MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.

[MON 01 FEB 21] THE WEEK THAT WAS 4

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Congress is now headed towards an impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate in February. Absolutely nobody knows if the Senate will convict Donald Trump, the question devolving to what Mitch McConnell -- now the Republican minority leader -- will do. There is much skepticism that he will push for impeaching Trump, since he is well-known for cynicism and expedience.

The question is of what McConnell sees as expedient. Trump having lost the 2020 election, McConnell knows Trump is a loser -- McConnell has publicly rejected Trump's transparently bogus claims of "election fraud". Trump's future is dark, and McConnell knows it.

Yes, most of the chatter from the GOP right now says they'll give Trump a PASS, but what happens at crunch time is unclear. One thing that can be suggested is that, no matter what the judgement is, Congress will then release a report on the 6 January Capitol invasion, which will name names, though it will have little legal standing.

However, it is obvious there are Democrats in Congress who want to go after Trump with maximum prejudice. The leadership will not stand in their way; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's angry public denunciations of Members of Congress who seem to have aided the rioters does suggest she's all for it, and those Members of Congress will likely be included in the investigation.

There's been much talk in the media of a "deeply divided America", but it seems somewhat overblown. According to polls, roughly a third of Americans believe nonsense such as Joe Biden won the election by fraud, Trump's attack on Congress wasn't a big deal, vaccines are much more dangerous than COVID-19, and so on. What to say, they're nincompoops -- and they've been here all along. It was just that Trump managed to mobilize them and get them moving in the same direction. Once Trump deflates, that voter base evaporates, as they either stop voting, or vote for fringe candidates. [ED: Deflation took longer than expected.]

* One of Trump's particularly annoying habits was his inclination to abuse American allies and kiss up to America's enemies -- most notably Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is somewhat puzzling as to why Trump was so favorably inclined to Putin; one apparent reason is that Putin helped Trump get elected in 2016, and Trump felt he should encourage Putin to do it again in 2020. However, another apparent motive was that Trump honestly admires dictators. He abuses those he feels superior to, and toadies up to those who seem superior to him.

Of course, that's changed in the new order. According to a White House press release dated 20 January 2020:

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Putin blandly told the Russian people that the Americans had accepted New START on Russian terms -- a self-serving way of saying that the two sides were in agreement. As far as subversive Russian exploitation of US social media goes, there will be a growing push to leash in social media that promises to be interesting.

* As reported in an article from CNN.com ("Rotting Fish, Lost Business And Piles Of Red Tape. The Reality Of Brexit Hits Britain" by Luke McGee, 23 January 2021), there was something of a collective sigh of relief when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson struck a trade deal with the European Union on Christmas Eve. Simply allowing all agreements with the EU to collapse into a heap thanks to Brexit would have been disastrous, and would have reduced Britain to a rogue state.

At least on the British side, the relief was short-lived, since disruption to countless businesses that relied on seamless supply chains was inevitable. Despite Johnson's repeated claims that Brexit would be a great opportunity for British exporters and would lead to some kind of revival for free trade, the reality was that British fishermen were seeing their catch left to rot, since it couldn't be delivered to markets in the EU. Logistics firms found that import and export had suddenly become much more difficult. In between Brexit and COVID-19, Britain is faced with a severe economic contraction.

A government spokesperson put a bland gloss on the problems, telling CNN: "From the outset we were clear that we would be leaving the customs union and single market which meant that there would be new processes after the end of the Transition Period. These were widely communicated through our public information campaign."

James Withers, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink, suggested the reality was much more uncomfortable:

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When pressed on the matter, Johnson has said that he believes these are merely teething issues, not anything really wrong with the deal. The government is providing 23 million GBP to help get things straight.

There is real concern among trucking companies and logistics firms that things are going to get much worse in the coming months. January is typically a quiet month at ports, and there was some stockpiling in advance of Brexit -- but as trade ramps up and stockpiled are depleted, there is the prospect of a crunch. Northern Ireland, which still remains in the EU single market, is faced with shortages, since it is much harder to obtain food from the rest of Britain.

It is a mark of the confused nature of Brexit that, even with over four years of advance warning, very little useful preparation was made for the day when the doors slammed shut. Many of Johnson's Tory lawmakers are struggling with how to reply to their constituents, one saying off the record, without the gloss: "The party gave us lines to read out when the deal came through presenting it as a huge success, but as time goes on, it's clear there's quite a lot of nasty surprises in Pandora's box."

The same Conservative lawmaker worries about the City of London: "Once the fog of Covid lifts, financial and professional services firms looking to expand globally will see London and realize that we have given up quite a lot of our competitive advantage."

Nothing in this should be very surprising; although Leavers made much of making Britain free from EU red tape, Britons who have to deal with Europe have now found the red tape much harder to penetrate. Leavers, of course, never concerned themselves with realities and details, and are not concerned with them now. They live in the universe of "dreampolitik", which has nothing to do with "realpolitik".

As far as the EU goes, they have cause for satisfaction. To be sure, the EU didn't want Brexit, but they did play their cards right, getting a deal largely on their terms -- which were, of course, clearly inferior to the terms enjoyed by EU members. Most importantly, the UK's botch job on Brexit has done much to discourage Leave sentiment in EU member states: "On examination, Leave doesn't seem like such a good idea after all."

* As seen on Twitter, late-night TV host Seth Meyers took a sharp view of Republicans in Congress twisting and turning to dodge ownership of Trump's assault on the Capitol Building:

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As per McCarthy's comment about: "We all bear some responsibility!" -- a reply made the rounds: "There are very bad people on both sides!"

As appalling as this nightmare is, I get a certain satisfaction out of watching the self-defeat of clowns like Rand Paul and the rest of the Trump-enslaved GOP. They've got nowhere to go but down. It's just a question of how long it takes, and how painful it will be. [ED: As it turned out, longer and more painful for everyone ... but the outcome was never in doubt.]

* As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("No 'Human-Out-Of-The-Loop' For Autonomous Weapons, Says New European Parliament Report" by Brooks Tigner, 11 December 2020), with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into miltech, there's been discussion of just how much discretion an AI combat system should be allowed.

A report issued by the European Parliament now has stated that AI should not replace human decision-making in military operations, while any "human out of the loop" arrangement for lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) must be banned globally. The report commented: "Laws should only be used as a last resort and be deemed lawful only if subject to human control, since it must be humans that decide between life and death."

The report urged the EU to take a leading role in promoting a "global framework" on the military use of AI. The report was authored by French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Gilles Lebreton. In the report, Lebreton stated that AI systems should be designed to enable humans to correct or disable them in case of unforeseen behavior. He wrote:

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[MON 08 FEB 21] THE WEEK THAT WAS 5

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The big news of last week focused on Marjorie Taylor Greene, a new Member of the House of Representatives from Georgia, who is a gun-toting lunatic -- having gone so far as to suggest execution of prominent Democrats, and that the widespread forest fires of last summer were caused by orbital lasers funded by wealthy Jews. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not name names, but referred to the "loony lies and conspiracy theories" in circulation as a "cancer for the Republican Party". McConnell said: "Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9-11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK JR's airplane is not living in reality."

In the face of criticisms, Greene offered a public "apology" that consisted of highly constrained remorse, along with generous denunciations of the long list of people she dislikes. The Democrats in the House pushed through a vote to deny Greene a seat in any House committees; only ten Republicans voted for it. There is a sense that the Right is in a vicious cycle, where ever more preposterous ideas are put into circulation -- with the system becoming ever more unstable until it collapses like a house of cards. When will that happen? Nobody knows, but it's hard to believe that it will be in the very distant future.

It's wired up in the chaotic Trump endgame. This week, Trump's second impeachment trial is going to take place. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is eager to go after Trump -- by all indications, she's enraged at 1-06, as much as if Trump had incited a mob to trash her own house and attack her family:

• [1] Congress was the target of the 1-06 attack, and Congressional Democrats have to respond with all means at their disposal. Their first and most direct tool is impeachment.
  
  
• [2] As a closely related factor, impeachment calls out the Republican Party, asking them to choose between Trump and the USA. How the GOP votes will make a big difference in how the Democrats then proceed -- though the Democrats are clearly prepared for either outcome.
  
  
• [3] Joe Biden can't go after Trump himself; it would smell of banana-republic politics for a president to go after a presidential rival. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki -- refreshingly direct and articulate, after the series of dubious characters the Trump Administration put in the job -- has similarly made it clear to reporters that Trump is not a subject that will be discussed in press briefings.
  
  
• [4] Incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn't been confirmed in his job yet, and so the DOJ won't be going after Trump in the immediate future. There is no real doubt that, after 1-06, Federal legal action will be taken against Trump -- the crime is just too massive, the guilt much too obvious -- but for now, it's in the hands of Congress.

One wonders how aware Republican Members of Congress are of the looming legal threat to Trump, and how it will affect their decisions. No matter how they vote, they're in trouble. As justification for voting NO to impeachment, as of late, they've taken to saying: "Yes, what Trump did was wrong, but impeachment after he's left office is unconstitutional."

Trump's preparations for the impeachment trial have been thoroughly "on brand": at one point, all of Trump's lawyers bailed out. One Steve Cavanagh, a lawyer turned mystery writer, offered on Twitter that there are three big reasons lawyers quit cases:

• The client won't accept their advice.
  
  
• The client instructs the lawyer to do something that would compromise them, such as lying in court.
  
  
• The client won't pay them.

Cavanagh suggested a "holy trinity" in play. The rumor mill added that Trump apparently wanted them to use as a defense that Biden had stolen the election. To add a twist, THE NEW YORK TIMES reports that Trump entered 2021 with $175 million USD, raised in November and December as part of his campaign to steal the 2020 election. The Federal Election Commission reports that, of that money, Trump only spent about $10 million USD on legal costs; about five times that on advertising. It is a simple statement of fact that Trump is criminal and dysfunctional. To further demonstrate the dysfunction, it appears that Trump does not realize how much trouble he is in.

* One of Joe Biden's proposals is to raise the US minimum wage to $15 USD an hour, from the current $7.25 USD an hour. That has led to a pushback from the Right, on the claim that it would be economically counterproductive, leading to inflation and costing jobs. As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("What Would A $15 Minimum Wage Mean For America's Economy?" 28 January 2021), a $15 USD minimum wage does pose risks, but it also may have overall benefits.

In 2019, 30% of American workers made less than $15 USD an hour. Americans are largely enthusiastic about raising the minimum wage, a Pew poll indicating that two-thirds of them -- including two-fifths of Republicans -- favor doing so. Economists are more divided; a panel of them was asked in 2015 if they favored it, with 40% undecided, the rest split between PRO and CON. The uncertainty is simply because there's little practical experience in large increases to the minimum wage.

The uncertainty is a change from the past, however -- since at one time, economists were largely against raising the minimum wage. However, studies over the past three decades show that modest increases in the minimum wage have, at worst, small negative effects on employment. In a metastudy conducted for the British government in 2019, Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst concluded that minimum wages of up to 60% of the median wage, or 80% of the median in low-wage regions, have negligible employment effects. It turns out that firms have more flexibility to soak up a minimum-wage hike than once assumed; if a company is profitable, there's room to adjust, with minimum-wage employees getting more of the profit. Of course, firms with tight profit margins will have trouble.

The Democrat proposal for the minimum-wage hike to $15 USD would phase it in over four years. What happens when it's fully phased in? Again, there's not a lot of experience with large minimum-wage jumps, so nobody's exactly sure. Gavin Wright, an economic historian at Stanford University, suggests that something of the sort occurred in the American South as a result of the New Deal in the 1930s. Before the 1930s, the economy of the South was not like that of the North, which was then at the top of global standards of productivity and income per person. Factories and farms in the South, however, were based on low-productivity, labor-intensive production, unlike the more capital-intensive approach in the North.

The Southern way of doing things trapped the South's economy in a low-wage rut. Southern governments invested little in education, knowing that there most of the jobs were for the uneducated, and anyone who got an education would have to go elsewhere to leverage off of it. While the rest of the USA enjoyed a "virtuous cycle" of growth in accumulation of human and physical capital, with rapid increases in productivity and incomes, the South economically and socially stagnated.

Franklin Roosevelt's imposition of national wage and labor standards broke the cycle, forcing Southern producers to reduce their reliance on cheap labor and adopt labor-saving technologies; low-wage workers, short of employment opportunities, migrated out of the South in large numbers. Fearing mass unemployment and depopulation, Southern governments worked hard to attract outside investment. Between 1930 and 1980, incomes per head in the South as a percentage of the national average rose by roughly 30 percentage points, and Southern cities built around knowledge industries became magnets for migrants from elsewhere -- one prominent example being Huntsville, Alabama, with aerospace industries thriving because of the NASA center there.

Convergence in incomes between poor states and rich ones, rapid before 1980, has slowed dramatically since, while the productivity gap between superstar cities and others has widened at the same time. It may not be a complete coincidence that the Federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, rose steadily between the 1930s and the 1960s, but has alternately stagnated and declined after that. A low minimum wage allows firms to once again rely on low-skilled labor, instead of capital investment on new technology and processes. Once backwards firms give up their low-wage model, they can become more productive.

It is unwise for politicians to force macro-economic changes, however desireable they are for the long term, then ignore the pain they impose on businesses and workers over the short run. It may be wiser to stretch out the period for implementing the minimum wage, allowing low-wage states to invest in education and infrastructure, and to give time for businesses to make capital investments for a new era. In short, raising the minimum wage may inflict short-term pain -- but proper management can reduce the pain, with greater productivity and prosperity in the end.

* As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("USMC Seeks New FINN Gateway Pod Prototype" by Carlo Munoz, 14 August 2020), the US Marine Corps is working on development of an airborne "Fused Integrated Naval Network (FINN)" radio data fusion pod to be carried on the MQ-9B Reaper drone. It is intended to link Marines in the field with US Navy data networks.

The USMC's Warfighting Laboratory's "Command, Control, Communications, Computers & Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR)" defines the pod as providing "a persistent [network] gateway that receives, bridges, translates, processes, and distributes information between other FINN nodes and the end-user nodes connected to them." The pod must be capable of cross-banding Internet Protocol (IP) and non-IP based data transfers, transmitted on current and legacy data link technologies.

It will also need to support beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications, and support realtime data translations between users over a bewildering range of communications schemes, including Link-16; Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT); Bandwidth Efficient Common Data Link (BE-CDL); the Intelligence Broadcast System (IBN); National Security Agency Type-1 certified TrellisWare Tactical Scalable MANET-X (TSM-X) waveforms; and the Next Generation Waveform (NGW) developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

[MON 15 FEB 21] THE WEEK THAT WAS 6

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Joe Biden has got off to a running start in his presidency, signing executive orders (XO) at a record clip. That high level of activity is not mere eyewash, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt. XOs are a poor vehicle for substantive initiatives, since they may not have much political support, and can be countermanded easily by the next administration.

However, that's the key here, since Biden's XOs are heavily focused on cleaning up after the whimsical, erratic, and sometimes perverse decisions of the Trump Administration -- for example, with Biden taking straightforward actions like rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement on climate change. More substantial efforts will, of course, demand more work.

In the meantime, the Biden Administration is doing their best to ignore the Trump dumpster fire. The impeachment trial went on in the Senate through the week, featuring a devastating presentation by the prosecution, and a laughable presentation by the defense. Of course, the Senate GOP voted to acquit Trump anyway. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell declared, in the aftermath, that Trump was obviously guilty, but it would be unconstitutional to impeach him after he left office. Nonsense of course, since the Constitution gives Congress the "sole power of impeachment", and so Congress can devise the rules without fear of contradiction.

Trump and the GOP are now in a slow-motion train wreck. As one Stuart Stevens, a Republican campaign operator, said on Twitter:

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And then, the GOP has been overrun by the crazies. Moviemaker Rob Reiner, who has a popular Twitter feed, commented: "First McCarthy Era: A Communist under every bed. Second McCarthy Era: Jews with space lasers who drink baby's blood around every corner." This will not end well for the GOP.

* As discussed in an essay from ECONOMIST.com ("Relief Tinged With Scepticism", 30 January 2021), the removal of Donald Trump from the White House was generally welcomed among America's allies in Asia, with one South-East Asian diplomat saying: "We are all heaving a sigh of relief." The diplomat adds that, unfortunately: "The damage has been done."

President Trump took a wrecking ball to the multilateral trading regimes that have driven Asia's economic success. He demonized the World Trade Organization and took America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country free-trade deal. As for security assistance, Trump threatened to tear down military alliances with South Korea and Japan if their governments did not give the US more money. The alliances have survived, but the implication was that America had no commitment to support its Asian allies.

They were also not happy with America's angry denunciations of China, heavily driven by Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. True, most Asian countries are suspicious of China, particularly over Chinese assertiveness against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. However, China is too large, close and, in economic terms, generally beneficial for demonization to be a practical option.

Joe Biden's administration is a breath of fresh air, with foreign policies being crafted by experienced professionals, including some who are regarded highly in the region -- notably Kurt Campbell, who helped engineer Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia in 2012, and who is to be the primary architect of the new administration's "Indo-Pacific" strategy. Miyake Kunihiko, a foreign-policy adviser to the Japanese cabinet, says: "Washington is back."

There is skepticism. Barack Obama is widely seen as having been too reluctant to use American muscle, particularly during his second term; and the Trump Administration's "get tough with China" mindset was, while seen as heavy-handed, not entirely unwelcome -- particularly in Japan, whose leadership sees China as almost an avowed enemy.

However, although Joe Biden has already overturned many Trump Administration policies, he seems more or less happy with the status quo when it comes to China. The new White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said that competition with China is "a defining feature of the 21st century" -- adding that China "is engaged in conduct that hurts American workers, blunts our technological edge and threatens our alliances and our influence in international organizations."

The new defense secretary, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, went even farther, defining China as the biggest threat to the United States, and by implication our friends in Asia. Such comments cannot have gone unnoticed in Beijing. Austin has also made it clear to our Asian allies that the USA takes its security guarantees to them seriously. In addition, the Trump Administration's overt tilt towards Taiwan has proven convenient and is being maintained. Taiwan's de facto ambassador in Washington, Hsiao Bi-khim, was conspicuously invited to Biden's inauguration. Arms sales to the island will continue.

Of course, Trump Administration policy had many rough edges, with the Biden Administration's China policy smoothing them off. Jen Psaki and others keep talking about working with coalitions, partners, and allies -- a position entirely foreign to Trump. Biden and his people plan to consult with others in Asia before speaking to China. They want to engage much more with ASEAN, a ten-country South-East Asian club that Trump ignored. To counter Chinese assertiveness, America will look not only to the "Quad" of America, Australia, India, and Japan, but also try to strengthen the military capabilities of allies in South-East Asia.

Still, America's Asian allies remain uncertain of what to expect from the Biden Administration, recognizing that Biden is confronted with turmoil at home, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. They are also not happy with Biden's protectionist rhetoric and skeptical attitude towards trade deals -- though it may well be the case that Biden simply wants to make sure trade deals can be sold to Congress and the American public, Trump having thoroughly weaponized them against the Democrats. America's intent to do better with friends in the region is clear; but of course, the question of capability remains.

* I've taken to promoting my ebooks on Twitter, posting ads in REPLIES to postings relevant to the ebooks. An article from SCIENCEMAG.org suggested, in the context of scientific papers, that it isn't wise to think that there will be much response to such postings:

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Although the article presented that as discouraging, I found it encouraging instead. I can get clicks on half my ads? And over ten for a tenth of them? What's not to like? Since it's either post ads to Twitter or get no attention at all, posting ads is all for the good. Although I don't think I've sold any ebooks so far, it's not unusual to get LIKEs. I haven't seen any complaints that I'm spamming, either -- Twitter is an open environment, posting an ad in a REPLY is not usually seen as stepping on someone's turf. In addition, people tend to like ads, if they're for things they would like to buy, which does give me an incentive to be precise in my targeting.

* The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020:2021 was accompanied by a global undercurrent of resistance against pandemic-control measures. One manifestation of the resistance was the claim that such measures were wrongheaded and ineffective, that it would be wiser and more effective to simply let the disease run wild, with the world acquiring "herd immunity" in the end.

The title of an article from SCIENCEMAG.org -- "Herd Immunity By Infection Is Not An Option" by Devi Sridhar and Deepti Gurdasani, 15 January 2021 -- condemned the idea, citing a study by Lewis F. Buss of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, in collaboration with an international team of researchers. The study focused on a COVID-19 outbreak in Manaus, the capital of Brazil's Amazonas state, in which an estimated three-quarters of the population was infected, but which did not lead to herd immunity. Transmission of the disease has continued on pace.

Manaus reported 2,642 deaths confirmed to be from COVID-19 (1,193 per million inhabitants), and 3,789 (1710/mil) deaths from respiratory disease likely to have been caused SARS-CoV-2 infection. These figures are worse than the fatality rates during the same period (up to 1 October 2020) in the United Kingdom (620/mil), France (490/mil), and the USA (625/mil) -- and much worse than in Australia (36/mil), Taiwan (0.3/mil), and New Zealand (5/mil). The infection fatality rate in Manaus was estimated to be from 0.17% to 0.28%, consistent with the population being predominantly young and at reduced risk of death from COVID-19.

Even if it were possible to achieve herd immunity through "natural" infection, the deaths that would result would be catastrophic, millions in total worldwide. With uncontrolled transmission, infection will spread to vulnerable populations and decimate them. Even in a younger population, SARS-CoV-2 is harmful and deadly. The growing evidence of long COVID and its long-lasting multisystem effects indicates that there may be substantial morbidity long after infection.

[ED: The "herd immunity" concept is ignorant and vicious. Its advocates like to proclaim that, instead of restraining the spread of the disease through the general population, the focus should only be on protecting the vulnerable. How the vulnerable would be protected in an ocean of infection is not detailed, and amounts to: "Let them fend for themselves, it's not our problem." It's Libertarianism in action: the best solution is no solution, with the consequences of inaction shrugged off.

In the wake of the effective collapse of the Trump Administration on 6 January 2021, Dr. Scott Atlas -- a radiologist linked to the Trump Administration and an advocate of "herd immunity" -- reported on Twitter that he had lost 12,000 followers on Facebook. Trevor Noah of THE DAILY SHOW commented: "Ah, you're finally flattening the curve!"

Atlas' Twitter account then disappeared. One suspects the much-despised Dr. Atlas will have a difficult life for the foreseeable future.]

* As discussed in an article from ABCNEWS.com ("UC San Diego Introduces Vending Machines For COVID-19 Tests, 6 January 2021), the COVID-19 pandemic, troublesome as it is, has also generated a lot of ingenuity -- one piece of evidence being vending machines introduced at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) to provide COVID-19 test kits.

The school administration has been energetic in dealing with the virus, establishing norms on the basis of proven methods, such as enforcing mask-wearing, social distancing, and frequent testing -- with the infection rate of the roughly 10,000 students who live on campus kept under 10%. When the Thanksgiving / Christmas holidays approached, school officials got to brainstorming as to what they could do to safeguard their students. One big result were vending machines to distribute test kits.

Instead of having to make an appointment with a nurse for a test, students can get a kit from a vending machine, perform the test, then return the kit to a dropbox. The results are emailed to the students. Sophomore Citlaly Magana told reporters her last test was "like my 20th time since I've been here. I'm not lying. We get tested every week."

Tests are required for students as they return to campus for the spring semester -- the first within 24 hours of arrival, then five and 10 days later, Scioscia explained. Students who live on campus are then required to get tested weekly or face disciplinary action. Along with sticks, carrots: if a student gets tested 10 straight weeks, the student receives a $50 USD gift card to the basic needs hub on campus.

[MON 22 FEB 21] THE WEEK THAT WAS 7

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: It was obvious after the end of impeachment proceedings earlier in this month that the Donald Trump endgame was far from over. I was thinking that the next step might well be a Congressional investigation -- and indeed, in mid-month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced just that. Apparently, she'd already mentioned the idea, but the announcement made it official.

I was expecting a study by a joint Congressional committee, but Pelosi more wisely settled on an independent commission, like the one that investigated the 9-11 attacks, to be established by an act of Congress. Russel Honore, a retired US Army general, is already leading an investigation of security failures in the 6 January attack on the Capitol Building, with a number of Capitol police in the doghouse as a result. Pelosi says she wants a highly diverse commission of qualified individuals. [ED: This exercise, to no surprise in hindsight, would encounter obstacles.]

Events are steadily rolling towards Trump's indictment. Some in the Republican Party appear to see it coming, with Nikki Haley and Mitch McConnell both distancing themselves from Trump. Haley seems to be trying to finesse the divorce; McConnell appears more realistic, knowing that cutting Trump loose will be painful, but preferable to following him down as he craters into the ground.

In parallel, the GOP is mired in confusion. As evidence of such, Republicans in Congress are attempting to push through a bill to sideline municipal broadband internet service providers, while a number of Red states are forming a committee to deal with massive voter fraud -- that didn't happen in the 2020 election, meaning the real goal is voter suppression, "Jim Crow Lite".

The push to hobble municipal broadband is both absurd and doomed: it has no substantial support, and zero chance of going anywhere. The voter suppression committee is a greater threat, but just as preposterous. If anyone on the committee gets up in public and talks "voter fraud", the news media will contact the electoral commission in the committee member's state and ask: "Was there any substantial voter fraud in your state in the 2020 election?" With the answer: "No." It is plausible that Congress will consider a new Voting Rights Act to deal with this nonsense.

As a significant relevant note in current events, this last week Rush Limbaugh -- arguably the most prominent of the Rightist talk-show demagogues that emerged from the 1990s -- finally died of lung cancer at age 70. I'm not inclined to speak ill of the dead, but in response to declarations of what a genius Limbaugh was, I replied with the title of one of the "greatest short books": THE ENDURING WISDOM OF RUSH LIMBAUGH.

I do think that the death of Limbaugh is a marker in the decline of the Rightist media and its disinformation. It got to the point where it was impossible to tell the stream of lies from Kremlin anti-American propaganda. We've been here before, with the radio propagandists of the 1930s -- most notably Father Charles Coughlin, the "Radio Priest", who peddled anti-Semitic and isolationist trash. After Pearl Harbor, the archbishop of his diocese told Coughlin to shut up, and he did. I commented on Twitter: "Limbaugh will go down in history along with Father Coughlin."

"Who?"

"Exactly."

* One of the big problems confronting the Biden Administration is Russia, which continues to make an international nuisance of itself. As discussed by an essay from ECONOMIST.com ("The European Union Must Face Up To The Real Russia", 13 February 2021), the European Union seems to be slow to wake up to just how big a nuisance Russia is.

The Baltic States and Poland warned Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign-policy chief, against visiting Moscow following the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, Russia's leading opposition politician. Borrell went anyway, to have Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, publicly sneer to his face that the EU was an "unreliable partner". Borrell also found out that the Russian government had expelled diplomats from Germany, Poland, and Sweden for attending pro-Navalny rallies.

The EU is not of one mind on Russia, the country being seen as a potential or even essential ally; a business opportunity; or an existential threat, as per the view from Paris, Berlin, or Warsaw. The dove mindset is based on pragmatism, pessimism, and cynicism. France puts its appeasement down to the belief that Russia is too big to push around, and too close to ignore. French President Emmanuel Macron talks in terms of an effort taking decades, and doubts whether tough action would do much good. Whatever happened to legendary French assertiveness?

In Germany, economics is the prevailing factor. Nord Stream 2, a pipeline running from Russia to Germany, undermines the EU's wider strategy of trying to rely less on Russia for energy, but is nonetheless supported by the German government. Angela Merkel pushed through and stuck with sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine -- but Merkel will be out of office soon, and her potential replacements aren't demonstrating as much spine. Even direct attacks, such as Russian hackers breaking into the Bundestag's computers in 2015, failed to disturb complacency. Spain and Italy, the EU's other big countries, are similarly meek when it comes to Russia.

The claim is that the EU can't really do anything about Russia, which is the EU selling itself short. It is a bloc of 450 million people with a GDP nine times larger than that of Russian, which has an economy slightly larger than Spain's, and smaller than Italy's. Collectively, EU countries spend almost three times as much as Russia on defense; France and Germany together spend roughly two-thirds more. The reality is that the EU tolerates Russia's trolling because of a lack of will to stand up to it.

Borrell's awkward trip to Moscow, in the wake of the arrest of Navalny, has made Russia's gangsterism impossible to successfully ignore. The Russian government tries to murder its opponents, promotes proxy wars, and hacks its neighbors; Russia doesn't want partnership with the EU, it wants to give the EU a poke in the eye. EU members in Eastern Europe knew that all along, and if the Americans didn't know it, they do now. Whether the rest of the EU gets the wake-up call remains to be seen.

* A review of the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra camera phone from GIZMODO.com (22 January 2021) started off on a highly positive note with the title: "The Most Maxed Out Phone for the Money". That contrasted with the Galaxy S20 Ultra introduced last year, which was widely regarded as leaving something to be desired -- particularly relative to its $1,400 USD price tag. OK, the S21 Ultra is not cheap at $1,200 USD, but that price point is moving in the right direction -- and Samsung has got things much more right this time around.

Cosmetically, the S21 Ultra is slick, with a redesigned metal rear camera housing, and Gorilla Glass on both sides. The 17.25-centimeter (6.8-inch) display has an impressive resolution of 3200 x 1440 with technicolor AMOLED pixels, plus a hole-punch for the 40-megapixel (!) selfie camera. It has a dynamically variable refresh rate that can get up to 120 Hz, for the best gaming experience -- but that can be cut down to 10 Hz to save battery power. The display will automatically sync to the frame rate of videos. The screen also features an enlarged fingerprint sensor.

US models of the S21 Ultra feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip -- with multicores and AI processing capability, 5G control being built into the chip -- along with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of base storage. Sadly, there's no microSD flash memory expansion slot. However, the rear camera array is no disappointment, featuring:

• A 108MP main camera (12 MP with 3 x 3 pixel binning).
  
  
• A 12MP ultra-wide camera.
  
  
• Twin telephoto cams, one 3x and the other 10x, both with 10MP resolution. Samsung likes to boast of "100x zoom", but it's just cropping a small section of the image.

The array also includes a laser autofocus sensor that provides crisp focus. With an improved Night Mode, the S21 Ultra's night shots are leading-edge. Other new photo modes have been added as well. Finally, the S21 Ultra has an oversized 5 ampere-hour batter that can keep it running for over 16 hours.

[ED: Some reviews have placed the S21 line as superior to the iPhone 12. Yeah, this is the phone I want to buy. It sounds like everything I want -- and 128GB of flash memory is all I could use, so the lack of a microSD slot isn't an issue. I'm not going to buy it right away, however, even though I have the pocket money. Since I'm not traveling these days, there's no urgency to get it, and I'll pick up an unlocked renewed phone in late summer for less money. I can tinker with my new Xiamoi Redmi 9 Pro camera phone in the meantime.]