MrG's Blog & Notes

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

[MON 01 JUL 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 26

MON 24 JUN 24: I saw a Spouter promoting the impeachment of SCOTUS Justices Alito and Thomas. I replied that was unlikely to work, since no GOP would vote for impeachment, & that an 18-year term limit would do the job. He shot back that wouldn't take effect for 18 years.

Huh? I scouted around and found the "Supreme Court Term Limits & Regular Appointments Act of 2021", unsuccessfully pushed by Dem rep Rho Khanna of CA. Along with the 18-year term limit, the White House could nominate a new SCOTUS justice in the 1st & 3rd years of a presidential term.

Over the shorter term, that might result in more than 9 sitting justices, but only the 9 with the shortest time of service would be able to vote. If one of the 9 dropped out for whatever reason, the voting rights of one of the senior justices would be restored for the interim. A senior justice could, of course, transfer to a lower court or retire.

Incidentally, the bill also said that a new justice would be automatically confirmed if Congress did not act on the nomination in 120 days -- no more stonewalling! Anyway, it would take about three years to tip the SCOTUS balance back from 6:3 Right to 4:5 Left.

The Spouter was unimpressed, still insisting that impeachment was the only way to go. When I pointed out again there weren't the votes to impeach, he said that impeachment would embarrass Alito and Thomas so much they'd voluntarily resign. I don't think so. It was like arguing with a creationist: I shot holes in his arguments, he just came up with ever more ridiculous arguments. I ended up blocking him.

* Ukraine has been making effective use of its sea drones against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. I was wondering all along why they didn't use them to lay sea mines, but now it's been announced they've been doing it for a long time, with some successes against Orc ships.

It seems they laid 180-kilogram (400-pound) bottom mines, obtained from the Allies. Some of the "sea babies" have been fitted with R-73 heat-seeking missiles as well, I suspect to deal with Russian harbor protection helicopters.

* To my surprise, the long-running action of the US government against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appears to be over. He pleaded guilty and got a 5-year sentence, the same as time served in the UK. He accepts justice and goes home to Australia. Problem solved?

TUE 25 JUN 24: Yes indeed, the saga of USGOV V JULIAN_ASSANGE is over, with Assange a free man and going home. His defenders are not quite satisfied, still insisting that the legal pursuit of Assange was unjustified, and that he should be pardoned.

The reply to that is: Don't push your luck. We haven't forgotten how Assange did everything he could, with Russian help, to get Trump elected in 2016. Assange bit the bullet and took a GUILTY plea, no backtracking now. The matter will be filed and forgotten.

* Ukrainian operational security is very good and we don't hear much about frontline combat, but it doesn't seem to be going well for the Orcs right now -- with reports of depleted Russian units, suffering from AFU attacks while lacking food and water, disintegrating.

Chechen troops were brought in to block unauthorized retreats. The AFU then focused firepower on the Chechens, smashing them with HIMARS strikes into Russian territory. That is an interesting detail, since the HIMARS GMLRS missiles are GPS-guided and the Orcs are jamming GPS. It seems the jamming isn't working any more, so something's changed, we just don't know what. Anyway, it seems a miracle that the Orc army hasn't collapsed yet. It could do so at any time.

WED 26 JUN 24: SCOTUS has been dribbling out decisions over the past few weeks. Today, they announced a decision that I've been concerned with, slapping down attempts to stop the White House from monitoring social media.

The slapdown was expected: nobody with sense would object to the White House clamping down on malicious disinformation spread by Kremlin trolls, antivaxers, & conspiracy frauds. Kremlin trolling, after all, is organized & weaponized disinformation by a hostile foreign power.

The court's rejection of the claims was based on "lack of standing", which made a lot of sense: the only people who could claim injury from the suppression of Kremlin trolls are Kremlin trolls. Who can honestly defend the rights of trolls?

Justices Thomas, Alito, & Gorsuch dissented. Why am I not surprised? Thomas and Alito could be expected to insist on MAGA's right to troll, while Gorsuch is a libertarian and has a grand view of "free speech" that is blind to the reality of relentless Kremlin propaganda campaigns.

Anyway, I think the decision may be a Big Deal: the executive has an incentive to drop its accounts on corrosive Xitter and go "someplace else". This opens the door.

* According to an article from RAWSTORY.com, over the past 4 years traffic to "Right Troll Media (RTM)" websites like BREITBART, DAILY WIRE, and DAILY CALLER has collapsed. The range of fall runs from about 50% to over 90%.

This appears to be in part because Facebook changed its algorithms and isn't boosting RTM websites any more. It may also because Xitter has been so overrun by trolls that legitimate users are giving up on it, and so the Xitter connection to the RTM sites is going dead. However, it may more be the case that the RTM has got boring and is going out of style. The GOP is in decline; I've worried about the persistence of the RTM, but it's clearly in decline as well.

THU 27 JUN 24: There was a very interesting video, in which a Ukrainian MiG-29 dumped two French AASM / Hammer 250-kilogram (550-pound) smart glide bombs with a "toss bombing" attack. The MiG-29 came in low, went into a steep climb in afterburner, then released the two bombs during the climb, with the fighter turning around and falling back to low altitude to exit. The rocket-boosted bombs arced towards their distant target. I figured the AFU-AF would use toss bombing, but it was fun to see it. Still not much information on AFU-AF use of US SDB and JDAM glide bombs.

* NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has declared the obvious, that Russia is not winning in Ukraine, saying: "We don't have any ... indications or reasons to believe that Russia has the capabilities, the strength to make big breakthroughs."

This hints at my own idea that Putin is "going for broke", trying to overwhelm Ukraine while he still can, knowing that his window of opportunity, such as it was, is slowly going shut. Over the longer run, he's going to get weaker while Ukraine gets stronger. Putin can spread destruction, but he can't win. In the worst case, Ukraine could fight a guerilla war against the occupation for a generation. Impossible to say how long the war will last, but it is unlikely to be for a generation.

Incidentally, Stoltenberg will be replaced by ex-Dutch PM Mark Rutte on 1 October -- Rutte being politically slick, if not beloved by all. I'm a bit of a Rutte fan, so I'm good with it.

FRI 28 JUN 24: I was expecting great things from the Trump-Biden debate last night, but I was very disappointed to find that Joe Biden, apparently ailing, put on a feeble performance.

On getting over the disappointment, I decided that the debate didn't move the needle between Biden and Trump, neither of them losing nor gaining voters. In the choice between Biden and Trump, there are really no undecided voters. Only fakes say they are.

Trump also made many statements that can and will be used against him. As said on Spout: Joe Biden on his worst night is still better than Trump on his best. The failed debate is not, in itself, a big deal. If Biden's health is visibly failing, it will be a big deal. However, he spoke to a crowd in Raleigh NC today, and was in good, assertive form. I would assume he's running short work hours and spending most of his time in bed, with VP Harris running the show, and his chief lieutenants reporting with voicemails.

* The Supreme Court is on a tear, overturning the CHEVRON V NRDC decision of 1984, which stated that the courts defer to the judgements of a regulatory agency, not have the competence to challenge them. The judiciary now is assuming the right of challenge.

This is really asking for trouble. CHEVRON was established during the Reagan Administration, with environmental groups challenging the regulations of the Reagan EPA, and being told they couldn't do that. Overturning CHEVRON cuts both ways. The SCOTUS decision is unworkable.

The Right comes across these days as a very strange combination of authoritarianism and anti-government anarchism. However, it's not really contradictory at all: they're only against progressive government, and talk anarchism as a cover.

AND SO ON: There is not much indication that Joe Biden's weak debate performance seriously hurt him. In fact, it appears that he has even got some sympathy out of it, Democrats recognizing that he was ailing and couldn't skip the debate. Everyone knows what it's like to have to work when sick. The debate was nothing more than a bump in the road for Joe Biden; in the meantime, Trump stumbles on towards the precipice.

However, the "talking heads" went into a frenzy, with the NEW YORK TIMES editorial proclaiming: "To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave The Race". Andy Borowitz, master of snark, summed up the general annoyance with the NYT via an alternate headline: "Biden Calls On NEW YORK TIMES To Drop Out Of Journalism". The PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, not to be outdone, shot back with: "To Serve His Country, Donald Trump Should Leave The Race" -- and listed Trump's many insults to the USA, commenting:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

The editors concluded: "Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best." Hey, I beat them to that line! There was also widespread disgust with the way some of the hystericals promoted white male Democratic politicians as Biden replacements, and didn't even mention Kamala Harris. Why was that? Did it rhyme with SLACK EMAIL? Anyway, Mika Brzezinski of the MORNING JOE show nailed it:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

In response to a snap posted on Spout of Biden and Harris riding together in a limousine, I replied: "Ride with Biden or get out of the way."

* In Ukraine War news, President Volodymr Zelenskyy has now sacked a senior general, Lieutenant General Yuriy Sodol, after complaints from field commanders that he had ordered half-baked offensive actions that caused many and unnecessary casualties.

Ukraine's internal politics are necessarily opaque, but it appears that Sodol was a victim of Zelenskyy's increasing disgust with older officers, earlier manifested in the sacking of senior commander Valeriy Zaluzhnyy. Zelenskyy believes that younger and more innovative officers -- General Kyrylo Budanov, the devious boss of military intelligence, appears to be the template -- who can conduct a high-tech war that will do the most harm to the Russians and the least harm to Ukrainian forces. Zelenskyy is demanding a lot from the young people of Ukraine, and he has to show that their sacrifices will not be in vain.

How will that change in strategy play out on the battlefield? I suspect it will become more apparent by 1 September.

[MON 08 JUL 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 27

DAYLOG MON 01 JUL 24: All the hubbub last week over Joe Biden's bad debate night is persisting. THE NEW YORK TIMES is getting a hail of flak over telling Joe to step down -- after all, the NYT never suggested Trump should get out of town by sundown. Some of the hystericals are still carrying on, even raising the question of who should be selected as Joe's replacement.

That isn't even a question, people. If Joe steps down, then Kamala automatically steps up, end of story. The hystericals will say she's not a winner, but they could not propose anyone whose chances were better or -- under the circumstances -- nearly as good.

* Today, the Supreme Court issued a judgement on Trump's "presidential immunity" claim. It was deceptively simple judgement, saying that a president was liable for unofficial acts, but had absolute immunity for official acts.

The case was then passed back to the lower courts. There was a lot of caterwauling over the idea of a president having "absolute immunity" -- but what did that mean? SCOTUS did not define "official acts", leaving the lower courts to figure that out for themselves.

Consider, for example, Trump taking boxes of secret documents to Mar-A-Lago. He can say he did so as an official act, and that could well fly -- but what about refusing to return them after he got out of office? He seems to be in trouble there.

The judgement is unlikely to amount to much. The cases against Trump may be delayed, but they won't be given up. It is also likely to be a long time before any president gets into legal hot water again, so there's time to figure things out.

DAYLOG TUE 02 JUL 24: UKRAINSKA PRAVDA reports that Enel SPA of Italy has provided almost 6,000 solar panels to help provide power to Ukrainian hospitals. Ukraine's power grid has been under relentless Orc attack and is badly damaged, with at least half the country's power-generation capacity lost.

The current government plan envisions energy generation primarily by nuclear power, with at least one plant under construction -- but is that realistic? That nuclear plant is a target. Might a case be made for widespread solar panels and mid-size wind turbines?

* At the first of the month, I buy a batch of goods from Amazon. This month I realized I needed new socks, and bought a bag of sports socks -- lightweight socks wear out too fast. I got the socks, and to my surprise they had a grid of little plastic pads formed into the soles. I'd never seen that before; checking with MS Copilot, I found out it's not a new idea, but is now just catching on. They feel a bit funny. I'll see if they last better.

DAYLOG WED 03 JUL 24: The SCOTUS judgement on presidential immunity has made waves, with the court's declaration that a president has complete immunity for "official acts" being widely and excitedly seen as granting a POTUS total immunity.

That's arguable, but only because SCOTUS didn't provide much definition to distinguish "official" from "unofficial" acts. Trump calls up Zelenskyy and tells him to cook up a case against Joe Biden; is that an official act? I would think not, but I don't count.

Joe Biden publicly denounced the SCOTUS decision as enabling dictatorship -- which seemed oblivious to the ambiguity of the judgement, and puzzling for a person with a JD degree. On 2nd thought, the ambiguity of the decision left SCOTUS wide-open for denunciation. They handed Joe Biden that card, and he used it to cut them down a peg. In practical terms, it pressures SCOTUS into clarifying their position to show that it's not all that menacing. After they do that, the decision may end up being a nothing burger.

* The hysteria over Joe Biden's bad debate night is still running around with its hair on fire. The mainstream media is still making a fuss, with the Left media in a full-blown tantrum. To no surprise, those who track Kremlin bots and other trolls say they're promoting the "Biden Must Give Up" message at full steam. Biden has publicly replied that he won't give up; Democratic leaders are backing him up, and most voters don't seem to be worrying about it.

DAYLOG THU 04 JUL 24: The voting is over in the UK, and Labour stands triumphant. In terms of seats in Commons, Labour got a margin of over 60% of all other parties, and more than a 3x dominance of the Tories. Sir Keir must be feeling insufferably pleased with himself.

Here across the Pond, there was some "doomsplaining" that the ascendance of the Right in recent French elections was an ominous sign for the USA. I think the signals coming from the UK are much more pertinent.

* Ukrainian forces have been suffering terribly from big Russian glide bombs, which have become the Orc weapon of choice in the battles this year. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says anti-air defenses are improving and putting Russian launch aircraft at risk.

How the arrival of F-16s into the battle will affect matters remains to be seen. There have been leaks of tests of a very-long-range "AIM-174" air-to-air missile -- which is just the RIM-174 / SM-6 surface-to-air missile without a booster stage. F-16s with AIM-174s could put Russian combat aircraft at great risk. Incidentally, the Russians claim to have destroyed a number of Ukrainian combat aircraft with long-range missile attacks; the Ukrainians say the damage was not so great. 50:50 the Orcs were hitting decoys. [Two days later, it was revealed they were.]

DAYLOG FRI 04 JUL 24: Keir Starmer is now Prime Minister Starmer -- Britain doesn't have a "lame duck" period like the USA, when the old government loses it packs its bags. Starmer hasn't moved into #10 Downing Street yet, though recent PMs have been inclined to prefer the somewhat larger flat above #11. In any case, I was thinking that Starmer must be happy, which was confirmed by a picture of him with his wife Victoria, Sir Keir looking positively giddy with excitement. That's surprising for a person like Starmer, who has a cultivated reputation for dull plod. Incidentally, "Vic" Starmer is Jewish, and they have two teenaged kids.

Long-surviving Rightist pest Nigel Farage was jubilant early on when exit polls suggested that his Reform (Brexit) Party would get 13 seats. Gosh, about 2% of the seats in Commons! He was still jubilant when they really only got 4. Wotta tosser.

One of the interesting stats about the election was that turnout was 60%, the lowest since 2001. Given the overwhelming Labour win and staggering Tory loss, it would seem that Tory voters mostly stayed home. Makes sense: they don't believe anyone's propaganda any more.

Not incidentally, one outgoing Tory MP named Marcus Fysh announced he's dropping out of the party, saying: "It's dead." He talked about joining up with a new Center-Right party of some sort, but that's a nonstarter: the Center has shifted Left, and now Labour is the middle-of-the-road party.

* The Instagram Threads Twitter-like service has acquired a large number of users, so I decided to get back into my Threads account to promote my ebooks. I'd forgotten why I quit: it really stinks, technically crude with lots of trolling. I'm learning to hold my nose. I block a lot.

AND SO ON: The media continues to push the narrative of the death of Joe Biden's presidential campaign. Spout's Chris Bouzy ran a poll asking if Spouters wanted Joe Biden to drop out; the YES vote was about 3%. Given the solid Blue complexion of Spout, that's a valid poll: there is no serious movement among the Dems to sideline Joe Biden.

* In reference to Keir Starmer becoming British prime minister, one Anne Applebaum sized him up in an article from ATLANTIC.com, titled: "Antipopulism Prevails in Britain". Starmer has led Labour to a huge victory, first by neutralizing -- some say ruthlessly -- Labour's Redlined Left, under Jeremy Corbyn, and then politically boxing in the mindless, populist Tories.

His prime focus is to talk about ordinary people's problems. "Populism," Starmer says, thrives on "a disaffection for politics. A lack of belief that politics can be a force for good has meant that people have turned away in some cases from progressive causes." He added, it seems as a rebuke to Labour ideologues like Corbyn: "We need to understand why that is, to reconnect with working people. The big change we've made is to restore the Labour Party to a party of service to working people. I believe we'd drifted too far from that."

Only days after French voters flocked to both far-Right and far-Left extremes, the British have elected an unflashy, unpretentious, hypercautious Labour Party led by a gray-haired prime minister whose manifesto talks about economic growth, energy, crime, education, and making the National Health Service "fit for the future." The party won without generating huge enthusiasm, with low turnout -- though it clearly appears turnout was well lower for the Tories than Labour.

In reality, Starmer's campaign was not designed to create enthusiasm. Starmer sometimes campaigned as if he had never used the term public relations, and for most of his life, he probably didn't. His father was a toolmaker in a provincial factory; Starmer himself didn't run for Parliament until the age of 52. Before entering politics, he was a lawyer who rose to run Britain's Crown Prosecution Service.

Understated comes to Starmer naturally. Critics might also add opaque. But, again, this is also a strategy. Throughout the campaign, Labour sought to portray itself as a party of men and women who take nothing for granted and will toil ceaselessly on your behalf. The message isn't exciting, but it isn't meant to be. And maybe this is what anti-populism has to look like: There is no ideology, the middle-of-the-roadness is the point. [ED: Again, the middle of the road has shifted Left.]

Starmer wants a Britain assertively back on the world stage. Under the Tories, xenophobia was always just under the surface, sometimes emerging in full view; Corbyn was skeptical of NATO, the transatlantic alliance, and the importance of the military. Starmer, in contrast, leans into them, placing all three things in the top rank of concerns. Starmer has been to Ukraine and have met its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and will attend a NATO summit next week. He regards Vladimir Putin as an enemy of democracy.

Policy towards the EU is trickier. That he wants to enhance Britain's relationship with mainland Europe is without doubt, but he thinks rejoining the EU is a bridge too far. The difficulty is that anything less is a half-measure; it may be the case that Starmer will consider rejoining the EU only if, say, the LibDems make a popular case for it.

In any case, Starmer wants Britain to be seen as a serious and honest player on the global stage. That includes an assault on kleptocracy and international corruption -- which is closer to home than it sounds, since oligarchs from Russia and elsewhere have taken advantage of the easy and discreet rules for owning property in London, and similarly enjoy access to London's formidable financial-services sector.

Even with understatement, Starmer's Labour has mountains to move, they can't be moved quickly, and voters are fickle. Starmer has to be careful. Tom Baldwin, the author of a best-selling Starmer biography, says that to understand the new prime minister, you have to imagine a man standing in a field. "He takes one step forward and stops. A step to the left, and he stops. One step back, two steps to the right, and he stops again. What he's doing looks weird. It's inelegant; it's confusing. But he's crossing a minefield. And this is the best way to get to the other side."

[MON 15 JUL 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 28

DAYLOG MON 08 JUL 24: There had been worries about French elections, an initial run-off vote having demonstrated surprising strength of Marine Le Pen's Rightist National Rally Party. This weekend the final vote was held, and National Rally lost, with only 143 seats.

The big winner was the Leftist New Popular Front Party, with 182 seats, topping President Emmanuel Macron's Centrist Ensemble Alliance Party, with 168 seats. No party got an absolute majority, so government will be by coalition. Le Pen felt that the National Rally Party had done well, but there was general relief they hadn't done better. How well a Center-Left coalition will work remains to be seen -- but following Britain's eviction of the Tories, the French elections were still gratifying.

* The demands for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race are continuing, but Biden issued a ringing declaration today that he was still in the race. CNN talked to delegates to the Democratic Convention in August and found no enthusiasm for dumping Joe Biden. CNN also suggested that JB's fate was in the hands of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries -- and only hours after the article was released, HJ said that Biden should stay in the race. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says the same.

The NEW YORK TIMES is still beating the drum for JB to step down. Over on the Threads social-media system, Threaders have been hammering the NYT account; it appears they ganged up and mass-reported the NYT for breaking the rules, and the moderation system automatically suspended the account for a time.

DAYLOG TUE 09 JUL 25: I was thinking after Joe Biden issued his blunt declaration that he was going to stay in the presidential race, the media's barking would subside. Jeffries, Schumer, notably the Congressional Black Caucus, even AOC told him to stay.

However, the barking has continued. The NEW YORK TIMES made a fuss about repeated visits of a Parkinson's disease researcher to the White House -- ignoring the fact that he was there working on a White House project to deal with Parkinson's, and in fact had been going there on that mission during the Obama Administration. The NYT seems to have ignored the correction.

538, in its statistical analysis, says that JB has been gaining on Trump slightly since the debate. The debate was a blip that didn't move the needle; everyone who likes Joe Biden knows he's old and has accepted it. TIME reports that Members of Congress are now falling in behind JB. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, not noted for compromise, said: "I don't live in a delusional world. The President is going to be our nominee and we will have his back."

DAYLOG WED 10 JUL 25: Joe Biden hosted a NATO meeting in Washington DC today, with the president giving a vigorous and emphatic speech, pumping up NATO and dumping on Vladimir Putin. He got enthusiastic applause from the audience -- though the event was glitched when JB introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin". JB caught himself immediately, saying: "President Putin? I'm so focused on beating Putin." Zelenskyy shot back: "I'm better!" -- with JB saying: "You're a hell of a lot better!"

[On being asked about the gaffe on the 13th, Zelenskyy said: "It's a mistake. I think the US gave a lot of support for Ukrainians. We can forget some mistakes." It was interesting that Zelenskyy wisely praised the American people for the support, not JB, understanding that JB is the chief agent of the American people.]

Anyway, prominent Democrats are emphatically defending Biden -- Bernie Sanders in particular -- and any discussion in Congress is over. Nancy Pelosi, talking with a CBS NEWS journalist, said the media was "making up stories" that had no relationship with reality.

Prominent House Member Ted Lieu was in good form today, telling the Congressional #DumpBiden crowd, such as it is, to get a life: "For the good of the country, Donald Trump should drop out of the race." For the moment, the celebs are continuing the offensive, with George Clooney and Rob Reiner taking their cheap shots. That might last a week.

Donald Trump has challenged Joe Biden to another debate. While JB would instinctively jump at the challenge, on consideration it's not a good idea. Under the best circumstances it would buy JB very little, and under the worst it would be disastrous.

DAYLOG THU 11 JUL 25: The #DumpBiden campaign in the media isn't running out of steam. Today the NEW YORK TIMES ran an editorial pointing out the threat posed by Donald Trump. I was suspicious and read through it.

It said: "tRuMp iZ d@nGerUs s0 #DumpBiden!" "Yappari!" -- Japanese for: "I knew it!" There's a boycott campaign on Spoutible, encouraging people to dump their subscriptions to the NYT & other offenders, & not to click through to their online postings.

In reply to George Clooney's call for JB to step down, in comments on CNN comedian D.L. Hughley cut the #DumpBiden gang down to size. Young black men turned off by Biden? Hughley says they're turned off by cowardly, hand-wringing Dems. Hughley also nailed the related "Kamala factor" -- the reality that many people saying #DumpBiden also mean #NeverKamala.

Does it really matter? Some Dems are terrified of Trump, more are infuriated at him, & Joe Biden has all their votes. One Spouter said that he'd vote for Joe if they had to re-enact WEEKEND AT BERNIE's with him on election day. That's the reality of Joe Biden's voters.

* As old information technology fades, new infotech comes on line. I was listening to George Benson's classic tune ON BROADWAY and got to wondering if Benson was still around. I asked my phone: "Hey Google, is George Benson still alive?"

"George Benson died on March 9, 2019." Later I thought of Nancy Pelosi standing up for Joe Biden, and remembered Pelosi is older than he is. "Hey Google, how old is Nancy Pelosi?" "84". I knew Joe was 81, but I got confirmation to be sure: "81". Google Assistant works well for factoids, not so well for complicated questions.

Along another track, I asked MS Copilot to explain Bayesian Analysis to me, and got back a concise but cryptic explanation. I asked again and added: "Explain it like I'm 12." It did, very neatly. I was most astonished.

DAYLOG 12 JUL FRI: Joe Biden sat through an interview yesterday and did well enough, the only glitch being that at one point he confused Kamala Harris with Trump. The #DumpBiden gang made a lot of noise about it, but Biden has always made gaffes on occasion -- so what?

Stephen Colbert mocked Joe Biden on the air, with the comment section on his YouTube page then overflowing with protests at varying levels of civility. Again, all JB's voters know what they're getting and have accepted it. Professor Allan Lichtman of the American University in Washington DC, who studies the presidency, has a 13-point list of factors need to win an election. Incumbency is a big factor. If JB has to drop out before election day, he resigns the presidency, Kamala becomes the incumbent -- and also inherits the campaign chest, as well as delegate votes. Elevating Kamala won't be a problem, but it won't be done unless necessary. In any case, it's up to JB and Kamala, their decision, nobody else's.

DAYLOG 13 JUL SAT: Kristen Welker of NBC was playing the #DumpBiden card yesterday -- and then called President Biden "President Trump". Hoisted by her own petard!

Also yesterday, Joe Biden went to a rally in Detroit, to a highly charged-up crowd that was chanting: "DON'T YOU QUIT!" -- and: "FOUR MORE YEARS!" It seems the enthusiasm really charged him up, because he absolutely did not come across as a doddering old man. The TIMES of London did a very neat edit on the speech:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

One of the crowd behind him had a sign: MOTOWN IS JOETOWN! JB has a rally in Austin on Monday, the push is to give him an even better reception.

* In late-breaking news, a shooter opened up on a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, with the shooter and one person killed, another badly wounded. Trump was lightly injured, it appears by flying glass. Nothing much else is known right now, but many people are thinking it was a "false flag" operation. I don't believe that myself, but with Trump people inevitably think: Well, it could be true.

Later: the shooter turned out to be one Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20 years old, who was firing from a rooftop with a rifle. Few clues as to the motive yet, but it is known he was a registered Republican. We'll get more details soon enough. What effect will this have on the campaign? Almost none. In a few weeks, it will be forgotten. Being inured to mass shootings, it seems, isn't 100% bad.

[MON 22 JUL 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 29

DAYLOG MON 15 JUL 24: Fallout, such as it is, from the assassination attempt on Trump continues. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, was a quiet kid and nobody knew much about him. It is known he was a registered Republican and was a gun enthusiast. The FBI did get his phone.

The attack doesn't seem to have done anything to help Trump. After all, nobody who wasn't going to vote for Trump before the shooting is going to now. Joe Biden, in contrast, has used the event to take charge of the crisis and appear presidential. It's a good time for the Dems to push a gun-safety bill, but no sign of action just yet.

PALMER REPORT says that, in the meantime, Trump has gone to ground and is not appearing in public, though he issues deranged Truth Social postings. Myself, I suspect the assassination attempt unnerved him, when he was barely functional to begin with.

* Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated that Ukraine has the right to hit targets in Russia ... though he didn't precisely say they could do it with Allied-supplied weapons. It does sound like that was the implication, however.

The trick is that it is unlikely Ukraine was ever really refused permission to use such weapons on Russia. There just weren't enough weapons to spare to do it -- but rather than publicly admit weakness, the cover story was: We have the weapons but we won't use them. Once Ukraine actually got the weapons, permission to use them, probably with some conditions, was granted. That means powerful new weapons have arrived and are going to be used. Taking public declarations at face value in a war is unwise.

DAYLOG WED 17 JUL 24: Joe Biden delivered the keynote address to the NAACP convention in Las Vegas yesterday, getting a chant of: "FOUR MORE YEARS!" He was in good form, saying that the tone of American politics was getting too hot and should cool off.

Biden expressed relief that Trump wasn't seriously hurt -- though I might personally add that the best reason to want Trump alive is to make sure he stands trial, so that no other trashclown ever tries to game the presidency again.

Referring to Trump's condescending "black jobs" crack, Biden said: "Folks, I know what ... a Black job is -- it's the Vice President of the United States ... Kamala Harris! I know what a 'Black job' is. The first Black president ... Barack Obama!" [ROARING CHEERS]

Trump has selected troglodyte Senator JD Vance as his running mate, it seems on the basis that he was the most obsequious of the choices; he certainly won't bring in any votes. VP Kamala Harris challenged Vance to a debate, but he turned her down. He's not in her league.

* The media continues to be hallucinatory. One Owen Jones, a British Leftist, wrote in THE GUARDIAN of the supposed collapse of American democracy in apocalyptic terms, envisioning an imminent takeover by Donald Trump and installation of a fascist dictatorship.

Jones doesn't live here and doesn't realize that public enthusiasm for Trump has evaporated. The collapse of Britain's Tories in the 4th of July general election didn't give him a hint. Poor comparison with the US GOP? Only in that the GOP is much worse off.

Defeatism is currently strong in the media, and the Redlined Left plays along with it. When I think of the British Left, I always remember the Leftist peasants in MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL, railing at King Arthur: "He's oppressing me! Look at him oppressing me!"

DAYLOG THU 18 JUL 24: I keep thinking the #DumpBiden frenzy will pass, but it's still going strong. The hysteria is full blast today, with headlines -- even from Ukraine -- saying the Dems are desperately bad shape, that Trump is certain to win, yada yada ...

On what cubical Bizarro World? Now we have trollbots descending on Spout to spread chaos and confusion. Hopefully we'll get rid of them soon enough, but they are a pain. Industry has this concept of "FUD", meaning "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt". Sleazy companies spread FUD about the competition. Those suffering from FUD are, as another Spouter put it, mainlining "despairoin" -- despair heroin. Reality is: Trump will lose & go to jail.

DAYLOG FRI 19 JUL 24: Joe Biden is in isolation for COVID right now. He's not very ill; he's thoroughly vaccinated & also taking Paxlovid. I once asked my own doctor about Paxlovid, to be told it buys a vaccinated person little, but JB is old and his immune system is weakened. In the meantime, Trump accepted the GOP nomination for president at the national convention with a dull, lethargic, rambling speech.

The GOP platform outlined at the convention was all lies and trashcan fascism. Only crazies are enthusiastic about Trump, and they're only about 20% of the population. At the street level, support for JB remains strong. A Spouter said she was talking to a friend at Walmart who said she would vote for Joe if he were a head in a jar, like Nixon in FUTURAMA. Three strangers chimed in & said they would vote for him if he were a WALKING DEAD zombie.

* On another Trump Wars front, Judge Aileen Cannon, supposedly in charge of the Trump classified documents case, threw the case out on the basis that special counsels, in that case Jack Smith, were unconstitutional.

Special counsels, of course, are an awkward but necessary contraption, and they've been seen as proper for a long time. The sneaky part of the judgement is that an ordinary prosecutor could be seen as partisan, and so reject on that basis. "Heads I win tails you lose."

Jack Smith has appealed to Cannon's superior court, and the superior court is seen as likely to overturn Cannon's judgement. Hopefully, the superior court will re-assign the case; after all, Cannon has made it clear she doesn't want it.

Will the decision end up going to the Supreme Court? One puzzle is that Jack Smith is also prosecuting Trump's Federal election fraud crimes in Judge Chutkan's court, and that would also be at risk under Cannon's judgement. Nobody seems to be making an issue of that, however.

* I got my Yamaha PSR EW310 76-key keyboard last night. I was only after a replacement for my gone-south Yamaha YP235, but on tinkering with the EW310, I find it's a definite step up.

Only problem is that it has a revised set of voices, and now I'm casting around to find the best voices for the various tunes I play. I have a plug-in sustain pedal I got for the YP235 that I never used; I plugged it in and am seeing what I can do with it. I was a bit confused about the pedal's use, thinking I needed to enable SUSTAIN from the keyboard command menu -- but that left sustain on all the time. It turned out I just need to plug it in, then the keyboard sustains if I step on the pedal.

AND SO ON: As discussed in an article from TWZ.com ("Yak-52 Kill Marks Hint At Success In Ukraine's Drone War" by Thomas Newdick, 25 June 2024), the Russian onslaught against Ukraine has been in good part driven by streams of kamikaze drones, most notably the Iranian Shahed design. They're slow and noisy, not so hard to shoot down, but their sheer numbers help overwhelm defenses.

Ukraine is taking an imaginative approach towards dealing with Russian k-drones. During World War II, the Soviet Yakovlev OKB (design bureau) generated a series of increasingly powerful piston fighters, culminating in the "Yak-9". In the postwar period, the Yak OKB focused on jet aircraft, but also built a series of stunters and two-seat trainers, descendants of the Yak fighters -- most significantly the "Yak-52", a tandem-seat trainer with a radial piston engine and retractable tricycle landing gear that first flew in 1976. It's not fast, with a maximum speed of 285 KPH (175 MPH), but it handles well and is agile. Roughly 1,800 were built.

Now at least one Ukrainian Yak-52 is sporting a number of kill markings of Russian drones. Nobody's releasing details, but the story is that the back-seater carries a shotgun, possibly automatic, and blasts away at the drone. That might be tricky to do, particularly at night. Some Yak-52s were kitted up for weapons training, carrying two underwing rocket pods, and it's plausible that Yak-52s could be fitted up with two underwing machine-gun pods. Some kind of targeting system, with an infrared sight or such, could be fitted into the cockpit -- but nobody's talking.

* I'm finding it harder to find blog materials these days; the mainstream media is telling so many outright lies these days that I don't trust them any more.

It's Saturday evening, and I did just have some excitement: a thunderous hailstorm that I feared would crack some of the windows on my house. It didn't, I've seen worse. Fortunately, I keep my car in the garage. Cars caught out in the hail can end up looking like a gang of gnomes worked them over with little ball-peen hammers.

[MON 29 JUL 24] THE WEEK THAT WAS 30

DAYLOG SUN 21 JUL 24: Today the big bombshell, as everyone knows, was that Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in his place. Intensive efforts were put in motion to make sure the Democratic Party was lined up behind Harris.

There was anger among Dems at the way the mainstream media and a splinter faction of Dems forced JB to stand down; JB was not senile, and if he had a health crisis Kamala could take over. However, if JB had a health crisis later in the campaign -- it was a clear possiblity -- that might well derail it. It seemed best to JB not to wait for that to happen. In the end, it was the right call to ask him to drop out, though the way it was done still rankles.

There's a lot of impatience among Dems right now with the leadership, but they're just trying to make sure the troops are behind them before they move out. Will JB also resign the presidency and make Harris POTUS 47? So far, no sign, but it's a possibility. Harris as the incumbent would get a campaign boost, but she may not want the step up, preferring to make it on her own. Given that her opponent, Trump, is decaying by the day, she may not need a step up.

Trump is certain to ramp up the bigoted dog whistles against Harris, but that will only make him sink faster. It was quickly pointed out that MAGA's attacks on "Senile Joe" are now rebounding on "Decrepit Donald". "KamalaMANIA" is running hot right now. Of course, who her VP pick is going to be is a matter of intense speculation. The answer is: nobody knows just yet.

* Judge Aileen Cannon made a huge splash by dismissing the secret-documents case against Trump, on the basis that special counsels -- in this specific case Jack Smith -- are unconstitutional. Smith has appealed.

Cannon's judgement was preposterous -- but Hunter Biden, Joe's son, is appealing his conviction on firearms charges on the same basis, saying the special counsel who prosecuted him had no constitutional justification and that the trial should be voided.

OK, the chances of that working would seem to be NIL, but that depends on the definition of "work". Could it be that Hunter Biden wants to get the case up to SCOTUS as quickly as possible, to then be dismissed? That would neatly short-circuit Judge Cannon. We'll see.

DAYLOG MON 22 JUL 24: I was curious as to whether Joe Biden was going to resign the presidency and let Kamala take over. I know a good case can be made for it, but I also was sure a good case could be made against it.

Another Spouter tipped me off: If Kamala became POTUS 47 right away, she'd have to get a vice-president, with the VP confirmed by Congress. The trick is that the GOP in Congress would refuse to confirm the VP -- which would mean Speaker Mike Johnson would then (refuse to) certify the vote. That would be preposterous, but would they do really do that? Of course they would. No matter how low I set my estimate of the GOP, I can't go low enough.

Along the same lines ... it appears the rise of Kamala has completely bamboozled Trump and his clown parade, with Trump struggling and failing to refocus his feeble thinking. In one incident that's hard to believe, Trump said he wanted to sue Biden for fraud, saying that he, Trump, had spent all kinds of money on the campaign to fight Biden, and then Biden had pulled the rug out from underneath him, wasting all the money that was spent. The crazy is strong in this one.

In any case, all Democrats are falling in line behind Kamala. The faction that backstabbed Joe Biden are singing his praises. They need to realize: A lot of people are mad at you for siding with the trolls. We must forgive but we won't forget. Don't push your luck.

* Sun came up blood-red over NE Colorado this morning. Were there fires in the state? Could be out of state too. I checked, and found out British Columbia & Alberta are up in flames. Bad news; the weather won't help for quite a while.

DAYLOG TUE 23 JUL 24: Republicans in the House of Representatives are now introducing pointless articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris. It appears they have nothing better to do with their time. Well ... I guess they don't.

For the moment, with JB dropping out of the presidential race, the mainstream media seems to be a bit tongue-tied. Over the past few weeks, I've cut a number of major outlets loose; today, I cut MSNBC and THE SUN from my links. Their shameful treatment of Joe Biden was too much to take, I no longer regard them as credible. The MSM seems to be in a doom spiral; MAGA has never liked them, and now they've antagonized the Dems as well.

Oh, and another thing: now that JB is leaving office, what happens to Hunter Biden and his legal persecution? JB said he wouldn't pardon him but left the door open to commutation. Then again, with JB leaving office, is there much reason to persecute him any more?

* New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, though steadfastly "middle of the road", is also a no-nonsense operator. When seven MPs of his Labour Party publicly defied him on articulated policy, they were summarily suspended for six months, to sit as Independents for the interim.

Starmer has such an overwhelming parliamentary majority that he can afford to make an example of a handful of renegades. The message seems to be that discussion is fine, but Labour MPs need to stay with the program.

DAYLOG WED 24 JUL 24: MAGA in Congress are calling for Joe Biden to resign from the presidency immediately -- one plausible reason for doing so being, as mentioned here on Monday, that they would hold up selection of vice-president, with Speaker Johnson then refusing to certify the vote.

I got to thinking what would happen if JB were forced to step down after the election. Kamala would become POTUS, but then what about the vice-president? Sensibly assuming Trump loses, she would have a VP-elect. Would he just then be sworn into office? That would make sense; why would Congress need to qualify a VP who had already been elected by the popular vote? However, given that the situation would be unprecedented, it's hard to say what might happen.

Actually, on further examination, the supposed "plot" falls apart. The House Speaker will be voted in on 3 January 2025, and it seems unlikely that Mike Johnson will be Speaker on 4 January. Certifying the vote then takes place on 6 January. The MAGA in Congress are, of course, clueless enough to think they can pull a fast one -- these are the people who tried to impeach Joe Biden, after all -- but they're not smart enough to actually do it.

BTW, when used "he" for the VP, that was deliberate: Kamala is only after white males, to balance the ticket. One particularly attractive candidate is Arizona Senator Mark Kelly -- ex-Navy, ex-astronaut, from a swing state. Of course, we shall see.

Tonight, Joe Biden gave a brief address to the nation, saying it was time to "pass the torch", and saying he intended to focus on defeating Putin in his remaining time in office. Not incidentally, Bibi Netanyahu spoke to Congress today; JB neatly upstaged him.

DAYLOG THU 25 JUL 24: Trump is pushing back on his conviction in NY courts on hush-money charges, attempting to use the SCOTUS decision granting immunity for "official acts" to get the decision overturned. That would seem a nonstarter on the face of it, since the charges in the case were based on things that happened before Trump became president. However, Trump's lawyers say that official presidential statements factored into the trial, invalidating it.

The office of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who was prosecuting the case, has now issued a statement repudiating those claims. First of all, as noted the case against Trump has nothing to do with official acts. Second, there's a footnote to the SCOTUS decision that provides a "public records exception" for introducing evidence from official acts. Finally, the evidence from official sources was "only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof" the jury saw before convicting Trump.

It is very doubtful Trump's legal challenge will go anywhere. Trump's sentencing is currently scheduled for 18 September. What happens is a toss-up, but Trump could be in jail on election day. We'll see.

* "KamalaMANIA" continues at full steam, with the GOP in clear disarray. I had to think, however, that when I see Kamala, I don't personally resonate with her. With the follow-on thought: So what?

Kamala can and will defeat Trump; he was roadkill before Kamala took the lead. Once in the White House, we have the adults in the room, who will fix the damage Trump did and get the USA back on track. That's all that's important. In the meantime, I'm working on my Kamala bio.

Incidentally, Kamala said she felt like she was the "underdog" in the contest. I thought: UnderDog V RoadKill? Sounds like a comix match-up.

DAYLOG FRI 25 JUL 24: A 32-year-old Las Vegas man named Spencer Gear is now in Federal custody after phoning death threats to 11 individuals, including NY Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, associated with Trump's "hush money" trial.

It is very unusual for arrests to be made in such cases. Typically, the Feds simply knock on the door of people making such threats and have a chat, telling them to straighten up and fly right. If they don't, they get in big trouble. It appears Gear was WAY out of line.

Recently, the Lincoln's Project Rick Wilson appeared in a video, almost shaking with fury. He'd got a death threat, which was not new to him, but the caller also threatened his daughter and her family. Phone threats are a foolish crime; an arrest is likely to follow. Who knows? It might be the same guy.

* Ukrainian press reports that Brigadier General Oleksandr Pivnenko, head of Ukraine's National Guard, says that Russian forces are being depleted in combat at an unsustainable rate, and they will be exhausted before the beginning of October.

It should be added that F-16s are likely to be in service in the near future. The biggest problem for the AFU at present is big Russian glide bombs, dropped from out of range of air defenses. F-16s with long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles should put a stop to that.

It is suspected that the F-16s being handed to Ukraine are being updated to modern "F-16V" standard, with the latest radar and defensive countermeasures. They would not be half as useful if they weren't. The F-16V would provide support for the latest munitions.

Ukrainian air defenses against the missiles bombarding Ukraine's cities are heavily dependent on the Patriot missile system, but there aren't enough Patriot batteries and missiles to do the job. The F-16V with AIM-120 AMRAAM would help but Ukraine might also obtain early production of the new "AIM-260" missile, which appears to have an anti-missile capability, or even the "AIM-174" -- an air-launched version of the very-long-range SM-6 / RIM-174 missile, useful for both air intercept and ground attack.

Incidentally, the Ukrainian National Guard is an internal security organization, under control of the Interior Ministry -- along with the Border Guards, which includes the Sea (Coast) Guard. In wartime, both are under AFU control and perform combat operations.

AND SO ON: One David Frum -- a Center-Conservative, one of that dying breed, who had been a staffer in George W. Bush's White House, and a Never Trumper -- wrote a flattering essay in THE ATLANTIC on Joe Biden's retirement from the presidential race, worth repeating here:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

A thought: Will Joe Biden go home to retirement after inauguration day? Maybe if he feels up to it, he could become US ambassador to Ukraine. That would send a powerful message to Ukraine, and serve as a rebuke to the critics who dismissed him as old and useless.