With the election over but for the shouting I thought I’d put in a few words on the continuing ”Sheldon Crisis” happening. While we still have something like 12 House seats to be called at this writing it is still anybodies game on who will control the House in the next Congress. The best numbers I’ve been fallowing give the GOP control with 218-220 (1 to 3 seat control) I toght I’d just point out some things the House GOP will be facing soon.
First some things to keep in mind are: First in the last Congress the Dems, for once, did not have as fractious caucus as the GOP will have in the new Congress. Next is that the last time we had a Congress with such a slim majority for a party and the Majority party had such a fanatical member caucus was way back in 1856, or there about. Finally Kevin McCarthy has little to no experience running a majority Caucus.
So what can we look forward to in the coming weeks…..
First I expect to see a knock-down drag-out battle over leadership in the GOP House Caucus. An not just for the speakership, keep you eyes on who gets to be the Whip and who gets to be the Chair of the GOP Leadership. If any of these three go to members of the “Freedom Caucus” then things are going to get wild.
Depending on the results of the Leadership battle I expect to see little or nothing done (best case scenario) to hearings after hearing investigating all things Biden and/or Democratic and/or things MAGA hates. If MAGA gets the Speakership the only real question will be if Biden is Impeached two or three times.
An the worst case scenario is for the GOP to fail to fund the government and close down everything for several weeks. I really don’t expect this last one because the last time they tried this they got totally sandbagged in the next election.
The other day I came across, on my daily walk, what I took to be ”Time Capsule” that appeared to have been washed down from the mountains. The only problem is that everything seems to be dated from 220 AT. When I first saw it I thought it might be from the early Spanish Mission period of the San Fernando Valley. It was a square box of about 11” and about 5” tall. It seemed to be made out of kilned backed adobe. Upon closer examination I detected the use of a wire meshing made of coper wire. So definitely not from the Spanish Mission period.
The contents of the box turned out to be what appear to be some kind of analog sound recordings (3). Five USB sicks, and two SDD drives. Along with over 40 pages from what appears to be magazines, but not made of paper. Most pages did have pictures and many have what appears to be dates but have no relationship to any known calendar.
3 Ivana 211 AT
11 Baron 193 AT
29 Don 219
This last goes with a picture that show what seems to be some kind of ceremony taking place in the Capital in Washington D.C. It is captioned “The Assumption of power by Barron III, Trump and Autocrat of all the States”. In the picture is one person, presumably Barron III, before a line of men, no women are in the photograph, who are placing there hands between his, while they are kneeling.
Another photo is of a woman inspecting what appears to be a heavily fortified wall with a large number of bones on one side. The photograph is captioned ”Ivana II inspecting the Great Wall of the South”. Most of the pages with out photographs, have drawing and seem to deal with the Great accomplishments of Trump (again this seems to be a title and not a persons name). Other pages deal with the accomplishments of what are called Boss of Bosses, Great Boss, Bosses, and Little Boss. It seems that the Boss of Bosses is appointed by the Trump, but just what their responsibilities are is not clear. The Great Bosses seem to run the States, the Bosses counties and the little Bosses cities and towns.
This last maybe in error as there are several references to State governors, and Mayors of large cities. It is quite possible that the term “Boss” in all it’s forms is just slang. Until further study of the Box and it’s contents can be done any conclusions drawn are pure Speculation. Finally, the idea that the ”Time Capsule” is actually from either the future or an alternate time line is pure fiction.
I was a teenager in the 60’s (I turned 13 in 1964) and it just struck me why the radical right sounds so familiar. It is almost exactly what we were saying back then about ”the Man”, ”The Establishment” et al. Who hasn’t heard the MAGA crowd (or the Tea Party) crying about how bad the government is. How corrupt and untrustworthy the ______ is? (Fill in the blank). An now, in the past few days they are now attacking both the DOJ and the FBI as tools of the Deep state.
it has really taken me back to the Swinging Sixtes.
There are a few differences:
Then: It was Teenagers talking
Now: people with teenagers taking
Then: it was ”the Man”
Now: It is ”Hillary” or ”Obama” or ”Sorros”
Then: It’s all a Lie
Now: It’s all a plot
An let us not forget, ”never trust any over 30” and now it is ”never trust anyone under 60”. So if I seems to take all the noise and fury from the radical right it is I heard it all before from the radical left of my youth.
And for those of you who don’t recognize the photo above it is from the 1968 movie ”Wild in the Streets”.
With the Midterm Elections well into the Primaries I thought it would be nice to talk about the four possible outcome. They are, simply put,
No significant change in either chambers
The Republicans gain control of both the House and the Senate
The Democrats expand their control of both the House and the Senate
Control of one chamber is controlled by each party
I’ll be starting with number 2 because this is the expected (traditional) historical results. If we go by history the GOP will pick-up enough seats to be the majority party they need to pick-up 8 seats and this is quite doable given the past 30+ years of midterm elections. The problem with only getting 13 seats is this would give the GOP 218 to the Democrats 216, a majority of only two seats. History shows the GOP picking up something over 12 seats, but that is still a very razor thin majority. An with just how restive the “Freedom Caucus” this could make for the election of a very weak Speaker.
If the ”Freedom Caucus” does flex its mussel in the election of the Speaker it could very well encourage other caucus’ in the GOP to also make demands of House leadership. It is even conceivable for the House to be tied up trying to elect a Speaker. It has happen before when the Congress was highly partisan (See the political history of the 1850’s). This kind of battle could be very bad for the survival of the Republican Party.
As far as the Senate goes, the GOP just needs to pick up one seat and historically that is quite possible. Unfortunately to be filibuster proof they need to pick up ten seats, much more unlikely to happen. This will then force the Senate Majority leader (Sen. McConnell) to either live with what the GOP has done to the last two Democratic Administrations and have to deal with the Democrats stoping anything that they don’t like with the Filibustered. Or just getting rid of the Filibuster. Neither option is very palatable.
Now lets look at option 1, with all that has happened since the start of the primaries; 1/6 hearings, the Dobs decision, the Secret Service scandal to name just three, this option has become much more likely. With little change in just what is happening in D.C. from the last two years. The President and Democrats trying to get things done and the GOP in the Senate doing everything in their power to prevent anything from happening.
Now, lets look at number 4, the worst of the worst when it comes to making any rational forecasts. This is because what actually happens depends on too many variables. The variable is how control breaks. How controls what: House controlled by the GOP and the Senate controlled by the Dems? Or the other way around? An how strong is the control? These are waters I will decline to swim in for now. Although I would find it fun, and terrifying to live; so ”no thank you“.
An finally let us go on to number 3, the MAGA-GOP’s worst nightmare and my personal favorite. An not because I’m a Democrat, I am, but because it is the prediction I have made do to my reading of history. Like option 1, option 3 has become much more likely do to events that have taken place and continue to take place during this year. As stated before Mid-terms Send tend to be rather sedate and boring elections. A rest after the noise and fury of the Presidential election two years earlier. But this time the noise and fury has not died down. If anything it is ramping up. We are looking forward to more exciting things from the 1/6 (or as it seems to now to be called the ’Insurrection’) committee this September. Along with a large number of very poor GOP candidates (lots of ’MAGA’ faithful) and very divisive case being heard by SCOTUS before the election. An let us not forget the ’ham handed’ act of the GOP in the Senate like what just happen with the ’Vet’ bill.
As I said above, number 3 is my personal favorite because of my reading of history. I think we are living threw the end of one political party, the Republicans, and the beginnings of a new party. I shall refrain form trying to give it a name. in any case we just have to wait and see what happens.
Ever sense the spring of 2020 and the struggle began against the Covid-19 pandemic we have been able to see the American War on Science shown in all it’s ferocity. I say the American War because America has been of two minds about science since the first colonist arrived on these shores. Part of us are children of the Enlightenment and another part are children of hyper religious dissidence. These two groups have never gotten along with each other and for the same reason. They perceive the other as a trying to destroy the other. An in away they are right.
First lets look at the basic philosophical positions of both sides:
Let us first look at the Children of the Enlightenment and their handmaiden, Science. I shall be using “Science” from here on out for brevity’s sake. Science, as seen by many, has as a central principle that there is nothing that can not be questioned. Even the most fundamental concepts and principles can be questioned. An by questioned I mean ‘put to the test’. We teach science both by lecture and actual hand on experimental experience. We have students conduct experiments for many reasons but one of the most important is to check the results of all the experiments that went before. An sometime, very rarely, a student will get a result that will like a spark in their mind that will lead to great and new findings.
Now lets pause right here because I’m sure there is someone reading this who will know, either personally or otherwise, a time when someone was “don’t question” X. It is a ‘fundamental law of nature’. An this happens much to often but it is not the philosophy of science that says this, but individuals who say it. People are human and so will have all of the failings of humans. All we can do is ‘smile sweetly’ and keep on questioning everything.
Now on the other side are people (both the Puritans and Quakers just to name a few) who believe and accept the philosophy of ‘“absolute truth”. There are somethings that are true for all time and therefore can not be questioned. Ever. And these things can not be discovered by asking questions, they can only be ‘revealed’. An there lies both the problem and the strength of Religion. It provides the comfort that a young child gets from asking a parent to deal with an impossible/unsolvable problem. And it provides the security to the one providing the answer of “Because I Say So.” An this is excepted. An the fundamental problem with reviled truth is there is never just one truth revealed.
Looking at the history of this country we have many many examples of intractable problems facing our body politic. From the ‘Devine right of kings’ in the 18th century, to who is ‘sovereign’ (the states or the federal government) and slavery of the 19th century. To segregation and racism of the 20th century. An none of these problems can be resolved from ‘reviled truth’. Why? Mostly because there is more that one reviled truth being referenced. And even when all sides agree on the source of the “truth” (in the USA it is often the Bible) they end up with a battle of scriptures. By a battle of scriptures I mean where all sides can find one or more lines in the reviled truth to support there position. Both are ‘right’ but we have no way of testing for who is right.
But wait you say, that happens in science all the time. Well, yes and no. Yes we get heated debates where all sides point out the “Math”, “Observations” and or experiments that ‘Prove’ there theory is correct/wrong. But unlike in Religion, in Science you have to answer the question “How do we test it?” One of the greatest challenges to “How do we test the theory?” If it can’t be tested it can’t be accepted as fact, no mater who says it is true.
So now we come to the “War on Science”. This is not a unquietly American phenomenon. But it is new in a historically as what we now call ‘science’ is new. Science as we now know it came in to being with the ‘Scientific Method’ in the 17th Century and the ‘Age of Enlightenment’. The ‘Scientific Method’ was and still is by some, seen as a direct challenge to ‘Reviled Faith’. Originally because science was seen to challenge reviled truth that dealt with the observable world. An not just in esoteric fields like chemistry but in very day to day issues like Astrology. After all if moving the sun to the center of the ‘universe’ (or solar system) makes doing ‘accurate’ astrological charts for your king or emperor your going to use it even if the church says the Earth is at the center of all things.
The problem this war has in America is that most of the people who came here to colonize were of the ‘very hard headed’ (some would say pig headed) verity. Both those of the Enlightenment and Regions verity. Next is the problem we have faced ever sense 1792 politicians have seen taking sides in this fight as an excellent way to win and keep voters. More on the ‘Reviled Truth’ side, mostly because they are less likely to respond to hard data and reasoned debate than those of the enlightenment bent.
So there you have it. Don’t get depressed about this “War on Science”. It not new. In fact it is a grand old American tradition we have been practicing since the founding of the country.
Be Warned my contrarian nature is in full throated Roar
Yes there is no election where I am now, but we do have off, off year elections in some places in this country. An in many many ways, these elections are more important to our democracy than the BIG Presidential elections. At least to my way of thinking.
It is the ‘small’ elections that mater because they are the ones too many people ignore. They are the bedrock of any democracy because the small elections are the foundation the big election build on. These are the ones where the politicos get there fundamental data on what the electorate are interested in. This is where we identify the true ‘base’ of political moments and parties. It is where we look to see who is an ‘up and comer’, who has new ideas and/or can express ideas clearly and inspire his/her listeners. An this election is more important than most.
Why do I say that? Because the bast decade or so America has not been looking closely at these elections and has not been listening to what has being said. Yes, some Politicos have been listening but not many and the ones that have been are either not saying much about what they hear. Or they are not being paid much attention to. If they had we’d be in a totally different place than we are in now. We would not have one political party looking for, and accepting as, their candidates people with little or no public service.
I think that in 50 to 75 years from now, when Historians write about the politics of the 2020’s they will point back to the election of Geo. W. Bush and the rise of the “Tea Party” republicans as the starting point of our coming time of troubles. And like all of the Historians who have tried to say, “Here, at this point! It all started” they will be both right and wrong. I have, in an early posting said where I think things start along the path we find ourselves so I shan’t bother to repeat myself.
We have a long row to hoe and it is going to take some time to get it done. But the place to start is with the small elections like we are having now. So I call upon you all, get out and vote. Don’t listen to the people telling you your vote won’t count. That the elections are all rigged. That is is a sure thing. Or what ever. Your Vote Maters, it Counts! Not because your vote is one among many or one among few. It maters because you mater and it is your Vote!
Recently I’ve been seeing lots of polls showing 50% or 64% or 49% of a group supports or opposes something. In particular i’ve been seeing it applied to voters, that is Democrats, Independents and/or Republicans. What I rarely see is the number behind the number. Like how many of the “voters” are ‘D’ or ‘I’ or ‘R’? This can and is important.
Why do I say this? Let me show you. Lets say that 25% of all voters are ‘D’, 25% are ‘R’ and 50% are ‘I’. Lets also say that the total number of voters is 100. (Not the case as the actual number is in the 10’s of millions but 100 is an easy number to work with.). Given 100 voters we have 25 ‘D’ & ‘R’ and 50% ‘I’. Next lets say the issue I question only needs 50% + 1 voters to pass. If all the voters cast a ballot that means 51 voters need to vote yes. Got it? Good.
Now lets look at a poll that says 45% of the ‘D’s support issue ‘X’. 55% of ‘R’s oppose ‘X’ and 50% of ‘I’s support X’. That means (25*.45)+(25*.45)+(50*.50) will vote “Yes). Given that 25*.45 = 11.25 twice plus 25 giving us giving us just 47.5 votes “yes”. So ‘X’ doesn’t pass. But now lets change the number just a bit with 55% of the ‘D’s voting yes, 55% of the ‘R’s voting no and the ‘I’ splitting again 50/50 now the numbers are (25*.55)+(25 * .45)+50*.5) giving a total vote of 50 yes and 50 no giving us a tie.
Now lets get into the deep grass. Lets change the number of ‘I’ to 30, the ‘D’d to 45 and leave the ‘R’s at 25. How do the numbers change? In the first case ‘X’s still looses with only 46.5 yes votes but in the second case ‘X’ wins with 51 votes. This demonstrates quite clearly why knowing actual number is critical understanding just what the poll numbers mean. Besides the actual numbers we need to know just how the numbers are being counted.
By how they are being counted I mean are we talking registered voters, likely voters, or just asking the person being polled what party affiliation the have. Just a casual use of Google show just how wide a swing in numbers we have being reported. It is no wonder that anyone watching politics has full time teams analyzing the polling data and just what it is based on. So what are you to do?
My recommendation is to remember what I’ve said here and do the following. First and foremost check the predictions against actual election results. Not only did they call the election correctly for who won and lost but did the numbers match up with the prediction. Then, if the results are off, especially off by big numbers (I go by 5 percentage points or more but you are free to go by any numbers you want), do they publish any studies/analysis/etc on why they were off. What conclusions did they draw and do you agree/disagree with the conclusions. Once you find a place that you believe does a good job, stick with them. But remember “Trust but Verify” is still good advice.
An before you ask I do have a site on the Web I trust, it is 538 both it’s website and it’s podcasts. But just take my word for it, do your own work.
For quite sometime now I’ve been hearing the people on the Media talking about how Donald Trump has/is destroying the Republican Party, conservative movement, etc. To my way of thanking this is not just wrong, but also bad for the country. Donald Trump and/or Trumpisum is not doing anything to the Conservative Movement, nor to the Republican Party. Donald Trump and Trumpisum is a symptom of what ales them, it is not the cause.
Everything that is happening to the GQP today has its roots back in the late 1960’s. It was then that liberal Republicans started migrating to the Democratic Party and conservative Democrats started migrating to the Republican Party. In the 1968 elections Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon came up with his famous ‘Southern Strategy’ to woo the former Dixiecrats to vote republican. It is also when the unholy alliance between social conservatives and financial conservatives was truly formalized. Now in the 21st century we are seeing the results of what was started back then.
If you just do a little work you can see the seeds of all the ‘Great’ issues of today in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The thing to remember is Donald Trump is not smart enough, nor Machiavellian enough to have created what we are see. In fact he is just arrogant enough to both claim credit for and to bring it out into the day light for all to see. An just like the high fever lets us know we are truly sick, Donald Trump is letting us know just how much trouble our body politic is in.
Our body politic is no longer facing a quiet infection slowly destroying our democracy. No, the raging fever has broken out and we now know we are in deep trouble. An just like a high fever we must first take action to rid ourselves of the disease. We must not only take action to get rid of the symptoms, just like we take medicines to bring down a fever, we must also take medicines to rid us of the actual disease. An to do this we need to identify the infecting agents but also what is being infected. This is not easy, nor pleasant.
So just how do we identify the agent of infection in our Body Politic? I say lets get more transparency and more truth. I’d start with making the fundamental source of all funds coming to any political campaign be public. Next only natural people may fund any political campaign. (By the way I’m using natural person in the legal since of the words.) An I don’t mean just cash money, I mean anything of value. The next thing is to change are libel and slander laws to take in the new cyber media. An we also need to bring in the use of algorithms that either internally of unintentionally case harm liable for the harm they cause. By this I mean that the person or persons who knowingly or should have known that the algorithm they are using has, or would have, caused harm are liable for the damage caused.
I know the above is very complex and it will take a lot of work to get right but we have done this before (just look at the history of the telephone, radio, and tv) but we can do it. It will be done. The only question is what shape our nation will be in when it is done.
Both House Minority Leader McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader McConnell Have done the GOP great harm and the President great good this week. McCarthy’s reneging on the deal his personal representative crafted, and where they got everything they asked for, shows to one and all that the GOP does not negotiate in good faith. Like their Great Leader, the Trump, they see negotiations as a ploy to be used to take down their “enemy”. An the “Enemy” is anyone who is not slavishly loyal to the Great Leader Trump.
The GOP has been head down this path for over 30 years, perhaps longer. It started when they took up the idea that “Wining isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” It got worse when they started seeing the people on the other side not as the opposition, but as the “Enemy”. It has reached it’s current state when it choose to see politics as a “Zero Sum Game” and so it became ripe for a Conman to take over. Unfortunately for the GOP they are now on the road to the 8th Circle of Hell. (Yes I know I don’t believe in Hell, but they do.)
President Biden is now in a very simple negotiation position, you don’t. It does not mater what they will agree to, even when you give them everything they ask for, they won’t take it. It has the “Enemy’s” name on it so it can not be agreed to. The “Enemy” will get something out of it so they will get nothing out of it, so they will, by definition, loose. An if you think this sounds like nonsense, your right, it does and is nonsense. But it is logical. But logic can be nonsense if you start out with “skewed” premises (just Ask Alice in Wonderland). Negotiations with the current GOP is no longer about finding common ground, by definition there is no such thing, it is about achieving useful goals no mater what the opposition does.
When it comes to investigating the events of January 6th this means finding out, publicly, just who knew what, when, who did what, when. Only then can we start to take action to do what needs to be done to correct the system to prevent it from ever happening again. Unfortunately for the GOP this will most likely mean the end of the GOP as a major political party. This will not be an easy time for the country, we are in for a time of whoa
I have what I’m sure are not original answers to the Fermi Paradox as to why we have seen no signs of extraterrestrial life. I may, at a later date go into some of my reasons on why I find fault with the Paradox, but not here.
The first, and simplest, is that it is just not possible to travel between the stars. That there is no ‘Space Drives’. That ‘slow boats’ just can not be made to support life for any extended period of time so it is not possible to travel the decades, or life times, sub-light travel needs. All life is trapped around it’s own star therefor no visits.
I know this is a real downer, but it is a possibility. In the history of science there are many many things that we have wanted to do but we have found out are just not really possible. There is no Philosopher’s Stone that can convert ‘base’ metal into gold. An while we do now how to convert a metal like mercury into gold it takes way to much energy and time to actually do it. An eventually we come to the point of saying ‘why do it?’ In the case of building and meaning a slow boat sub-light craft it may just be that the cost it resources make it totally prohibitive.
On to the second answer. That any contact between life of one planet with another is immediately fatal. That even the slightest contact will kill the visitors. Or even worse kill the live on the planet until the contamination is eliminated (aka destroyed). Once this fact becomes evident to the space fairing Race they will see little reason to visit stars that might have life bearing planets. At best they would be able to exchange ideas, aka information, and at worse create an vengeful enemy thru some tragic accident. Best not run the risk and steer clear of the problem entirely. Wait until they can meet up with someone at a lifeless star where it is safer all round.
