Texas Progressives talk campaigns and the Fourth

Off the Kuff rounds up the latest word on who is or at least might be running for what.

Related to the Fourth of July, SocraticGadfly first said the US of A is still a republic not a democracy (if that) and then riffed on Reality Winner.

The Fifth Circuit has said that Senate Bill 4 from 2023, which turned unauthorized border crossings into state crimes, is unconstitutional.

Kenny Boy Paxton has dropped his appeal of his office whistleblowers' lawsuit, but the problem remains that, as things stand, the Lege still has to appropriate the payout, to which it already said nyet before.

Trump's admin is now doing what it can to bar Mexican truck drivers.

Taylor Crumpton goes stanning for Beyonce's Black-pride brownwashing of American Indians and barfs me. (That's the correct description, Kuff, not yours.)

Lone Star Left has an early look at Democratic state legislative candidates. At least it admits its partisanship is anti-independent (and anti-third party) as well as anti-Republican.

Steve Vladeck tries to make sense of SCOTUS' terrible term.  

Deceleration has issues with Trump's deep sea mining order.  

Pete Vonder Haar muses about post-apocalypse culture.

Happy 100th birthday to quantum mechanics!

Left: The first lines of the letter sent by Werner Heisenberg to Wolfgang Pauli on 9 July 1925, explaining his efforts to interpret quantum physics differently. (Copyright: Heisenberg Society) Right: Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Enrico Fermi take a break by Lake Como during the 1927 International Congress of Physicists, where the new quantum mechanics was discussed in depth. (Image: Wolfgang Pauli Archive, CERN) 

I'm a day late, but, via Joe Costello, redeeming himself, July 9, 1925, per CERN, is when Werner Heisenberg officially told Wolfgang Pauli that he was going to get rid of this whole nonsense of "orbits" (that unfortunately is still taught in many places in Merikkka at the elementary level and even beyond).

Note I said quantum mechanics, not quantum theory. That, of course, without him fully realizing what he was doing at the time, and instead postulating to evidence, was 125 years ago, when Max Planck simply couldn't solve black-body problems in terms of classical physics and so proposed the "quantum" as an indivisible, granular unit of energy.

From that, among many other things, arose Niels Bohr's "planetary" model of atoms, with electrons rotating atomic nuclei (neutrons still unknown) in orbits. Despite Bohr being his mentor, Heisenberg vowed to kill this.

CERN quotes from his letter to Pauli:

“All of my pitiful efforts are directed at completely killing off the concept of orbits – which, after all, cannot be observed—and replacing it with something more suitable.”

And, per Pauli's famous bon mot, which has spread far beyond modern physics, Heisenberg was far from being Not.Even.Wrong.

Eventually, his matrix mechanics were shown to be inferior in SOME WAYS to Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics.

But, Heisbenberg was still king of the hill, as he showed two years later when, in response to Einstein himself at the famous 1927 Solway conference, he articulated the Uncertainty Principle, which remains the "one ring to bind them all," not just of quantum mechanics, but also of gravity and Einstein's special theory of relativity. 

Einstein's reaction was itself wrong on the reaction, but right on the insight of what Heisenberg meant. 

"God does not play dice with the universe."

There is no god, not even in the sense of him and Spinoza, since physical "laws" are empirically based and Einstein's own rejection of a cosmological constant turned out to be a bad move — based on empirical data. 

And, to the degree this phrase is seen as confirming Einstein as a physical and also a philosophical determinist, he was wrong there — as wrong as little Bobby Sapolsky, whom I just murdered recently. (Figuratively!)

Contra both these? I quote Julius Caesar:

"Alea jacta."

That's the bottom line. 

Einstein was right to see how the principle, as articulated by Heisenberg, meant the universe had a fundamental "graininess," which translated into a fundamental indeterminency. That, in turn was not something in either Special or General Relativity. 

And, speaking of wrong? Schrödinger was wrong about his infamous cat. 

And, Kurt Gödel refuted Einstein even more, along with Alfred Tarski

A drying Rio Grande won't fix itself

Author photo, 2019: The Rio Grande on the border at Boquillas in Big Bend National Park, near the area of Mexico reported in the story below.

The Observer reports from south of the border on the drying up of Mexico's Conchas River. It's a good story; the river is Mexico's main contributor to the Rio Grande and is the heart of a 1944 treaty. Related to that, local Chihuahua unrest against Mexico's federal government started in 2020. But now, the drought is so bad that many area farmers are beyond protest. And, as the story notes, many of them have gone to El Norte.

Trying to fix border water allocations, primarily here but also in the Southwest on the Colorado, is going to get ever more problematic.

Per the above? 

Strangeabbott likes to thing he's part of the federal government when Washington makes a decision under international law over which he has no power, but that he doesn't like. The sensical amendment to the 1944 US-Mexico water treaty that governs the Rio Grande is the latest. Let's add in, which the Trib doesn't, that then-Mexican President Lopez Obrador, beyond the drought hitting both sides of the river, had cited Strange's floating border barriers as part of why water was being held up. Big John Cornyn and Havana Ted Cruz, per the story, also didn't talk about that.

And, as I noted not quite a year ago, to which the Observer refers, part of this is Texas' fault. Tributaries on the north side of the Rio Grande, and the reservoirs they fill on the lower stretches of the river, are running lower and lower on water.

Per what happened on the Guadalupe last weekend, this too is part of climate change and neither tots and pears nor pouts and posturings will change that. 

Finally? Since the dying Rio Grande starts its death further west than Texas, even, the news that the Southwest's drought will likely continue for the rest of the century means things will only get worse. 

Brendan the History Nerd Toddler, the cult-followed book review idiot

This guy on Goodreads.

He calls himself, after his name, "History Nerds United."

Worse, he has a website, which he started three years before joining Goodreads. (Or rejoining, or jumping from Amazon, reading between some lines.) I had thought of deleting this post until I clicked through, but the "about" made me double down instead. 

First, plenty of history lovers, like me, don't consider ourselves "nerds." And, from that about:

Brendan Dowd is a full-time government consultant but is always a History Nerd. He lives in Vienna, Virginia with his daughter whom he regularly tortures with the double whammy of dad jokes and history jokes. He is the son of a history teacher (big surprise) and is originally from New York.

If your mom or dad think they're a nerd too, oy vey. 

Related is that this plays up to all sorts of history stereotypes. (And, if your mom or dad do that, too? Oy vey.)

I called him, in a comment on his review of "The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV" the History Toddler instead of Nerd. Why? This:

I plan on going on quite a bit of diatribes in this review. So, before you say, "Brendan can you get to the point, please?" I will summarize it with this. Helen Castor's The Eagle and the Hart is magnificent and you should read it. It is long and in-depth but never boring. It is a dual character study while also putting its time period in perspective. It is definitely going on my list of best books of 2024. Okay, now on to the diatribes! If you want to exit now, I thank you for your time.

Still with me? Great! Now that the impatient and rude people have left, let me tell you something. I believe Richard II might be the reason men named Richard are nicknamed Dick. (My apologies to all Richards who do not deserve it.) Do I have any scholarly source on this? Absolutely not. Will I look it up? Definitely no. Was this all to elicit a cheap laugh from those people who share my sophomoric sense of humor? Not entirely! Castor's narrative did make me believe he is one of the worst English kings in history.

How can anybody take him seriously as a reviewer, at least anybody who actually cares about learning about history in depth? We start with pretentious, pontificating prattle. Then, it's off to insulting anybody who won't agree that his pretentious, pontificating prattle is more than that. Then, there's the claim that, after admitting his humor is sophomoric (grow up), that it has real insight behind that. (It does not.)

And, if he actually cared about history, and about getting his cult followers to learn it, he would have told them that Dick as a synonym for Richard predates Richard II. 

Again, how can anybody take him seriously. Well, his cultish followers do. And, I guess they like being, or at least being called, nerds as well.

So I mentioned that in this bon mot:

God, what a stupid review, with the second paragraph. Perhaps you could retitle yourself "History Nerd Toddler."

Which apparently fed his ego (shock me):

But that means you liked the other paragraphs though, right? By the way, truly enjoy you being so obsessed with my reviews. Thanks for reading!

To which, one last reply:

I just like pointing out stupidities. Otherwise, don't flatter yourself. (Not that that admonition has any chance of success.)

From here on out, I call him out in my reviews, as I first did here.

And also, dood, an occasional comment elsewhere doesn't mean obsessed. I think I've commented on four or five of his reviews.

Otherwise, taking right-wing nut job Maureen Callahan's book about JFK seriously, let alone 5-starring? You're not even serious as an alleged historian. He also reads a lot of semi-clickbait fluffy history.

And, as exemplified by "The Eagle and the Hart," many of his reviews are surface-level, not noting actual historical problems, as does my review. (I'm often the first reviewer to catch such things.)

And, that gets to the real problem. He says he wants to make history "fun." Fine. But, you know, history is more than just a "story." It's about ... history. And, good historical writing is — accurate, factual, empirical, etc., not just "fun."  (I've updated my Goodreads profile with a more extensive version of this.)

In short, Brendan is giving the cult, and non-cultic readers of his reviews, a bad idea of history. 

I'm going to drop this link in occasional reviews by me of books he's also read.

Side note: The cult didn't really develop until the last 18 months or so, it seems. Older reviews of his have generally no comments. So, was the "History Nerds United" itself a marketing ploy? I would have said yes, at first, but seeing the website game before the Goodreads, I am not sure.

Also, I find the "Dear Reader" affectation an insult to Isaac Asimov, whether Soy Boy adopted it in deliberate imitation of him or not. 

That said, the website has one more bit of pretentiousness, which also means no way in hell I delete this.

Above links to his social media sites, he does NOT say "Follow Me."

Rather?

"Follow Us."

You know exactly what you can do with your "royal we," dude. (And, that's what it is; you may do interviews on your podcast, but your site is a one-man band.)

Actually, per the start of the "about," there's more reason yet not to like him.

Former Army brass hat? Now a "government consultant"? He's either a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ member (State) or military-industrial complex (DoD). Barf me either way. 

Edit: This does not necessarily mean that he works directly for either cabinet agency. Contractors, and not just defense contractors like Lockheed, but outsourced security, intelligence, etc. all exist. DynCorp, Fluor and many others.

Now, other than the cultism? The crux of the problem.

Soy Boy's reviews are often error-laden. This is usually errors of omission, as his likely breezy and superficial reading misses errors in many of his reads. Even worse, for an ex-US Army tanker, many of these errors of omission are in his reviews of military history books. 

Finally, per Rotary's Four-Way Test, which I thought of?

1. Is it true? Yes.
2. Is it fair to all concerned? Per Walter Kaufman, "fair" in reality and abstract are two different things, and fairness can never be universal all at the same time. It's close enough for jazz.
3. Will it build goodwill? Not a concern.
4. Is it helpful to all concerned? See "fair." It's certainly helpful, IMO, to people needing to find good history books.
   

There you are.

And so, if I AM obsessed, I've excised it, and it is now a WAS.

Tots and pears on the Guadalupe, non-duopoly version

As the death toll hit 70 Sunday morning from the Guadalupe River flooding, several questions abound. And have grown since it crossed 100.

The biggest was about warnings. Even with local and state officials offering caveats about lack of prediction in location, nonetheless, with the initial warning of 7 inches in the area already early afternoon on July 3, followed by the first flash flood warning early July 4, I think, per the Trib:

“The heartbreaking catastrophe that occurred in Central Texas is a tragedy of the worst sort because it appears evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities had the organizers of impacted camps and local officials heeded the warnings of the government and private weather sources, including AccuWeather,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter wrote in a statement Saturday morning.

That Kerrville and Kerr County officials are full of shit.

Second question, not even being addressed yet by Tex-ass Rethuglican Congresscritters who voted for Trump's bigly ugly bill? How much will it reduce the accuracy, and cut the amount of advance notice, that the NWS was able to offer in this case, even though it went largely unheeded?

Here's the same second link on that, at least at the professionals' level:

The flooding came amid concerns about staffing levels at the NWS, after the Trump administration fired hundreds of meteorologists this year as part of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. The NWS Austin/San Antonio office’s warning coordination meteorologist announced in April that he was retiring early due to the funding cuts, leading to speculation that vacancies could have impacted forecasters’ response.

As I've half-jokingly said elsewhere, the "Gulf of America" will get renamed back to "Gulf of Mexico" the first major hurricane that spawns in it hits the Texas or Louisiana coast.

Per later comment in the story, they're adequately staffed NOW. Six months from now? A year? 

Zeynep Tufekci talks more about that official, Paul Yura, in a column asking other questions, like — why haven't more camps moved their camping areas just, even a few feet higher and a few yards further away from the course of the river? 

[A]t Camp Mystic, where at least 27 campers and counselors were washed away, the kids whose cabins were on just slightly higher ground all survived. Only those in the lower cabins were lost. Those lower cabins were less than a quarter of a mile away from the higher cabins. Every moment would have counted.

There you are. 

On Yura, it's not just about total staffing; it's about loss of experience. But, per places like LinkedIn, you'll see capitalist America, like the Elmo Musk behind DOGE, can't and/or won't put a dollar value on that. (Neither will neoliberal Democrats except when it's worth political haymaking.) 

Update: It does appear that NWS cuts grounded several warning balloons. 

The first piece has bullshit from dog-shooting Homeland Security head Kristi Noem trying to hand-wave away these concerns. 

The third question? How much do Democrats really want to politicize this, since Dear Leader's administration is partially to blame, at least career staffers in it? How much do you want to politicize it, per two paragraphs above, because Dear Leader was one of two people to make sure the "vaunted" Paris climate accords are voluntary unenforceable Jell-O? How much do they want to support putting Tweety Eastland, the surviving Mystic spouse, on the legal hook publicly?

How much of this is the fault of the youth camps' staff? After all, both the 1 am and 4 am July Fourth alerts were available by cellphone alerts. Mystic's co-owner Dick Eastland is among the dead, so he can't be asked, but other owners of other camps, and managers of them, certainly can be. Or, per The Barbed Wire's piece that references self-backpatting of state and federal officials, will this get swept under the rug?

And, to go there? These are Christian girls camps, even if not affiliated with a particular church? How many girls are told that climate change is a myth? What about camp owners and staffers?

Refudiating the likes of Chip Roy in that Barbed Wire piece? This was not a once in a century flood. The Monthly, like others, references the 1987 flood in Comfort. 

So does the first Trib piece, at top link, which has a good "wrap-up" on some of these issues:

Billy Lawrence, a 73-year-old San Angelo man, has dealt with this type of tragedy before. During flooding in the summer of 1987, he spent more than 30 days looking for bodies. The first one he found was of a child in a tree, 20 feet up.

But he said this flood is twice as bad as it was in 1987. On Saturday, he was back patrolling the river for bodies. A former volunteer with the Red Cross, he said he's gotten used to the morbid practice.

“I’m used to death. I’ve been around it a lot," Lawrence said.

He noted there are about 20 camps along the river in this area and said the camp counselors should receive training to check the weather every night.

"I'm not blaming them. They just have to do that,” he said.

Refudiating Danny Goeb, the jefe during this with Strangeabbott out of the Pointy Abandoned Object State? His Tex-ass Senate, and Rethuglicans in the House, killed HB 13, a bill that would have updated state warning systems. 

Tots and pears are no substitute for training and the acceptance of modern realities.

And, even if campers can't have cell phones on, per this Texas Monthly story, at least at that particular camp, camp counselors, managers and owners sure as hell can. Or you can have a weather-band radio that gets the same type of emergency alerts.

As for the climate change issue? You don't have to go back to that 1987 flood, per the top link:

The region has experienced catastrophic flooding before, including the 2015 Wimberley flood that left 13 people dead, as well as major floods in 2007 and 2002.

Notice how close together these things are now getting?

Last week, moved from the Texas Progressives Roundup, we had Evil MoPac grappling with the Hill Country flooding tragedy. I moved it here because after it going all nice and polite on getting to the bottom of things, this:

There will be a thorough accounting of what infrastructure issues and human errors may have been present and, hopefully, there will be common sense policy changes to try to reduce the terrible human and propery tolls of Texas floods in the future.

And this:

But we also need to grapple with the fact that this tragedy and the incredible rainfall amounts that caused it were not totally unprecedented and the impacted area has long been at risk for this type of event, even if rare. It’s that feeling of helplessness that will be one of the hardest things to process going forward: we can make improvements (including to local warning systems) and increase spending to try and solve the flooding problem, but it might never be enough.

Are both untrue.

The former is untrue per what I said about climate change and Tex-ass Rethuglican leadership, if nothing else. Any "changes" will be a right-wing corporate socialism bailout of capitalism.

The latter will be untrue starting with climate change, which the "we" wingnuts running Tex-ass won't grapple with. It's also untrue in that, from all I read, ownership and management of the various camps easily could have done a better job with the resources they had — ie, smartphone warnings — as could have local governments.

That's as Inside Climate Change notes this is more and more NOT a one-off — as the death toll crosses 100 July 8. 

And, per my update about the killed HB 13? Stop cutting these people slack, you fucktard. 

I suspect lawsuits are coming — and they need to come.

(I mean, good old BlueAnon Neil Aquino gets it right on this being a political issue, but gets it wrong of course on not looking at how it's various forms of business as usual for both duopoly parties.)

And, Blue Anons, do you REALLY want to politicize the FEMA angle of removing parts of Camp Mystic from the 100-year floodplain? Per the AP, via the Trib, that would be the OBAMA-era FEMA. 

In response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county's flood map to remove 15 of the camp's buildings from the hazard area. Records show that those buildings were part of the 99-year-old Camp Mystic Guadalupe, which was devastated by last week's flood. After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020 from the designation. Those buildings were located on nearby Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened to campers in 2020 as part of a major expansion and suffered less damage in the flood. ..

[Syracuse University associate professor Sarah] Pralle said the appeals were not surprising because communities and property owners have used them successfully to shield specific properties from regulation.

Ooopppssss .... 

But wait, there's more! 

Pralle, who reviewed the amendments for AP, noted that some of the exempted properties were within 2 feet of FEMA's flood plain by the camp's revised calculations, which she said left almost no margin for error. She said her research shows that FEMA approves about 90% of map amendment requests, and the process may favor the wealthy and well-connected.

And, with that, we have the answer that, in the past at least, the Eastlands were partially responsible for the current deaths. And, we have material evidence of negligence, even willful negligence, when somebody drops this nice polite ownership bullshit and sues. 

Will Texas Monthly mention that? Mimi Swartz's hagiography of the Eastlands and Forest Wilder's laundry list of what went wrong both failed to. 

Abrahm Lustgarten, who has a great book on climate change, now weighs in at Pro Publica.