Category: Uncategorized

EmptyWheel Is Right: What Do You Call A Crowd That Needs At Least 25 Presidential Pardons, As It Leaves Office…?

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She’s right: Organized Crime.

Though perhaps not quite so organized… as the New York or Chicago syndicate / genuine article. Do read all of hers, here — and this… is the punch-line:

…In all, the President is considering pardons for more than two dozen people in his orbit whom he believes were targeted — or could be targeted in the future — for political ends. That’s in addition to hundreds of requests from others who have approached the White House directly, and tens of thousands more whose petitions are pending at the Justice Department….

How many days until January 21, 2021? Yikes… be excellent to one another, whilst I am gone… grin.

नमस्ते

We Should Expect SOME Off-Target Effects, In Some People Who Receive A COVID-19 Vaccine…

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I want to tread very lightly here (with a belated hat tip, and thanks to our anonymous commenters) — because in the vast majority of otherwise healthy people, the benefit of a vaccine will far outweigh the smallish risk of some temporary side effects.

But, as is true with many vaccines — the shot may (especially after the second course) mimic some of the ills of the virus itself. That is most generally one’s immune system kicking in, and causing mostly inflammation-related pains. But fevers will not be out of the question, either. Even so — do get vaccinated, when your turn comes up. Here’s a bit from Kaiser’s fine daily news feed:

…Jocelyn Edwards wasn’t sure she got Moderna Inc.’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine or a placebo when she received her first of two doses in August. Hours after the second shot, she said she was sure it was the genuine article. “I woke up around midnight freezing,” said the 68-year-old retired nurse. “For the next 24 hours I had intense chills, serious neck pain, headache, all my joints were aching.” She had a fever that peaked at 102.4 and poured out so much sweat that she lost 3 pounds, she said. The following day she woke up and felt fine….

[Some trial participants also experienced TEMPORARY effects that mimicked Bell’s Palsy — with a drooping right or left eyelid. It nearly always cleared rapidly though.]

Do take the jab, when it is available to you. But, in the mean time, do stay safe — and do be especially careful at holiday time — when we all tend to let our guards down. Onward, smiling at the flurries now….

नमस्ते

Sharing Is A Central Ethical Principle, Among Scientists… Politicians Could Learn… A Lot, There, Actually.

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Overnight in Japan, JAXA — the Japanese agency akin to our NASA — disclosed first photos, and data about the soil and gas samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu, and recovered from a capsule that parachuted into the Australian outback about two weeks ago now (and, an older July 2019 backgrounder here).

The mission was a wildly-successful, “exceeding-all-expectations” sort of affair — as lots and lots of sample material was captured and stowed in both compartments. Due to the now billions of years of radiation while wandering, out in deep space, the top soil is approximately the color of coffee grounds, ground to a reddish brown (in the light wave-lengths visible to our eyes). We await word on what the hue of the sub-soil might be — but it could well be almost copper colored — not unlike the surface of Mars (see masthead, above).

But I note it not just for the pure “wow-factor” of the technological feat(s), though. I note it here, as we enter the holidays, to point out that JAXA has already committed to share portions of these samples with NASA and ESA, in the coming years — as unsealing gets underway (so it is especially wonderful that there is an embarrasment of riches to be shared apparently).

We certainly hope the incoming Administration will follow the lead under which the President-Elect served as Vice President: and thus renew our commitment to sharing useful space science resources and discoveries — as they are in a very real sense the collective effort of all of humanity. [Thus, they are not to be viewed as military assets, in some goofy “Space Farce”, obviously — per the departing. . . Dotard’s delusions.] Here’s the JAXA-story — on the very exciting, extremely long distance return delivery developments, and just a bit from it:

…Hirotaka Sawada, a JAXA scientist, was the first to look inside the capsule’s sample-catcher. Sawada said he was “almost speechless” with joy when he found that the samples inside included some that were, as expected, dust size, but also some the size of pebbles….

The samples were gathered from two touchdowns that Hayabusa2 made last year on Ryugu. The landings were more difficult than expected because of the asteroid’s extremely rocky surface….

The first landing collected samples from Ryugu’s surface and the second from underground. Each was stored separately. JAXA said it will look into another compartment, used for a second touchdown, next week, and will continue an initial examination ahead of the later studies of the material….

Especially at the holidays, we all should think of first principles — ones we learned at pre-school or kindergarten. Chief among those (in addition to the golden rule), is the notion of. . . sharing. We are all enriched thereby. So — I will share, and share copiously, in the coming months and years… and for that, I will beg your… forgiveness. Smile….

Archived 2019 JAXA footage — of touchdown, on Ryugu:

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“Billy Barr, Leaving Early… Today!” — [Baby T., As] Francis Xavier Cross, In “Scrooged”

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Seems entirely appropriate (except that Loudermilk / Bobcat Goldwaithe was a much more sympathetic character — lovable, even!)….

We here at right reprise Elliot Loudermilk’s firing in that fine Christmas farce.

Doing what he ever does, Baby-T (at 1600 Penn.) kicks his sycophant AG to the curb, effectively on Christmas Eve.

Make no mistake — the Orange-u-tang… fired him.

I do not mean to make light of the monstrous things these two utterly corrupted humans did. But…

Having stayed on through, and more importantly, signed onto, to so much lawlessness… there is zero chance Billy Barr wasn’t willing to stay just 20 more business days, and finish his term. He was cut loose, just as Tiny Hands said he would, late last week. Even so, it is good news. Bub-bye, Billy Barr. See ya’… Wouldn’t wanna’ be ya’. Grinning, ear to ear, here….

नमस्ते

Sunday Morning Musings: I Am Prepared To Declare At Least The Utah One… A Genuine McCracken

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Other than the one in the Netherlands, I am now not particularly convinced that any of the others were anything other than knock-offs. I do think the Netherlands version will ultimately be… authenticated. But it may take another six months, before a definitive list is released or confirmed by representative agents — of the artist’s estate.

So, I do believe (as I said two weeks ago) there will be more genuine McCrackens found — and not just in Mars like rocky-red desert venues. But only time will tell. This piece by Sarah Seigel, says it all — for me, at least. Do go read it all, as this is just a small part of her wonderful essay:

…It’s likely that the monolith was… that of the late John McCracken, a renowned minimalist artist who was born in Berkeley in 1934. He honed his skills as a sculptor at an art school in Oakland in the ’50s and ’60s, and it was here that he found his trademark West Coast, minimalist style….

For those familiar with McCracken’s art, it’s strikingly obvious why the deceased artist has become a focal point of the monolith mystery: Throughout his career, McCracken produced a variety of steel sculptures that look nearly identical to the monolith placed in Utah. His work is predominantly composed of free-standing, metallic and triangular structures. Besides the striking resemblance between McCracken’s art and the monolith, reports from his son, Patrick McCracken, make it plausible that John McCracken is the man behind the monolith….

The most compelling evidence is a conversation the father-and-son pair had in the spring of 2002, when John McCracken lived in a small adobe house in New Mexico.

“We were standing outside looking at the stars, and he said something to the effect of that he would like to leave his artwork in remote places to be discovered later,” Patrick McCracken told The New York Times. “He wasn’t your average sort of dad. He believed in advanced alien races that were able to visit Earth. To his mind, these aliens had been visiting Earth for a very long time, and they were not malevolent. They wanted to help humanity to get past this time of our evolution where all we do is fight each other….”

It’s easy to feel small and meaningless, especially now that the majority of our life takes place online and our planet seems to be plagued by insurmountable problems. To me, the monolith serves as a gentle reminder that what we leave behind on Earth matters and will continue to matter long after we are gone. Even if it isn’t John McCracken’s monolith, I’d like to believe that it is. There is something indescribably poetic about a dying artist hiding futuristic sculptures in the desert….

And while the monolith has now vanished as quickly as it appeared, it still lives vividly in my imagination. The alienlike monolith, unearthed in the final few months of 2020 — a year pulled directly from a dystopian novel playbook — may have surpassed even John McCracken’s wildest extraterrestrial dreams….

Will one be found near those White Oak Mountain ridge-lines, or the White Tank ones, Uhuru, the Solomon Islands or even closer to home, on the Sawatch range, or in the Garden of the Gods? We shall see… smiling ear to ear, and baking again… here. Be excellent to one another, until we find another….

नमस्ते

Statements Out Of The Texas GOP Leader, And The Arizona GOP Leaders… Are Increasingly Dangerous…

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Ahem. By the Spring of 1861, after President Lincoln’s first Inauguration (to be fair), a total of eleven Senators and three US House Reps. had been expelled from the Congress, for not acknowledging Lincoln’s win — and supporting the then nearly-warring Confederacy.

As of today — believing in moderation, and letting cooler heads prevail — I won’t call for these GOP loons in Arizona and Texas (and the signers to the spectacularly laughable Supreme Court “briefs” of this past week) to be immediately unseated, but if we reach January 21, 2021 — and any of them utter so much as another single ongoing seditious peep… anywhere but on the floor of their respective chambers, during ongoing debates (where tradition holds that no member may be sanctioned for any pure speech)… we shall see them… be unseated.

That is how this nation works — and has rolled — for now well-over 160 years. Honor Lincoln’s gift to us — and we shall unseat these clowns, if they persist in this baseless nonsense.

Here endeth my sermon — and honestly, I probably shouldn’t give any extra oxygen to these stupid miscreants… but it is proper to warn them, where this is all headed — should they continue to baselessly attack our democratic institutions. Onward.

नमस्ते

“Dotard Donnie” Goes Down In Flames At The Supremes (AGAIN!) — With An Able Assist (Not!) — From Texas Governor Abbott’s AG. Hilarious.

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Y A W N.

In under three elapsed hours — from the filing of a substantive final reply by Texas — to the cogent briefs from Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania (among many others)… The Tangerine Mussolini is bounced out on his oafish a$$ — from the Supremes. No hearing — no longer even on the docket. No standing:

…155, ORIG. TEXAS V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.

The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.

Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.

All other pending motions are dismissed as moot….

I am grinning, now — ear to ear.

And though I told the readers so — I had guessed 48 hours ago the decision would be at least 6-3 to dump him; it was apparently 7-2 or 8-1. (That depends in turn, on how one counts Alito’s joining Thomas in a short opinion — though Alito said he would take “no action” on the matter, but claimed, with Thomas — that the court had no discretion not to take the case onto its docket.)

In passing, I take no pleasure in noting that one lawyer tried to file an amicus brief on behalf ot the fictional “States” of New California and New Nevada (in the highest court of the nation, no less!) — indicating that the people of those Brigadoon-like mythical kingdoms… would not make motions of sedition, to bolt from the Union, so long as… the dotard is named winner of the 2020 cycle. That is the level of legal “talent” and analysis which permeated all of the Texas filings, as well. Sedition is not usually… a very solid strategy, as an officer of the court, I’d opine.

It is… frankly, embarrassing that these people (and the select House members) hold any elected or appointed office in the USA.

Out — and… still grinning!

नमस्ते

We Have One mRNA Vaccine Approval — For Emergency Workers — But We Should Take Heed: As Maskless “Superspreader” Events In DC Continue…

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I am thrilled that Pfizer’s candidate has received emergency use authorization. And with 300,000 deaths highly likely before Christmas now… we are certainly in… emergency authorized mode in the US.

Rather than take an unearned, wildly-too-early victory lap, this morning, I’d prefer if DC generally — both Democrats and Republicans (but mostly Republicans) would take a close look at how quickly maskless, close quarters events may (and in fact, do) turn into super-spreading tendrils of suffering. Consider that Rudy G., and Jenna Ellis and dozens of others regularly attend 1600 Penn events in close quarters without masks (and now over 75 of them are COVID-19 positive). Here, from MassLive, is the summary:

…A two-day international business conference in Boston early in the pandemic was likely a super-spreader event that has been linked to as many as 300,000 coronavirus cases worldwide, according to a new scientific study released on Thursday.

The study, published in the journal Science by lead author Jacob Lemieux of Massachusetts General Hospital, found that the event is responsible for roughly 1.6 percent of all U.S. cases since the onset of the pandemic.

According to The Boston Globe, the Biogen conference was held at Boston Marriott Long Wharf Hotel between Feb. 26-27 with approximately 175 participants….

And to be clear, Biogen is a fine life sciences company — I do not mean to pick on them, but the fact is that we can now prove the spread is a nearly vertical geometric progression, if not clamped off, very early. I sure wish Agent Orange… could read — and would… read.

Even so, and still, we will get through this, in spite of him — onward, with science leading us… I will keep smiling… be excellent to one another, and stay safe!

नमस्ते

[O/T] A Very Interesting — And Massively Off-Kilter Exo-Planet Find — 336 Million Light-Years Out, Into the Inky Northern Night Skies (Around A Binary Star System)…

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Hubble’s soft light-curves, and mirror bright smiles, have yet again served her efforts to be of unwasted grace — by endowing NASA | Goddard astronomers with a new finding — an oddly inclined, very massive likely gas giant, looping well above the orbital plane of its host binary system… one that may offer a model for our long posited “Planet X”.

Do read the full NASA release of this morning, but this is the part that I found most intriguing:

…A Planet Nine Proxy?

This scenario for HD 106906 b’s bizarre orbit is similar in some ways to what may have caused the hypothetical Planet Nine to end up in the outer reaches of our own solar system, well beyond the orbit of the other planets and beyond the Kuiper Belt. Planet Nine could have formed in the inner solar system and been kicked out by interactions with Jupiter. However, Jupiter — the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in our solar system — would very likely have flung Planet Nine far beyond Pluto. Passing stars may have stabilized the orbit of the kicked-out planet by pushing the orbit path away from Jupiter and the other planets in the inner solar system.

“It’s as if we have a time machine for our own planetary system going back 4.6 billion years to see what may have happened when our young solar system was dynamically active and everything was being jostled around and rearranged,” said Kalas.

To date, astronomers only have circumstantial evidence for Planet Nine. They’ve found a cluster of small celestial bodies beyond Neptune that move in unusual orbits compared with the rest of the solar system. This configuration, some astronomers say, suggests these objects were shepherded together by the gravitational pull of a huge, unseen planet. An alternative theory is that there is not one giant perturbing planet, but instead the imbalance is due to the combined gravitational influence of multiple, much smaller objects. Another theory is that Planet Nine does not exist at all and the clustering of smaller bodies may be just a statistical anomaly.

A Target for the Webb Telescope

Scientists using NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope plan to get data on HD 106906 b to understand the planet in detail. “One question you could ask is: Does the planet have its own debris system around it? Does it capture material every time it goes close to the host stars? And you’d be able to measure that with the thermal infrared data from Webb,” said De Rosa. “Also, in terms of helping to understand the orbit, I think Webb would be useful for helping to confirm our result….”

We are smiling widely here, with near 50 degree temps and bright December sunshine on our shoulders… bike time! Indeed — does she sweep up ever more of you, each passing time, as she leans in close, and shares. . . all those molecules — only to then again. . . vanish into the night, for another thousand years? We may soon see. . . .

नमस्ते

[U, Late Night — At Bottom.] The People Of Texas Ought To Be Mortified — By This Waste Of Their Remaining Public Goodwill — And Financial Resources

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I cannot even begin… to think of a way to frame this — that isn’t preposterous on its face. Clearly the Texas Governor owes Agent Orange some dark loyalty oath. [It is so far out in the field of fantasy, that it would insult Don Quixote, to associate his windmill-tilting… with this.]

The notion that the US Supreme Court would agree to sit as a trial court (as an arbiter of a putative dispute between the states), and find “some facts” — in favor of Texas, that would allow that state to, in effect invalidate perhaps 20 million ballots cast, 99.99 per cent of them lawful, regular ballots — IN OTHER STATES — to give the Texas Governor the right to have his electoral college delegates (and all remaining others, in 16 other states) vote only for the re-seating of a man who lost by over seven million votes… is mind-numbing.

It. Will. Never. Happen. I understand the holdover occupant at 1600 Penn is asking all GOP Senators to sign on to some ludicrous “amici” brief (yet another loyalty oath!) urging the nation’s highest court to invalidate all the already certified votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

I will not quote or link any of the proponents’ churlish nonsense. I get that the man is a septuagenarian enfant terrible. I do. But I won’t indulge his sad delusions — not now — not ever. Pack your crap, man… load that Trump Air jet for some roach-infested club of yours in Florida or Panama (or Moscow or North Korea, for that matter!) — I don’t care. Just… get out. You lost, and lost… bigly.

UPDATED — late night: I will however link the brief of amici just filed after 9 PM EST tonight, supporting the States of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia. It is spot on. [The late joining lawyer for 1600 Penn (named Eastman) argued TO THE SUPREMES… that “never in US history” had a candidate for president won both Florida and Ohio, but ultimately lost the White House. Mr. Eastman, allow me to introduce you to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In 1960, he lost both Florida and Ohio, to Nixon — but still quite clearly won the election. You could look it up. Sheesh — with lawyers like these, who needs… enemies? Seriously, man….]

Ahem. As the brief quite succintly, and cogently, states:

“…[Texas, 16 States, and now. . . Trump, make] the unprecedented assertion, contrary to 230 years of history, that a presidential election dispute is, under 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a), a “controvers[y] between two or more States.” Brief in Support of Mot. For Leave to File Bill of Complaint, at 7-8. This jiggery-pokery is contradicted by the Electors Clause and 3 U.S.C. § 5….

Each state’s power over its state’s “manner” includes its legislature’s power to “delegate[] the authority to run the election and to oversee election disputes to [its] Secretary of State… and to [its] state… courts.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. at 113-14 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring, joined by Scalia and Thomas, JJ.). In particular, the exclusive “manner” includes statutorily-designated state court proceedings for post-election “protest[s]” and “[c]ontests” concerning, among other things, “canvassing” and “certification….”

Federalism and the separation of powers protect our liberties. See Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 543 (2013). They “divide[] power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.” New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 187 (1992). Consistent with these principles, the Constitution and Congress have enabled each state to provide law and to adjudicate in its courts all controversies about the presidential election in that state….”

Onward, grinning — not even a retro-inspired unicorn cake could change that outcome….

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