A Different Drummer

Unfortunately, the spelling here is just about as good as Nigel's understanding of volume controls…

• Perhaps a prediction for the future: Brazilian ex-President convicted of plotting a coup. From all appearances, more than just plotting — however unsuccessful in execution. At least there was a trial…
• …which is more than some people get. Like this one. No joy here — his message was repulsive, and his public conduct and organization not much less so, but he was still a human being (and more to the point a civilian^†). As the entire point of a democratic-republican form of government is that it's supposed to operate by persuasion, assassinations of those who profess opposing viewpoints reflect something much darker, more insecure — even impotent. <SARCASM> It's worked so well in this country for suppressing opposing views in the past, hasn't it? </SARCASM>
• Meanwhile, the impending demise of the Department of Education will leave untouched an educational void right down the street, whether measured on some standardized test or otherwise. Maybe we can get him a good factory job, for much the same reasons as that first sausage on the platter implies…
• Ignore that e-mail from a Nigerian prince — or, perhaps, ponder its connection to the other sausages on this platter (looks like I forgot to separate the links before serving — again).

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†  That matters for Reasons. Even if one considers the current American "conversation" a manifestation of an ongoing civil war…

Ghost Peppers and Classic Rock

This platter gets overspiced rather rapidly, I'm afraid. I'm just trying to cover the faint odor of rot from the less-than-wholesome ingredients.

• The least-spicy sausages on this platter are the IP-flavored ones. These days, IP-flavored almost certainly involves something calling itself "artificial intelligence", especially when hoist by its (their?) own petard. Of course, one need not rely on advanced technology to find IP perfidy — mere humans can breathe deception, too.
• Senator Turtle thinks the present somewhat resembles the past, specifically the 1930s? No, really?

  Leaving aside that he's almost got first-hand memories of the 1930s,¹ and the obvious and parallel counterproductive tariff bullshit, and the overobvious aspirations to become Reichskanzler just down the street from him — not to mention familiarly-named right wingers in the news in Italy — consider "lifestyle" problems all too familiar to the 1930s (as invoked without specific identification in the musical seasoning of this sausage). One might also consider, on a similar basis that also ignored intertwined side issues,² whether "lifestyle" problems like this one are more than just "lifestyle" problems.

  I suppose I'm expected to be happy that Senator Turtle showed up to the party, however late he is. Unfortunately, he showed up while the paid-off-the-books-below-minimum-wage janitorial gig workers were cleaning up afterward. So, no, I'm not happy. You shouldn't be, either — not even with that gold-plated kazoo you snatched from the table on your way out.

• At least it wasn't a gavel being snatched from the table by rude guests. The fundamental contradiction of completely distrusting the ICC's ability or intent to engage in actual, careful consideration of facts as part of the rule of law, especially when compared to internal dissembling amongst and concerning a plethora of bad actors (and by that I mean the target institutions, not the individual grantees) and/or treating "appalled by atrocities in the Levant, regardless of who commits them" as necessarily meaning "antisemitic," appears beyond the understanding of anyone involved. Which should surprise precisely no one.

  The usual aphorism has things precisely backward: Sure, he's our bastard, but he's still a bastard (and therefore untrustworthy). Delving into that is the ICC's role — even, and perhaps especially, when it's inconsistent with immediate interests.

• Of course, the ICC seldom sticks its nose into mere civil rights when violations are short of death. Whitesheetingwashing that is a domestic issue. (Foreign source chosen with malice aforethought.)
• And then there are apologists who get things partway right (and then implicitly expect praise for their vision and forthrightness). The fundamental problem with both that opinion piece and attacks on the "university system" is that they are searching for "the soul" and "the purpose" in the singular. The entire point of bringing scholarly development, and education, and research (distinct from mere "publication"), and public service together into a university is that there isn't a singular soul, a singular means of advancing civilization — that not all problems are nails to be pounded into well-seasoned wood produced off-campus by less-prestigious craftspeople, meaning in turn that the toolbox needs to be smarter than a box of hammers. Professors Russell and Patterson do not demonstrate any familiarity whatsoever with laboratory- or field-based research in their piece, nor with the interface and implications of with "social and political issues" at the core of their concerns; engineering, healthcare, etc. are right out. This tunnel vision disserves both their rhetoric and their conclusion and reminds me very much of what happened last Friday in St. James's Library. Then, as they're both law professors, an underinclusive understanding of "research" is probably to be expected.

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1. Presuming that there's no dementia involved… which, because I've had no direct observation relevant to that, is only an assumption. "Good faith," "grasp of reality," and "actual intelligence as distinct from cleverness" are each another issue entirely.
2. Cf. my late client (and friend) Mr Ellison's contribution to a six-decade-old TV series, and the implications of attempting to apply "alternate history" models in reverse. Not to mention the costs involved no matter what. <SARCASM> But then, externalizing costs is a good thing, right? It supports higher stock prices, and thus higher executive salaries and bonuses! </SARCASM>

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.

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).

The Finger

Since the actual date that should be ascribed to the Declaration of Independence remains a bit uncertain — the date the Continental Congress approved it (02 or 03 July), the date it was sent to England, the date it was lost in England, the date that the second copy sent to England was actually received by the King (mid-October!) — I just choose to sort-of celebrate giving the King the finger. Probably one of the many fingers that will be blown off of hands during "casual" fireworks displays on Friday, which should be good and ripe by October. With some slight reformatting:

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States;
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world;
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent;
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury;
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences;
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies;
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments;
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Source: National Archives

•  •  •

Any consideration of contemporary "imperial/unitary executive" shenanigans (not limited to the current Administration) is left as an exercise for the student — in light of the collateral pledged in the very last clause, which has nothing whatsoever to do with inherited wealth and/or getting rich through "managing" other people's money.

The Moon in June

…being what I'd like to show current-Administration buffoons. They wouldn't look, though — that sounds too much like science. Oh, you thought I meant the other "moon"?

• About a month back, the Chicago Tribune demonstrated its conscious ignorance of history. It probably wasn't the reporter, who actually works for AP. There's actually only one word — ok, one acronym — that you really need to know to understand air-traffic control problems in the US: PATCO. The same complaints and problems from the 1970s have resurfaced now — overstressed controllers (and not nearly enough of them), unreliable and out-of-date equipment and communications, purported military training exercises planned without regard to, well, reality that impair traffic control (perhaps inevitable when groundpounders fly, especially off-base; a little interservice rivalry never hurt anyone, right?), a management attitude that the lowly employees don' know nuthin'…
• How 'bout a little more of that interservice rivalry? Perhaps pointed at this Administration's pretty-much-universal mishandling of military personnel, or maybe at just SecDef? I'd refer those undereducated blithering idiots to historical studies of which I'm aware bearing directly on "the meaning of 'warfighting' in conflicts without rigidly-defined front lines," but (a) that would mean they'd have to actually read them and (b) letting them handle that material would just create more opportunities for mishandling of classified information (notwithstanding that some of that material is at minimum overclassified). That last parenthetical reflects reinforcement of "civilian" ignorance and, thus, the classification itself causes grave damage to national security that can be specifically identified, but that's for another time… and might well itself be classified.

  Perhaps part of the problem is that those "warfighters" — like SecDef wants to portray himself — don't have a clue about what it takes to fight a war above company/single-vessel/single-flight level. Or to train for it, get to the battlefield, sustain operations for longer than a couple of gaming sessions, plan for all of the above, train for all of the above… The American Way of War is now, and has been since the late 19th century, to pin the opponent in place, degrade the opponent's logistics while building up friendly in-theater forces, and then overcome our own generally below-average top leadership with well-trained and well-motivated working-class cannon fodder deployed forces. It hasn't ever been about being a superior first-person-shooter player… especially considering that in the real world, you don't get a new life by restarting the game.

• Let's ponder something a little easier than "effective civilian control of the military by means other than Stalinist purges leading to Russian Roulette." Perhaps we could just ponder what constitutes antisemitism, or if we can't agree on that appropriate responses thereto. That latter failyuah to communicate reflects a more-fundamental failure: Not understanding that "Never Again!" means everyone; it means always. Objecting to what's going on in Gaza need not be "antisemitic" — maybe it's just "antiatrocity." (We just don't need to get into the technicalities — legal, sociopolitical, linguistic, propagandistic — among "genocide," "genecidal acts," "unlawful selection of targets for military force," or any of the other buzzwords; "atrocity" will do just fine, focusing on the act more than the rationale.) That some who are objecting to what's happening in Gaza really are, or at least are really expressing in the mode of, the antisemitic, doesn't mean everyone who objects is; "one," "some," even "most" is not all… and making that error is the very foundation of European antisemitism.
• It was bad enough when McCarthy et al. went after "the arts" with their witchhunts seeking to identify any of the fifty-seven card carrying communists in the Department of Defense. Now they're going after those who would respond (within the decade) to Sputnik (an undoubted Commie achievement!). Of course, this latter is perhaps inevitable when virtually no member of this Administration has even been in a laboratory in decades (and even that was probably a freshman-level survey course). Even history professors right across the river from disreputable, uncooperative private colleges like Hahvahd understand that. That said, one must wonder if there's a history of rejections from (various parts of) Hahvahd somehow at issue…
• Next it'll be the humanities faculties. Then, probably at "less prestigious" institutions that don't study "popular" fiction on the grounds that if the great unwashed like it, it must be easy and therefore unworthy, we'll see many of the mistakes in this screed — from which I dissent, and align myself with Voltaire (and, ultimately, Tolkein — however much I disagree with some aspects) and against John Crowe Ransom. The content revealed by "close reading" of the text while ignoring its context is somewhere between merely ignorant and actively misleading.

Don't Have to Live Like a Refugee

Warning: Some contents satirical. The humor- and/or intellectually-impaired are severely cautioned.

• Professor Tushnet describes a consumer-deception case involving claims that A and B were separate entities when they were in fact the same. This is disturbingly parallel to this morning's 9–0 Supreme Court decision (3 concurring opinions) regarding potential liability for wire fraud by deceptive identification of a "separate" minority-owned "subcontractor".
• I ran into some white refugees from South Africa this afternoon. They appeared fairly comfortable to me, although their name doesn't sound very "white." However, when I asked for any documentation concerning a risk of genocide, I got no response.
• At least they were refugees. This… individual from South Africa was not a refugee so much as a draft-dodger. That makes him a good fit for this Administration, with its occasional focus on the military accomplishments of others. At least it wasn't an attempt to rename Memorial Day, which would be a bit too much regarding a holiday originally about Union soldiers. (I tried to link to the VA's explanation, but as of this afternoon it's returning a 404 error…)
• When a newspaper long known for its hostility to "creatives" (notwithstanding the "new ownership") prints a page of "book recommendations" from one of its "content partners" filled with AI hallucinations, things are getting just a little bit too weird — and disturbing. It's not so much the "we were fooled by an AI hallucination" as "we did no review or factchecking whatsoever on something from a 'content partner' — nobody tears off and prints from a teletype any more, but we tried!" Then, of course, they blamed their own failure to follow journalistic standards on someone else. I guess I'll need to go elsewhere trying to find literary immortality, or even prestige — let alone a reading list likely to be available through the public library (which only actually acquires and circulates real books).
• Note to executives at Universal Music Group: It's not a good-faith effort to "resolve" a dispute or disagreement when you reject a claim that arose from your overt and intentional deception and violations of law. Those works couldn't have been "works made for hire"… unless they were by (a) employees within the scope of their duties, in which case I'd like to see the W2s you issued to them at the time, or (b) a freelancer's specifically commissioned work falling into one of nine categories, none of which can be mangled to include "phonorecordings" either at the time of the creation or now. Since it was after 01 Jan 1978, just declaring "work made for hire" in the contract was insufficient (and the transferee/recorded music industry's near half-century of refusing to acknowledge that 1909 Act precedents were statutorily overruled is not, I'm afraid, an AI hallucination).
• Sympathy to President Biden regarding his recent medical diagnosis… and a kick in the crotch for those attempting to turn it into continued criticism of Vice-President Harris and others for not "disclosing" this or any other "health challenge." WTAF? If they had, y'all would have screamed about violating Biden's medical privacy. We still wouldn't have had younger candidates in presumably better health… oh, wait, he's not exactly younger himself, is he?

  Everybody is entitled to a voice in democracy. Not everybody is entitled to be on the ballot. If your birth year appears in the "presently eligible to draw Social Security benefits" table (like mine does!), get off the ballot. Otherwise, events like this are inevitably accelerated, or at least more prevalent.

Vox Populi, Vox DEI

…until it appears to impinge upon someone's sense of entitlement. Then, it's NIMBY Time.

The ahistoricity of the anti-DEI movement is rather amusing to those of us with a really, really sick sense of humor. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a substantial portion of this nation's colonial history was as a destination for those who were disadvantaged by the lack of DEI in the Old Country (not just Europe, either). If one plots the regions of origin — especially England — of major immigration in the New World against religious preferences in those regions, things begin to get rather interesting. Consider, for a moment, the virtual lionization of the Puritan immigrants to what we now call New England… separately from witchcraft trials, which are usually treated in courses and books on American History as slightly quaint exceptions to the all-around goodness of the Protestant Work Ethic, and then ignored all the way through Executive Order 9066, after which the post hoc rationalizations shifted to "we've learned and wouldn't do that ever again." That last is rather a forlorn hope, I'm afraid.

The real problem with the anti-DEI movement is apparent in something all too visible when those proponents appear as talking heads: Irrational fear that DEI programs will adversely impact those very proponents by increasing competition for perceivedly-limited benefits to which they are entitled by virtue of their ancestry.¹ In this, it is parallel to NIMBYism ("Yes, we're all in favor of shelters affording treatment to drug addiction among the homeless, but not in my neighborhood"). The irony is that the most virulent NIMBYism I've directly observed is in the purportedly "liberal and therefore unAmerican" parts of Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle with the highest proportions of real-property-passed-down-through-inheritance.

Consider, too, that there's a mathematical presumption underlying the anti-DEI movement. That presumption is best illustrated not through cake-cutting but through slicing pies of varying sizes. The anti-DEI movement presumes that the proportionate share of slices must remain constant. Of course, this is inconsistent with American perceptions (especially, but not only, Manifest Destiny) because to be true, the overall size of the pie must either remain constant — therefore resulting in a measurable diminution in the amount of pie provided to those already sitting around the table — or, slightly less pessimistically, grow at a slower rate than the increase in the number of diners. One representation of the argument looks something like this:

{quantity of each slice n=6}

≟

{quantity of each slice for n>6 after growth of the pie by proportion p}

Whether the pie is "economic" or "job opportunities" or whatever, if the pie grows by 40% (p) and the number of diners grows by 33% (n), each diner gets more pie. In a Rawls-compliant universe, the greater quantity of pie on each plate (or, at least, not-diminished quantity of pie on each plate) is a satisfactory outcome… except against greed and in light of the endowment effect as applied to an entitlement to the share of the pie, rather than the quantity of pie on the plate.²

Even inside this illustration, there are several different assumptions that bear very little scrutiny, especially when considering a non-Rawls-compliant universe:

• That a "just society" requires, in at least a general sense, "fairness"
• That past performance does indeed predict future performance, meaning that we can readily predict both n and the overall size of the pie
• That entitlement to "scarce" outcomes/opportunities is valid (and sound)

And we'll just leave aside for the moment that the very worst sin that can be visited upon sons (to the third or fourth generation³) is "unfortunate/nonmajoritarian birth circumstances," ranging from economic class to race to place. Not for too long, though.

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1. Of course there are exceptions — but they are almost always exceptions traceable to a narrower view, and often a nonconsensus view, of not what the entitlements are but of to whom the entitlements must benefit to be valid. There's usually one "shock factor" in these exceptions that, on closer examination, operates as a distraction from other alignments.
2. I am carefully ignoring later health effects of weight gain from consuming too much pie at a sitting — but only because this metaphor is already somewhat overextended. This is about letting the entitled eat pie…
3. Compare, e.g., Deuteronomy 5:9 with Deuteronomy 24:16 in whatever translation you prefer. Of course I'm being subversive with those citations — and their fundamental conflict. That, however, is for some future discussion of the parts of the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) seldom acknowledged — such as that the entire parable makes sense if, and only if, one presumes that stereotypical views of "Samaritans," priests, and "Levites" (not to mention Jews) have been validated by consensus — are both factually correct and justified.

The Ministry of Silly Talks

Just to be excrutiatingly clear, this is not an April Fool's Day platter. I'm afraid that with the wackiness of both "the news" and "IP" of late, this disclaimer is all too necessary.

• Since last posting's screed, things have only gotten worse regarding what will no doubt be remembered — or, as personal (conflicts of) interests demand, excused, willfully ignored, and deflected — as Signalgate. Not to mention demonstrate the value of free publicity when someone misuses a product.

  For those who think this was a nothingburger, consider what the intelligence community thinks (or at least those who talk about it¹ say). According to the governing regulation and executive order,

  Information may be considered for classification only if its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the national security and it concerns one of the categories specified in section 1.4 of Reference (d):

  (1) Military plans, weapon systems, or operations

  Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information (29 Dec 2009) at ¶ 1(b) (emphasis added). Exact time and location of an employment of aerial weapon systems sure sounds like "operations" to this veteran… and that's probably the least egregious aspect of this fiasco.²

• One area that's not getting the attention it deserves, though, is Elizagate: The unlicensed, unauthorized use of willfully pirated text as "training material" for large-language-model-based systems. (Not that I'd know anything about this sort of thing.) Digging a little deeper, one discovers a rather disturbing self-contradiction in the "training model": It depends on treating all text as informationally equal; this is rather remarkable, given which of the publishing industries is the most profitable by virtually any measurement. The irony that the very best case for denigrating the expression per se in favor of the facts it expresses as fair use is precisely that sort of material³ is a bit much to tolerate in this environment.
• But that's less offensive, and certainly less important, than "divisive narratives" in museums. One must wonder if this museum on the Mall received the same sort of directive, especially given recent "immigration enforcement" actions. Oh, wait, no need to wonder at all, when the decision can be inferred as soon as one identifies the "judge".⁴
• That the Dear Leader has a family member who might be asked one of the interrogator's questions from the occasional "song of the day" is probably waaaaaaaaaaaaay too pointed an objection. Fortunately, I need not worry; too bad I know many who should/do. (Knowing one would be enough to rather ruin the day.)

 
 

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1. Those who bloviate about the details of "pending intelligence matters" almost never actually know those details; those who do know the details almost never bloviate.
2. Of course, if these idiots hadn't been trying to live up down to the dubious wisdom of applying business-metric analysis to national security, they would have had a fully trained executive officer (in the USAF sense; one who was already cleared for, and probably involved in, the planning) set up any meeting, whether in person or virtual. A competent executive officer would have directly reconfirmed the identities of all individuals in the group, and warned the authorized attendees not to add anyone else. But this group was — variably for each individual — too stupid, too overconfident, and/or too sociopathically narcissistic to even care. But that would have been inefficient…
3. <SARCASM> Far be it for me to point out that most of the source databases sucked in to LibG3n et al. disproportionately deemphasize these materials in favor of current commentary and especially works of fiction that directly impact the author's total earnings. Or that, ironically, when those repositories receive takedown demands, they'll disproportionately honor the ones from generally-controlled-circulation publishers of factual material (I have a couple decades' worth of data to support this — by no means all self-generated), and will take no steps to prevent prompt reposting of the removed material. </SARCASM>
4. Calling these individuals "judges" denigrates actual judges. They perform an important function, and at least a substantial proportion are even-handed and in good faith despite the biases built into the system; but they're not "judges," if only because the rules of evidence don't apply.

Recess Appointment

Well, that was both appalling and unsurprising: A couple days ago, middle-school bullies canned the skinny kid on TV, primarily for the "offenses" of being both insufficiently worshipful of those doing the canning and already under so much stress at home that he really couldn't do much in response.

It was appalling because they just didn't care about the impression left by doing their bullying in public, nor of the substance of the bullying. Let's not consider that there were no adults in the room at all, let alone any with the authority or ability to "redirect" matters. Neither should we consider that the skinny kid was already offering to hand over his lunch money, but attempted public humiliation was more important to the bullies than actually exploiting their extortion.

It was unsurprising because both of the guys doing the canning have histories of being bullies — one relying on his father's status to evade actual discipline, the other on advantages of a kind he later denied and then attacked as related to accommodations he considered unfair. "Unfair" like "demonstrates empathy for others (and Others)," like "upholds principle instead of personal advantage," like "uses an advanced degree in an area related to that advanced degree." (Their gang is all too similar.)

It's been half a century since I was putting up with this shit in middle school. The adults were just as ineffective (not to mention uncaring and themselves devoted to a slightly different manner of bullying) then. The stakes were, admittedly, somewhat lower…

From Rubashov's Cell

Earlier this week, we were only a couple minutes off (Eastern Standard Time) — and the treatment of former comrades is already all too consistent. Which should shed quite a bit of light on whether this has anything to do with "ideology" or "principle"… before it Snowballs too much, on the perhaps-inevitable slide toward Shostakovich's fate.

• There's been some rather bizarre and, at least cumulatively, disturbing news in the last couple months in and around publishing.¹ Perhaps the most obvious is yet another shoe dropping in the single-most-profitable area of publishing: for-profit restricted-focus academic journals. Nobody is looking at oligopolistic practices there, of course; and certainly not for stock photography frequently relied upon for cover images (sometimes with dire consequences due to rampant incompetence and deception regarding "permission" throughout publishing, but who's counting?). At least there wasn't outright forgery… this time; no guarantees concerning "AI-generated art" slipping in without proper attribution, though.
• That's less disturbing, though, than silent defaults for writers' drafts to be assimilated by the Borg a large-language model. This is, or should be, a big hint to anyone who handles confidential information — especially, but not only, lawyers: Cloud-Based Executables Are Not Your Friends. Or at least not your clients' friends. It's not going to be long at all before a FISA warrant issues (if I'm not already late with that).
• We don't blame you — you were only doing your job, Mr Parsons. Given this sort of effort, one wonders just how accurate the information making its way to the Inner Party upper-management MAGAts is going to be. Perhaps they'll end up tilting at the wrong windmills, despite their intent to blow them up.

  One also wonders if the real "deep state" actors are the self-righteous apparatchiks who keep ensuring ballots have only the same bad choices, I probably shouldn't say that as I just received my ballot in the mail this afternoon.

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1. Remember, there is no "publishing industry" — just the (multiple) bastard offspring of a three-century-long orgy among thirteen distinct industries.

The Way It Isn't

[Dr] Martin Luther King [Jr] Day was formally established as a federal holiday in the 80s, falling on the third Monday in January. This year, it happens to fall on 20 January — the first time it has been on Inauguration Day {ETC: of a new Administration}. So Dr King's commemoration coincides with… this. And this. And this. I think I'll have to shift to a new cliché-like aphorism, perhaps "the paper calling the snowflake white"; I can't very well use the old one, about cookware, as the hue is rather ironic (and they don't get irony — not even, perhaps especially, cast-iron[y] cookware).

• One area that is just not going to get an awful lot of public attention from the incoming Administration (not that past Administrations have done much more) is the region surrounding Mu5k's childhood home — before his adventures with a US immigration "system" that would have astounded Kafka with its arbitrariness and culture of secrecy. At least now, though, Leopold's ghosts are clanking loud enough to be heard; even slightly further afield.

  You can scream "America First!" all you like, guys. All you'll be doing is trying to deflect attention from nearly a century of America screaming exactly the opposite to the rest of the world — which, when it didn't believe it, at least heard it.

• Sometimes, by sticking to their "areas of competence," academic organizations can (often inadvertently) provide a window onto incompetence. In particular, the American Historical Association has condemned destruction not even of historical monuments, but of education and particularly teaching of history in Gaza. One should carefully note two things here: This statement is confining itself to present efforts by the theocratic government of Israel, and making no claims that can support even a conspiracy-theory-tinged claim of "antisemitism" — particularly since Palestinians are a semitic people, too; and the OP is unduly generous in saying "Historically (ha), the AHA has functioned as a moderate-to-conservative organization, often loath to weigh in on political matters." My past professional interactions indicate that "moderate-to-" has little support in the AHA's ahistorical — ha yourself! — silence on a broad range of adventures and the narratives arising therefrom, precisely because in a very McLuhanesque fashion, the historical narrative is the educational/scholarly/political positions because the historical narrative shapes and controls their scale and form.
• The AHA is far from the only "learned organization" with an undeserved reputation for true and neutral rigor; I'm a refugee from four others! Sometimes, those clubs for "experts" don't even try to be neutral (or rigorous); even more often, the hidden agendas are dangerous precisely because they're hidden, and all too often undermine or contradict that carefully-shaped reputation (for example, anyone who claims that the American Bar Association is "leftist" or "liberal" has never actually read the ethics rules it sponsors, let alone pondered the structures and silences).
• The less said about the "evolution" of gaming, the better. It's rather distressing that a pasttime based on a literature of the imagination, of difference, of above all turning failure to conform to expectations into a virtue, has been appropriated via the somewhat misnamed Lamarckian inheritance of political affiliation, of religion, of vice — and of virtue. Ironically, many of those who object to the place of outliers in character-based adventure gaming choose to ignore the vast variations built into character generation, themselves typically rolling a five for wisdom (yes, I still have my original-edition three-volume set and the heavily annotated copy of Chainmail needed in large spaces and outdoors; get over it). Snide remarks about how "wisdom" was/is all too often a proxy for "socialization aligned between sociopathy and extreme conformity" will have to wait for another time, especially when applied to the "original gamers" in and around Lake Geneva… and their corporate successors…
• Unfortunately, there's a common spicing on this platter: The power of (self-aggrandizing) narrative to overwhelm inconvenient, unfavorable-to-self-image/interest facts. The real problem with Mr Walther's piece is that he stops before closing the methodological loop. I'm sure there are some differences, somewhere, somehow, among Goebbels, Alex Jones, and organizations acting the same way — but those differences are not in methodology, and only marginally in viewpoint. Which is not to say that, historically, that sort of thing has been confined to the mislabelled "right wing"; it is only to say that the "right wing" is at present more obvious/oblivious about it.

  tl;dr "Good" and "evil" are seldom pure, no matter how they're presented for marketing purposes. Means used limit and shape the ends actually achieved; when those means rely upon deception…

Raising the DebtCaffeine Ceiling

I'll begin with the morning ritual: Coffee. Definitely not any brand or type advertised on American television — let alone the UK (foreshadowing seven years of fighting against demons while seriously undercaffeinated).

• Stealth branding efforts continue to be problematic, whether unopposed but later challenged or distinctive only to monolingual boors. But that's nowhere near as confusing as figuring out what conduct, or who, is actually regulated by copyright principles from afar.
• If there's an underlying theme to the preceding link, it's that being a special snowflake isn't good enough to evade generally-applicable, well-settled restrictions on overreaching bullying. Claiming that it's all the users' fault doesn't seem to be much more successful. Means used need to be consistent with ends desired, or one ends up subverting both — especially when the special snowflakes are the ones already in power, unable to tolerate any criticism whatsoever. It's neither "pro-democracy" nor "the rule of law" if what really matters is whether anyone who might object knows about it. (Yes, that's a hint for the incoming administration.)
• Throwing the bastards out is only the first step, of course. The Romanovs were bastards, but what followed was worse. Violent revolution followed by vengeance against those perceived/labelled as the former oppressors seldom makes it a decade without descending even farther — and especially so when religion is involved (just look two nations to the east… or at any of the neighbors to the southwest). (Yet another hint for the incoming administration.)
• That danger is perhaps more obvious with governments than with dominant business entities, whether in large or niche "markets." Indeed, "business as usual" can be even more repulsive in the niches, because blacklists are a lot more effective — and pervasive.

Caseless Link Sausages

Since I haven't finished what little holiday shopping I'll be engaging in, I'm not going to wrap these link sausages either.

• So the rich want to buy into nobility (semi$wall) despite the American prohibition on titles of nobility, do they? Well, that's certainly not the only benefit of an original position advantage. Nobel prizes appear to be directed that way, too. Not to mention the irony-free criticism of a "nepo baby" by another "nepo baby".
• That last note leads to a few musings on the meaning and strategy of President Biden's pardon of his son Hunter.

  First, let's clear something out of the way: So far as I can tell, President Biden did not criticize any action or decision of the judge(s), so the judicial faux outrage is unwarranted. What he instead was criticizing was misuse of prosecutorial discretion — and choosing to elevate these charges to criminal (instead of the ordinary assessment of civil penalties on both the tax and firearms charges) should raise eyebrows, because it certainly presents the appearance that a Drumpf appointee with a history of vindictiveness in his prior Drumpf appointment may have failed to consider the complete context. Anyone who tries to pretend that there's never any pressure on individual prosecution decisions coming from institutional loyalty concerns has never been there, or at least never had misgivings about a particular matter. Let alone any regrets.

  Second, consider the timeframe. This is both legally sophisticated and a slight error by President Biden and his advisors. What he has essentially done is cut off the ability of a new administration to continue prosecution on purportedly "new" charges that are similar to those already raised. It's not just that extending backward to 01 January 2014 includes the entire period during which Hunter Biden was on a Ukrainian board of directors; it's that it extends three years backward from 20 January 2017, slightly over three years — that is, the statute of limitations for federal offenses for all except RICO (four years), continuing conspiracies, and outright murder. In turn, that means that in order to get a subpoena, a newly-appointed special prosecutor is going to have to demonstrate probable cause that something over ten years old by the time Drumpf is in office (another, obscure evidentiary-value issue that would force a judge reviewing a warrant application to at least pause) remains not just relevant, but persuasive. It's a slight error because going back 11 years, instead of 10, would also have related to RICO charges (four years prior to the prior Drumpf Administration initiation — it's a bad argument, but one that can be made in camera with a straight face for political purposes). Of course, this analysis is coming from the outside, without any inside knowledge of what was actually being considered… but in light of some previous frustrations with statutes of limitations.

  Third, this is intimately connected to Drumpf's own past and future conduct regarding pardons. Past, in that he pardoned his brother-in-law (cousin-in-law?) and now proposes to appoint that convicted felon individual to an ambassadorship (for which he's manifestly unqualified, but that's a half-century tradition that crosses party boundaries, I'm afraid; at least it's only to France); how this differs from Biden pardoning his son will be a tale told by a fool, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. Future, in that criticism of Biden for pardoning his son as a white-collar criminal and for technical regulatory violations that (so far as is known) are unconnected to any substantive offense will underly any conversation about prospective pardons for insurrection. One might suggest that the holier-than-thou of all politico-personality loyalties ponder hoisting by one's own petard, but that sort of goes off the rails once one says "ponder," doesn't it?

  And, frankly, this is a lot more verbiage and consideration than the topic deserves. Don't kid yourselves: Pardons have always been politically dubious, if only because they necessarily involve second-guessing specific decisions by the judicial branch, the legislative branch, or both — not to mention depend upon finding third-party advocates (especially visible/prominent/powerful ones) more than the underlying facts, however those facts have been determined.

• Unfortunately, this just leads into other contexts and considerations of prejudice in action. (n.b. These examples have been carefully selected to offend as many unthinking doctrinaire assumptions as I can conveniently stuff into a single sausage. OK, maybe that's an eyebrow-raising assertion after the preceding one, but a foolish consistency is for small minds — and this is surely about foolishness.)
• Or, I suppose, we could just ponder yet more inaccurate, inadequately considered assumptions about large-language generative Eliza. It's not "intelligence" if it doesn't enable actual, defensible (even if incorrect) reasoning by analogy — and the "teachers' assumptions" built in deserve a lot more consideration than they've gotten. It's not even particularly insightful, however convenient.

A Few Words on Behalf of the Leadership

Words that they can't say, due to fear of being seen as disloyal, and Article 88 (for at least some of them), and frequently lack of prior opportunity to reflect on the full scope of their duties as members of the leadership. Sometimes they've been so coopted that they don't know, or in extreme instances have lost the ability, to think about them. But none of those limitations apply to me any longer (not all ever did), so:

Those "duties as members of the leadership" point to another part of the owner's manual, a part that reminds the leadership — all of whom have taken that oath and continue to be bound by it; an oath almost unique in world governments, proclaiming as it does ultimate loyalty to a linguistically-bound abstraction rather than an anthropomorphized one — that they are all social justice warriors by definition. They have sworn to

…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter… (5 U.S.C. § 3331)

when that Constitution includes these:

…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. (U.S. Const. Art. VI cl. 3)¹

No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (U.S. Const. Amd. XIV § 1)

It doesn't get much more directive to be a social justice warrior than demanding that all holding "positions of trust" support and defend the equal protection of the laws for everyone. Even people they don't particularly like.

It's not 1948 any more.² Even if a substantial proportion of the incoming government would rather it were 1785, the true high point of "states' rights." Neither is it the Republic of Korea, a nation that has been under a military dictatorship in my lifetime (hell, during my adult lifetime) and really would rather not go back. It's not just the military, either: The oath applies to every federal, every state officer.³

So go out and do your jobs, to the best of your ability, supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The hard part is determining who is the enemy at any one moment; blaming someone's parents for having the wrong skin color, wrong religion, wrong nation of origin, wrong social class, wrong whatever, is always suspicious, however. After all, on September 16, 1789, there was not one natural-born citizen of the United States; the once-and-future President is only a second-generation natural-born citizen of the United States; a not-so-long-ago Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was an immigrant — from Warsaw by way of Peoria.

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1. Those of you who persist in religious nationalism, or in perpetuating the mythic propaganda that the US was formed as a christian nation, should consider this carefully. And if still not convinced, I suggest a careful reading of Matthew 5, Numbers 30, and Ecclesiastes 8 — among others. The only reason the Devil can cite scripture for his own purposes is that someone wrote down scripture intending it to be cited…
2. Cf. Executive Order 9981 (26 Jul 1948) (Truman's order desegregating the military, applying only to "race, color, religion, or national origin"; all else came later, or remains yet to come).
3. "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution…" U.S. Const. Art. VI § 3 (emphasis added).

The 2024 Turkey Awards

An annual tradition for a quarter of a century! This is my list of ridiculous people from 2024 (so far). Pass me one of those rolls, please:

• The Greasy Gravy Award for oily publicity that makes the main dish inedible goes to advocates of "open AI" who are carefully ignoring that they're running Eliza on processors, memory, storage systems, an peripherals from displays to input devices all considerably more advanced than real AI conceived at roughly the same time — with the same sort of hallucinations and bullshitting, like in the clip.
• The Red-Tide Oyster Stuffing Award for carelessly poisoning an otherwise tasty dish goes to the major-party candidates for President — not excluding the last-second replacement. My generation needs to get off the ballot (and doubly so for its predecessors), and especially out of the smoke-filled back rooms that act as gatekeepers on who can get a party endorsement in the first place. During an era of accelerating change, "old and wise" is usually PR bullshit for "decrepit, ignorant, and slow to adapt."
• The Broken Wishbone Award for shattering dreams goes to everyone excoriated here on 23 May. Unfortunately, it's probably too many miscreants to actually get a grip on that wishbone.
• The Golden Gristle Award for assertions far too difficult to digest (and usually stuck in one's teeth) goes to McZorgle's for its latest trademark overreach (with an unexpectedly delicious result).
• The Conspicuous Consumption Cranberry Relish Award for the most-outrageous example thereof goes to the 0.001% with their purchase of politicians everywhere. This isn't exactly new — politicians have always been for sale, or at least long-term lease — but, surprisingly, it's even more outrageous than overpriced artwork "originals" this year.
• The Crabapple Pie Award for marketing something sour as something sweet goes to Moms for Theocracy Liberty and their demand to be treated like and have the powers of the government while ignoring core limitations on government (like accountability).
• The Wilted Salad Award for the one part of the meal that's supposed to be "good for you," but is instead rather past its sell-by date, goes to Robert F. Kennedy… Junior. His only apparent qualification for office is his surname (and even that family of loyalists has repudiated him). Not to mention fluoridation, Mandrake — and he's just as well-balanced and fact-oriented as BG Ripper (and equally likely to attack the wrong target for the wrong reasons).
• The Brussels Sprout Award for stinky, slimy, overcooked, gentrified little cabbages goes to everyone involved in the struggle to control Paramount, none of whom actually have had a damned thing to do with building that monstrosity (let alone with any creative decisions).
• The Dried-Out Breastmeat Award for overcooking the books goes to my friends across the lake who are convinced they can speed up publishing by naming their new imprint and process after a microprocessor suitable primarily for primitive games. At least they didn't name it after the processor that was foundation of their company's operating-system success — a processor that was intentionally crippled. Meanwhile, it wasn't the processor at all that ultimately mattered (the Motorola 68xx and 68xxx series were both considerably superior to their Intel counterparts), but the software, peripherals, price points, and above all the documentation and training. Why, no, of course I'm not suggesting any parallels there.
• The Rancid Drumstick Award for something that should be edible, but isn't, goes to state-level bar regulators whose (inept) efforts destroy public confidence in the courts and legal system. Do you need a few more examples? Damn, there are more legs stuck out than on a terducken made of a cuttlefish stuffed inside an octupus stuffed inside a squid — hiding behind a cloud of ink…
• The GMO Tofurkey Roast Award for a main-dish item that's supposed to be more wholesome, nutritious, and/or ethical, but merely hides something that's perhaps worse under that veneer of virtue, goes to the Heritage Foundation, which begins the deceptions with its very name (if nothing else, by denying the role of slavery and plutocracy in America's "states' rights" heritage).
• The Unwanted Obligatory Guest Award for the guest at the banquet that you had to invite (but wish you didn't have to because you knew would spoil everything) goes to El0n Mu5k for more reasons than I can list here. His immigration to the US as an opportunistic draft-dodger from a shithole country (without respecting admittedly ridiculous visa restrictions that by their nature select for anyone but the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse of teeming shores) is just the start.
• Special Limited Time Offer! The Uninspected-Produce E. Coli Baby Carrot Medley Award for discrediting an office goes to Matt Gaetz, whose only qualification to fulfille the duties of the office he was nominated for (and, for that matter, the office that he had) was undue familiarity with the concept of "barely legal" (see 18 U.S.C. § 2421 et seq.; see also Fla. Stat. § 794.05). Notwithstanding his denials, there's enough other evidence to infer squickiness, regardless of whether that evidence meets the criminal standard of proof (that is, beyond a reasonable doubt). It's pretty obvious that the individual who nominated him prepared this dish didn't wash the produce or his hands, and I'm afraid this contaminated dish is making me sick to my stomach.

Looks like there wasn't enough room on the buffet table this year for pets from Springfield, which is probably just as well — we're going to be stuck with that guy for a loooooooooong time, maybe even long enough to move up from the kids' table. Maybe next year he can be the Unwanted Obligatory Guest… almost certainly by 2028.