Abominations of the Week December 20 2020

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Too much bullshit in this world, we have to aggregate.  Wired magazine runs an article that says that an attack on the US by Russia is not an attack because ... wait for it ... espionage.  Stupid.  Republicans are attacking Jill Biden because she has a Dr prefix for her name but isnt an M.D.  Wow, are all republicans stupid.  Yes, republicans are stupid.  Facebook blocked me again but for good reason, I say Republicans should be shot, and they should be.  

 

I plan to leave this country, I am not interested in being here anymore.

 

 

How we Finance Education and the American Dream

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Dear [REDACTED]

You were the kind person to explain the reality of what an educational loan is when I was confused and the information finally got through the layers of self-deception and for that matter, the layers of belief that I was programmed to have. And the core of that belief was: if you want to go to school, there will be a way to pay for it. This of course is not true. What I want to talk about here is what this policy, this system of educational finance, implies about our country and its fundamental mythology.

There is a school of public policy that believes that we can build better systems for our people by understanding how the world works, how we serve justice, how we decide to tax or not tax, how we elect representatives, how we decide to subsidize certain industries, how we feed our people and look to see empirically and theoretically what impact those policies have. It is implicit to this philosophy that ultimately we can distinguish between better or worse policies even though we may not be wise enough to predict the implications up front. The law of unintended consequences continues to screw up our best laid plans. Its complicated out there in the real world. When things go bad sometimes it is because people are being evil, but usually they are just wrong. Or the context changed. Or maybe people were not thinking it through. I have a favorite example and it involves the fairness of our elections. Every Southerner is familiar with various schemes to disenfranchise people of color and people who are poor. We have been doing it for a long time and we are good at it. One way we do this is to finance the election infrastructure by county, not by state. Well its not a surprise to learn that some counties are richer than others and that furthermore wealth is correlated with race. Furthermore, it turns out that some of the election systems are not as robust and have a higher percentage of either a misfire when a voter accidentally does not vote for their chosen candidate or when a ballot must be thrown out for technical reasons. And so it turns out that in a close election, this may be all you need to rig the game. That is the implication of the hanging chad, those chads did not hang at random. Those chads were associated with the cheaper and older voting systems in those predominantly black and poorer counties.

But my point is not about who won that election, or how that system came to be, my point is that we can not be blind to the implications of our system of financing election infrastructure, not after 2000. As a Southerner I was really annoyed. Fix the goddamn voting machines, I thought to myself. I am tired of hearing about it. Yes it will cost a little money, deal with it. How we chose to finance that part of our system of government turns out to have implications that are important. We may not be able to end racism or feed the hungry but at least in this case we can make our elections just a little more fair. We should do it.

How we pay for education in this country is a non trivial part of who has access to education and also to who has access to elite education. Because, in case you had not noticed, America is incredibly elitist. Its not that there arent a few exceptions who through merit or luck can transcend their origins, it can and does happen. But the odds are not great. I laugh when I hear that a justice is an "originalist" because I am from Virginia and in Virginia elections were always for the several hundred families, all intermarried, who were the equivalent of landed gentry, plus a few merchants and bankers and craftsmen if they were well liked. I am very fond of Virginia on a number of different levels and I am proud to be from there. The first rule of an elite who has power is to see to it that they maintain power for their class and set. Not everyone realizes that one reason the military is so important to a Southerner is because it is a recognized way to improve your lot in life, to pay for an education, to have a career if you were not born with one. In 21st century America things are different than they were in 18th century Chesapeake. Now you may need a Doctor of Philosophy just to have a good middle class life. And you may need to be a member of certain clubs to run for office even though there is nothing on paper that says you have to belong.

If the American dream is contingent on who can get an advanced degree, then how we pay for it is crucial. The only people who can get loans are people who dont need one is a fundamental philosophy of every loan officer. This is not a level playing field. I am disappointed, one more time, in the harsh reality of America so different from its promise.

Thank you again for your patience and your good will.

State of American Politics December 5, 2020

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I presume I dont have to tell you that the political situation is very bad, although I suppose it is somewhat better than before the election. The Democrats have to win the senate to avoid being destroyed by the Republicans, but they wont. Its possible, but its very unlikely. That means the Senate can block anything Biden tries to do that doesnt fit the executive order format and I dont think he has Trumps sheer willingness to fuck anything to get what he wants attitude. Since the American public is, to a large degree, pretty stupid, the Republicans will see to it that the economy sucks and frankly they have fucked things up so hard they dont have to do much. So, that means the midterms will be lost to the democrats and probably the presidential election as well. The post census redistricting in red states will be business as usual which means it is nearly impossible to regain the statehouses in those states and besides even if the democrats did it would not matter until the next census. McConnell will hold up any approvals for the judiciary, the supreme court will not be fixable, etc. Biden will absolutely pass on minimum justice for right wing criminals because he is one of those limp musnt annoy the nice Republican types. None of the problems will be fixed even if Democrats wanted to, which is not clear.

Other than AOC and a few people like Al Frankin I think the Democrats are in over their heads.

America's decline was always inevitable, Trump sped it up, maybe it will slow down a little bit because we wont have an obvious nut waving his little dick around.

When Biden fails to prosecute the rich and powerful for their crimes I will change my party affiliation from Democrat to Independent.

The only other good thing I can think of (other than Kamala Harris who is a character) is that we now know what we are dealing with in terms of racism and stupidity in the American people. That is not good news, but it is necessary to know these things, I think.

I am very disappointed!

Should Trump Be Prosecuted for his Crimes?

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Lawfareblog published an analysis of whether Biden would pick an attorney general that he was confident would not prosecute Trump, his family, or his associates without Biden having to order him or her not to.

I think this article is wrong headed on several points.  First, it neglects to mention how many Americans would conclude that our justice system is a joke and will never do the right thing in regards to the rich and powerful.  Second, it sets no precedent that in any way would restrain the Republicans (or anyone else) from evil deeds since they would know that there is no penalty for the worst of crimes.  Third, it neglects to discuss to what extent it would affect the Democratic party because of people, like myself, who would leave the party if Trump is not investigated at the least and prosecuted if the evidence warrants it.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-will-decide-whether-investigate-trump

100 Vectors Should Do It

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Now, with the supreme court (illegitimate) ruling on freedom of religion in a pandemic, for a hostile power to spread a virus in this country it will simply be a matter of sending a certain number of people to visit churches and synagogues, perhaps a different one each week. Then it wont matter how much this nation shuts down, the infection will still spread. If the virus has a long incubation and a higher fatality rate, the results could be spectacular. It will probably require the resources of a nation state to do this. But hey, there are quite a few out there that have that motive and opportunity.

The Short List

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This is a partial list of changes that are required if we wanted to responsibly address the problems that were discovered in our system of government during the Trump administration.  The Trump / Republican disaster was such a nightmare that this list can only be partial.  I am not going to bother to explain most of these.  Each item would require a many page paper, and yet I think that most Americans would know what I am refering to here.  As we all know, just identifying a problem is not the same as finding an appropriate and politically feasible solution.  Some of these problems might be somewhat straightforward to fix but most are not. Besides, I am not qualified as we all know.  I write this list out of my frustration, not because I am in any way the appropriate person to identify the problem or propose a solution.

 

We would be lucky to get one or two of these implemented or fixed. 

The Electoral College or "a disaster waiting to happen", voter suppression (destruction of the Voting Rights Act by Roberts), having a criminal who did not win the popular vote nominate none criminals and right wing nuts to our supreme court and various federal appeals courts, the issue of term limits for the judiciary, the failure of impeachment (there will never be a better case for conviction, there will never be a more egregious obstruction of justice on the part of the Senate), alllowing temporary heads of departments to avoid senate approval, senate approvals, treason, subpoenas, executive privilege, qualified immunity, redirecting money to purposes not approved by congress, getting supreme court to actually enforce the constitution (failure to enforce voting rights act), citizens united, lack of a clear criteria for reholding a presidential election, the weird statute of limitations (5 years is not close to enough), using the attorney general and the DOJ to punish enemies.

And who could forget the attempted destruction of the USPS to manipulate the election.  

Did I mention that we now have a very serious problem of "deliberate lying for cash" that should certainly affect our first amendment. 

The Constitution is hard to change for a reason.  But if its too hard to change, then you have a situation like this. It is not 1787 anymore.

Arms Sales, Donald Trump, and Logical Deduction

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[This is a transcript of a discussion with a friend about whether or not there is a kickback to Trump from the many billion dollar sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirate]

I apologize for not giving you better info on the kickback thing, I was being deliberately lazy and annoying. I have no hard evidence but my pathetic self-education includes studying the work of Holmes & Doyle (Hounds of the Baskervilles, etc) which means that we can use deduction and in this case the deduction chain is straightforward even if the money path is not. First some obvious comments on the arms business and the vast business of money laundering, then the more interesting things we know about the Trump administration and the various motivations here. This is going to be a little pedantic because it is much more work to keep it concise. Feel free to correct me at any point but keep in mind I read a lot of spy novels so I know something here.

 

1. The "corporate culture" of the arms business, in particular the arms business to 3rd world countries, is rife with corruption of which some form of unofficial transfer of the vast amount of moneys involved is the most common. Its one of the simplest ways to extract money from an official budget for personal use, and it is, to the best of my knowledge, very common. 2. The details of how the money gets transferred are arcane, have many variations, necessarily evolve with evolving law enforcement, and so forth. I have no idea what percentage of the money laundering business is kickbacks for arms deals, probably only a small percentage (10%? Less?) Some countries and institutions depend on this sort of thing although I suspect drugs and tax fraud are a larger part of this business. 3. But we would not expect to see a lump sum up front although we might depending on the level of trust. We might expect to see a series of payments at each step of the deal that go to various anonymous accounts in cooperative banks, where these accounts are for shell companies which transfer the money in relatively small amounts to other accounts at other banks in other countries, etc, until they end up making investments in something that in fact pays down the debt in another account at, for example, Deutsche Bank. 

Now lets move from this to Trump and our foreign policy.  4. There is no evidence that Trump gives a fuck about American foreign policy nor that he understands what he is dealing with here. By supporting Israel illegal settlements and bribing various countries to support Israel, he could easily bring down governments and/or destroy Israel, or cause a war that spins out of control. He may not intend to do this, but there is no evidence he cares. 5. Quid pro quo is the very heart of many, perhaps all, negotiations; its just that with Trump we expect to see it to be a blunt instrument. But it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that if a country wants our most advanced defense technologies that they could not ordinarily get, offering to recognize Israel in return for F-35s is the sort of thing that Trump might easily do, although in a normal administration it might not happen because of risks (see below). 6. In the past, money has always been a part of the deal, and we are talking about Saudi princes, Lockheed executives, American Congressman and Senators, and so forth. Rarely, if ever, is the President *directly* involved although indirectly they probably are. The classic example was Nixon and the Committee to Reelect the President who apparently received excellent cash donations from various organizations like the mafia and others. Or there is Reagan who would break the law right and left and then lie about it. Iran/Contra? No problem. I doubt, however, that the president's net wealth has been directly involved but I am confident that in the past other elected representatives have definitely received money. 7. But its Trump and we know that he has some amount of debt coming due in a few years even if there are many questions about exactly how much, to whom, etc. You regularly see estimates at $400M but I think that it is probably more. This is real estate in the hospitality business and that business is on its ass due to the pandemic. Even if that improves (and it might, it should) financing Trump is going to be a very negative thing for many institutions, not least because Trump is without doubt cavalier about honoring debt. (You know the joke about how you say "fuck you" in Hollywood). So where does he get the money from. 8. If a few percent came off the top of this deal and ended up eventually at Deutsche bank through various intermediaries, that would be I think a very logical thing to do from Trumps point of view. He certainly would not hesitate because of laws, ethics, or the interests of his country. 

 

 

9. Finally, lets add that Trump does seem to like to take care of his friends in Russia and thinks he is being VERY smart about it while Russia plays him for a fool, which he is. I doubt he has a clue what is really going on most of the time and he certainly does not believe what our intelligence community tells him. And so, Trump would ignore warnings that our most advanced defense technologies would be at risk if the destination country could not be relied on to keep it secret and that is why we only send that technology (at first) to very few countries such as Israel, Japan, Germany, the UK, etc, and even with them we usually water it down. Trump wouldnt give a hoot.

So in conclusion, Watson, it would be very logical to expect that there is a quid pro quo going on here, that the cards are not on the table which is normal, that our national security is not being protected, and that Trump would benefit financially in a substantial way. Of course, this would have to be proven but this kind of analysis is not going to be unique to me, I am not that smart or that original, sadly.

 

Poor America that Cant Count Votes

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So when they said we might not know for a week, they werent joking and the jokes on me because I thought they were. 

 

And will people stop railing on the Republicans for failing to rein in their moron president? The Republicans are traitors who hate democracy (see for example, impeachment, Kavanaugh and Barrett). They showed their real colors long ago. And the Americans who voted for them did too. Get used to it, you are in a war between those who believe in Democracy and those who dont. Pretty funny.

What Might We Look For in a MS Program?

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These are notes on some of the things one might look for in a less-than-PhD graduate program.  Whether or not a PhD will ever be practical for me is still to-be-determined, but in the short run it doesnt feel as though it is with one or two exceptions still being evaluated.  Ask for details.

 

But there are other paths through the jungle and they can achieve some of the goals that we are trying to achieve, including but not limited to: upgrading my technical skills which are wildly out of date in some areas, too many areas, getting a so-called terminal degree which might be an MFA or an MS or an MPhil depending on the subject,work with interesting professors and other students, possibly get some cachet depending on the reputation of the institution and finally, with luck, the MS is structured to prepare people to do research which is value added.

I am awful at evaluating such things over the internet in spite of it being a bold new paradigm.  Economics tells us that information is expensive so I am interested in what my friends who may know more than I in these areas have to suggest.

 

Obviously, in the old days, I would have gone to the MIT Media Lab (aka Archmac) or MIT, Stanford, CMU.  I am not sure I could get into any of these today, things being how they are.  

The following have been mentioned by friends.  Bob Coyne and Larry Stead have pointed out that Columbia has an excellent Masters of some sort in Computational Biology.  Noah Wardrip-Fruin has pointed me to several Masters programs at UCSC.  He he also pointed out that UCSB has a Media Arts & Technology program I knew nothing about.  Magy is starting something up at UCSC and thinks I should be able to easily get into a Masters program.  Jacki Morie has recommended a very interesting PhD program done mostly remotely that is based in Ireland.  Cambridge University has a wonderful sounding MPhil in computer science (dream on, wahrman) and of course, CalArts has a famous animation program which results in a terminal degree.  Michael Kass has pointed out that Cornell has some sort of joing program going with Technion in Israel.

I see value in the program being in a different country.  An educational visa is one way to get around visa restrictions.  The United Kingdom, Montreal in Canada, Italy and Israel are all value added for a variety of reasons.  I have always wanted to attend the London School of Economics, I have no idea why.  The RAND Corp has a PhD program but I have no idea if I am qualified.

The default here is to do none of this but to (a) take some courses online and (b) work on my previously specified projects (and some that are not specified and some that I dont even know about yet) and then fall over dead like everybody else.

All of this of course is for a year from now, for the most part, because of the pandemic.

Thank you.

Biden May Win but So What?

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Is this glass half empty or half full? What glass, what are they talking about? Well, even with a Biden win, but no senate, what we have here is a clearly failed political system that can not even shut up a moron/criminal like Trump, a right wing news organization spraying propaganda, a Senate ready to block all legislation, and a minority rule right wing nutty boy supreme court. On the bright side, with a Biden DOJ, if he has the guts, which I doubt, we could put a lot of Republican criminals on trial (and presumably in jail). A good executive order or two can stop the crimes against humanity by our little-Gestapo, and we can start rebuilding the cases the Republican DOJ dropped on orders from the Fuhrer. I think its a joke and the world knows it. The only people who dont know it seems to be Americans, or some of them.