SocraticGadfly: 7/14/19 - 7/21/19

July 20, 2019

Apollo at 50: No, we DO NOT need to return

Manned missions to the moon did make science discoveries that robotic landers couldn't have, 50 years ago, tis true. And the tech for manned missions, while not inventing Tang or Velcro, did benefit human life on earth in other ways.

And, it WAS fun seeing men on the moon. I vaguely remember Apollo 11 myself. I remember later ones even more. And I have met the second-last (to date) man to walk on the moon, Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17.

But, 50 years later?

First, there are NO earthshaking (moonshaking?) scientific discoveries to be made. Lesser discoveries can be made fine by unmanned vehicles.

Second, there are no mining needs that we have on the moon. Metals can be mined here on earth for much cheaper, after you throw in the lunar transportation overhead, etc.

As for helium 3? We are still decades away from the commercial fusion power plants that have been "just around the corner" since ... well, since the time Neal Armstrong took his small step and giant leap.

Patriotism?

Absolutely not.

Apollo itself was dick-swinging enough. If "we" go back to the moon, it should be "we" the world.

Otherwise, we don't need to waste gummint money on this.

If Elon Musk or some private-sector dick-swinger wants to put men on the Moon, let alone Mars, and with ZERO direct or indirect government help, be my guest. And I mean ZERO both direct and indirect. If he plans an ocean splashdown, he can hire private ships for the astronaut pickup. Private helicopters for a land based return.

We also, contra Stephen Hawking before his death and many others, do NOT need to embrace landing on Mars as a way of escaping environmental problems on Earth, including not trying to escape climate change. Such an attitude almost insures that we'll just have import the same problem-causing mindset there. It's also elitist as, per Dr. Strangelove, no way everybody on this planet or even close to it can go.

July 19, 2019

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and the end of an era

Red Shirt and Philly Mick are now in the golf history books in a new way.

At the Open at Royal Portrush, for the first time in 83 majors they were both entered into, they both missed the cut. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if it is not the only one in the next three years, even.

Phil's floundering and who knows where his arthritis is at. Tiger we know is a gimpy old man.

So, it also wouldn't surprise me one bit, despite the Woodsaholics and Tiger fellators, is if they're permanently capped at 15 majors and 5, respectively.

Ian O'Connor at ESPN fellated the hell out of Tiger Thursday, making a pun on Portrush being "no country for old men," which I easily refuted:
Dave Shedloski, while not fellating Red Shirt as much as O'Connor, bad enough, claiming the weather is the only reason Tiger didn't do better in non-Augusta majors this year.

No, not really.

The real reasons are twofold.

One is that Eduardo Molinari and Brooks Koepka, both of whom know better, yakked away the 12th hole on Sunday at Augusta. The toooneyment was given to Tiger as much as  he won it, arguably.

Second, the reason Tiger did better at Augusta is that it's the first major of the year. Once the golf season gets rolling after that, the new schedule of a major a month simply will not accommodate Tiger if he's not playing at least a little bit in between, no matter the weather. (So, just as The Masters DID Tiger-proof Augusta National, if only to make it lefty-friendly, per Hank Haney, the PGA Tour and the FedEx pot of gold have Tiger-proofed the tour schedule, I guess.)

And, per Woods' comments about his 2018 schedule being too much, don't expect a lot of changes in 2020.

As I told O'Connor, the same to Shedloski. Tiger ain't winning anywhere else on majors, and he ain't winning three more, let alone four more times at Augusta National.

So put away this "he could still pass Jack" bullshit as the bullshit it is. Hell, contra Shedloski, I'm not sure Tiger passes Sam Snead's career wins record.

Joe Straus vs Greg Abbott: Who you like?

As reported in brief in a Texas Progressives' roundup of a few weeks back, former Speaker Joe Straus has started a PAC. Supposedly, he might run for higher office in 2022. That would mean Greg Abbott, assuming Straus doesn't settle for a fight against Danny Goeb, as there's no U.S. Senate race in 2022, unless he's looking at a U.S. House run.

So, realistically, what are Straus' odds?

First take? No more than 25 percent, in my book. Strangeabbott has avoided being too closely tied to Goeb, let alone TP wingnuts like Former Fetus Forever Fuckwad Jonathan Stickland. He'll have a huge war chest, plus to the degree such things still exist, patronage, and as we know it still exists, intimidation.

Now, if Straus went against Goeb for Lite Guv? I'll give him a solid 35 percent shot, at a minimum. Plus, given their differing stances on the bathroom bill and Straus' comments about that, wouldn't you rather see this showdown anyway? Goeb is more hamhanded, first, and second, doesn't have the political capital that Abbott does.

Maybe Straus' target is Goeb. But, having been Speaker, I can't see him settling for less than the top job.

If he were — unlikely, to me — looking at the House, that means Joaquin Castro's 20th, Chip Roy's 21st in an interesting primary, or Will Hurd's 23rd, which I doubt he would do, ConservaDem Henry Cuellar's 28th (very interesting) or Lloyd Doggett's gerrymandered 35th, if Straus wants something San Antonio-related, whether or not his current home is in one of those districts.

That doesn't make a lot of sense, though, as he could be running now, unless he wanted that much politics downtime but still wants back in the game. That wouldn't make sense either.

Beyond that, per the Trib link up top, Straus doesn't indicate any interest in federal level politics.

So, it's Straus vs either Strangeabbott or Goeb unless he backs out. Getcha popcorn!

==

Update, Aug. 7: Straus, interestingly, hasn't called out Abbott on gun control issues in the wake of Patrick Crusius' racist shoot-up in El Paso. That said, the ardently pro-life "moderate conservative" Straus has a 93 percent rating from NRA, so, we probably won't hear any such callouts.

And hence, for this, and other reasons, given that the left hand of the duopoly has added enough state House seats, and may add more 15 months from now, per the caption on the picture?

Nope, Joe, not a lot. That said, let's see if the Democritters do add that many more seats, and, if they remain short of a majority, how much Bonnen accommodates them in the next Lege.

July 18, 2019

Drew and Pat's semi-excellent road trip

Perhaps in kind of emulation of Robert Francis O'Rourke and Will Hurd, State Sen. Dan Fallon (R-Prosper) and State Rep. Drew Springer (R-Muenster) had a joint town hall recently, though Fallon did 95 percent of the talking.

Thank doorknobs for our Texas Legislature state legiscritters, Fallon (R-Yankee Catholicdom) and Springer having this road trip.

Fallon, sounding like a true libertarian, said:

“You rent your home back from the state after you pay off your mortgage.” (He's not a true libertarian, of course.)

He claims a 2.5/3.5 percent property tax rate cap is in line with inflation. With general inflation, maybe. With valuation rates in metropolitan areas, no it’s not.

I’ve blogged about, and even written a newspaper column about, this bullshit before. If you believe in capitalism, you have to accept housing rates spiking in fast growing urban areas. Senate Bill 2 substitutes the dead weighted hand of GOP Legiscritter wingnuts for Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
Of course, that hand is mythical, but it’s invoked by wingnuts all the time. They then pull a reverse No True Scotsman and claim to still be capitalists.

If free/reduced lunch students are the fastest growing demographic, the Texas miracle already isn’t succeeding, Fallon also said.

It ain’t succeeding, and as shown back when Tricky Ricky was governor, is built on Earl — the stuff in wells — and Ill Eagles. The Straus wing of the GOP likes to pretend the state doesn’t depend on Earl or his cousin Nat (Gas). But it does. The Danny Goeb wing likes to pretend it doesn’t depend on Ill Eagles. Gov. Strangeabbott likes to pretend he’s above the fray.

He then mentioned the “save Chick-fil-A” (from what, tasting crappy?) bill. Claims San Antonio airport was harming it. Claims SA Express-News is “no bastion of conservativism.” Claims San Antonio. is very blue.

“California” four-lettering was sprinkled throughout. Not as in four-letter words being used, but wingnut use of "California" as a four-letter word.

Anyway, Fallon has bravely helped save Texas from being Californianized** and other exploits, so Hip, Hip, Hooray.

More seriously, as more and more people call out the modern GOP as a "party of fear," that's what I think of here in Texas. Every time the "we're not California" gets pulled out, behind a boast, I see a touch of fear that maybe California is right.

Also more seriously, I know that events like these are all base-appealing red meat. Not sure about Fallon's electoral history, but Springer hasn't been primaried since his first election and never has faced a general election foe of Dem, Lib OR Green. That's kind of sad.

So, when you're running in a rural district that runs out to the Panhandle (that will change in some way with redistricting, I expect) you can do this.

===

** Being Californianized, the Texas fear that the state will in any way be influenced by California, is not the same as being Californicated.

THAT is when Californians of any and all political stripes "discover" a small town in the Mountain or Intermountain West and overrun it. Taos, New Mexico is a recent example. A larger city like this is Bend, Oregon. Fanta Se was partially, and more slowly, Californicated. Silver City, New Mexico, is a case of a failed Californication.

July 17, 2019

Texas Progressives wonder about Jim Schutze, Julian Castro,
Royce West, Ken Paxton, Jay Inslee, Mount Vernon

An interesting people-centered week here in the Roundup. Several people engaging in questionable thought processes or actions all at the same time in the last week. And, that's not to mention ongoing nuttery over the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

With that, dive in and see what I'm talking about in this week's issue.



Dallas

Jim Schutze says the city of Dallas is probably going to lose another battle over Jim’s Car Wash in South Dallas.

Unfortunately, Schutze also continues to be a personal PR agency for Amber Guyger, apparently willfully ignoring her family social media photos, as when he claims there’s nothing to connect her fatal shooting of Botham Jean to race. I like about 90 percent of what Big Jim says, but when he’s wrong, he’s WAY wrong. And I'm pretty sure he's seen those pix before. He also doesn't discuss that courts have refused changes of venue on more serious, more legitimate grounds (whether true or not). This is not to say that Guyger's act necessarily was racial, it is to say Schutze's wrong when he makes his blanket statement that it was not.

Robot baggage handlers are getting a trial at DFW Airport.


Houston

Dos Centavos is keeping an eye on what local Houston officials are saying about the ICE raids.

Juanita recognizes Rep. Gene Wu for his words and actions on the ICE raids.


Texas politics

Kenny Boy Paxton and Gov. Strangeabbott can lose state as well as federal lawsuits. A state district judge has dismissed most the lawsuit they filed against San Antonio's sanctuary city stance. If that holds on appeal, we'll have all sorts of fallout.

As Royce West continues to play Hamlet / get fellated by Gromer Jeffers and Kuff, Latin@ activists, apparently ignoring or not caring about Sema Hernandez (I'm going to have an update on her soon) want Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez to run for Senate. Patrick Svitek, like Gromer Jeffers, and the mainly NOT Latin@s Svitek's story cites, apparently willfully can't find the name of Sema Hernandez with both hands. And she's not the only Hispanic who's already officially filed. Rather, if some of these people have serious ties to Bob O'Rourke, they're more fauxgressives than progressives.

At the Texas Observer, Michael Barajas calls out Julián Castro for turd polishing his record as San Antonio mayor, especially on housting. Schutze's done the same on his record as HUD secretary.

Off the Kuff wrote about the Obamacare hearing at the Fifth Circuit.


Christopher Hooks notes the egregious hypocrisy of Chip Roy and Ted Cruz when it comes to executive authority and the rule of law.

Better Texas Blog has the crazy idea that our state should treat asylum-seeking migrant families with respect and dignity.

Better Texas Blog has the crazy idea that our state should treat asylum-seeking migrant families with respect and dignity.



Texana

The newly football-recrazed folks of Mount Vernon, Texas, are lying to themselves first, and the general public second, if they really believe that their new Old Ball Coach, Baylor’s sexual abuse enabling Art Briles, was “clearly wronged.” What's clear is that former D(r)unca(ke)nville High and KU hoops star Greg Ostertag is politician enough about it to be mayor of Mount Vernon.

The Rivard Report commemorates 80 years of Planned Parenthood in San Antonio.


White supremacists are stepping up college recruiting, says Silas Allen at the Dallas Observer.

RIP to the talented but troubled Rip Torn.

My own RIP to the interesting but hypocritical and nutty Ross Perot.


National

SocraticGadfly says the most egregiously wrong ruling of this Supreme Court term was not the gerrymandering case but seven justices, including two liberals, hating First Amendment religious freedoms.

Speaking of, Gadfly also says RIP John Paul Stevens, a "librul" only by Rehnquist and Roberts Court modern SCOTUS standards.

Border Patrol agents speaking candidly tell Pro Publica that the inhumanity in the detention camps has become ever more accepted. One military veteran says its growing acceptance "is kind of like torture in the army."

Brains updates his Dems 2020 with kind words about Nate's Liver, I mean Nate Silver.

Beto-mania vanishes as more people learn the truth about Bob the Knob. (He's too downtrending to qualify for the header this week, even.)


Egberto Willies wonders if Jay Inslee and/or his staff have some racial issues. Note: Sea-Tac is definitely white majority, and even the core, King County, is white majority by several percentage points against all other minorities combined, with blacks behind both Asians and Hispanics. And, outstate Washington, outside of Hispanics concentrated in farm areas, is highly white.

Jeff St. Clair of Counterpunch gets it right on left-wingnut hawking of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.:

"I think Julian Assange's lowest moment was his inculcation of the Seth Rich conspiracy in some of the more credulous precincts of the Left. The strangest part of the affair is that if the preposterous Rich conspiracy had proved true, it meant that Assange would have outed his source."

Couldn't have said it better myself, Jeff, even as I'm on a Twitter thread debate about Rich.

In addition to driving while black and cooking while black, we now have policing while black.

Paradise in Hell muses about Vice Presidents.

July 16, 2019

RIP John Paul Stevens, a librul only by SCOTUS standards

John Paul Stevens, named to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford and serving until Obama replaced him with Elena Kagan, has died at 99. He was the third-longest serving justice ever.

He eventually — near the end of his career — became known as a liberal of some sort. That's only because in the Rehnquist Court, especially from Shrub Bush's time on, and then the Roberts Court, the Overton Window of the Supreme Court shifted right a whole house from even the Burger Court and a whole neighborhood from the Warren Court.

At the time many Republicans bitched about the "apostasy" of David Souter, Stevens did not face complaints like that, though he did have a few murmurings. Indeed, as Jeffrey Rosen wrote, he still considered himself a "judicial conservative" as late as 2007.
I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all.
Emphasis is in the original.

Indeed, a year AFTER that, he voted with a largely conservative majority to uphold a photo ID requirement on voting, in Crawford vs Marion County, basically opening the doors for the Kris Kobachs of the world, and buying the reasoning behind such claims. That said, at Ballot-Access, Richard Winger says he often voted in favor of third-party voting issues.

Per that shifting Overton Window, Rosen records Stevens as saying:
"It is my firm conviction,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the case striking down race-based enrollment policies in public schools, “that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.” 
No doubt there.

Indeed, Stevens himself noted the Overton Window:
Including myself, every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg. That’s bound to have an effect on the court.
I see him as some version of a Bob Dole Main Street type conservative. But not a liberal.

I otherwise encourage readers to read through the full Rosen piece. It goes beyond just the Overton Window to look how liberalism had changed since the Warren Court. Rosen doesn't use the word "neoliberal," but he does use words like "technocratic."
Even the most liberal justices today have little appetite for the old approach.
 Judicial liberalism, in other words, has largely become a conservative project: an effort to preserve the legal status quo in the face of efforts by a younger generation of conservatives to uproot the precedents of the past 40 years.
Well put.

Stevens also, Rosen notes, was fairly generous on criminal rights. OTOH, he hated flag burning and supported it being declared unconstitutional non-speech.

Beyond his political stances, Stevens was idiosyncratic. For example, he tried to ground abortion rights in a freedom from religion interpretation of the First Amendment. I agree with such an interpretation, but without even having to reference prominent secularist AND prominent pro-lifer Nat Hentoff, could have told Stevens that was a no go.

But, he also was a hard worker. As Wiki notes, he wrote first drafts of opinions himself. Also, he took the first look at cert positions himself. Most justices liberal and conservative alike have their clerks do this.

And, this all said, thank doorknob he was not an originalist, as it's a crock of shit. And, per Rosen, at least he's not one of the modern technocrat libruls, among whom Breyer is the worst, and arguably to the right of where Stevens was on First Amendment issues. Ditto Kagan.

That said, he had some other, also serious problems.

Like being a Cubs fan!

And, I say that not just as a Cardinals fan.

Since Stevens was born on Chicago's South Side, he was some sort of front-runner, and traitor to the White Sox. That too probably ties with him being not at all a liberal.

After all, as he defended himself because the White Sox kind of sucked when he was a kid, liberals are supposed to like the downtrodden.

Well, the Cubs pretty much sucked after 1945, too. So there.

Yet more movement skepticism / Skeptics™ fails

Both of these come ultimately from the Facebook feed of Spoony Quine, tho the first was reposted by Skeptics Friend Network. Both normally post to Facebook as "public," therefore I'm not violating any social media privacy rules that I follow.

First, posting a piece from Commentary magazine that starts by celebrating that anti-GMO "Frankenfoods" worries are fading without noting that the piece is liberal-bashing, moving from there to claim that anti-GMO worries are "similar in many ways" to (legitimate, of course) climate change concerns is either a major fail or else in Quine's case (I'm pretty sure NOT the case with SFN, though) agreeing with the bashing.
For those of us who believe that warnings of a ruinous climate crisis are at least overblown, the fading of the American anti-GMO movement is somewhat heartening. GMO hysteria and climate alarmism are similar in a number of ways. They’re issues that allow activists to broadcast their virtue and pose as saviors of the planet. They both fit nicely into an anti-American, anti-capitalist framework. And they’re both fueled by emotion instead of reason. 
Climate data is, alas, a bit murkier than reproducible experimental data on genetically modified crops. And there are no broadly esteemed public figures ready to come forth and champion a sober assessment of global-warming claims. But all public panics die out at some point.
But, even if batting generally left of center, SFN said it didn't feel bashed.

Well, you should. IMO it's a bit naive if you don't, given both those exact words and that this came from Commentary.

Beyond that, while anti-GMO-ism may tilt more to the left side of the political scale than antivaxxerism, which has plenty of libertarians and religious rightists both in its ranks, it’s not totally a left deal. Mike Adams alone shows that anti-GMO-ism is not just on the left, which Commentary ignored BUT ... that other commenters on Spoony's original pointed out.

(Sidebar: I did a search for the word "antivaxxer" on Commentary. Never found it.)

The piece has other problems, too, some associated with its bashing, some associated with other problems with Skeptics™.

First, it couldn't even be bothered to follow the Internet courtesy of linking to the cited New York Times pieces. It DID link to older pieces, but misinterpreted them, I think, and I know of in one case.. Massimo Pigliucci would also disagree with Commentary's dissing of Danny Hakim's linked 2016 piece, because he and Jay Novella got in a kerfuffle over that, and Massimo was right. And Novella of course is Skeptics™.
(It's also funny that the SFN post immediately before its repost of Quine's link is called "how to talk to a climate change skeptic.")

==

Second?

Claiming, by citing "liberal Christian dude," that the New Testament isn't anti-gay.

Oh, yes it is and that's just one of several blog posts I've written.

(And Spoony is not the first skeptic type to want to bail out liberal Christians.)

Here's a few of the main problems with "liberal Christian dude," the first three of which I mentioned in a comment to Quine.

First, as this is from Leviticus in the Tanakh, "arsenokoitai" is not in the "original Greek" because it wasn't originally written in Greek. Now, if the author meant "original Greek" from the New Testament passages, he should have written that more clearly.

Second, he doesn't ask if Paul used this word because of Greek pederasty. Pederasty as a custom didn't exist in ancient Isreal, of course.

Third, using the KJV to try to explain this away has two problems. First is that the KJV on the Old Testament/Tanakh side did little direct translation from Hebrew, really. Second is that King James was himself as gay as a blade, and this was known to be the case when he was still just King James VI of Scotland, before he succeeded Elizabeth in England.


Fourth, like other liberal Xns, both dudes and dudettes, although trying in this case to give both testaments a pass, he seems to be engaging in some form of Marcionism.

In turn, as I've done before on this issue, I remind the liberal Xn dudes and dudettes that Jesus explicitly said "I did not come to abolish (the Torah and Prophets) but to fulfill them."

So, the Tanakh is anti-gay, Paul was anti-gay, and Jesus was silent about the Tanakh being anti-gay.

Just admit this was something else the New Testament is wrong about. And, before further talking about Jesus as a mush-god of love, read Matthew 25 and note that it's Jesus himself condemning the "goats." Better yet, read Revelation.

July 15, 2019

AOC's chief of staff continues to add to her problems

As blogged previously, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be underpaying her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, to skirt financial disclosure rules. He is under Federal Election Commission investigation for PAC donation issues connected to Justice Democrats. AOC ate a burger with him shortly after a Green New Deal push, which leads to charges of hypocrisy. And ... hold on to the burger angle.

His latest issues (it's the NY Post, so some degree of "gotcha") include not only doing callouts on other House Dems but wearing a T-shirt with the face of Gandhi assassin Subhas Chandra Bose.

On calling out House members, he's NOT an elected official. AOC needs to put a muzzle on him, tell him to stay in his own lane, etc.

On the T-shirt, and earlier issues, what is an apparent Hindu nationalist supporter doing eating beef?

Magnificent Monet

It's not your mother's Claude Monet on display at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth. And, you've got only until mid-September to enjoy a magnificent display of late-life Monet works.

Fortunately, besides what's on its website, the Kimball, for the first time in my recollection, allowed photography of a special exhibition.

And, so you can see, what you see at left is not totally your mother's Monet.

But that is a relatively early example of his transition beyond his mid-life water lilies.

It's still halfway your mother's Monet.












This, on the other hand? Is more definitely not your mother's Monet. This is after growth with cataracts had taken much of his vision, but it was completed in the year he had surgery, followed by special glasses lenses, that partially restored it.

You can see he's starting to swap out "normal" colors, as the scene isn't totally that red.

But that one is nothing.

He went more that way, with the pergola over his Chinese bridge made famous in older paintings.






Like this.

That's not your mother's Monet at all.

The display boards in this area of the exhibit, which has more than 50 paintings, many not seen in the United States before, said that it were as if he was moving in the direction of abstract expressionism.

It said this near a final pair of paintings of a weeping willow that he studied in late life as much as his Chinese bridge.



This is definitely not your mother's Monet.

And, yes, that's a weeping willow.

All pictures embiggen.

If you're anywhere near Fort Worth between now and mid-September, head to the Kimball.