the war before that. Even out here in a state so blue it looks like a continuation of the ocean on a map, our "senior senator" is in her sixth term, is about a decade older than I am, and shows no sign whatsoever of stepping aside (which would require generation-skipping!). But nobody is making Castro-going-on-forever jokes about incumbents. Yet.

• This is also reflected within the arts community, especially regarding public access to the arts. Whether based on distribution of copies (even of "newer" acceptable forms of works) or nineteenth-century perspectives on "copying" applied to actually faithful (probable) copies, it's almost entirely being shaped by people too old to be innovative creators who can support themselves (let alone families). Even worse, most of those who control the arts aren't qualified to engage in them — often not even as amateurs and dilletantes.

  Lurking in the background remains the usual problem: cui bono? Certainly not anyone working in areas not already considered "mainstream" — and the demographics of that particular list of "nontraditional" means of trying to profit in the arts are cringeworthy at best. Nor, at the margins, are parallel problems that ignore "age".

…And It Was Still Hot

Hot for PNW, anyway, both today and two years ago. Right, Max?

🦉