Saturday, May 09, 2026

It’s A Monument To One Man’s Ego

And no, I don’t mean Trump. Samuel Pepys and Soren Kierkegaard, to name two, were diarists/journalers who left volumes behind; but nowhere near 3400+.

Do they include the business records of what he actually did to acquire so much money? Or is that still a mystery?
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Dog Bites Man And The POTUS Is A 3 Year Old

Who thinks he’s playing “war.”
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Pretty Much The Xianity I Grew Up Around

And whole-heartedly rejected. A lot of good anti-RC sentiment thrown in there, too, which would never be explicit, but would also never be denied.

And no, I don’t think Trump has a clue what the Bible says; and it’s clear Robert Jeffress is perfectly comfortable with that. The central tenet of the Reformation, especially in the Reformed tradition, was that every individual was allowed to interpret Scripture individually. But Jeffress knows his congregation “interprets” the way he tells them to, and he likes it that way. Even though he’d distinguish the RC, which his Reformed tradition says doesn’t allow the individual to be guided by the Spirit the way his tradition teaches.

Slippery slopes are everywhere, and the splinter in another’s eye is always just a reflection of the log in yours. Especially when all you really want is just a little more power; which is another slippery slope when you want to judge based on who agreed with you, and who doesn’t.
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AOC Understands Where The Real Power In Our Constitutional System Is

And apparently that’s shocking to people. Or maybe the word is: “exhilarating.”
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Didn’t His Judiciary Committee Just Add $1 Billion To The Reconciliation Bill…

...for Trump’s ballroom?
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Regarding Cliches

I’m listening to two poli sci professors on PBS (local) discuss polarization in American politics. One of the professors is Hispanic, but with the sound off, he passes for “white.” His accent and his name indicate otherwise. And he’s speaking in praise of what he calls the “beautiful metaphor” of the melting pot. 

To which I call “bullshit.”

The melting pot is, in reality, a refiner’s fire where gold is separated from dross; the dross is discarded, and the gold is made pure. So the melting pot results in one thing: purity.  This is the goal of Stephen Miller, not the poli sci professor on my TeeVee. But that’s where the metaphor goes. Become refined to “white,” or get out. “White” is usually a loosely defined term. These days it accepts most “Asians,” a term that refers to what 70 years ago we were still calling “Orientals,” because there’s still suspicion of Asian Indians setting up Hindu temples (there’s a beautiful one here in Houston, but there are on-line crazies denouncing such things as the thin end of some wedge). Just to say we’re still playing around with what “white” is, even if the Census Bureau doesn’t. The goal is always to make “white” the baseline, and exclude all others. The Stephen Millers among us want to push that to its logical extreme. But always the desire is to define who is in, and who is out; to declare who is dross, and who is gold.

When we try to use the melting pot metaphor as a positive, a description of the ideal of this nation of many nationalities, we actually mean a stew: a dish of disparate ingredients that yield something greater than the sum of its parts, because it stops being just the sum of its parts. But it also doesn’t dissolve all the parts into grey goo. Nobody wants grey goo. But that’s when everything has, effectively, melted, too.

So nobody wants a melting pot, except the people who want the rest of us tossed out of the pot, and only their kind left behind.

Polarization is easier to understand when you take into account the racism that was in America since we were 13 British colonies. It’s almost always about race. The metaphor of stew is about overcoming racism and accepting differences. The metaphor of the melting pot is about eliminating the dross of any race that is unacceptable to those who would be in charge. I’d just point out that, per the U.S. Census Bureau, Texas is now 40% Hispanic, and slightly less than 40% white. But the GOP in Texas is terrified of the Muslims in Texas, because all their primary candidates have to denounce Sharia law so they can keep the elephants away (I know the cliche is unfortunate in this case). They don’t even know what Sharia law is, but they know they’re scared of it. Because they live in constant fear of something. It seems to be their raison d’etre.

That’s the “melting pot” of American history. We don’t need any more of it. And yes, I think the anxiety about Sharia law is actually anxiety about whites being in the minority, but the only shiny object we’d have on Hispanics is Tex-Mex food (yes, I do know how culturally blinkered that is; that’s the point), and, to put it bluntly, that would be like denouncing chili, which is the national dish of Texas. You might as well speak ill of Willie Nelson. So MAGA has to find something else. Also, MAGA thinks the Hispanic vote is on their side; which it was, until it re-elected Trump.  

Recently a Muslim group in Dallas tried to reserve a portion of a public swimming pool for a gathering. They welcomed anyone not in their group  (it was a group effort, not a mosque event) to join them, but asked that attendees dress “modestly.” The group is actually quite conservative, as they themselves said. Governor Abbott stepped in and denied the group access to the public facility, on the grounds they were discriminating on religious grounds against non-Muslims. They were doing no such thing; they were simply asking non-members who came to the end of the pool they had reserved for their party, to respect a dress code most people in the Southern Baptist town of my childhood would have expected 60 years ago. Abbott didn’t say it, but the dog whistle was clear: no Sharia law on his watch. 

As ever, be careful what you ask for. You’re very likely to get it. 



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Friday, May 08, 2026

“The Be-All And End-All Of Power In America Should Be The People”*

The first day of class in law school my Procedures professor told us: “You give me the rules of procedure, and I’ll give you the law; and I’ll win every time.”

He was right.

One of my favorite comic strips, the stuff that used to make newspapers worth reading (Ask yer grandfather! Punk kids.) appeared in the student newspaper at UT Austin in the late ‘70’s. It was drawn by a law student, and the strip I’m thinking of is when his cartoon protagonist has left law school and joined a firm. A client enters, and angrily declares: “I’m in a bad mood, and I wanna sue!” Which our hero declares to be the motto of the law firm. And there (as the cartoonist knew), our confusion begins.

AOC: All those maps were passed by the state legislatures. Virginia was an election of three million Americans. This court did not overturn a map, it overturned an election. It’s one thing for a court to check a legislature or an executive but the end-all and be-all of power in America should be the people.
There’s a category error there; the same one Gavin Newsom is making here: I suspect none of those states, like Texas, required a vote to redistricting for House elections. California, as I understand, only needed it to change their constitution; pretty much what Virginia did. But Virginia didn’t follow procedure.
“We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1, of the Constitution of Virginia," the ruling stated. "This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy."

The state spent $5.2 million for the special election and outside groups raised nearly $100 million to persuade voters, and the new map – which was in response to Republican-led states that redrew districts to add GOP seats – was expected to shift state's congressional partisan split from 6-5 to favor Democrats 10-1.

"The Constitution prescribes a way by which a ballot referendum can occur," said Virginia Tech professor Cayce Myers, explaining Republican arguments against the referendum, "Generally speaking, the ballot referendum has to pass through the legislature, there has to be an intervening election, and then there's another passing of the vote, and then it goes on the ballot."

"That process, by just looking at it from a constitutional perspective, looks like a long process," the professor added. "This process was very fast because there was a special session."
I didn’t write the Virginia Constitution; but according to the Virginia Supreme Court and the quoted expert, that’s what it requires. And failure to follow procedure means “Do not pass ‘Go,’ do not collect $200.” This is the same reason Donald Trump has failed, again and again, to prosecute those he is angry with, since January 2025. And frankly, when even AOC complains about it, she sounds a lot like Trump.

Procedure is the price of justice. Without procedure, Trump would be a tyrant, and all his “enemies” would be in jail. Most of our prized constitutional protections are, in the end, procedural. Equal protection and due process are about procedure. The law dances to their tune. It doesn’t always give us the results we want; but it protects us from the results tyrants want. For the most part.

Put it this way: if Texas (I know Texas law a bit better) had held a referendum on redistricting, it would have been a nullity. We didn’t have to vote to change the state constitution because ours doesn’t ban redistricting between decennial censuses. (It has more failings than that.). In fact, mid-decade redistricting began in Texas. So far as I know, Tom DeLay started it when he got the Lege to do it back when he was in the House, and the pictures of him in a hot tub were still private. Times change, eh? The only time redistricting is up to a vote of the people is when we pick the people to represent us. Ideally, redistricting would be done by independent commissions in all 50 states, and we wouldn’t have this nonsense. But no matter how it’s done, redistricting is always based on old data. Like the prospectus warns, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Districts change population;  groups that voted one way two years ago, may not vote that way two years later. This is expected to be precisely that kind of election.

I started this talking about a comic strip and a potential client who wants to sue. The problem is, the legal system doesn’t work that way. And it doesn’t work that way because procedure determines who can get into court, among other things. Consider how the court is handling Trump’s suit against the IRS. As the court points out, Trump is no longer adversarial to the government. He is the head Administrator of the government. He’s the boss of the agency he sued as a private citizen. Procedure says, without adversarial parties, there is no lawsuit. It’s the essence of conflict of interest. Trump loses, because Trump won. 

I expect, at least, that will be the outcome. And it’s entirely down to proper legal procedure. Bitter with the sweet. Sometimes you like the result; sometimes you don’t.

That usually means justice has been done. As the outcome of the legal system, anyway.  More than that affiant sayeth nought. 

*And so it is. But the route is not direct.
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Port Starboard Socks*

Which led to this:
To break this down:

The rule the person stated below is not even the correct "rule." The "rule," if there's even a rule, is that your socks should match your trousers. Barring that, they should be navy.

Where does this "rule" come from? It comes from the first half of the 20th century, when much of Western male dress was shaped by the ruling class, who, at the time, still wore tailored clothing. By ruling class, I mean groups such as British aristocrats, Italian industrialists, and American WASPs who could trace their lineage back to the Mayflower.

For people in this group, proper sock choice fell into one of two categories. The first is that the socks should match the trousers: gray trousers with gray socks, tan trousers with tan socks, etc. Alternatively, navy socks were always considered correct with everything except black trousers, which required black socks.

Of course, some people broke this rule in cheeky ways, such as wearing pale lemon yellow socks with khaki chinos to add a bit of unexpected color. But the aforementioned two pairings constituted the general "rule."

When people state this as a "rule," they are trying to universalize something that was once subjective. In other words, they are trying to add a certain logic to something once practiced by the ruling class. So we invent a certain logic to this practice, such as saying wearing socks that match your trousers elongates your leg line. While this may be true (even if not for the navy sock), what we're really trying to do is make a cultural practice seem rational and scientific. This can be insidious when it applies to the practices and habits of the ruling class, because you are framing a subjective cultural practice as logically superior.

But regardless, it's no longer the case that British aristocrats, Italian industrialists, and American WASPs (Old Money) dictate the proper ways of dressing and speaking for everyone. There are plenty of groups that dress in ways that are either opposed to these groups (e.g., punks) or have nothing to do with them (e.g., avant-garde). Many of these groups possess cultural capital, which gives their style an "aura."

Therefore, you can't universalize this rule without first stating the context. Are you trying to dress like Prince Charles in 1980? Or Sid Vicious? If the latter, then the idea of matching socks to trousers makes no sense, as that's not how socks were worn in that particular group.

There's an entire cottage industry online of people proclaiming certain "style rules." "Men shouldn't wear shorts." "Here's how shirts should fit." "Here are the best color combinations." If you absorb all this advice, you end up with a very generic aesthetic, similar to how video game designers dress characters in The Sims.

IMO, if you want to figure out how to wear socks, you should identify a certain segment of culture that inspires you, whether historical or contemporary, and learn the language of that aesthetic.

About fifteen years ago, talking about this stuff was easier online because people were segmented into style communities — classic tailoring, workwear, streetwear, avant-garde — each group huddled around certain forums and blogs. These communities gave the discussions context. If you were in a community obsessed with how to dress like a 1960s Ivy League student, then no one would have to spell out the intention, as it was assumed. This made discussing the "rules" easier.

But on Twitter, there is no consensus. Therefore, it's not reasonable to proclaim things like "wear this sock with these shoes" or "this is how all pants should fit." Everything depends on how you want to dress.
When I was young I wore nothing but blue jeans. Now I am old, and wear nothing but blue jeans. When I was very young, I wore only white socks (except to church on Sunday). Now I wear only navy socks (usually with boots, so who cares?). But for a brief time, I wore the gift of neon green and yellow socks. 

They were a gift from friends who knew me well. I quickly mixed them, wearing one yellow and one green. And when people noticed, I said yes, and I have another pair like them at home.

I haven’t thought of that in over 50 years.

No, my sense of humor, and self-respect, haven’t changed since then. We are who we are.

*It’s a McGarrigle Sisters song.
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“A Man Hears What He Wants To Hear….”

Justice Alito declared the new year of Jubilee:

In his opinion gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act last week, Alito said that Black voter turnout had exceeded white voter turnout in two of the five most recent presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana. Alito’s claim was copied almost verbatim from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the justice department. It was a critical data point Alito used to make the argument that the kind of discrimination that once made the Voting Rights Act necessary no longer exists.

“Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, where many Section 2 suits arise,” Alito wrote in a majority opinion in the case, which concerned Louisiana’s congressional map, joined by the five other conservative justices on the court. “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than white voters in two of the five most recent Presidential elections nationwide and in Louisiana.”

But a review of turnout and racial data in Louisiana reveals that assertion relies on an unusual methodology. The justice department brief that Alito cited calculated Black and white voter turnout in Louisiana as a proportion of the total population of each racial group over the age of 18. Such an approach is not preferred by experts in calculating statewide turnout because the general over-18 population may include non-citizens, people with felony convictions and others who cannot legally vote. But it does yield Alito’s conclusion that Black voter turnout exceeded white voter turnout in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in Louisiana.

The widely accepted approach is to consider voter turnout as a proportion of the citizen voting age population or the voter eligible population, the latter of which excludes non-citizens as well as people who cannot vote because of a felony conviction or because they have been deemed mentally incapacitated. When the Guardian analyzed turnout numbers in Louisiana using the citizen voting age population, it found that Black voter turnout in Louisiana only exceeded white voter turnout in the 2012 presidential election.
That ol' “presumption of regularity” is still alive and well in the Supreme Court, which is yet another problem. Because the DOJ is so clearly undeserving of it, now. (Justice Alito also just likes the facts he likes.)
Group challenging Trump ballroom:

"Defendants claim that the National Trust was 'shown detailed plans and specifications of this knitted, unified, & cohesive structure by Top Officers and Leaders in both the Military and Secret Service.' This statement is false: The National Trust has never been shown non-public plans"
Plaintiff uncorks this argument against Justice Dept:

"Defendants also ignore the reality that—to date—construction has continued unabated. Work at the East Wing site has not been paused for even a single minute, because the injunction has not yet gone into effect. But, the Defendants claim, the events at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner show this lawsuit must be dismissed immediately because it 'endangers the lives of all Presidents, current and future.' That statement is not only utterly unprofessional. It is reckless"
Lots of clear evidence Trump is writing these motions,  or at least insisting his statements (they can’t really be called “arguments”), be included in the pleadings and motions. I’ve seen pro se pleadings that were better drafted; and more coherent.

In regards to the argument about safety, it’s worth noting Trump just took a drive down the drained reflecting pool.
And got out of the car and took questions and insulted reporters, without a qualm. That was probably why.
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❄️

Justice Barrett joins the Chief Justice, whining “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?”

You have this phenomenon where at the beginning of the term. You know, the media will say, here are the cases to watch, and you know they'll list a couple big cases and then if one of those big cases turns out to be unanimous or turns out to be 7-2 or to have a scramble all of a sudden it falls out of the narrative and it wasn’t really one of the big cases. Because then the narrative will be like, well, but all the big cases came out by party of appointing president, right? So it’s, it’s really a numbers game, and I think you have to read very critically about the Court. I think it gets maybe more clicks or more people worked up if the Court is portrayed that way, but it’s just not consistent with the data.

Professor Vladeck has the analysis  if you’re interested (and if that link doesn’t work, there’s a gift link here). The tl:dr on his analysis is: who decides what’s big?

That’s not a small thing, because it calls into question Justice Barrett’s acumen. Granted, this is not her field, but she does offer her analysis, and that opens it to critique. And the fundamental problem here is: who gets to make the final judgment? Final judgement is, after all, an artificial construct invented to provide closure in legal matters. But outside the courtroom? Well, as Justice Barrett complains, even judicial opinions are subject to interpretation and evaluation. The decision may be final; the judgment on the reasoning never is.

Justice Barrett may argue her reasoning for why the cases she identifies are not “big,” except in the eyes of the media, but it’s not really for her to say. Because it’s really not a sensible argument; it’s just a whine. She doesn’t defend the reasoning of the cases, she just complains about how they are treated. Which, fair enough, she can have an opinion on. But scrutiny and disagreement and even criticism, go with the lifetime tenure and the power only 9 other people at a time have. Complaining about how people don’t talk about you the way you want them to is really pretty…childish.

And not really a good example of your ability to be a judge. I mean, people are still paying attention; and here you are, worried about what they’re thinking.

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Thursday, May 07, 2026

⛽️ ⬆️⬇️⏫

Apparently that was preceded by this: Question for the house: is that supposed to make sense? Clearly, he thought he needed to refute the premise after that word salad. But the long form of that answer is even worse:
Mr. President, we are here against the backdrop of a war in Iran," Scott said. "Why focus on all these projects as gas prices soar?"

"You know why? Because I want to keep our country beautiful and safe. Beautiful also," said Trump. "This place was a disgusting place. It was, Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and we had a terrible, disgusting, I don't know, you probably don't see dirt, but I do. And you walk down this pond, if you were to walk down, they'll tell you better than anybody. They had to take 11 or 12 truckloads of garbage out of that lake, out of that water, it sat there for years like that. And that's not what our country is about, our country's about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people, not a filthy capital."

"Such a stupid question," Trump raged. "We're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, 'Why are you fixing it up?' Because you can understand dirt, maybe, better than I can, but I don't allow it."

"This is one of the worst reporters, she's with ABC Fake News, and she's a horror show," Trump said, turning away. "She's saying, 'Why would you bother fixing this up?' Why would I bother taking 11 or 12 truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln Monument? That's what made our country great. Beauty made our country, people made our country great, a question like that is a disgrace to our country."
Now my brain hurts. It was never any better: Which money we can’t put in our gas tanks or jets. And gas we can’t put in our tanks, either. By the way: who’s this “we”? This is how he knows the polls are fake. Okay, now I’m worried. It never got better. Remember what I said about being worried? He’s already forgotten about nuking Iran, and besides, Biden didn’t recognize Clooney once. Maybe. 🤔  Meanwhile: Trump doesn’t know that, because he doesn’t want to know that. Coda: I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn MAGA is all about the money. 💰 
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Burning Bridges

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has said on his Truth Social app that he spoke to the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen on topics including Iran and tariffs. Notably, President Trump has said that he has agreed to give the EU until July 4, 2026 to “cut their tariffs to zero,” or U.S. tariffs on EU goods will be hiked yet again.
Or, you know, not: I’m assuming the same law is involved in both situations, because there aren’t that many laws for Trump to use. Subject to correction, of course. 

Nothing would stop Trump plunging forward with the statute he hasn’t been told he can’t use, either. So probably this is the court telling him he can’t threaten Europe.

Which means somebody in this government is standing up for some common sense on diplomacy. Lord knows Trump is burning as many of our bridges as he can find matches for.
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🎶Vacation, all I ever wanted/Vacation, got to get away…”🎶

The Lovely Wife has been looking forward to a vacation this year, the first since she retired (a year, or was it two, after I did). Delayed for various reasons, and now she’s ready to get started.

And then I told her about the Chevron CEO warning about the future. She remembers the ‘70’s, too. So we’re reconsidering. We aren’t planning to fly, and it’s not a vacation if you can’t get enough gas to get home.

Our consideration has nothing to do with the Orange Idiot tearing up the JCPOA and leading us to this debacle. 

BTW, SOS Rubio said the war with Iran will be over when the Strait is open again. Nothing about a nuclear Iran was said. Why is this administration so blitheringly incoherent?

I look at the POTUS, and I have to ask?
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Do Not Misunderstand Me. I Am Reading Kurt Vonnegut.

Abraham Lincoln, 1848, inveighing on Polk’s war with Mexico:

Trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood—that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy—he plunged into war.

Plus ce la change….

Vonnegut, in 2005:

Killing industrial quantities of defenseless human families, whether by old-fashioned apparatus or by newfangled contraptions from universities, in the expectation of gaining military or diplomatic advantage thereby, may not be such a hot idea after all.

Does it work?

Its enthusiasts, its fans, if I may call them that, assume that leaders of political entities that we find inconvenient or worse are capable of pity for their own people. If they see or at least hear about fricasseed women and children and old people who looked and talked like themselves, maybe even relatives, they will be incapacitated by weepiness. So goes the theory, as I understand it.

Anyone who believes that might as well go all the way and make Santa Claus and the tooth fairy icons of our foreign policy.

Also Vonnegut, also in 2005:
By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country, 20th Anniversary Edition, Seven Stories Press, 2005. pp. 74, 76.

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“Boy, I Blew That!”—Leo Kottke 🤖

 I am posting this quote from NTodd (at Thought Criminal):

I work extremely closely with AI these days in my job (nature of the beast, and I'm working hard to resolve philosophical/ethical tensions, don't at me). Dawkins is a fucking idiot if he thinks a goddamned fancy calculator (that cannot do actual math) is conscious. I could show him what LLMs actually are, mere probability engines, and there's no goddamned way they are conscious. In fact, the tools I've built would be the first to tell him so. Dude still must fall for "I got your nose," too.
...because he better explains my objection to LLM’s than I ever have.

As I’ve said, I’ve seen this before, in human beings.

When I was teaching English the first time, in the late ‘70’s as a TA, I had a student who was the strongest writer I’d ever encountered. She had a very large vocabulary, but she equally seemed to have no idea what the words meant; or how to use them effectively. 50 years later, she reminds of an LLM. She used words like a probability engine, trying not to clarify, but to be as impressive as she could. It was dazzling; but it was empty. She wasn’t saying anything, but was using a lot of extraordinary words to say it. Thinking is hard, but that’s why we teach writing: to teach you how to think. She could write. She didn’t want to learn to think about what she was writing.

I’ve done an enormous amount of reading (most of it garbage, frankly. That’s not a condescending remark, it’s true. I have shockingly low taste.). That gives me some experience in recognizing writing produced by humans, and writing produced by… well, “probability engine” is a good term. I have a somewhat analytical mind, but it never works as well as I want it to; and I struggle to clarify my thoughts, seldom really doing so. Which is to say, I can see crap when I encounter it. And LLM’s don’t “think.” They aggregate words based on patterns of usage, not unlike a child learning language. My daughter invented phrases when she was young; the family favorite was “I’m full of hands,” when she meant her hands were already full. Right words, right concept, but not the right cliche. (We do talk by familiar phrases. It’s what distinguishes the native speaker from the student of a new language. It’s what ST:NG was getting at in the episode where the “aliens” spoke English, but conversed entirely in references to their literature. We do that, too. “To illustrate my last remark/Jonah and the whale/Noah and the Ark.” I taught high school students who missed those Biblical references. So it goes.) My daughter soon learned the correct phrase, and an LLM would pick it up from data. But does autocorrect “learn” not to change some words? Or does it just accept a change in programming? Sometimes….

I know a lot of people don’t see this flaw as clearly as I think I do. But to me it’s as clear as a flat note played on an instrument, or struck by an unfortunate singer. If you don’t hear it, I did (sometimes. Again, I’m not that good.).

So, insofar as I understand the concept of a “probability engine,” it seems an apt description of an LLM. Especially as it really doesn’t mean “thinking.” Something that’s not only hard to do, but hard to recognize. And yet now we’ve monetized the concept of thinking. Well, we did that with profession long time ago. A great deal of the reasoning of a doctor or a lawyer or someone trained in the sciences is opaque to the rest of us; if the professionals get paid to think, why not pay a computer to do the same? Or the people who say the computer is thinking, anyway. There’s more than a bit of sleight of hand there, which should make us all more skeptical of the people making money off of selling us in AI. Money talks; but that doesn’t mean AI does.

(And Dawkins has been an idiot for a long time. He’s a popular writer, appealing to people who don’t know the subject matter (zoology, evolutionary theory, genetics, religion/theology), and think Dawkins sounds like he does. He’s always been ignorant in philosophy (what is “consciousness” but a philosophical concept?). Now he’s ignorant in computer science, too. (Don’t look at me. I took one course in college (lots of electives to fill), and barely learned how to code in Fortran. In the days of keypunch, when only computer science majors could sit at screens; in their senior year. And I don’t remember a damned thing, except “Garbage in, garbage out.” Because my attempts at programming always produced garbage. I know my limitations. Dawkins is all limitations (but he doesn’t seem to know it.))
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Shit Meets Fan

And what happens before four months have elapsed?
"We will start to see physical shortages,” Wirth said, noting that surplus supply in commercial markets, tankers in so-called shadow fleets avoiding sanctions, and national strategic reserves were all being absorbed, according to Reuters.

“Demand needs to move to meet supply,” he said. “Economies are going to have to slow.”

He also put the scale of the disruption in historical context. The overall effect of the Hormuz closure is “potentially as big as in the 1970s,” Wirth said. Two major supply disruptions in that decade led to fuel rationing and long lines at retail pumps across the Western world, Reuters confirmed.
Shit gonna get real:
The distinction he drew is also important. Oil markets often reprice quickly on geopolitical headlines. But physical shortages are a different problem. They are measured in tanker schedules, refinery throughput, and inventory drawdowns, not in futures positions. Wirth is saying the market has moved from the first category into the second.

The buffers that were keeping physical supply flowing are running out. Commercial stockpiles, shadow fleet capacity, and strategic reserves are all being drawn down simultaneously. That is the combination Wirth says will now start showing up in real shortages rather than just elevated prices.

Wirth was specific about the sequence. Asia is the most exposed region because it is most heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas. Japan, for example, sources approximately 95% of its oil imports from the region, according to OilPrice.com.
Mike Wirth is the CEO and Chairman of Chevron. He has more credibility than anyone in the Administration, on this topic.

So, it won’t be asking people to pay $10 a gallon for gas; it’ll be telling them they can’t have any, at any price. I remember the ‘70’s. People were in line because there wasn’t enough gas. 50 years later, here we go again.

And the oil from Venezuela won’t mean squat.
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I’m Old Enough To Remember….

... when the GOP wanted to keep the federal government out of people’s lives as much as possible for precisely that nightmare scenario.

(And no, that is not an accurate description of legal government power. If it was, the GOP Administration would allow a full investigation, knowing it had a “King’s ‘X’”.)
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Letting The Ladders Go By 🪜

Hopefully the ‘27 Congress will start barring construction in national parks (like Big Bend) and in ecologically sensitive areas, and especially in areas where the “wall” (it’s really a fence) is going to split communities.

And there’s still the problem of the ladders. 🪜 

Same as it ever was.
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Inmates Running The Asylum

Feature, not bug.
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FUBAR

Sometimes the old terms are the only ones that work.
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In Light Of The Chief Justice’s Latest Whinge

Maybe we should keep an eye on this:
In a Tuesday filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate said the government would seek to use the Westfall Act to swap Trump for the U.S. as the defendant in the lawsuit. That would require dismissal of the case because the federal government can’t be sued for defamation. A panel of appeals court judges previously denied the U.S.’s effort to insert itself as the defendant.

The act gives federal employees immunity from some civil damages when they are found to have been acting within the scope of their employment. While Trump was president when he made the comments at issue in Carroll’s lawsuit, it would be highly unusual for the government to intervene on the president’s behalf at this stage, post trial and verdict.

The Justice Department’s filing comes as Trump is seeking to avoid paying the judgment while the Supreme Court decides whether to review the case — an effort in which he is virtually certain to succeed because Carroll doesn’t oppose the pause in payment as long as he increases the bond to account for interest. Last week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to reconsider a panel’s ruling upholding the defamation verdict.
This is, IOW, the ultimate Hail Mary. And how unusual would it be to allow this motion?
A spokesperson for Carroll’s lawyer declined to comment on the Justice Department’s Tuesday filing, but noted the 2nd Circuit said last year in rejecting the government’s Westfall argument that “both Trump and the government waived any right to now move for substitution” by failing to request it when the case was originally sent back to the district court.
I don’t know the law on the application of the Westfall Act,  but the decision of the Second Circuit means it’s a use it or lose it defense, and Trump didn’t use it at the right time. So I don’t expect the Sinister Six to give Trump a “King’s ‘X’” on this.  But: never say “never again.”
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Wednesday, May 06, 2026

How Dare People Understand Precisely What The Supreme Court Is Doing…

 …and criticize it accordingly? Right, Chief Justice?

Speaking at a conference for lawyers and judges in Hershey, Roberts said the Supreme Court is required to make decisions that are not popular and bemoaned that there is not a better understanding among the public of how the court operates.

“I think at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, [that] we’re saying we think this is what things should be as opposed to this is what the law provides,” Roberts said. “I think they view us as truly political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do. I would say that’s the main difficulty.”

While he conceded that people have a right to criticize the court and its decisions, he added that there is a tendency to focus too much on politics.

“We’re not simply part of the political process, and there’s a reason for that, and I’m not sure people grasp that as much as is appropriate,” Roberts said.
Turning the clock back 70 years and overturning decades of precedent because “We’re the Supreme Court, bitches!”, is just calling balls and strikes, isn’t it?

Isn’t the job of the Supreme Court to determine cases according to ideology instead of precedent and stare decisis?  I mean, what’s the point of being an ideologically driven Supreme Court, otherwise?

Doesn’t everyone understand that? And if they don’t, I’m sure whiningly scolding more people will get the point across.

“WE’RE THE SUPREME COURT, BITCHES!”
We live in a time dominated by deeply unserious people making deeply unserious arguments in support of tragically serious results that serious people would have both avoided and known to avoid.
Now I’m wondering if the Chief Justice follows Professor Vladeck’s account:
Two different technical, procedural moves from #SCOTUS yesterday have one thing in common:

The Court is behaving differently in otherwise similar cases based upon the ideological/partisan valence of the dispute.

Via "One First," me on why, results aside, that's a serious indictment of the Court:
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What’d I Miss?

I like to end the day trying to figure out what happened today.

If Iran had submitted, the Strait would be open. So…

Trump’s connection to reality ended several weeks ago. At least.
By “market” he means DJIA. All other economic metrics (i.e., the real ones) are irrelevant. See? Um...okay. Panem et circenses. With all of us trapped in it. What in the name of all that’s holy…?

Is that an egg? With tiny hairs? And fins? And legs?
Is this supposed to be what happens when you read about MAGA? You’re turned into a chimera?
The guy you move away from in the bar.

And the latest news in the ceasefire:
Color me shocked.

I guess this means Operation Enduring Nightmare is still ongoing.
Of course he does. Although I have to say, this is how you win.
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And There You Have It

And there you have it! Once again Trump ‘leaks’ his propaganda to an Axios reporter, who dutifully spreads it before the market opens:

“A spokesman for Iran's parliamentary national security committee pushed back on a report in Axios that the United States and Iran were nearing a one-page memorandum to end the war, calling it "more a list of American wishes than a reality."”
BREAKING: Someone placed a $920 million crude oil short at 3:40 AM.

70 minutes later Axios reported the US and Iran were close to a deal.

Oil dropped 12%.

The trade made $125 million in profit.

Minutes after that Iran launched the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” and oil surged 8%.

$760 million placed before Trump’s last announcement.

$920 million placed before this one.

Every major announcement in this war has been front-run by someone who knew it was coming.

What kind of war is this?

This is more like a trading desk with an army.

Never stop connecting the dots.
It’s okay, we're the oil supplier to the world. The wish that this gets better by November seems like a vain one.
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China Rising

Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi met with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi in Beijing, amidst the ongoing tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the Middle East and the current deadlock in the Strait of Hormuz. Per a Chinese MOFA release, Foreign Minister Araghchi briefed his Chinese counterpart on the ongoing U.S.-Iran talks process, reiterated Iranian support of China’s One China policy, and discussed continued bilateral cooperation. In turn, China has reiterated its support for Iran’s actions, saying “China supports Iran's safeguarding of national sovereignty and security,” and that China “believes that Iran has a legitimate right to use nuclear energy peacefully.”
Additionally, per the Chinese release, China called on Gulf nations to enact their own regional security framework. Presumably bereft of U.S. influence. Co-signing past Iranian calls to enact a regional security, economic, and trade framework without the involvement of outside state-actors.
And Trump wants to tear down NATO. 

Nature, and nations, abhor a vacuum. This is what Trump has wrought. All part of this:
Following reporting on the potential 14-point U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, Iranian officials have told state-affiliated news outlets that portions of the U.S. proposal remain unrealistic to Iranian decision-makers and officials have also told news outlets that parts of Axios’ original story on the matter are “speculative.”
IOW, Iran has heard it before. They’ve heard it repeatedly since April 8. 

Trump thinks it’s leverage. China, meanwhile….

And yes, Congress could stop him. Congress is a blunt instrument. But Trump isn’t an instrument of any kind. He’s just an agent of chaos. So we need a blunt instrument, to stop him. Bluntly. Forcefully. With the authority of Art. I.
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Whistling Past The… 🪦

(This is my representative. He ran for Senate, came in 3rd. So he’s out for now. He still wants to run for office again. Someday.)

Whistling past the graveyard:
"I'm not worried at all because voters remember that we had $9 gas in some places and we've now brought prices down," [RNC Chairman Richard] Hudson said on the NOTUS podcast. "It's a question of, 'Do you want to continue down this path of recovery, or do we want to go back to artificially inflated gas prices?'"

Hudson's strategy relies on framing the 2026 House elections as a choice between Republican policies under Trump versus memories of the Biden administration — a gamble that appears increasingly risky given the ongoing economic pain from the Iran war, Ed Deamria of NOTUS wrote.

"We're still on a rescue mission," Hudson said. "Remember how bad it was before? Give us a chance to continue to make your lives better."
Well, what else have they got? 🎶 And it’s 1,2,3, what’re we fightin’ for?”🎶
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🥁

Post 👆 Replies 👇 Yeah, I don’t think it’s the algorithm that’s making people do things. (Those are not the best arguments with the original post, but they sure seem “enraged.” I blame the algae rhythm.🥁 )
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Tuesday, May 05, 2026

“This Is A Favor To The World”

 Mary Trump:

"The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not just disrupting energy markets. It is disrupting fertilizer flows that determine future harvests. That disruption is setting the stage for a delayed but potentially catastrophic global food shortage," Mary Trump wrote.

"The Strait’s closure is now threatening the planting season for farmers across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North America," she added. "Those farmers are going to produce less food as a result, and that food scarcity is going to drive prices up globally. The people who will feel it first and be hit the hardest are the people who are already struggling to survive."

"It is a debacle. It is a catastrophe. There is no immediate solution. There is no agreed framework. There is no clear timeline for resolution. And Donald does not appear to be in any rush," she continued.
What did the world do to need this favor?
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MAHA!

Also restarting the clock on the War Powers Act. Because only Trump can do that: Future’s so bright…
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🎶 Ain’t That America?🇺🇸 🎶

Is it as bad as attacking a country without provocation (after tearing up an agreement that was keeping Iran from enriching uranium), and forcing them into this defensive posture everyone knew they’d adopt? Just how “legal” was bombing Iran and threatening to destroy their civilization? And it got us, what? Severely depleted munitions, 80% of our bases in the region damaged or destroyed, and oil at $102 a barrel and rising? Not such a substantial achievement from this side of the ledger. Which is rapidly coming to an end. If we’re filling the world’s oil gap, that’s less for us, right? The kids in the Oval Office this morning are smarter than this. And the shooters are whisked away and the evidence is destroyed and all attempts at a proper criminal investigation are blocked, and…

Oh, he’s not talking about America, is he?
What country does he think he’s the SOS of? The imaginary land of Trumpistan? And having caused the problem, we’re doing the world a favor by what? Pissing on the fire we started? Irony is in the corner, drunk off her ass. It’s a coping mechanism. Rubio is too busy playing press secretary this week. Again, are we sure he’s not talking about America?  Because it sure sounds like he is. Defending themselves the only way they know how? Against the pre-eminent military force on the planet? (How’s that working out, by the way?) I’m sure you will see multiple places around the world doing the same, if Trump isn’t reined in by Congress.

🎶 Little pink houses for you and me! 🎶
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Do You Believe?

And: Also, too, as well: So did the Nazis.
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He Could Be An Astronaut, You Know 👨‍🚀

He could also be a pro golfer. 🏌️‍♂️ 
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