A: Neither Very Interested Nor Especially Motivated, At Least As Currently Offered

Q: How Would You Feel About Living Forever as a Chatbot? (Kate Lindsay at The Atlantic)

Some companies are trying to offer the illusion of that option already, but it looks pretty half-assed. You do things like answer a bunch of questions, give an app access to your emails, etc., and it tries to create a convincing "you" that your bereaved love ones can "talk with."

Not, in any meaningful sense, you -- just an algorithm trying to imitate you, and probably not that well ... yet.

But let's suppose that the algorithms keep getting better, and that data collect keeps getting more robust, such that it could be convincing even to people who knew you when you were alive.

Let's cover what seems to be one big hangup first:

What makes all of this especially fraught is that the dead person may not have given consent.

Who cares? The dead person is dead.

If there's no afterlife, the whole idea of consent is meaningless. Even if data can be "owned," it would be owned by the deceased's estate/heirs, and they should be free to do with it as they please (note: Data can't be "owned," and anyone who comes across the kind of data we're talking about here should be free to use it in any non-fraudulent/non-violent way they please).

If there is an afterlife, do "intellectual property rights" extend across multiple lives (possibly in different realities), and if so how are those "rights" handled/executed/adjudicated? I suppose there might be a court in "higher" realities to make such decisions in "lower" realities, maybe even with a multi-dimensional enforcement mechanism of some kind ... but if so, I haven't run into those entities and haven't heard of any communications from, or actions by, them in this reality. It's a question we can't answer and need not worry about.

Would I be willing to provide data for one of these busted-ass chatbot thingums? Well, if a love one told me it was important to him or her, I'd at least consider it. But I'd caution them not to place much stock in the idea that the resulting product was "me."

Would I be interested in having a loved one provide such data for my use? Well, if Tamara offered to, I'd probably accept. If she pre-deceases me, maybe I'd take some comfort in being able to banter with her about trivial things in hope of enjoying better retention of my memories of her. But give the current apparent state of the tech, I wouldn't expect it to work very well.

Now, if it ever becomes possible to actually identify, isolate, and upload a human consciousness to a computer system in such a way that it's arguably me or you "living" in there, I'd definitely be interested, provided that the "consciousness" retained agency, up to and including the ability to commit "suicide" in a non-recoverable way.

Note that I say "arguably." I'm aware that there are arguments against the proposition that such a "consciousness" would really "be" the person it was copied from. I tend to agree with those arguments, but to also expect that the "consciousness" would at least be a "person." Which is why I would not want such "persons" to be electronic prisoners sentenced to eternal, un-endable life. That is where I'd locate the issue of "consent," provided the data comprising the "consciousness" wasn't gathered coercively.

Wordle 1138 Hint

Hint: Bowl of pasta for your thoughts?  

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First Letter: P

Fairly Short and Hopefully Spoiler-Free Review -- Deadpool & Wolverine

TL;DR: I understand that the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general, and the X-Men and Deadpool's corners of it in particular, are tastes not everyone will be interested in acquiring (my son, for example, despises "cape shit"). But if you're into MCU/X-Men/Deadpool, you obviously can't miss this installment.

Longer Version: There isn't one, really.  I enjoyed it, but then I'm a big MCU/X-Men/Deadpool fan. There are supposedly lots of cameos, but I'd rate many of them as more than just cameos -- significant roles even if time-limited. I liked it enough that I may try to make it out for a second big screen viewing. Lots of big action/effect stuff to go with the five laughs per minute Deadpool norm.

Wordle 1137 Hint

Hint: Emil Minty played this kid in The Road Warrior.  

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First Letter: F

Q: What Do You Get When You Cross "Stealing Other People's Money" With "Manipulating Markets?"

A: This ... 

Bitcoin Tumbles Below $67K as U.S. Government Moves $2B of 'Silk Road' Tokens

Wordle 1136 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is especially good! 

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First Letter: S

If It Was Even There, I Think It's Gone By Now

Early in the week, a household member felt ill, then tested positive for both strep and COVID-19.

That's had Tamara not wanting to leave the house any more than necessary, even though she tested negative, twice. She worked from home for a couple of days, etc.

I didn't bother with testing, because if I had any symptoms they were far too mild to worry about (I had an occasional, not especially bad, chest cough for a few days), and because I don't go out that often.

BUT! I wasn't able to convince her to go see Deadpool & Wolverine on Thursday, Friday, or yesterday. I'll be leaning on her to do that with me today or tonight. Or, if necessary, just going alone.

It really does seem to me like we're at the point where, for almost everyone, COVID has become just another inconvenient "common cold" phenomenon. But certain others in the household still retain some of the cultish response predisposition.

Wordle 1135 Hint

Hint: It's not an overcoat, but it is a piece of clothing one wears over other pieces of clothing . 

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1134 Hint

Hint: If the alphabet was a piece of fruit, you'd have to squeeze today's Wordle out of it. 

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First Letter: J

It's Probably Going To Be One Of THOSE Weekends

I woke up this morning with the urge to switch operating systems. I like to do that every once in a while just to start with a "clean slate."

Unfortunately, most Linux distributions aren't clean slates. They come with a bunch of software I do not want and will never use, which means I go through and uninstall a bunch of stuff.

Linux Mint 22 Wilma (with xfce desktop instead of the LXQT I've been using) comes with a lot of extra stuff, and a piss-poor, in my opinion, software manager. I'm already regretting installing it.

But I usually regret installing a new OS for at least a few hours, until I get used to it. So I guess I'll either get used to it this weekend, or try something else.

Election 2024: Looks Like That There Democratic Nomination Is In The Bag

Per CNN:

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’[s] presidential bid in a video released Friday.

“Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” the former president told Harris on a phone call joined by his wife, according to the video.

Was the delay just about the news cycle -- maybe the two of them will serve as proxies for Harris on this weekend's news/talk shows?

Or were they considering other options and finally decided those other options wouldn't work out?

I dunno.

My assumption is that she's holding fire on her VP pick until her initial polling bump starts to subside.

My other assumption is that she's leaning toward a "swing state" pick like US Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona  or governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Personally I think she'd be better off looking southeast, at Kentucky's Andy Beshear. That wouldn't flip Kentucky, but it would likely help in Georgia and North Carolina. The guy knows how to run against, and beat, Republicans in the south.

Wordle 1133 Hint

Hint: Wordle is at its high-water mark today!

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First Letter: A

But Is It, Though?

Bad News for Universal Basic Income, that is. Eric Boehm at Reason:

The largest study into the real-world consequences of giving people an extra $1,000 per month, with no strings attached, has found that those individuals generally worked less, earned less, and engaged in more leisure time activities.

I'm against UBI for many reasons (the top three being that I oppose government "redistribution of wealth" in general, expect that instead of it being "universal" disfavored groups would get cut out, and expect that the threat of getting cut out would constitute a massively successful weapon for suppressing dissent).

But if we're moving toward Fully Automated Luxury Communism or whatever you want to call it, it seems to me that this is exactly what the advocates of same would want to see: People being willing to 1) accept less for 2) working less while 3) falling into "bread and circuses" lethargy/apathy. So they might well consider this study good news.

Election 2024: Right Now, It's Just About The Bumps

Poll information from The Hill:

Former President Trump is narrowly leading Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, in several battleground states, and the two are tied in Wisconsin, according to a new set of polls. 

The survey released by Emerson College Polling and The Hill on Thursday found Trump leading Harris by 5 points in Arizona, 49 percent to 44 percent; by 2 points in Georgia, 48 percent to 46 percent; by 1 point in Michigan, 46 percent to 45 percent; by 2 points in Pennsylvania, 48 percent to 46 percent; and tied with her at 47 percent in Wisconsin.

In every state except Arizona, the polling falls within the survey’s margin of error, meaning Trump and Harris could actually be tied in most of the battleground state match-ups. 

As you may have noticed, the Republican National Convention (w/VP reveal) was just last week, and Biden's resignation / Harris's move toward coronation came over the weekend.

This is a "bump" poll. It tells us more about immediate reaction to big events than it does about the long-haul prospects.

There doesn't seem to be much of a Trump "bump" from the convention at all ... but the Democrats got a definite "bump" with Biden's exit -- Harris is already doing better than Biden was doing before dropping out, by 3-5%, in all of those swing states.

Now we get to see whether she can build on that "bump" or not, and whether Trump finds a way to get his "inevitability" mojo going again or not.

IMHO, it's Harris who has to do all the work here, and do it well, to compete. All Trump has to do is avoid any truly massive fuck-ups and focus on getting out his vote.

BUT! It's a whole new campaign, and I don't expect to venture even tentative state-by-state predictions until at late August.

Proton Mail: New Value Added!

I've been a Proton Mail user for quite some time, and more recently a paying user due to my (on-again, off-again) aspiration to move away from Google services. I highly recommend the service, and if you use my referral link to sign up (and become a paid user), I get a spiff.

They're continuously adding new features. I use their email service, calendar, password manager, and occasionally VPN, and when their "Google Drive" alternative gets a Linux desktop version, I may use that as well.

Now, per Bitcoin.com:

Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, has launched Proton Wallet, a self-custodial bitcoin wallet with robust security and user-friendly features.

Unless you're one of their top-paid-tier account holders (I'm not), you go on a waiting list (as I discovered by going to the Proton Wallet site and signing in).

If I'm reading this correctly, the wallet is self-custodial -- that is, you have the keys and Proton doesn't -- which I consider important ... but will also allow, somehow, receipt of cryptocurrency to the wallet via the owner's email address. Nice.

Wordle 1132 Hint

Hint: William McKinley's campaign HQ.

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First Letter: P

Election 2024: The Shoe Fits The Other Foot At Least As Well

Back in the old days -- before Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, that is -- public mention of Donald Trump's advanced age and obvious cognitive impairments was fairly easily hand-waved away as Democratic "whataboutism."

But now Trump faces a 59-year-old, probably not senile, opponent instead of an 81-year-old, obviously senile, opponent.

Quoth Max Burns at The Hill:

At 78, former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history. If he wins re-election in November, Trump will end his term just a few months shy of his 83rd birthday, making him two years older than President Joe Biden is now. ... comparing footage from Trump’s 2015 presidential announcement to footage from earlier this year shows that Trump isn’t quite the man he used to be. The former president now routinely confuses names when speaking off the cuff -- including the name of his own doctor -- and struggled to finish his sentences during a Nashville rally earlier this year. How can the American people be sure Trump’s stumbles aren’t part of a sustained pattern of cognitive decline? 

The upshot being that if Trump wants to be president again, he should take a cognitive test, either in public or with the results released to the public ... like he said, back in the aforementioned old days, he'd do if Biden did.

Will he do it now that Biden's out? I doubt it.

Will Republicans of "stature" press him to do so? I doubt that even more.

Getting the Democratic Party establishment to hold Biden's feet to the fire on the matter of his age/mental status was a long and difficult process. 

The last nine years of history tells us getting the Republican Party establishment to hold Trump's feet to the fire on anything is likely impossible.

But I suspect that Democrats will make it an issue and that voters will notice.

Wordle 1131 Hint

Hint: If piano is your strong suit, you've got today's Wordle twice over.

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First Letter: F

Two Polling Data Points ...

From a YouGov email I just received with the subject line "Key insights from our latest election opinion polling" (the links in the email don't seem to work):

32% "strongly support" Kamala Harris as the new Democratic nominee for president. She is strongly supported by 62% of Democratic respondents.

That 32% doesn't bode well for November.

And that 62% could drop dramatically if a credible opponent announces.

Election 2024: But What If She Can?

I'm on record, so many times that it's not worth looking for one to link to, as not thinking Kamala Harris has much chance of winning this November. In fact, I considered it unlikely that she'd be Joe Biden's successor as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee if they were interested in really trying to win this thing.

She's an empty pantsuit. The entirety of her political experience, aside from being an identity politics VP pick (who probably caused Biden to do less well than he would have with another running mate), seems to be climbing the party ladder and letting the party machine pick her as its horse in non-competitive races. She's a pretty terrible public speaker (I base that on her previous campaigns and selected clips as VP), Tulsi Gabbard effortlessly tore her a new asshole in the 2020 Democratic primary debates, and it's hard to imagine her doing well outside the very bluest states.

But what if I'm wrong?

What if she's taken Toastmasters to heart, sharpened her debate skills, has an attractive policy proposal suite ready to run on, selects a good running mate, and can both motivate partisan Democrats to the polls and make herself look better than Donald Trump to "swing" voters?

I'm awaiting decent polling information ... but what do you think?

Note: Today's Garrison Center column is about Biden's last few months as president rather than about the campaigns, etc.

Wordle 1130 Hint

Hint: Once upon a tine, there was a Wordle about (part of) a fork.

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First Letter: P

Election 2024: What's Next?

The Democratic Party establishment is mostly lining up for a coronation of Kamala Harris as replacement presidential nominee ... but there ARE noticeable exceptions, the two biggest likely being Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (at least as of last night).

In my opinion, nominating Harris really only sends one message:

"The Democratic Party is writing off this presidential election."

OK, maybe a subsidiary, less loudly spoken, message as well:

"Let's get Harris out of the way this year so we don't have to worry about her running in 2028."

But mostly, and most loudly, the first message.

I'm not saying there's no way she could win, but it seems incredibly unlikely, even with the Biden campaign war chest (one of the selling points for nominating her that I've heard thrown around).

She's an empty pantsuit, a party apparatchik who's climbed the organizational ladder as the establishment primary pick and in non-competitive general elections (except as a slight drag on the Biden 2020 campaign) without having to demonstrate actual political chops. Her constant word salad seizures make Biden at his worst look sound like Cicero in his prime.

In theory, this is an open race -- Biden can release his delegates to vote for whomever they like; he can't bind them to his preferred alternative.

In practice, the Democratic National Committee (like the RNC and LNC) does whatever it damn well pleases and could just rig the process to force a Harris nomination.

But if that doesn't happen -- if a more credible candidate stands up and manages to reach/persuade delegates despite the ongoing DNC-backed effort to wrap this thing up and present it to Harris with a bow on top -- the race could get interesting again. Or, rather, remain interesting in the same bizarre way it's been interesting the whole time.

Wordle 1129 Hint

Hint: In science fiction, Matt Dodson is a prominent one. In real history, 55 of VMI's were wounded or killed at the Battle of New Market.

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First Letter: C

I'm Not Claiming Any Real Credit For Being Right ...

... since I didn't firmly "predict" Biden's drop-out, or take any bets on it. I was fairly confident of it, but not enough so to venture out of "reasonably well-educated guess" territory.

I think I did fairly well on the time frame guess, though.

Wordle 1128 Hint

Hint: Failing to solve today's Wordle might be a blemish on your record, but it would be a very tiny blemish. A mere dapple, really.

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First Letter: S

The Latest In A Series Of Attempts To Outsource My Entertainment Budget

Whereas, I intend to see Deadpool & Wolverine on the big screen, either on opening day or over opening weekend; and

Whereas, I intend to re-watch the first two Deadpool films over the coming week; and

Whereas, I intend to lean on Tamara to re-watch the first two, and go see the third, with me;

Be it resolved that the $25 Regal gift card on My Amazon Wish List would pay for my ticket, with some left over toward expensive concession stand goodies*, while the $50 gift card, also on My Amazon Wish List, would cover my ticket and Tamara's ticket with some left over for expensive concession stand goodies*.

Blessed are those who buy Regal gift cards for Tom to see Deadpool & Wolverine, for they shall be fondly remembered in Tom's future MCU reveries.

Final trailer (less funny, more tear-jerky than previous ones):

* Usually Tamara and I combined buy one large tub of popcorn, one soft drink, and one bottled water. And that's not cheap.

Max Borders Offers a Name for the Democratic Strategy I've Been Talking About

He calls it "The DNC Euphoria Wave Strategy."

Pick a random, but historically very short, time frame and you get the old saying "[time frame] is forever in politics." The usual minimum I see for that phrasing is in the three to six month range.

We are now less than four months from the 2024 presidential election ... a lot can still happen.

But if we take it as a given that among the things that are not going to happen are:

1. Some kind of miraculous cognitive/energy bounce-back on Joe Biden's part or
2. Some kind of moral/legal lapse on Trump's part that costs him the support of people who have continued to support him, or at least consider supporting him, after nearly eight years of too many moral/legal lapse stories to count;

Then the Democrats have two choices:

1. They can reconcile themselves to losing the presidential election, possibly losing control of the US Senate, and almost certainly not gaining control of the House; or
2. They can nominate someone other than Biden for president.

If the latter, they need to choose wisely and think about what they hope to accomplish.

If they're convinced that nobody can beat Trump, then they might nominate a pair of obvious losers (partial list to choose from: Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Beto O'Rourke) just to get those losers out of the way by letting them crater this year so that the field is clear for someone viable in 2028. I don't think that's a great strategy -- "fuck it, we're not even really going to try this year" has longer-term consequences of its own -- but I suppose they might go that way.

If they're convinced that someone could beat Trump, they need to pick that someone. It needs to be someone who already has near-100% name recognition. It needs to be someone most voters at least like (to persuade "swing" voters") and Democratic voters unconditionally love (to get and keep the base highly motivated for more than three months).

The name I've heard mentioned most often for such a candidate is Michelle Obama. Everyone knows who she is. Most Americans seem to like her. Most Democrats seem to adore her. She has experience on the campaign trail and with donor relations. She doesn't have a personal political record to live down, but she picks up at least some reflected credit for her husband's record (as you may recall, that husband was elected TWICE).

Borders mentions Obama, and also Oprah Winfrey.

I don't think the latter would be a good pick, for several reason. A big one is that she's 70 years old and the electorate seems at least somewhat age-sensitive lately. Obama is ten years younger, meaning that even after eight years in office she would still be younger than either Trump or Biden were at their first inaugurations.

There might be other good "euphoria wave" picks, but Obama does fit the bill.

She would instantly re-energize her party's voter and donor bases, and that energy would likely remain high through election day.

She would also instantly re-set the race where "reluctant or not fully decided" voters are concerned.

If this election cycle was a baseball game, right now the Democrats would be in the bottom of the ninth inning, down by three runs with no one on base and with the count 0 and 2 on a very weak batter. What are the chances that that weak batter, and two others, get hits to load the bases, then a fourth batter hits a home run to win the game?

A "euphoria wave" strategy would make this election a whole new ball game.

It's also useful to recall that this business of everyone knowing by April or May who the major party nominees were going to be is very recent  -- the "national binding primary" system only dates from 1972. Even after that, in 1976, there were enough uncommitted delegates at the Republican National Convention that it wasn't until the actual balloting that the public knew whether Gerald Ford or Ronald Reagan would be the nominee. That was in late August.

Whether it feels like it or not, this is actually early days.

Wordle 1127 Hint

Hint: Trying to get a handle on today's Wordle? Perhaps you should hire a private investigator (ask Ernest Tidyman for a recommendation/referral).

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First Letter: S

The Biden Updates Today Include ...

NBC News: Biden's family starts discussing his possible exit plan from the 2024 race

Members of President Joe Biden’s family have discussed what an exit from his campaign might look like, according to two people familiar with the discussions.  ... White House spokesman Andrew Bates denied that any such exit discussions are happening among the family.

New York Times: Vice President Kamala Harris to Speak With Major Democratic Donors

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to address a network of major Democratic donors on short notice Friday afternoon, according to two people invited to the call. ... It is unclear whether Ms. Harris plans to encourage the restive donor base to calm down or to deliver some other message. A campaign official who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said Ms. Harris was joining the call at the request of the White House.

Are either of the stories true? I don't know. They're obviously leaked/planted, but the questions are by whom and for what purpose? They could be "official" leaks/plants, intended to pave the way for  and soften the blow of a drop-out, or they could be "unofficial" leaks/plants, intended to encourage a drop-out.

I strongly suspec the former. But as always, I could be wrong.

 

I Can Only See One Purpose ...

... to this possibility:

In the last 5 minutes, the support for a Harris-Buttigieg ticket on this feed has been astounding. A veritable flood of enthusiasm. Didn’t expect it.

If in fact the loss of support from Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and Jeffries causes President Biden to step back, is this the ticket? pic.twitter.com/kLQ5kxV7RE

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) July 18, 2024

[Hat tip -- Martha Bueno]

The sole plausible purpose I can see for a Harris/Buttigieg ticket is using the 2024 nomination as a way of letting two losers eliminate themselves from consideration 2028 so maybe they can pick themselves some winners.

Which does make sense, if the Democrats believe that nobody has a chance of beating Trump in November.

Interestingly, I had one of those rare "turn on the TV news" lapses a couple of hours ago ... and ran across a Buttigieg speech for literally the first time ever during his tenure as Secretary of Transportation. Looked like the Department of Transportation equivalent of a Rotary Club talk. So I suspect maybe he's being talked up outside of Abramson's X feed.

If I Was A Conspiracy Theorist ...

... I might ascribe a great deal of significance to a global IT systems failure resulting in -- among other things -- travel disruptions, caused by a cybersecurity firm which helped perpetrate the "Russian hack of the DNC" scam and occurring in the hours likely preceding the Democratic Party's presidential nominee dropping out of the race.

Just sayin' ...

Wordle 1126 Hint

Hint: "Allude" is a more casual/indirect form of this palindrome.

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First Letter: R

He Is Not A Fat Lady ...

... but WaPo reports he is singing:

Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, according to multiple people briefed on his thinking. ... Behind the scenes, Obama has been deeply engaged in conversations about the future of Biden’s campaign, taking calls from many anxious Democrats, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and has shared his views about the president’s challenges, according to people with knowledge of the calls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. A spokesperson for Obama declined to comment.

As I've previously stated, I think the maximum impact/benefit would come from Biden announcing his withdrawal/endorsement right about the time Donald Trump walks onto the Republican National Convention stage to accept the GOP presidential nomination this evening. But Friday, or even Saturday, would also be reasonable when it comes to minimizing or eliminating any post-convention "Trump bump" in the news cycle and in polling.

Wordle 1125 Hint

Hint: Like the members of  Lambda Lambda Lambda -- the ones at Adams College, anyway.

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First Letter: N

I've Got A Gut Feeling ...

... about this.

But my gut is unclear on the matter. Top two possibilities:

1. We will hear soon that, after a "meeting with advisors" under cover of the COVID-19 claim, Biden has reluctantly decided to withdraw from the presidential race; or
2. We will hear soon that Biden has tragically succumbed to COVID-19, which IMHO would more likely be the American equivalent of the Russian "accidental fall from a window" than the truth.

Wait ... "Only?"

Axios reports on an AP/NORC poll:

Overall, 70% of U.S. voters* want Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, while only 57% want to see former President Trump withdraw.

Emphasis mine.

In what universe is 57% an "only" kind of number? I could see using "only" next to 5%, maybe even 10%, but not 57%.

* Contra the Axios reportage, the poll is not a poll of "voters." It's based on data collected from "a bi-monthly multi-client survey using NORC’s probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. household population ... with adults aged 18 and over representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia." Only (cough) 86% of the respondents claim to be registered to vote.

Initial Versus Current Impressions of JD Vance

Back in 2019, I rather liked JD Vance's autobiography/memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

Last night, I started watching the film version, and expect to finish it tonight. I'm also planning a re-read of the book, because both the differences between the book (as I remember it) and the film, and the differences -- if they are differences in him and not just differences of impression -- between JD Vance circa the book's publication and JD Vance now have me reconsidering my initial impressions.

My thinking at the moment, as is often the case, substantially resembles that of, and/or is prompted by another writer. In this case the former. I was talking about it with Tamara this morning, then noticed Kevin D. Williamson opining in the same vein at The Dispatch:

[H]e is so transparently a man who will say whatever his betters require him to say to get what he wants from them. Telling people with money and power what they want to hear is the only consistent throughline in his career, from Hillbilly Elegy to the present day. Once an appendage of Peter Thiel’s, now he is an appendage of Donald Trump’s after a long and bitter apprenticeship of sycophancy. ... Vance has every indicator that he is capable of being a man who profoundly doesn’t matter. It is a kind of skill.  Vance is whomever Trump needs him to be -- the perfect would-be vice president ...

While the film version does give quite a bit of credit to Vance's "Mamaw" for intervening to keep him off the worst tracks, as does the book, the combination of the film version and Vance's subsequent path has me thinking of him less as the "incredibly lucky, but to a large degree up by his own bootstraps" guy I thought I saw in the book and more as an "incredibly good at climbing the corporate/political ladder by kissing ass" type.

While I am definitely moving fast toward Williamson's evaluation of Vance's character, I'm less sure of Williamson's dismissal of Vance as a likely contributor to Republican success in November:

In the short term, Vance probably will not be much help to the Trump campaign. He may help to motivate a few disaffected young men to climb up out of Elon Musk’s digital sewer for 20 minutes and actually cast a vote, but the Trumpist base he is meant to excite is already excited .... the idea that Vance will help the campaign connect better with Rust Belt and Midwestern voters is nonsense: Vance is an Ivy League lawyer and Silicon Valley money-monkey whose literary success came from writing about poor white Appalachians rather than writing to them or for them.

I think Williamson may be under-estimating the appeal of fake "populists" to regular people.

If a guy who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars and claims to have ended up with billions (although fewer billions than if he'd invested his inheritance in an S&P 500 indexed mutual fund instead of embarking on a multi-decade career as a "famous for being famous" real estate scammer) can sell himself, with considerable success, as a "man of the people," Vance probably can too.

Wordle 1124 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is the most ... or at least considerable.

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First Letter: Q

So, What Are You Buying for Amazon Prime Day?

I went "zero cash out of pocket because I racked up $30 in gift card credit over the last week through various rewards programs" and bought a guitar pedal board (not an affiliate link). I've only got two pedals (chorus and delay) and a third on the way from Temu (compression), so I don't really need a big one. If I pick up a fourth pedal it will be a looper. A fifth would be a wah.

Tamara went bigger -- after the ER scare last weekend, she finally decided to get a "fitness tracker" that monitors heart rate (not an affiliate link).

Y'all?

That Word, "Instant" ... I Do Not Think It Means What They Think It Means

Screen shot of an ad I just saw on the web:

For the Security/Anonymity Minded ...

There's a cool tutorial at The Intercept today on how to set up Signal (an encrypted messaging app) without revealing your phone number.

It looks like a real pain in the ass, and there are alternatives to Signal without the phone number requirement. But Signal is also quite popular and it might be easier to go this route than convince your friends to switch to something else.

On the other hand, unless those friends also pull the "not my phone number" schtick, then any government agency wanting to find you could just subpoena their phone numbers and torture them into revealing your identity, right?

Alternative method to The Intercept method: Instead of trying to find a pay phone, find some way to use a stranger's or business's land line.

OK, Let's Take One of the Conspiracy Theories Seriously, Just For the Sake of Argument

I'm not seeing a lot of this one, but I'm seeing some of it:

"The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was faked by Trump / the Trump campaign."

Do I believe that to be the case? No.

Why don't I believe that to be the case? Because I've seen no evidence to suggest that it's the case.

But I can make a case for how it's not impossible.

1. The conspirators recruit a naive, troubled 20-year-old who's also clearly a poor marksman (cut from his school's rifle team). He's the "patsy." Precisely what he believes himself to be doing or why is unknown -- perhaps he thought he was a local recruit to the "Trump Security Team?" -- but he's induced in some way to crawl up on a rooftop with an AR-15 so that he can be shot dead when ...
2. An actual shooter, who can put bullets where he wants them to go, opens fire and intentionally hits a few bystanders to cause panic, while ...
3. Donald Trump ducks down behind the podium, slaps the side of his head with a small packet of fake blood, lets himself get dogpiled by Secret Service agents, then gets up, raises his fist, and yells "fight." Instant "the man meets the moment" energy.

How many conspirators would that require? At the absolute minimum, Trump and the two shooters. But really several others. There'd need to be a doctor willing to hide the fact that there was no real wound. There'd need to be either an operation to distract the Secret Service probably involving several people, or one or more conspirators within the Secret Service, or both.

And then everything would have to go perfectly.

And then everyone involved would have to either remain silent, or be silenced, or be discredited if they talked.

"Not impossible" is not the same thing as "plausible." It would take credible evidence to get from the former to the latter, and I haven't seen any such evidence yet.

Wordle 1123 Hint

Hint: Don't be deceived -- today's Wordle is just a distraction!

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First Letter: D

Some Early Thoughts On That One Thing (You Know The Thing)

I don't fear contradicting the "official narrative" on any subject.

Nor am I inclined to reflexively write off "conspiracy theories" without actually looking at the supposed evidence for them.

So far, the evidence I've seen for a conspiracy in the Trump assassination attempt comes to:

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

Of course, me not having seen any evidence doesn't mean there isn't any evidence. If there is any evidence, and I see that evidence, I'll re-think.

Based on what I have seen, this so far looks like the work of a single, not very competent, wingnut who got far luckier than he had any right to expect to get, and still managed to fuck it up. Because:

1. Bringing an AR-15 to a "sniper" situation is the equivalent of bringing a butter knife to a gunfight. It's a small-caliber round (barely larger than a .22 -- and if it is military-grade it is jacketed so as to tend to go through the target rather than mushrooming/fragmenting inside the target to produce more catastrophic injury). For sniper work you want at least a .30 caliber/7.62mm.
2. Not being able to get a solid hit on a target the size of a fairly large human at 130 meters from a prone position is poor marksmanship even with an under-powered weapon like an AR-15. I guess the kid did fairly well if he was going for a head shot. But for that situation he should have been aiming center mass. He was clearly not properly trained for this thing.

So, let's think about this from two conspiracy standpoints:

1. If the conspirators were, say, Democrats or Never-Trump Republicans who wanted to kill Trump, they would have either recruited a better shooter who could make the kill at that distance, or used a second shooter who could get the job done while Mr. Crooks was distracting the counter-sniper team.
2. If the conspirators were MAGAts who wanted that heroic raised fist, etc., there wouldn't have been a shot that actually came anywhere near their hero, and certainly not within a couple of inches of killing him.

I'm open to evidence that tends to contradict those initial opinions. But those are my initial opinions.

And, of course, the obligatory disclaimer: I don't support political assassinations. I don't have a moral problem with murderous scumbags reaping the terrible karma they've sown, but I do have a moral problem with innocent bystanders being injured or killed. And as a practical matter I just don't think it's likely to produce good results.

Word PSA

cowardly, adj. Wanting courage; basely or weakly timid or fearful; pusillanimous; spiritless.

George W. Bush in particular seems to have a problem using this word properly.

In 2001, he used it to describe 19 men, armed with nothing but boxcutters, seizing control of multiple airliners and crashing them at the inevitable and predictable cost of their own lives. The 9/11 hijackers were certainly evil, but they were hardly "cowardly."

Over the weekend, Bush doubled down on the word, using it to describe a 20-year-old who climbed up onto a roof with (so far as I know) nothing but a single rifle and attempted to assassinate a politician with one of the most well-armed, best-trained bodyguard details in human history, said detail including a counter-sniper team. I have no idea what Thomas Matthew Crooks's motivations were, but the suggestion that he lacked courage is clearly stupid. Doubly stupid coming from a guy who got Daddy to swing an Air National Guard billet for him to avoid fighting in Vietnam ... then deserted.

Wordle 1122 Hint

Hint: You're gonna want a fainting couch, and possibly smelling salts, for this one.

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First Letter: S

This Last Week Was One of Those That Left Me Feeling Like ...

I expect I'll be over it within the next few days, though.

Wordle 1121 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is an armed and dangerous killer! Approach with caution, especially if you happen to be a radio star!

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First Letter: V

Within Limits ...

... that Android tablet I bought back in March (not an affiliate link) turned out to be a good choice.

As you may or may not remember, I bought it with a specific use in mind: I wanted to see if I could substitute a tablet with keyboard for my Chromebook as a "travel work rig."

I couldn't.

My requirements aren't for a crap ton of RAM or processing power. I mostly just visit web sites and edit text.

But I absolutely require the ability to run multiple tabs, accessible with one click (rather than by clicking three dots at the top right of the screen, opening a list of tabs, and going to the one I want), in both my browser and my text editor.

That doesn't seem to be a thing in Android. I have yet to find a working browser or text editor that does that.

High on the list, although not an absolute requirement, is the ability to run two screens. I have a USB travel monitor. It works with the Chromebook. It doesn't work with the tablet.

So, not a "daily driver," or even "traveling light" work machine.

Since March, the tablet has basically been an occasional "play Bejeweled" machine, something I can keep next to me while watching TV or in the car in case I'm stationary somewhere with wi-fi and want to check my email, etc.

Last night, on the way out the door to take Tamara to the emergency room, I grabbed it for the latter purpose. For the next six hours, as she mostly slept while awaiting a bunch of tests and test results, I used it to check email, do the day's Wordle, listen to a local radio station over the web, and, yes, plaay Bejeweled. I probably could have used it for messaging to update the rest of the family, but I had my phone and that was at least as easy.

So, decent buy.

And yes, Tamara is OK. Some ongoing symptoms -- consistent with a heart problem -- that I had been badgering her to get seen about got suddenly worse, and she finally gave in. EKG, chest X-ray, and contrast CT came back looking good. Still not sure what's going on, but now I'm not as worried about her ticker suddenly exploding or something. Definitely some bradycardia going on, though.

Wordle 1120 Hint

Hint: Actors do this with plays; politicians do it with legislation.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 1119 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle brings an aftertaste of peanut butter, but only for about as long as it takes light to travel one fermi.

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First Letter: J

OMG! DEFLATION!

OK, not really. Reuters reports that the Consumer Price Index fell 0.1% in June, but "Core CPI" still went up by 0.1%.

Keep that up for another month or two, and whoever's running as a Democrat for president by September will be claiming that Biden's policies "whipped inflation" (while the Trump campaign claims that the prospect of his return to the White House is "restoring consumer confidence").

But if CPI is still falling by the end of the year, we'll definitely see hand-wringing about deflation.

Wordle 1118 Hint

Hint: If Wordle ever appears in a movie, it will likely play this kind of role.

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First Letter: C

An Illustrated Prediction Concerning Likely Consequences of Certain Proposals

When You've Lost George Clooney ...

Per The Hill:

Last month, Clooney joined former President Obama and actor Julia Roberts for a buzzy and record-breaking Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden’s campaign. The event raised $30 million.

This month, though ...

It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate .... We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate.

I just can't see anything coming up for Biden except his drop-out. And I expect it to come between July 15 and July 18, specifically to steal the spotlight from Trump and the Republican National Convention.

Wordle 1117 Hint

Hint: Hint pickings are exceedingly slim for today's Wordle. Perhaps old John (the Duke of Lancaster) could lend a hand, or at least a glove to put one in?

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First Letter: G

What If The Coming Biden Drop-Out Was A Long-Term Plan?

I was probably wrong in December of 2021 when I thought that Joe Biden had no intention of seeking a second term as president.

And heck, I could be wrong in my prediction that he will drop out on or about July 18.

But assuming I'm not wrong, what if it's something other than what it looks like?

What it looks like:

Biden really, really, really, really wants to (or is at least under e.g. family pressure to) be the Democratic nominee, but is being dragged kicking and screaming toward an exit.

Alternative hypothesis:

At some point prior to the primaries, Biden decided he wasn't going to run again.

But he didn't want a messy primary season. He wanted considerable control over the nomination, even though he didn't want the nomination.

So he cleared the decks of plausible contestants by announcing his candidacy for re-election, meaning that there wouldn't be any serious primary contests ... and meaning that when he withdrew, very close to the actual nomination vote date, whichever successor he endorsed would be the inevitable nominee because no one else would have time to put together any kind of real effort to sway the voting delegates.

Maybe his cognitive situation went downhill faster than he expected, and maybe he's just gutsing it out a little longer to keep the withdrawal/nomination time frame compressed, but the hypothesis here is that he had already decided to drop out some time last year at the latest.

Maybe his chosen successor knows this is coming, maybe not. But I have noticed, over the last several months, rumors of Michelle Obama privately meeting with big party donors, and right before "that debate" there was a series of obviously planted stories about how she is no longer "close" with the Bidens. Does she have a campaign in waiting already pretty much set up?

This is just a hypothesis. It could become a testable/provable theory if source materials (e.g. correspondence, call logs, etc.) are eventually released. Or Biden might just come out and say so. In fact, if it's true, I expect him to say so after he leaves office, as a "legacy-builder" way of showing that he chose, rather than got forced, to quit. Mastermind rather than dimwit, so to speak.

Wordle 1116 Hint

Hint: As types of sounds go, today's Wordle is loud and usually considered unpleasant.

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First Letter: B

Election 2024: People Are Starting To Notice My Go-To Bellwether

Salena Zito, writing at RealClearPolitics:

Once a solid county for Democrats in statewide gubernatorial elections as well as federal elections for president, U.S. Senate, and Congress, Erie [County, Pennsylvania shocked the world when the county went from supporting President Obama by a whopping 16 percentage points in 2012 to supporting Donald Trump in 2016 by 40,000 votes. Four years later, Biden would win the county by roughly the same amount; in between, Democrats Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman would also win the county for governor and U.S. Senate, and a Republican won the county executive’s race for the first time in decades. In short -- win Erie, you win the state.

It's more of an "interviewing the man on the street" -- or, rather, the voters hanging out at the butcher shop -- piece. On a quick look, I don't see any county-specific presidential polling, so I can't say how it's going.

But I find it interesting that Erie County is starting to pop up as a "bellwether" with others, as it has with me for several years now (here and here, for example).

We can talk about "double haters" and "swing voters" all day long, but as I've written a bazillion times, the real key is getting out your vote. Erie County seems to be a recurring illustration of what happens when a candidate does, or doesn't, manage to do that.

In Praise of Longer Films

Michael Rooker's pitch for Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1, Kevin Costner's self-funded western, defends its length (per the Independent, riffing on a TMZ interview):

We’re used to 90-minute movies. Everything’s 90 minutes … Oh come on, give me a break … Get over that s***. Let’s watch a movie that actually tells a story, where you learn about the people and grow to like them, or hate them. It’s not all fast cut, cut, cut.

The movie didn't do well over its first weekend, and Rooker seems to think its three-hour running time in our "TikTokified" era is much of the reason.

I think he may be right. For some reason, people pay high ticket prices for the privilege of paying even higher concession stand prices ... but don't seem to want to get more than an hour-and-a-half of entertainment out of the deal. I'm not sure that's a new/TikTok-related thing, but it's definitely a thing.

Intermission: Horizon Trailer

I was actually thinking about the "long movie" thing over the weekend while watching Martin Scorcese's The Irishman (3 1/2 hours) for the third time.

It came to mind when I pointed out to Tamara that in The Irishman, Joe Pesci's character (Russell Buffalino) sends Robert De Niro's character (Frank Sheeran) to deliver weapons for the Bay of Pigs operation, while in JFK Pesci plays David Ferrie, who receives those weapons. JFK is another three-hour-plus movie I've watched and enjoyed many times.

I like a longer movie, if the writers, director, et al. can keep it interesting.

Granted, I like a long movie better at home, where I can hit "pause" for bathroom breaks, or even split it up over a couple of days.

And home is where I'll likely watch Horizon, simply because I don't do the theater thing as often lately and am saving my theater dollars for Deadpool & Wolverine later this month.

But if I was really wanting to hit the theater right now, Horizon might well be my pick.

Yes, I know. Two entirely different kinds of movie. But I've not seen a Deadpool flick on the big screen yet and want to.

End Credits: Deadpool & Wolverine Trailer

Wordle 1115 Hint

Hint: Three examples of today's Wordle: Point, triangle, sphere.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1114 Hint

Hint: A defined body of work, such as "the books of the Bible" or "the plays of Shakespeare."

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First Letter: C

This is NOT Investment Advice, But It's How I "Buy The Dip"

Hypothetical Situation #1: You buy 1,000 shares of stock in Company A at a penny per share. The price rises to two cents per share. You sell your shares.

Hypothetical Situation #2: You buy 1,000 shares of stock in Company B at $100 per share. The price rises to $100.01 per share. You sell your shares.

In each case (excluding things like brokerage fees), you turned the same profit ... ten bucks. The difference is that in Hypothetical Situation #1 you risked $10 to earn $10, while in Hypothetical Situation #2 you risked $100k to earn $10.

I don't consider myself a cryptocurrency "investor" or "speculator" for the most part. I'm more interested in using cryptocurrency in commerce than I am in "buying low, selling high."

My usual version of "selling high" is that there's something I want to buy but I delay doing so until the US dollar price of whatever crypto I'm holding goes up versus the US dollar price I got it at such that my purchase leaves me with the same US dollar balance that I had at the former point.

But when Bitcoin takes a big price hit (as it has this last week for various reasons), I sometimes "buy the dip" by converting some of my BTC balance to a very-low-price cryptocurrency which has been falling as well, probably further/faster than BTC.

For example, yesterday I swapped about $50 worth of BTC (US dollar price $50-some-thousand per BTC) for about $50 worth of FIO (US dollar price about 2 cents per FIO). With swap fees, I think I paid about $52 worth of BTC for about $49 worth of FIO.

Over the next 30 days, I think it's a LOT more likely that FIO will double in price than that BTC will double in price (FIO was worth twice as much as it is now as recently as April; BTC has never been worth twice as much as it is now).

If FIO does about that well, I swap back and end up with a highter US dollar value in BTC than I had before. Not a huge amount of money, but not a huge amount at risk either.

I have secondary motives for picking FIO beyond it being very low in price.

One is that I like its purpose ("one identity for all your crypto"), which I've blogged about before.

Another is that in the past, I've done what I describe above and have ended up "making money." Not big money, but enough money for it to have been worth my time to mess around with it.

Wordle 1113 Hint

Hint: As "sneer" is a facial expression, today's Wordle is the verbal/audible equivalent.

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First Letter: S