One Republican Strategy for Containing Kamala and Defeating Democracy

Since Kamala Harris is doing well against her opponent, the convicted felon and known abuser of women, Republicans have been working on strategies in case Trump loses the election and can not steal it, as they are certainly planning to do.

My summary of at least one of their strategies is as follows:

First win a majority in the Senate.  With the resignation of Senator Manchin they believe they have a good chance of either winning a 50-50 position or even a 51-49 position.  If they do the latter, they can tie up any legislation and control senate investigations.  According to a survey prediction by thehill.com, the Republicans are favored to win the Senate.

Second, win a majority in the House.  Again, they are favored to win the House of Representatives.

Third, they overwhelmingly control the Supreme Court which has demonstrate a willingness to violate any standard of law or precedence to support extreme Republican positions.

With these three things, or even two of them, the Republicans are confident they can "contain" Kamala Harris and defeat any attempt to improve the country or act in the nation's interest.  Then they can use this to go for the presidency in 2028.

Therefore, although defeating Trump is obviously the highest priority, winning the House and the Senate are essential if we are to do more than just prevent Trump from destroying the country.  We need both houses in order to move the country forward.  And even then, the nation must deal with the right wing and lawless former Supreme Court, something the Democrats, at least, have proven unwilling to do so far.

Republican zombie horde attempting to climb the Statue of Liberty

The Angel's Celebrate the Arrival of Jill's Album

The vinyl for Jill's new double album, Earthly Pleasures, arrived at the house today.  The album is about the secular use of sacred music, among other things.  

The angels celebrate in heaven!

The images were created with Midjourney.

Final Warning

I have tried to avoid writing about either Ukraine or the Israel/Hamas war.  But if I read one more stupid editorial about either, I will be forced to take action.  You have been warned.

More Rendered Images 08/09/2024

Not that any of this particularly matters, here are some images rendered with Arnold that are going up on Instagram.

SIGGRAPH 2024 and Denver Report

This was perhaps one of my most enjoyable and useful SIGGRAPH's for years.  Here is a synopsis of some of the high points.  

A special thank you to Paul Debevec who invited me to a half dozen parties and encouraged me to go to them, and to the exhibit floor, and to papers that I knew nothing about.

Also special thanks to Julian Gomez who somehow found me a technical pass.  The Technical Program costs about $1,000 these days and without it you can not go to the heart of SIGGRAPH. It was wonderful to have.  Some of its value comes from not feeling less than the other participants.

If people is the heart of a SIGGRAPH then this was an excellent SIGGRAPH.  From NYU there was Ken Perlin, Denis Zorin and Aaron Hertzmann.  From UNC we had Henry Fuchs, Turner Whitted, Mary Whitton, Nick England and Mark LeVoy.  From WETA and the ASWF, Kimball Thurston.  From Autodesk we had Marcel de Jong and Frederic Servant (manages Arnold).  From SCAD we had Gray Marshall and Christos Sfetsios (who had a good theory of alien UFOs).  Briefly sat near Debbie Deas.

I made a point of reading every poster and taking pictures of some of them.  Every third poster had the author standing there and you could ask questions.

The good news and the bad news is that there were at least two papers whose ideas I have had and that furthermore I had done work on, but was told they could never be papers.

From the Pioneer's event we learn that Thad Beier passed away several months ago.  

Finally, I stayed at the Motel 6 downtown for about $80/night.  It was not too bad either.  The Uber cost between the hotel and the convention center was about $15 each way.  There is a great train between Denver International Airport and Union Station.  It takes a long time but that is because DIA is way the heck out there.  It turns out there was a decent little cafe in the back of the Hyatt and one can also get healthy food at Target of all places.  The downtown area was all ripped up because of construction.

Denver has a lot of interesting old construction left over from the mining days, I presume.  Too bad it has been discovered, it would be a good place to buy an old house and fix it up.   The Meow Wolf venue was entertaining.  Denver seems to be a "meat town".  It was hard to find decent healthy food for vegetarians.

I came home, of course, and had COVID.

A proud author

Doug Kay and George Joblove

A happy Poster

Robo Doggy

Meow Wolf

A modern data glove

COVID Again

Came back from SIGGRAPH, felt lousy, took a COVID test and guess what?