Neil Innes (December 9, 1944-December 29, 2019)

BREAKING: State of Union

Earlier this year, Speaker Pelosi let the President know that it would be inappropriate for the House to extend an invitation to deliver the State of the Union during the course of a government shutdown, so she held back. The address, originally scheduled for Jan 29, was eventually pushed back to early February.

Trump lashed back the net day.

This time, instead, the Speaker has chosen to formally ask Trump to come by and explain himself on a date certain.

The View From Michael's Porch

Santa Cruz, March 2011

A Fishing Craft

Santa Cruz Harbor, July 2016

Michael Bush (January 24, 1948-December 15, 2019)

I'm pushing away against the thought of Michael dead. I'm watching Watchmen, I'm subsumed in the 49ers' lackluster loss, I'm walking the dog around, I'm vacuuming. Listening to Dylan tell his long crooked telling of Highlands

But he's dead, Michael, irrefutably done. Ah.

Distant Fire

Santa Cruz Sunrise, September 2016

Rituals of Deflection

Professor Karlan made the comment that Trump could name his son "Barron," but he could not make him a baron, all this implicitly to underline her point that the powers of the presidency are limited, are not those of a king, who can in fact make a baron with a flick of the wrist.

Republicans responded to the professor's mot with a round of aghast virtue signalling, displaying their moral distaste for anyone who'd drag the name of the youngish child of the president into public discourse. The First Lady's office produced a communication of her own expressing dismay in finding her son so used.

The professor wisely apologized and slunk back to Stanford, deflecting months of potential bother.

As for the son, it is to be hoped that, given his age and sound condition, he is masturbating all over the White House residence and having a grand good time otherwise, as well.

Minor Insight

Before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings aired this week I didn't know John Hodgeman was a Lt. Colonel in the Army. I always thought of him as more of a humorist.

A Look At The Santa Cruz Mountains From A Distance

The View Across Monterey Bay From Pacific Grove, September 6, 2009

Pitchers And Catchers Report In February

Elizabeth Nelson fashionably chronicles her advanced Washington Nationals fandom in a wonderful series of posts at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

It's Going To Take Chelada Love

Chelada People Believe In Miracles

Chelady In Red

Final Thoughts

I know exactly that elation, having experienced waves of it myself in 2010 when the Giants finally won a World Series in San Francisco. I waited considerably longer for that culmination than Ms. Nelson, but will acknowledge that there can hardly be a happier happiness for any fan of a ballclub than to see their own lads Champions at last.

I Wasn't There When It Went Missing

A filing cabinet broken into in 1972 as part of the Watergate burglary sits beside a computer server that Russian hackers breached during the 2016 presidential campaign, on display at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington.— Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times (Dec. 13, 2016)

It takes a kind of technological illiteracy, however fervent, to plead for a search for the supposedly missing DNC server which was sitting there in plain sight in 2016, illiterate in the sense that "server" does not mean, even if it were some other missing server not featured in the photograph, that its possession would advance in any way the parallel and equally mythical quest to find the missing 30,000 emails that have alway been accounted for: emails do not naturally adhere to servers. That's not what a server is. Examining the DNC server would catalog its mechanical and electronic components and find that it is indeed capable of connecting to the internet. The thing you want to find that might have something remotely like what you seek is another piece of equipment entirely. Not a server. The one not missing can never be found.

Donald Trump Sneers At Your Puny Constitution Number 12 And 35

Welcome to the Doral!

Have a quid pro quo while you wait!

An Aside

"You wouldn't know a joke if one raised you" is Oscar Wilde level diss.

In Other News

(via amptoons)

Crypto-Literary Puzzle Solved

Ulysses was angling for Ungvár when he set off with his oar.

On The Hiberno–Brexit Front

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he did not want to "comment on court cases that are happening in the UK. They'll play themselves out".

He told a press conference in Denmark the EU would consider a request for a further Brexit extension if Mr Johnson asked for one, adding: "Certainly an extension would be better than a no deal".

However, he said many other EU countries would need a "good reason" to approve a further delay to the UK's exit.

He said his preference was to reach a deal with the UK by the summit of European leaders on 17 October and said he believed this was still possible.

"Our focus is getting a deal at the EU Council and I believe that's possible," he added.

Here the renowned fellow Varadkar, high official of the Irish government itself, proposes a last possible exit to diplomacy debouching at the October 17 EU Council Meeting.

It's a gracious gesture, but also cautionary if many nations truly need convincing for further extensions. Any extension requires unanimous consent.

The longer the EU lets Brexit drag on, the more expensive the eventual booting of Britain becomes for the economies of the EU's member states, it says here.

Anyhow, I would say Taoiseach rather that Prime Minister, which is more of a Boris Johnson thing.

Revison

Except that of course trying to equate whatever it was that "September 27" indicated in the Julian Calendar of 1066 with what passes for September 27 in the current Gregorian one is an effort bound to fail. They can't help but mean different places.

William, having gathered his forces at the mouth of the Somme, set sail. This was all some time ago, and the rest is history.

Recant

No, in spite of previous assertions, this is the 953rd anniversary of the day on which William set sail to conquer the British Isles, September 27, 1066.

Respects

This is the 953rd anniversary of the day on which William set sail to conquer the British Isles, September 27, 1066.

I grudgingly applaud the move. Residual self-interest tips me.

Robert Hunter (June 23, 1941-Septermber 23, 2019)

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Robert Hunter

John Cohen (August 2, 1932 – September 16, 2019)

He, "Uncle John" Cohen, wasn't necessarily that Uncle John, but still.

Does He Seem Fit?

Candidate Castro made what proves to be a baseless charge against Joe Biden in tonight's debate. Clearly it served as a test of how capably Joe Biden might respond to baseless charges against him, the number of which can only increase, by an elemental law of politics, as the campaign continues.

Seattle Sunset

September,  2019

He Really IS That Guy Down There At The End Of The Bar

Trumps' Plan To Destroy Hurricanes resurfaces a really old, really bad idea that he likely just discovered and now won't stop going on about.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The purpose of owning Greenland is to finally surround Canada with America at last, from Greenland in the Arctic East to Alaska in the Arctic West above and then all the way around to the contiguous 48 below, surrounded. Then let the Canucks try something. Just let them.

Bridge Stays

Sundial Bridge By Santiago Calatrava, August 2012

I Know What You Mean, You Know What I Mean?

Bromberg Interruptus

"In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite."

Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! They like to call themselves “Elite,” but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!

—Says Area Man

Because August on the Misses Miller River

Art Neville (December 17, 1937 – July 22, 2019)

Musicological Note

Here's a recent conversation (accessible for the next few weeks) on Tom Mazzollini's long-running Blues By The Bay radio program about Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick and their great, unfinished project meant to document the rise and spread of African American vernacular musics in Texas. It is now available, for a price, in the recently published Blues Comes To Texas.

Hearing Chris Strachwitz (who has never been too far wrong about American vernacular music) enthuse about this book is all the convincing I need.

Did Epstein Ever Put The Make On Ivanka?

It would be irresponsible not to speculate. She was just the right age.

Critics Corner

World War II did not lead to a wave of great literature, especially given its overwhelming importance in the twentieth century. But it sure led to a wave of great film.

Eric Loomis, Lawyers, Guns & Money

Loomis is right. In spite of attempts by commenters to compile a list of great WWII literature, there was no wave of great literature conveying those events equivalent to the wave of great film produced over the course of the past sixty years.

A list, even a big list, is not a wave.

Nevertheless I searched in vain for a comment mentioning Gravity's Rainbow, which is great and literature and seems to be about WWII, more or less, as I recall. Strange that it doesn't immediately come to mind.

João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira (June 10, 1931-July 6, 2019)

Van Morrison Almost

Independence Day

Name That Camp

A History of Concentration Camps in the US

Mandatory Quadrennial Color Calibration

Azaleas, 2015

Econ Wan Oh One

What will one pound be worth, post-Brexit, should Britain chose to stiff the EU for the costs it must bear for removing itself from the union? Asking for a friend.

The Future of the Future In End-Times Rhetoric

Jupiter is almost four times farther away from earth than the earth is from the sun. Neptune is about 28 times farther from earth than earth is from the sun. Neptune is far, far away. To arrive in good order at Neptune would be a prodigious achievement on the part of humanity. Who's to say it's achievable?

I find myself, even in my senescence, leaning pro-Neptune.

Of Which The Moon Is A Part

"I'll take, The sky seen from Mars for $4000, Alex," he said.

"No, I'm sorry, that would be, The Solar System … ah, wait, we have a judges' ruling that the Moon is unquestionably a part of the sky seen from Mars, so we'll allow that answer as well. Congratulations for playing Make Sense of THIS!"

Dr. John, November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019

Betterment

…

When men of science envisage a possibility of this kind, they are prone to a type of fallacy which is common also in other directions. They imagine that a reform inaugurated by men of science would be administered as men of science would wish, by men similar in outlook to those who have advocated it. In like manner women who advocated votes for women used to imagine that the woman voter of the future would resemble the ardent feminist who won her the vote; and socialist leaders imagine that a socialist State would be administered by idealistic reformers like themselves. These are, of course, delusions; a reform, once achieved, is handed over to the average citizen.

—Bertrand Russell, ICARUS or The Future of Science, 1924

And the average citizen, distracted by more immediate concerns, willingly passes administration of the reformed matter over to all the same people who cared enough to fight over the reform in the first place.

Yes, If You Were Asking, That's A War Crime

Duncan Hunter figures he killed hundreds of civilians in Fallujah.

“Quote from Rebecca Solnit,” with explanation of Rebecca Solnit for readers not familiar with Rebecca Solnit.

Explaining San Francisco, a city located on the west coast of the United States, but also in the imagination of the culture, by using a set of algorithms drawn by a bot.

"Lieutenant Slaughter was remembered in the name of a city and a county in Washington Territory, but citizens renamed the city Auburn and the county Kitsap"

I lived in Steilacoom, WA, while stationed at Ft. Lewis, so the story of Slaughter as told by Ulysses Grant and the expansion of its punchline here have a special resonance.

The room I rented overlooked a southern limb of Puget Sound in an old failed hotel that had, it was claimed, once sheltered Grant himself on the Pacific Northwest leg of his post-presidential grand tour of the world.

Update

Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eclipsed 415 parts per million for the first time in human history.

—msn.com

Eleven years ago the hope was to keep the CO2 level in Earth's atmosphere under 350 parts per million to avoid the foreseeable catastrophic consequences of permitting any greater concentration. Eleven years on and we are farther away from that goal than we have ever been in what passes for history among the humans.

The Meaning Of The Document Always Resides Outside The Document, Where It May Be Contested

The Mueller Report is a fundamentally conservative document produced by a fundamentally unobjectionable conservative high ranking career Republican Justice Department/FBI functionary named, not coincidentally, Robert Mueller.

There is enormous restraint in the ambit of Mueller's investigation, tracks leading down avenues some of which he notes but does not pursue, matters which by the generous terms of his remit would be within his right to examine, but nevertheless leaving him with two sore points, the nature and extent of Russian encroachment in the conduct of the 2016 presidential election, and the multitudinous efforts of the President of the United States to undermine that investigation, once begun.

He scrupulously draws within the lines he has created for himself, and comes up with a handful of times the president has quite evidently committed obstruction of justice.

Playing by what he notes are the established rules of the Justice Department, Mueller does not formally indict the President for criminality. He simply points the way.

The currently released redacted version of The Special Counsel's Report, the document itself, violates established Department of Justice requirements as set out by Section 508 in particular, requiring the Department to publish documents in formats which employ various electronic technologies that aid in their accessibility, search functions and the like, are unavailable in the document as released by William Barr's Department of Justice, which is instead made up of a set of rude snapshots of what were once pages in a PDF, a format which fully supports all those assistive requirements of Section 508.

Removing those requirements in the version offered to Congress and the public was the responsibility of Barr and presumably Rosenstein as they worked to redact what they could of Mueller's work with the tools they had at hand.

Who Knew Coups News?

Today at the NRA convention, Donald Trump made preposterous claims about a coup against his presidency that outranked NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's claims about a coup against his own presidency at the same convention. Lot of couping going on there.

Your Simile of the Week Award

One of the most common misunderstandings about Dumb Guys is that they are not capable of doing things. This is false. They can and in fact absolutely love to do complicated-sounding things like scheme and intrigue. They may not do those things well, and will generally do them in arbitrary and ineffective ways. But they will attack the work of scheming and maneuvering and infighting with all the vigor of a dog trying to carry a too-big tree branch through a doorway.

—David Roth

Previously

July, 2001

Dismay

***BREAKING*** Must Credit Quotidian

Apparently, in spite of months spent on the task, Donald Trump cannot be exonerated by the Special Counsel appointed to look into his dealings.

The First Aside of the 2020 Presidential Race

Say what you will about Joe Biden, he spearheaded the bankruptcy bill that made it to the desk and signature of George W. Bush, that effectively indentured a generation of student loan recipients to decades of ineradicable debt payment, itself a mere sidelight to the bill's main aim, removing historic bankruptcy protections from a broad range of consumers.

So there's that.

Long Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away

Guantanamo

Brexit Breakdown

How fucked up is the world economy going to be in the aftermath of the gun-to-its-own-head British state careering somnolently toward the nihilist culmination of Brexit a couple of weeks from now? The United States is particularly entwined with the fate of the financial instruments purveyed in the City, London's clearinghouse for global financial transactions. I have no idea if the markets have priced in the cost of disconnecting Britain from the global economy already. Even so, a jolt should be expected shortly, to the unhappy isle and associated parts of the wider world.

A Suggestion Is Corrected

CORRECTION (March 7, 9:48 a.m.): An earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested that an article in a conservative outlet suggested Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her top aide could face jail time over an FEC complaint. The article suggested that they could face jail time over ties to a political action committee named in the FEC complaint, not because of the complaint itself.

Jane Timms, NBC News

I Cried "Uncle"

John Phillips, of the Mamas and Papas Phillips's, wrote the song Me and My Uncle, a staple of Grateful Dead performances, becoming that group's most played song between 1965 and 1995, with 608 performances (a plausible though not personally verified by me amount), which is many more than necessary by my way of thinking, but admittedly offering up scores to choose from if the best ever among all the rest of them is sought from Deadheads who perforce would have experienced a decent sampling during any arbitrary stretch of time during those 30 years had they attended whatever the minimum number of shows it might take to be considered a Deadhead at the time.

I'm pretty sure I was at Winterland for what appears to have been the third performance of Me and My Uncle. I thought it was O.K., however much my pronounced distaste for cowboy music in general ruled against it. That was always going to be the best performance for me. The rest I managed to endure with what patience I could muster under the circumstances.

Suicide Is The Last Refuge Of The Cynic, I Hear

Hunter Thompson memorialized at University of California Santa Cruz's McHenry library.

The Recent Appearance of Original Intent In Jurisprudence

A Lexicon of Original Intent

Noted Cactus

Flower-armed Cactus

Treefall

Fallen tree blocks East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, CA, February 4, 2019

Eucalyptus is a monstrously invasive lifeform in coastal California, rivalling grasses and human beings for the title of most thoroughgoing colonizer of its lands. Here, nudged by insistent winds, unmoored from the rain-saturated soils on the edge of Twin Lakes Beach in Santa Cruz, a giant one leans across East Cliff Drive.

Counter-programing For An Otherwise Very Mueller February

Mick Mulvaney used Fox News Sunday morning to announce that Trump would use emergency powers to fund his wall. His comment was reinforced by the Wall Street Journal, reporting the president's words to the same effect.

This is the fuck Congress option of the many possible constitutional crises the body politic might suffer shortly.

"The RNC And Donald Trump, Sittin' In A Tree, K-I-S-S-I-"

Why, we ARE the grass roots! avers one member of the RNC, as the organization formally merges with Donald Trump's re-election committee.

Smell The Glove

Trump's man Cohen took $50,000 to pay another fellow to rig some polls prior to the 2016 election.

In The Long Run What Do We Mean By "We?"

Ultimately in almost every instance bacteria win out over time, bending the rest of the planet's life forms to that form's own multifarious purposes in the end. A planet's purpose is expressed by its bacteria time after time. It is the way of things everywhere and everywhen, generally. A robust simplification of the endless issues raised by life: bacteria triumphant. Given time.