Yeah, This is Working So Well

In response to new sanctions against new sanctions against Iran, Russia is planning to invest fifty billion dollars in the Iranian energy industry:

Iran has touted $50bn worth of potential Russian investments in its oil and gas sector as it seeks to deepen its relationship with Moscow, amid mounting pressure from the US to curb the country’s energy exports and diplomatically isolate Tehran.

………

“Russia is ready to invest $50bn in Iran’s oil and gas sectors,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said during a visit to Moscow that included a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. “Military and technical co-operation with Russia is of major importance to Iran.”

………

Mr Velayati, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top diplomat, also used a media interview during his visit to say that a Russian oil company had already signed a $4bn deal with Iran that “will be implemented soon”, without providing details. He added: “Two other major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, have started talks with Iran’s oil ministry to sign contracts worth up to $10bn.”

………

The suggestion of deeper co-operation between the two countries’ energy industries comes eight months after Russian companies signed preliminary agreements to invest up to $30bn in Iran’s oil industry, as part of a visit by Mr Putin to Tehran.

………

But Mr Trump’s decision to rip up that accord and threaten to sanction companies that trade in Iranian oil has led Tehran to work with Moscow. Hardline Iranian politicians have urged Mr Rouhani’s government to expand co-operation with Russia and China to replace European companies unwilling to risk the wrath of Washington.

This is a foreseeable result of bad policy. 

Sanctions after sanctions, particularly without the support of allies, is like pushing on a string.

Linkage

• The Strange Story of Cisco's (Sort of) Beloved Hold Music (The Atlantic) I always wondered where this came from.
• D.B. Cooper: Investigators Claim They’ve Discovered Skyjacker’s Identity (Rolling Stone) I went to high school in the Pacific Northwest, an obsession with the guy is a part of that.
• The Evils of Cultural Appropriation (Tablet Magazine) A nice take-down of this exercise in moral masturbation.  Draws an analogy to sumptuary laws.
• I’ve spoken to hundreds of voters in “flyover country.” Socialism is an easy sell. (Vox) Illinois Socialists.  I love Illinois Socialists.  (Apologies to Jake and Elwood Blues)
• The Entire History of Steel (Scientific American) Getting my history of technology geek on.
• The Flawed Legend of Preet Bharara (The Nation) "After being fired by Trump, the former US Attorney wears a halo of martyrdom. But he failed to prosecute the Wall Street banksters who brought us the financial crisis."
• How the Dominant Business Paradigm Turns Nice People into Psychopaths (Evonomics) The normalization of perversion.
• Why It's So Hard to Junk Bad Decisions--Edging Closer to Understanding "Sunk Cost" (Scientific American) Even rats suffer from the sunk cost fallacy.

Here is the hold music in question:

And Now the Post Primary Endorsement

The state Democratic party has just endorsed Kevin de León for US Senate over incumbent Dianne Feinstein by a 2:1 margin:

California Democratic Party leaders took a step to the left Saturday night, endorsing liberal state lawmaker Kevin de León for Senate in a stinging rebuke of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

De León’s victory reflected the increasing strength of the state party’s liberal activist core, which was energized by the election of Republican Donald Trump as president.

The endorsement was an embarrassment for Feinstein, who is running for a fifth full term, and indicates that Democratic activists in California have soured on her reputation for pragmatism and deference to bipartisanship as Trump and a Republican-led Congress are attacking Democratic priorities on immigration, healthcare and environmental protections.

De León, a former state Senate leader from Los Angeles, received 65% of the vote of about 330 members of the state party’s executive board — more than the 60% needed to secure the endorsement. Feinstein, who pleaded with party leaders meeting in Oakland this weekend not to endorse any candidate, received 7%, and 28% voted for “no endorsement.”

………

It’s not clear that the endorsement will have a significant effect on the general election. Feinstein crushed De León in the June primary, winning every county and finishing in first place with 44% of the overall vote. De León finished far behind with 12%, which was enough for a second-place finish and a ticket to the November election under the state’s top-two primary system.

………

This was the second go-around for an endorsement fight in the Senate race. Ahead of the primary at the party’s February convention in San Diego, where a larger contingent of 2,700 delegates voted, De León won 54% — short of the 60% required to secure an endorsement. Feinstein received just 37%.

In a scenario where only a Democrat can win this seat the calls for unity are bullsh%$, vote for the better Democrat.

Feinstein's time has passed.

^*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers, though we have never met, either in person or electronically.

Yeah, 80% of the Way to Bond Villain Status

One of the cave divers involved in the Thai soccer team cave rescue suggested that Elon Musk had no clue what he was talking about.

Elon Musk responded by called the cave diver a pedo:

The Elon Musk story took a bizarre turn Sunday morning, as the world famous entrepreneur took to Twitter to suggest a critic of his submarine rescue plan is a pedophile.

Musk’s tweet was directed at British cave diver Vern Unsworth, who had participated in the rescue of 12 Thai children and their soccer coach from a water-filled cave. In a recent CNN video news report, Unsworth had belittled Musk’s plan to deploy a mini-submarine made by SpaceX engineers to rescue the children.

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Unsworth said when asked about Musk’s plan. “It just has absolutely no chance of working.”

Musk tweeted Sunday that he’ll send a sub through the cave to prove it could have worked, followed by an attack on Unsworth:

“We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo. Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.” Musk tweeted.

Seriously, this guy made his fortune by figuring out how to ignore banking laws, and by getting lucky.

The idea that he is a visionary, as opposed to a self-absorbed and conceited ass does not match the facts at hand.

If the above doesn't make you wonder about Musk, the fact that he is a major donor to a Republican PAC dedicated to preserving their House majority should give you pause:

Now reports indicate that Musk was one of the top donors for a Republican PAC named Protect the House.

Filings show that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO donated $33,900 to the PAC, which is dedicated to keeping Republicans in control of Congress. The PAC raised over $8 million in quarter two, according to filings compiled by ProPublica.

The top donors of the PAC include Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate, and Robert McNair, the owner of the NFL's Houston Texans. Although Adelson and McNair's contributions far outweighed Musk's — Adelson and McNair each gave $371,500 respectively, while Musk gave $33,900 — Musk was one of the top 50 donors of the PAC.

Seriously, there is nothing more pathetic than a rich businessman who believes his own PR.

Destroying Any Ideals Remaining in Israel

It is not surprising that Benjamin Netanyahu's relentless pursuit has led to a bill legalizing discrimination in Israel:

Israel is in the throes of political upheaval as the country’s ruling party seeks to pass legislation that could allow for Jewish-only communities, which critics have condemned as the end of a democratic state.

For the past half-decade, politicians have been wrangling over the details of the bill that holds constitution-like status and that Benjamin Netanyahu wants passed this month.

The proposed legislation would allow the state to “authorise a community composed of people having the same faith and nationality to maintain the exclusive character of that community”.

In its current state, the draft would also permit Jewish religious law to be implemented in certain cases and remove Arabic as an official language.

“In the Israeli democracy, we will continue to protect the rights of both the individual and the group, this is guaranteed. But the majority have rights too, and the majority rules,” the Israeli prime minister said this week.

A vote on the bill is expected next week, although a final draft has yet to be agreed on. The legislation has been compared to South African apartheid by Israeli parliamentarians, and several thousand Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

This is positively repulsive, and it another one of Netanyahu's attempts to cling to power while new allegations of corruption erupt.

If history is any template, it is the actions of self-serving leaders in Israel, like Netanyahu, that will threaten the existence of the state far more than external threats.

Burn Motherf%$#er, Burn

I was waiting for someone to sue Apple for hacking their iPhones when they crippled older phones with OS updates:

The saga of class-action lawsuits looming over Apple's iOS battery management took a new turn last week – as the Cupertino giant was accused of violating American hacking laws.

A complaint [PDF] filed in the US federal district court of northern California lists a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act among the charges filed against Cook and Co.

The lawsuit, submitted on behalf of everyone in America who bought an iPhone or iPad that had been subject to performance throttling on devices that suffered from diminished battery capacity, accuses Apple of illegally tampering with devices, amongst other things.

The suit argues that the iOS update slowed down a device in order to preserve battery life. In doing so Apple intentionally "damaged" its hardware without user knowledge or permission, violation of the CFAA, the plaintiffs – Alex Rodriguez, of Alaska, and scores of pals – claim.

"Apple violated [the CFAA] by knowingly causing the transmission of iOS software Updates to Plaintiff and class members’ devices to access, collect, and transmit information to devices, which are protected computers as defined in [the CFAA] because they are used in interstate commerce and/or communication," the complaint reasons.

"By transmitting information to class members’ devices, Apple intentionally caused damage without authorization to class members’ devices by impairing the ability of those devices to operate as warranted, represented, and advertised."

I really hope that Apple gets hung out to dry on this one.

Apple's view of iPhones seem to be that, notwithstanding the money that people pay for the devices, it is Apple, Inc. that owns them.

They need to be disabused of this concept.

Rule #1 of AT&T:

AT&T will lie and f%$# with consumers, regulators, and judges.

Rule number 2 is see rule 1.

Case in point, after getting a federal judge to rule in their favor, because he saw no downside to end users, (an unnecessarily narrow view that has been promulgated by the right wing fof decades) AT&T promptly raised rates on users.

It comes as no surprise then, that the government ignored Judge Leon's recommendation not to appeal, and file an appeal anyway:

AT&T recently defeated the DOJ's challenge to their $86 billion merger with Time Warner thanks to a comically narrow reading of the markets by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon. At no point in his 172-page ruling (which approved the deal without a single condition) did Leon show the faintest understanding that AT&T intends to use vertical integration synergistically with the death of net neutrality to dominate smaller competitors. In fact, net neutrality was never even mentioned at the multi-week trial.

The trial did a wonderful job showing how modern antitrust law does a dismal job policing companies that dominate both the conduit to the home (wireless, wired connection) and the content running over it. And shortly after Leon signed off on the deal, AT&T got right work... being AT&T.

The company had made repeated promises before, during and after the trial that the merger would only result in price reductions and other wonderful things for consumers. But with the ink barely dry on the deal, AT&T quickly began raising rates on its streaming video services, eliminating promo offers providing free HBO to its wireless customers, jacking up the price of the company's unlimited data wireless plans, and imposing bogus new fees on those same subscribers. Most of these moves were expected as AT&T tries to recoup some of the monumental debt incurred by its endless quest to grow ever larger.

Initially, the DOJ stated it wouldn't appeal its court loss, even though Leon's myopic ruling opened the door to the idea. But the DOJ clearly sees something in AT&T's recent moves that gives it additional ammunition for another shot at the merger, so it's appealing the judge's ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit according to a DOJ filing (pdf).

Leon's ruling essentially said that there had to be a showing of direct and immediate harm to consumers for the merger to be stopped, which ignores issues such as the political effects of market dominance and barriers to entry, which figured far more prominently in the legislative intent of the Sherman Antitrust Act when it was passed over 125 years ago.

In fact, the idea of consumer well being wasn't even a concept at the time the law was passed.

The consumer harm standard is a fig leaf first pushed by Robert Bork over 40 years ago in order to gut antitrust enforcement.

Silly Rabbit, Party Unity is a One Way Street

A @DemSocialists-backed candidate beat a self-funder in Montgomery County, so a centrist Dem is running as an independent, potentially spoiling the race for her party. https://t.co/EwTB6tNfi8

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 11, 2018

Have you noticed the pattern?

The Democratic establishment calls for unity, and then, once one of their own loses a primary, they they do their level best to sabotage the the winner in the general election:

Longtime Democrat Nancy Floreen launched an independent bid for Montgomery County executive on Wednesday, calling the Republican and Democratic nominees for the office “flawed extremes” and urging residents of the affluent and liberal suburb “to put principle and pragmatism above purely party politics.”

Montgomery’s 1 million residents have not chosen a non-Democrat to the top political job since 1974. But Floreen, an at-large council member, has been elected countywide four times. She could be a formidable opponent for Democratic nominee Marc Elrich, a progressive with strong union backing who also holds an at-large council seat and has supported rent-control laws and charging impact fees to developers.

“I am determined to give Montgomery County a third, independent choice come November,” Floreen said in a statement explaining her decision to drop her longtime Democratic affiliation to run as an independent.

………

Elrich narrowly defeated Potomac businessman David Blair in the June 26 Democratic primary, a six-way contest that was not decided until late Sunday after provisional and absentee ballots were counted.

………

Throughout the primary campaign, business leaders expressed concerns about Elrich, saying he would prioritize the social safety net and holding developers accountable over boosting economic development and improving the county’s business climate.

………

But former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow, who also sought the Democratic nomination for county executive, said she will back Floreen, whom she described as best positioned to lead the county at a time of tepid growth when, some say, businesses and residents are moving elsewhere because of high costs.

“I understand the idea that we should all support the Democrat, but I’m really worried about the future of our county,” Krasnow said.

The business leaders supporting Floreen include Bob Buchanan, chairman of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp., who said this week that she is “a person the business community has come to rely on.”

(emphasis mine)

The (small d) democratic process is all well and good, but they need the campaign donations from the real estate developers.

This is pathetic.

Crazy as a Bagfull of Cats

There has been a second incident of Novichok poisoning near Porton Down in England.

While this the Russian nerve agent is described as persistent, this does not mean "eternal", and for something like VX, which is the most persistent of the better known agents, would be likely be degraded to harmlessness in about a month, particularly in the mild and wet climate of southern England.

Thus, I found the most recent poisoning to be perplexing, until I discovered that the Novichok came from a bottle that the man had apparently found dumpster diving.

This would explain how the Novichok remained viable for so long, but the idea that a crack Russian assassin team would dose the door knob of the Skripal and then take the left over agent and throw it in the dumpster.

I can see the need to carry more than is necessary, and the need to dispose of the excess afterwards, but anyone with even a modicum of knowledge would know how to deactivate Novichuk before disposing of the container.

Basically, you would dump it in a bucket of household bleach.

None of this makes sense as an FSB/GRU assassination team.

In fact, the only scenario that has a comprehensible narrative is that there is some lunatic at Porton Down is doing the whole Bruce Ivins thing, which is even more frightening, because it is completely unpredictable.

This Almost Makes the British Soccer Hooliganism Worth It

I think that there is some sort of tie between hooliganism and truly inspired protests in British society.

Case in point, the Donald Trump Dalek:

We Brits might be rubbish at a lot of things, but protesting is one thing we've got down to a fine art.

Especially when it comes to infusing that signature British wit into our protest materials. Take this Trump Dalek, for instance.

There was also a Cyberman Theresa May.

Brilliant!

Linkage

• Nation Horrified To Learn Child-Killing Death Merchants Have Racist Employee (Caitlin Johnstone) Northrop Grumman employee is discovered to be prominent in the neo-Nazi alt-right.
• Survival of the Richest (Medium) Futurist talks to billionaires, and discovers that they are expecting the world to collapse, largely because of their short-sighted selfishness, and want to know how to survive when there is no longer money.
• The Con of Diversity (Truthdig) Chris Hedges asserts, IMNSHO correctly, that, "Diversity in the hands of the white power elites—political and corporate—is an advertising gimmick."
• Close Air Support Fly-off Farce (POGO) Congress mandates fly-off between F-35 and A-10, the USAF, which has been trying to kill the A-10 since deliveries started in the 1970s, rigs the competition.
• Papa John's Founder Allegedly Used N-Word On Conference Call (Forbes) After his bigoted outbursts on the NFL national anthem controversy, this is no surprise.  He has since resigned.
• Hillary Clinton Says She's Not Running in 2016 (Again) (The Atlantic) Article from 2012.  One hopes that history will NOT repeat itself.

The story of Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin, arguably the finest naval officer in history: (watch the whole series of 5 videos)

Back Loaded Bribery

Nothing to see here, move along.

I am totally not surprised that big Pharmac has been paying off researchers who sit on government advisory panels:

On a sweltering July day in 2010, seven medical researchers and one patient advocate gathered in a plush Marriott hotel in College Park, Maryland, to review a promising drug designed to prevent heart attacks and strokes by limiting blood clotting. The panel is one of dozens of advisory committees that vote each year on whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should approve a therapy for the U.S. market. That day, panel members heard presentations on the drug's preclinical and clinical data from agency staff and AstraZeneca in Cambridge, U.K., its maker and one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. The occasion sparked little drama. In the cool refuge of the conference room, advisers politely questioned company scientists and complimented their work. By day's end, the panel voted seven to one to approve. FDA, as usual, later signed off. The drug, ticagrelor, marketed under the name Brilinta, sold rapidly, emerging as a billion-dollar blockbuster. It cuts risk of death from vascular causes, heart attacks, and strokes modestly more than its chief competitor—and currently costs 25 times as much.

FDA, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, uses a well-established system to identify possible conflicts of interest before such advisory panels meet. Before the Brilinta vote, the agency mentioned no financial conflicts among the voting panelists, who included four physicians. As Brilinta's sales took off later, however, AstraZeneca and firms selling or developing similar cardiovascular therapies showered the four with money for travel and advice. For example, those companies paid or reimbursed cardiologist Jonathan Halperin of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City more than $200,000 for accommodations, honoraria, and consulting from 2013 to 2016. During that period, Halperin got $7500 from AstraZeneca to study Brilinta, and the company separately declared nearly $2 million in “associated research” payments tied to him.

Brilinta fits a pattern of what might be called pay-later conflicts of interest, which have gone largely unnoticed—and entirely unpoliced. In examining compensation records from drug companies to physicians who advised FDA on whether to approve 28 psychopharmacologic, arthritis, and cardiac or renal drugs between 2008 and 2014, Science found widespread after-the-fact payments or research support to panel members. The agency's safeguards against potential conflicts of interest are not designed to prevent such future financial ties.

Other apparent conflicts may have also slipped by: Science found that at the time of or in the year leading up to the advisory meetings, many of those panel members—including Halperin—received payments or other financial support from the drugmaker or key competitors for consulting, travel, lectures, or research. FDA did not publicly note those financial ties.

The thing that is frightening is not the law breaking, it's what is nominally legal.

Totally Unsurprised

.@repjoecrowley stated on live TV that he would absolutely support my candidacy.

Instead, he’s stood me up for all 3 scheduled concession calls.

Now, he’s mounting a 3rd party challenge against me and the Democratic Party- and against the will of @NYWFP.https://t.co/Xvb6Jk8N8q

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 12, 2018

R

What a surprise.

After invoking Bruce Springsteen saying that he would support her in the general election, Joe Crowley will be on the ballot as a 3^rd party candidate in the 14^th Congressional district:

Even in Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district, the Working Families Party line was won by Mr. Crowley, who had secured that party’s endorsement. Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, said he immediately reached out to Mr. Crowley’s campaign to request that he vacate the line.

To Mr. Lipton’s chagrin, his campaign declined; Mr. Crowley will remain on the ballot in November. “You’d think that given the moment we’re in,” said Mr. Lipton, “that Democratic leaders would want to help progressive forces to unite.”

It appears that the demands for unity only apply to the real Democrats, not the corporate Democrats.

Also:  New York has truly f%$#ed up election laws.

Tweet of the Day

do they give pulitzers for headlines because https://t.co/8IAwnCVPx6

— Megan Garber (@megangarber) July 11, 2018

She is wrong, of course.

When one has an article about Wildebeest ovulation titled, "How Noisy Males Control the Gnu’s Cycle," this is worthy of a Nobel, not just a Pulitzer.

I Feel Old

Do you realize that it was 56 years ago today that the Rolling Stones played their first concert?

This makes me feel positively antediluvian.

Oh, well, as the song goes, you can't always get what you want:

Peter Parker Weeps

Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko has died at age 90:

New York police confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that one of Marvel Comics' legendary staffers, Steve Ditko, was found dead in his apartment this week. Ditko was 90.

The creator of Dr. Strange and the original artist (plus "co-creator," according to Stan Lee) for Spider-Man had been found days earlier, on June 29, and police told THR that they believed he had been dead for two days when he was found. Reports indicate Ditko left behind no family or survivors.

Ditko's impact on Marvel Comics may only be rivaled by his reclusive nature in later years. After creating and developing Spider-Man with Lee in 1961, Ditko premiered lasting hero Dr. Strange in 1963, and Ditko would continue to write and draw Dr. Strange stories for Marvel until 1966. Disputes over money and friction with Lee reportedly drove Ditko to leave Marvel in 1966, and Ditko shunned the public spotlight shortly thereafter; he gave his last formal interview in 1968, though he continued contributing comics to other publishers.

Most notably in his later career, he created Squirrel Girl. 

They Got a Patent for What?

Yes, in 2000, some troll secured a patent on the ability to pause a recorded lesson, because ……… computers!!! gross incompetence.

This is profoundly dysfunctional:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has stepped up to represent a small, independent online language teacher who has been threatened with a lawsuit by a British publisher that claims the teacher is infringing an American patent issued back in 2000 for a particular audio-based teaching technique.

What's the secret sauce? Amazingly, the use of a pause button to temporarily stop the lesson.

………

A Virginia attorney, Christopher Foley, representing publisher Hodder & Stoughton, recently demanded that Eleftheriou halt any publication of audio lessons in the United States or face a potential lawsuit.

Hodder & Stoughton claims to represent the "exclusive licensee" of a patent originally granted to a now-deceased French teacher, Michel Thomas. The Polish immigrant, who lived for decades in the United States, claimed that he could teach anyone the basics of a European language that had commonalities with English to anyone in "a matter of days or a week." He attracted numerous celebrity clients, including Woody Allen and Bill Murray.

Eleftheriou said that he was not "reproducing" Thomas' method, adding that "nothing else [is] as well thought-out" as Eleftheriou's own technique.

But however effective Thomas' teaching technique may or may not have been, it was not patentable, according to a scathing letter sent on July 2, 2018 by Daniel Nazer, an EFF attorney who is representing Eleftheriou.

Seriously, whoever approved this patent should be fired.

This wasn't even a pre Alice software patent.  This was just completely negligent.

Of Course, It's Alabama

It appears that the state of Alabama allows its Sheriffs to starve their inmates and keep the money saved for themselves..

This has risen to the level of a very public disgrace, and now the governor has put a stop to the practice, at least until the Sheriffs get a court injunction to continue to take taxpayer money in the service of cruelty:

Alabama’s governor has begun to cut off a gravy train for the state’s sheriffs: the unspent money for prisoners’ meals that the sheriffs have long been allowed to keep for themselves.

The practice, born of a bickered-over ambiguity in a state law, has let sheriffs pocket tax dollars that over the decades almost certainly ran into the millions. To curtail the practice, Gov. Kay Ivey ordered in a memorandum to the state comptroller that payments of certain funds related to jail food “no longer be made to the sheriffs personally.” Instead, the governor wrote, the money must be paid to county general funds or official accounts.

“Public funds should be used for public purposes,” Ms. Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It’s that simple.”

Critics of the practice welcomed the governor’s action on Wednesday but said it resolved only part of the problem because it did not apply to every type of payment related to jail food.

Even so, the move is sure to infuriate sheriffs in at least some of Alabama’s 67 counties, and the governor’s order may be tested in the courts. Economic disclosure forms filed by sheriffs suggest that many do not take the leftover money, sometimes because of local laws. But some do: Records show that the sheriff in Etowah County, in northeast Alabama, for example, has taken more than $670,000 in recent years.

Right now politicians in Mississippi, Florida, and Texas are thinking, "Yes!  For once it's not us held up for ridicule!"

Do You Want Some Cheese with That Whine?

It appears that Caribou Barbie has a sad because Sasha Baron Cohen has punk'd the notoriously dense celebrity:

Sarah Palin has called Sacha Baron Cohen “evil, exploitative and sick” after revealing that the satirist had “duped” her into an interview for an upcoming series by posing as a wounded military veteran.

On Monday it was revealed that Baron Cohen had spent a year undercover filming a new project for the Showtime channel. The series, Who Is America?, explores a range of figures “across the political and cultural spectrum” and is reported to feature interviews with Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney – and Palin. A teaser released for the show features a clip of Cheney being asked to sign a “waterboarding kit”.

“Yup – we were duped. Ya’ got me, Sacha. Feel better now? I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick ‘humor’ of the British ‘comedian’”, Palin wrote in a Facebook post addressing the incident. The former governor of Alaska said she had travelled to Washington DC with one of her daughters for the interview, which she believed was for a “legit” historical documentary on Showtime. She said that Baron Cohen had “heavily disguised himself as a disabled US veteran, fake wheelchair and all” for the interview.

(emphasis mine)

Cohen has been doing this for decades.

So has The Daily Show, and for that matter.

I've not followed Cohen's comedy closely, I am not a big fan of punking, but this should be interesting, though it might very well be significantly less embarrassing to Palin than her for-real interviews.

Oh Dear Lord, This Is Not The Onion!

The Washington Post just published this OP/Ed:

I Don’t Know Kavanaugh the Judge. But Kavanaugh the Carpool Dad Is One Great Guy.

First, let me say that the misuse of periods in the headline are from the original, though I corrected capitalization.

Second, this is some random mom in the DC suburbs raving about the job that he does coaching a 6^th grade girls' basketball team.

I've done a quick Google, and I haven't found any Republican connections.

She appears to be a designer (web and interior design) and a neighbor of the nominee, and honestly, I don't see anything wrong with her "article".

It's a completely run-of-the-mill letter to the editor by a friend.

On the other hand, the fact that the failed middle school science project that is Fred Hiatt's editorial board published this as a full blown editorial is truly, and thoroughly, screwed up.

Freddy ……… You really need to spend more time with your family.

So, it's Kavanaugh

He leaked grand jury testimony while working for Ken Starr, he believes that everything the President does is inherently legal, but he's a Yalie, so it's all cool:

Brett M. Kavanaugh, the federal judge nominated by President Trump on Monday to the Supreme Court, has endorsed robust views of the powers of the president, consistently siding with arguments in favor of broad executive authority during his 12 years on the bench in Washington.

He has called for restructuring the government’s consumer watchdog agency so the president could remove the director and has been a leading defender of the government’s position when it comes to using military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects.

Kavanaugh is “an unrelenting, unapologetic defender of presidential power” who believes courts can and should actively seek to rein in “large swaths of the current administrative state,” said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck, who closely follows the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

I'm with Dan Froomkin, who suggests that if Kavanaugh leaked secret grand jury information, and this appears to be an open secret in Washington, DC, then the reporters should burn him.

If smoking some weed in college derailed Douglas Ginsburg's nomination in 1987, then Kavanaugh is a clear and present danger to the court.

Tweet Stream of the Day

Comparison of Silicon Valley and the the Soviet Union is genius:

Things that happen in Silicon Valley and also the Soviet Union:

- waiting years to receive a car you ordered, to find that it's of poor workmanship and quality

- promises of colonizing the solar system while you toil in drudgery day in, day out

— Anton Troynikov (@atroyn) July 5, 2018

- living five adults to a two room apartment

- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you

— Anton Troynikov (@atroyn) July 5, 2018

- 'totally not illegal taxi' taxis by private citizens moonlighting to make ends meet

- everything slaved to the needs of the military-industrial complex

— Anton Troynikov (@atroyn) July 5, 2018

- mandatory workplace political education

- productivity largely falsified to satisfy appearance of sponsoring elites

— Anton Troynikov (@atroyn) July 5, 2018

It goes on, but it is well worth the read.

Because, the Cartoon

Normally, I don't read political articles for the cartoons, though (like everyone) I read the New Yorker for the cartoons, but this article, which argues that today's "socialists" are more standard New Dealers than he is a doctrinaire Socialists, I read because of the artwork.

It's a pretty anodyne survey of the new "Millennial Socialists" out there, but the art is really great, at least if you recognize the meme.

Maryland Too

It appears that a number of prominent Democrats in the state house lost primaries to socialists last week:

Thomas V. Mike Miller has been president of the Maryland Senate since 1987. Come January, he'll have to rebuild his leadership team essentially from scratch.

Three of Miller's top lieutenants went down in Democratic primaries on Tuesday. Thanks to other losses and retirements, most committees will have new chairs next year. Among those ousted were Nathaniel McFadden, the Senate president pro tem; Joan Carter Conway, who chairs the Education, Health and Environmental Committee; and Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Vallario.

"Mike Miller's going to go to Annapolis in January faced with a decimated leadership team and a far more progressive Senate than he's faced before," says Todd Eberly, a political scientist at St. Mary's College of Maryland. "It may be a Senate that isn't comfortable with him as a leader."

Voters in Maryland were willing ousted veteran members they considered an impediment to progressive issues like criminal justice reform and a $15 minimum wage.

"The folks who are energized, the folks who are engaged, these are folks for whom progressive legislation is very important," says Christopher Honey, communications director for SEIU Local 500, a labor union that targeted Miller and his allies. "It's no surprise that this happened in a blue state like Maryland."

I was too busy following the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Joe Crowley race, and I missed that there was kind of a (VERY WELL DESERVED) blood bath in the Maryland state Senate among Mike Miller's cronies.

I think that state Senate president Mike Miller, and state House speaker Michael Busch are, and will continue to be, a part of the problem in Maryland politics, but, for this session at least, their positions are secure, though less secure than they were a few months ago.

Maybe next session.

Headline of the Day

For G-7, Trump’s Racism and Misogyny Are Ok, but His Trade Policies Are Intolerable

—Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

It's simple, really: Fighting racism may be the right thing to do, but screwing your citizens for the benefit of rich capitalists ensure that you have a lucrative sinecure in retirement.

Linkage

• Nurses at Johns Hopkins allege hospital is impeding their efforts to unionize (Baltimore Sun) One of Baltimore's worst slum lords is now crapping on their nurses.
• Barbara Lee, a stalwart of the left, considering bid for House Democratic leadership (Washington Post) That sound that you hear is Democratic Party establishment heads explode.
• All EFF’d Up (Yasha Levine) Documenting how the EFF is a lobbying organization for big tech rather than a protector of end users.
• "Stylish" browser extension steals all your internet history (Robert Heaton) Person comes up with a neat internet add on. Person sells out. New owner invades your privacy. Rinse, lather, repeat.
• Just Because You’re Defending Nazis Doesn’t Mean You Have To Be A Prick About It (Above the Law) Reminding first amendment lawyers that, "You can defend deplorable people without adopting and promoting their deplorable logic." Must read.
• Scott Pruitt Wasn’t Corrupt Enough for Trumpistan (Daily Beast) No new information, but an epic, and highly amusing, rant.

This is an amazing phony trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Another Novichuk Attack near Porton Down

It appears that this time, a random British couple was exposed, and a woman has died:

A woman who was exposed to the nerve agent novichok in Amesbury, Wiltshire, has died in hospital.

The Metropolitan police have launched a murder investigation after Dawn Sturgess, 44, from Durrington, died on Sunday after handling an item contaminated with the nerve agent on 30 June.

Her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, who was also taken ill after being exposed to the nerve agent, remains in a critical condition in hospital.

The investigation into the poisonings is being led by detectives from the Counter Terrorism Policing Network, and about 100 detectives are working alongside officers from Wiltshire police.

Investigators are still trying to determine how the couple were exposed to the nerve agent after emergency services were called to a residential address in Amesbury eight days ago after Sturgess collapsed.

………

Counter-terrorism officers are still investigating the attempted murders of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, who were poisoned in March.

………

Prior to the news of the death, home secretary Sajid Javid had said there were no plans to impose fresh sanctions on Russia following the latest nerve agent poisoning.

During a visit to Salisbury on Sunday to meet residents caught up in the nerve agent poisoning, he said: “We don’t want to jump to conclusions. Clearly, what we have already determined, what our expert scientists have determined, is that the nerve agent in this incident is the exact same nerve agent as was used back in March.

“We know back in March that it was the Russians. We know it was a barbaric, inhuman act by the Russian state. Again, for this particular incident, we need to learn more and let the police do their work.”

You don't want people to, "Jump to conclusions," because the obvious conclusion is that thea, "Barbaric, inhuman act by the Russian state," is anything but that.

Now, it's beginning to sound like someone more like the 2001 anthrax attacks, which were likely the action of someone from inside the US bioweapons establishment.

If Javid has not locked down the Porton Down chemical weapons facility, he is dangerously incompetent.

A Brief Respite of Copyright Sanity

The EU parliament has just overruled the "Copyright Directive" proposed by the European Commission.

This is not a common thing, but the rules proposed were awful, requiring fees to be paid for linking, and prohibiting the use of snippets:

A controversial overhaul of the EU's copyright law that sparked a fierce debate between internet giants and content creators has been rejected.

The proposed rules would have put more responsibility on websites to check for copyright infringements, and forced platforms to pay for linking to news.

A slew of high-profile music stars had backed the change, arguing that websites had exploited their content.

These sites cannot use their content without permission from the designated license holders for this content, in this case the record labels, who, as always, have screwed the artists.

That is not a problem with Spotify, that is a problem with your agents.

But opponents said the rules would stifle internet freedom and creativity.

The move was intended to bring the EU's copyright laws in line with the digital age, but led to protests from websites and much debate before it was rejected by a margin of 318-278 in the European Parliament on Thursday.

What were they voting for?

The proposed legislation - known as the Copyright Directive - was an attempt by the EU to modernise its copyright laws, but it contained two highly-contested parts.

The first of these, Article 11, was intended to protect newspapers and other outlets from internet giants like Google and Facebook using their material without payment.

But it was branded a "link tax" by opponents who feared it could lead to problems with sentence fragments being used to link to other news outlets (like this).

Article 13 was the other controversial part. It put a greater responsibility on websites to enforce copyright laws, and would have meant that any online platform that allowed users to post text, images, sounds or code would need a way to assess and filter content.

The most common way to do this is by using an automated copyright system, but they are expensive. The one YouTube uses cost $60m (£53m), so critics were worried that similar filters would need to be introduced to every website if Article 13 became law.

There were also concerns that these copyright filters could effectively ban things like memes and remixes which use some copyrighted material.

There will be another bite at the apple on this in a few months though.

I expect them to move a few commas, and lobby the sh%$ out of MEPs to switch their votes.

This law is bad, and not just on its own merit.

This law is bad because these sort of expansions of IP are misused and abused to extract even greater rents.

If you were to have told a Congressman in 1998 that the law would be used to prevent people from refilling ink cartridges, or using universal garage door openers, they would have laughed in your face, but both of those things happened within 2 years of adoption of the law.

Whatever form this law takes, its will be worse than its most ardent opponents predict, because that is where the money is.

The Meaning of Scott Pruitt

As everyone knows by now, Scott Pruitt was fired by Trump after a spate of really cheesy scandals.

There is a precedent, the tenure of Anne Gorsuch Burford, head of the EPA from 1981 to 1983.

What happened then, and what is happening now is very similar:  You have a very public, and not particularly competent, bête noire, who has people screaming, and the press covering their misdeeds obsessively, but this is largely a diversion.

While we have been looking at Pruitt's cone of silence, his sweetheart deal with his landlord, his using staff for personal errands, etc., Trump and his Evil Minions^™ were forcing out senior career civil servants and replacing then with "burrows" who are implacably opposed to the mission of the EPA, demoralizing the whole staff, and shredding the organization.

His tenure was as long as it was because it was sufficient to achieve the underlying goals.

Once that was done, he was expendible.

Tweet of the Day

liberals in 2016: sanders is doing well, but socialism only appeals to white workers, he lost because it doesn't have appeal to black and brown voters
liberals in 2018: AOC is doing well, but socialism only appeals to brown workers, it wont work with white voters

— 🚩🇯🇴 would you like to buy a socialist newspaper (@mike_hugs) July 1, 2018

It appears that hapless centrism can never fail, it can only be failed.

At Least, There is Symmetry

It turns out that after his tenure as Treasury Secretary, where he spent his time screwing ordinary people for the benefit of big banks, and now he's doing that in the private sector:

Sorry if you had anyone else winning in your Most Hideous Career After Leaving the Obama Administration bracket, because Tim Geithner just blew the competition out the water. The Washington Post has a detailed and devastating report, published Sunday evening, about the predatory lending activities of Mariner Finance, a company “owned and managed by a $11.2 billion private equity fund controlled by Warburg Pincus,” of which Geithner is president. Cool job, Tim!

So what does Mariner Finance do? It mails checks to poor people, hoping they’ll cash them without reading the fine print—which reveal sky-high interest rates and a clause forcing the lendee to pay the company’s legal fees should it be forced to sue them for their debts. It’s a neat little scam that works in tandem with the other revolting ways America extracts money from its poor. Per the Post:

………

These loans are very similar to payday loans but aren’t as closely regulated, according to the National Consumer Law Center. As the paper explains, “consumer installment” lenders “offer slightly larger loans—from about $1,000 to more than $25,000—for longer periods of time.” They’re like payday loans, but for bigger amounts and a name that doesn’t immediately reveal how predatory they are.

Is Geithner’s firm ashamed of its investment in and management of this vile business? Of course not. Warburg Pincus told the Post that “Mariner Finance delivers a valuable service to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have limited access to consumer credit.” Worse still, Mariner representatives described the company as fulfilling a “social need.”

Tim Geitner is really an entitled and evil bastard.

I really hope that karma catches up with him.

The Funeral was Today

The sound of the first shovel of dirt hitting the coffin must be the harshest sound in the world.

Posted via mobile.

Somber Trip

Heading to my dad's funeral, without my laptop, so my posting will be spotty, at best.

At least Alaska Airlines have direct flights between BWI and PDX.

They are Just Trolling Us

Donald Trump has a plan to ditch the WTO and return to tariffs.

Not a surprise, it was something that he has campaigned on, but it is called the Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act, or FART act.

Seriously, they aren't even trying any more:

A report that Donald Trump is looking to walk away from the World Trade Organisation and instead adopt a United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act, or Fart Act, has been greeted with loud amusement on Twitter.

Axios reported that it had received a leaked early draft of a bill ordered by the president, that would see America take the unlikely step of abandoning WTO rules, allowing Trump to raise tariffs without the consent of Congress.

The bill – the existence of which has not been independently confirmed – would be a dramatic shift in trade policy with wide-reaching impacts, but it was the name of the proposed bill that caught people’s attention.

In 2021, I fear that our President will be Pauley Shore.

I am not joking.

The Weasel will be the next President of the United States of America.

The Problem is Not that it is Excessive, But that it is insufficient

The Danes, no doubt in response to political pressure from the racist Dansk Folkeparti (DF, also called DPP) in parliament, have adopted a law mandating that families on public assistance Muslim ghettos must place their children in government run preschools.

It's supposed to teach them the language, and inculcate them in Danish culture.

The problem here is not that they are requiring this of Muslims on the dole, it's that they are not requiring every child whose family needs public aren't in these schools together, in integrated classrooms, learning that their backwards bigoted parents on both sides of this religious divide are wrong:

When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.

Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”

That tough approach is embodied in the “ghetto package.” Of 22 proposals presented by the government in early March, most have been agreed upon by a parliamentary majority, and more will be subject to a vote in the fall.

Let's be clear, there are additional parts of these statutes are really horrible, things like arbitrary increases in penalties in Muslim ghettos, but the bulk of outrage is directed at tying preschool to welfare payments.

Not only would this be applied across Denmark, it should be applied across the United States.

It's called mandatory schooling, and universal Pre-K.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Jerome R. Saroff, February 21, 1933 — July 3, 2018

• Head of the State Planning Office in Alaska
• College Professor
• City Planner
• Organizational Consultant
• Writer
• Poet
• Served with the Marines as a Navy Corpsman in Japan and Korea
• Husband
• Father
• Occasional Bow Tie wearer
• Published academic who did NOT like to be thought of as an academic

My dad:

Linkage

• Has the New America Foundation Lost its Way? (Washingtonian) It never had a way.
• 5 Reasons Horrible Dictators Always Catch Us Off Guard (Cracked) Dictators are not born psychopaths, it's that being a dictator is a psychopath petri dish.
• Trump's Brutality Is Part of Obama's Legacy Now (Truthdig) Noting that the worst acts of Trump have precedents in his predecessor.
• Comparing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Donald Trump Is Absurd (Rolling Stone) Taibbi.  Just read it.
• Trump's Brutality Is Part of Obama's Legacy Now (Truthdig) I think that this misses the bigger picture. It's not the casual brutality of past presidents, which is real, but rather the ratchet effect. With no prosecutions, the next administration always go further.  The next guy is always worse.
• Payday-Loan Mogul Indicted for Masterminding Phantom Debt Scheme (Bloomberg) Hundred of million dollars in fake debt. I hope that this guy ends up in a truly nasty correctional facility.

I just want to note that while he was a good Doctor Who, that was not Peter Capaldi's finest role. Rather it was his marvelous profane Malcomb Tucker in the In the Loop.

Tweet of the Day

So my cat fucking full on just walked in and dunked a fucking dead mouse in my fucking glass of wine and honestly I'm livid pic.twitter.com/Z8AvB5zcUA

— Mr tambourine man (@JonoScooter) May 5, 2018

This is why we love cats.

Also: don't be rude.  Eat the mouse in front of the cat.

H/t naked capitalism

In the Annals of Whining Bitches, Marco Rubio Is One for the Ages

After the shootings at the Annapolis Capital Gazette, a reporter said, "Thanks for your prayers, but I couldn’t give a f%$# about them if there’s nothing else."

Marco Rubio, promptly sank to his fainting couch, to the wide spread condemnation of all good people:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) responded to the massacre of five journalists at an Annapolis newspaper by whining about civility -- and he was quickly drowned in profanity.

A 38-year-old Maryland man opened fire inside the Capital-Gazette newsroom Thursday as part of a longstanding grudge against the newspaper, and one survivor uttered an uncensored profanity afterward on live television.

“I don’t know what I want right now but I’m going to need more than a couple days of news coverage and thoughts and prayers," reporter Selene San Felice told CNN. "Thanks for your prayers, but I couldn’t give a f*ck about them if there’s nothing else."

Rubio was apparently more upset by the reporter's obscenity than the murders of five of her colleagues.

"Sign of our times... the F word is now routinely used in news stories, tweets etc It’s not even F*** anymore," Rubio tweeted. "Who made that decision???"

Needless to say, I am not alone in calling him a complete candy-ass over this.

This the only Tweet I've found that doesn't drop an F-bomb is this one:

Five journalists died yesterday and that’s your takeaway? For the love of heaven, try to understand that word didn’t kill anyone. Bullets fired from a gun did.

— Pam Pritt (@pamprittWV) June 29, 2018

So, How Are They Going to F%$# This Up?

The DNC has just voted eliminate superdelegate votes on the first ballot:

The Democratic National Committee’s two-year debate over its presidential primary rules came closer to resolution Wednesday, as its key rulemaking body voted to curtail the power of unpledged delegates — so-called “superdelegates” — at the next convention.

At the end of a three-hour conference call, which was opened to the public, the Rules and Bylaws Committee adopted a compromise that grew out of lengthy negotiations between supporters of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

In the past, superdelegates were able to vote on the first ballot at the convention, for any nominee. The new rule would prohibit superdelegates from voting until a second ballot, or in the event a candidate arrived at the convention with enough pledged delegates — earned in primaries and caucuses — to secure the nomination.

“It fulfills our mandate without disenfranchising the people who have built the Democratic Party,” DNC chairman Tom Perez said near the start of the call. The reform, he said, would “rebuild the trust among many who feel, frankly, alienated from our party.”

I don't know how, but this will get screwed up.

The Democratic Party establishment could f%$# up a 2 car funeral.