Posts from — March 2018

I have been tied up with apartment manager stuff, so I missed the start of Pesach at sundown yesterday. I should probably watch The Ten Commandments as an act of contrition. Tomorrow is April Fools and Easter, but I don’t think you should attempt April Fools pranks on Easter unless you work for Faux News [rim shot].

I have been trying to put together a post on Cambridge Analytica, but every time I start something else pops up. Maybe tomorrow after I change some locks for a new tenant.

Faux News talking head Laura Ingraham decided to give David Hogg a hard time. David has been turned down by several universities, despite having a 4+ GPA. It was a major mistake on Ingraham’s part.

First she got a talking to from David’s little sister who told her to try acting like an adult. Then David posted a list of Ingraham’s advertisers and suggested people call them. This is a technique refined by Spocko to deal with media bullies. Surprise, Ms Ingraham decided to apologize “because it was Holy Week”. David wasn’t buying it, and didn’t back down on his campaign.

GOP strategist Steve Schmidt applauded David’s courage in counterattacking, noting that most GOP politicians hide when someone on Faux News bad-mouths them. Schmidt makes the point that after you have survived a fire fight, snide remarks don’t have much effect.

A lot of people seem to think that Trump is getting ready to fire Mueller. Of course he can’t personally fire Mueller, and would have to order Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein to do it. If Rosenstein refused, Trump would have to start firing people in the Department of Justice chain of command until he found someone willing to do it.

Why he would want to do it at this point doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as he can get an almost indefinite delay as he tries to find legal representation. He can’t get a public defender, so any proceedings would be on hold until he can’t find a qualified lawyer.

My wild guess as to why Trump has said nothing about Stormy Daniels when he had no problem attacking the Pope is that he doesn’t want to get hit with another defamation law suit. The easiest way to make Stormy Daniels go away is to drop the NDA. I seriously doubt he or Michael Cohen want to do that as there are probably other similar NDAs out there that might decide to hire Michael Avenatti.

Comrad Misfit has the screen shot, but it’s easier to read at Crooks & Liars: Craigslist DC Ad Seeks Lawyer For Trump.

The ad has since been taken down, but it highlights a real problem: the Mueller probe has absorbed all of the available lawyers willing to work on the problem, and most of them have been hired by witnesses. You can’t represent a witness and someone who may be affected by that person’s testimony. This was the reason that Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing couldn’t work for Trump.

My former Congresscritter found a Marist College poll on the Mueller investigation conducted among registered voters between March 19 and 21, 2018 with a margin of error of ± 3.4%.

Overall:
72% said Mueller should finish the investigation
11% said Mueller should be fired.

Democrats:
83% said Mueller should finish the investigation
4% said Mueller should be fired.

Independents:
76% said Mueller should finish the investigation
8% said Mueller should be fired.

Republicans:
57% said Mueller should finish the investigation
25% said Mueller should be fired.

It doesn’t look like firing Mueller will help the GOP in the midterms. Trump has enough problems with finding lawyers and civil law suits. Firing Mueller doesn’t buy him anything positive. With Trump facts and logic rarely prevail.

Faux News commissioned a poll of registered voters on on gun control. The polling was done March 18 through 21 of this year and has a margin of error of ± 3%.

91% favor universal background checks for all gun purchases.
84% favor a mental health check for gun purchases.
72% favor raising the age to purchase all guns to 21.
69% favor armed guards at schools.
60% favor an assault weapon ban.

These are registered voters, so the poll doesn’t include many of those who participated in March For Our Lives. In a few years I suspect that the numbers will be even more lopsided especially on the assault weapon ban.

The March for Our Lives was a success for a lot of reasons. Every major media organization covered it all day. The organizers expanded their message beyond the Parkland shooting, and just school shootings to include all children being shot in this country. The stage was opened up to others representing different groups of victims of violence including the kids in urban areas who are being killed and wounded in the streets.

Among the speakers was Naomi Wadler, an 11-year-old elementary school student from Alexandria, Virginia. Listen to her and and understand why the NRA should be very afraid.

This movement is giving others the motivation to speak out about what the NRA has done to prevent the current laws from being enforced.

David Bowie and/or Weird Al Yankovic are two people uniquely qualified to write the soundtrack for the Trump administration. SCRotUS had his lead Mueller attorney, John Dowd, resign and he then fired General McMaster to replace them with two Faux News pundit/contributors: Joseph E. diGenova as an attorney and John Bolton as a National Security Advisor.

You would need the resources of SETI to locate less qualified applicants for any position in government.

Following the the old saw about “Even a blind hog might find an acorn”, when my Congresscritter Matt Gaetz started talking about a “cabal” at the FBI, I thought I would take a look. Now I don’t put a lot stock in the blitherings of frat bros, but something was bothering me about the Bureau.

There does seem to be an anomaly in the leadership of the FBI and its predecessors. In the 110 years of the existence of the organization there has never been a Democrat appointed to head the Bureau.

It’s time to bring in new leadership with a new philosophy and appoint someone like Eric Scheiderman, the current attorney general of New York. That would certainly refocus the Bureau on catching criminals. 😈

It’s that time of year. Spring arrived at 11:15AM CDT this morning, so this is the first full day. You can watch it come at em>Archæoastronomy.

The air is already filled with pollen and the live oaks are dropping last year’s leaves. The azaleas have already peaked and the pear trees were snowy with blooms at the end of February..

I would note that locally we have had 12 hours or more of daylight since St. Patrick’s Day, and usually do.

Stephen Hawking: Visionary physicist dies aged 76. He was born on 8 January 1942, 300 years to the day of Galileo Galilei’s death and died on 14 March 2018, 139 years to the day of Albert Einstein’s birth. For the core of his professional life he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a position earlier held by Sir Isaac Newton. He belonged in their company.

A major achievement of Professor Hawking was his book A Brief History of Time, a book everyone with any interest in space or time should read. It was written for non-specialists to explain what the Big Bang Theory and other basic precepts of physics are all about. After reading the book you can appreciate his work on discovering the way the universe operates.

Louise Slaughter, microbiologist and one of six scientists in the House of Representatives, died at age 88. Louise represented the 25th District of New York, which is the city of Rochester and most of Monroe County. She has been in Congress for over 30 years and was intending to run again this year. She would have been reelected because she made it a point to actually represent the people in her district.

She was on the county commission when I lived in Rochester, and then ran for the state assembly. She did a lot of good which is why she kept getting elected in a Republican leaning area.

Éireann go Brách!

Well everyone agrees that he died on March 17^th, but the year is subject to debate. This is his feast day on the Catholic calendar. Enjoy as you are wont.

Wikipedia has more on Saint Patrick’s Day, if you need more.

The Red Lantern left White Mountain with Jason Stewart at 4:39 AM CDT at the tail end of the final five teams on their way to Nome.

The Red Lantern was out at 2:13:14PM CDT when Magnus Kaltenborn passed under the burled arch in Nome after 12 days 20 hours 13 minutes and 14 seconds of racing.

52 teams finished, 13 teams scratched, and 2 teams were withdrawn for being too slow.

Standings at 2:13:14PM CDT:

Finished at Nome
41 Lev Shvarts (22)
42 Peter Fleck (67)^R
43 Jeff Deeter (45)
44 Bradley Farquhar (65)^R
45 Misha Wiljes (19)
46 Tim Muto (42)^R
47 Dave Delcourt (57)
48 Shaynee Traska (5)^R
49 Meredith Mapes (16)^R
50 Jason Stewart (66)^R
51 Anja Radano (24)^R
52 Magnus Kaltenborn (6)Φ

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar or clicking on the Sled Dog graphic.

Steve Watkins and Tara Cicatello were withdrawn at Unalakleet passing the Red Lantern to Magnus Kaltenborn. The race marshal invoked Rule 36.

Jim Lanier and Scott Janssen scratched at Safety after calling for assistance outside the checkpoint because of weather conditions that stalled them. Jim felt his personal health was not good enough to care for his team, and Scott stayed out of concern for Jim.

Standings at 10:00PM CDT:

Finished at Nome
21 Hugh Neff (68)
22 Anna Berington (4)
23 Michi Konno (63)^R
24 Jeff King (40)
25 Michael Williams Jr. (27)
26 Katherine Keith (51)
27 Rick Casillo (9)
28 Martin Buser (28)
29 Cody Strathe (2)
30 Andrew Nolan (56)^R
31 Noah Pereira (49)
32 Tom Knolmayer (43)
33 Emily Maxwell (58)^R
34 Aaron Peck (50)
35 Charley Bejna (38)
36 Kristy Berington (20)
37 Andy Pohl (12)^R
38 Monica Zappa (48)
39 Brett Bruggeman (37)^R
40 Larry Daugherty (14)
41 Lev Shvarts (22)
42 Peter Fleck (67)^R
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