william.scherk

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  1. william.scherk
    [Edited January 2 2019 -- to remove or replace dead visual-links]
    Long ago Jonathan and I got some good traction out of a tangle of issues related to Global Warming slash Climate Change.  I think we are slated to renew or refresh our earlier exchanges.  I am going to poke in links to some he-said/he-saids from a few different threads at different times. One feature of the updated software is an automated 'sampling' of a link posted raw.  See below. 
    So this blog entry will be kind of administrative-technical while being built and edited. I haven't figured out if Jonathan and I should impose some 'rules' going in, so your comment may be subject to arbitrary deletion before the field is ready for play. Fan notes included.

    http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/VIDEOCASTS/A23KF/globalWarmingPEWpolarization.png
    Adam, see what you think of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, especially the revealing map-based representations of opinion. You can drill and zoom down to state, county, district level to track data across a number of survey questions, where some of the answers are surprising. On some measures at least, the thing it is not found only in the UK, Quebec, Canada: Here's a snapshot of several maps which do not always show an expected Red State/Blue State pattern;
    [images updated January 2 2019; click and go images]
    http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/VIDEOCASTS/A23KF/2018YaleClimateOpinionMaps.png
    http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/VIDEOCASTS/A23KF/personalHarmYaleCC.png
    [Deleted image-link]
    Edited 4 May 2015 by william.scherk
     
    Plug my How To Get Where I Got book of books, Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming. Insert link to Amazon, Library link, and to the intro chapter of Weart's companion website to the book. Make sure you include a link to Ellen's mention of a book review. 
    Bob Kolker's June 3 comment is a good hinge. What do we (J and I) think we know about the mechanism Bob sketches? What can we 'stipulate' or what can we agree on, for the sake of argument?
     
     

  2. william.scherk
    I'd like to open a field of discussion for the QAnon phenomena.  Here is where I will post in already existing material presented at OL by members.  I'll take direction from comments and from poll answers. 
    What is Q / QAnon? Why should anyone on OL pay attention? Is skepticism justified? What are the main questions readers have in mind to guide discussion? No special rules or guidelines for this thread; the OL guidelines are good enough and will apply here. .  Please keep personal abuse to a minimum. Creative insults are kosher, but if they aren't on topic, why post them?
    hr
    Our forum leader opened discussion on the phenomena back in January of this year.  My key-word search-term was "QAnon,"  not "Q," so the search results will not necessarily return all incidence of discussion touching on the phenomena.
     
  3. william.scherk
    I want to recommend a book I just started reading last night: "Suspicious Minds," by Rob Brotherton. As is usual, I read first the chapter that stuck out -- Chapter 5, The Paranoid Fringe. It takes a useful critical look at the seminal article by Richard Hofstadter -- "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" -- and also runs to ground a plausible origin of 'tinfoil hats.' 
    The book is written in a wry conversational tone, and is not on the surface a ''scholarly" read thick with endless footnotes, but it also contains a very useful reference list by page number -- as well as a full index at the back.  (My copy is from our local library, but I am going to order it from Amazon so I always have it on hand as a reference book.)
    Here is an excerpt from the first page that might whet OLer's appetite for more ...
    In a fit of recursion, I include this bit of commentary from earlier this month. It suggests that I am bound by ingrained prejudice/s, which may or may not be true ... yet leaves the door open to further friendly discussion.
    -- for those who like to check out reviews before purchasing or borrowing from a library, here's a selection -- which I thought remarkable. Remarkable in the sense of "how many reviews do not mention Donald Trump?"
    New York Times review by Adrian Chen
    Inside Higher Education review by Scott McLemee
    Brief Scientific American review by Maria Temming
    -- for the benefit of Dear Leader, I found the book is available at his local library too!

  4. william.scherk
    One of the items I fish out of the general Russia Russia Russia hoopla is geopolitical strategy. In other words, setting aside the unproven allegations of the Trump-Russia 'collusion' grab-bag, and putting to one side the actual details of the "Russia hack" of the 2016 US presidential election -- leaving the residual "what is this administration's larger strategy with regard to Russia, its hopes and fears, its ambitions."
    This is no easy task. The election campaign revealed just a few rules of thumb that a Trump administration would use in a new relationship. 
    Each of us will have an impression of just what President Trump hopes to achieve in relation to Russia between now and 2020. For me, having studied utterances of Michael Flynn and the many Russia/Putin statements from the president, it is to "get along," to cooperate where it serves American interests, and perhaps to let Russia back in from the cold by removing sanctions where appropriate. In an sense, it is a desire to move the 'deep state' off its suspicious foundations in order to make a better partnership with the Eurasian nuclear power. 
    (the 'deep state' I envision as the intersection of established policy [of the executive branch, including national security agencies] and law [from the legislature]; it is the entrenched state of affairs, the 'ship of state' -- a vehicle of praxis built up over time. The 'deep state' of course takes its orders not from a shadowy cartel, but from department policy as written, intelligence findings as transmitted, and law. Law as in the welter of official acts and regulations, eg, Magnitsky-related sanctions. The 'deep state' vehicle can be refitted and given new missions, but this takes time, time to install new commanders with clear mission statements, time to legislate and decree a change in direction, speed, goal and targets)
    Having established their own briefs on facts and values, strategy and intelligence, law and practice, OLers might like me might have asked themselves the same set of questions -- not of the American 'vehicle' commanded by President Trump, but of the Russian ship of state.
    What Russia wants.
    -- that boring introduction done, here is a well-written analysis of Russian imperatives:
    Russia’s Evolving Grand Eurasia Strategy: Will It Work?
    NB: at 4200 words the article is not light reading.  But I suspect readers will be better able to answer the question "What is a proper Russia policy for the USA?" 
    One person whose opinions I wish we could consult right now is the founder of Objectivism. Having a cold eye on the Soviet Union, a cold eye for any unfree state, a cold eye for dictatorships, Ayn Rand would likely be able to add moral clarity to the 'debates' about Russia Russia Russia.
    A  couple of folks here have contended that Rand would be enamored of Donald Trump, a notion I find preposterous. But I could be very wrong.
    [Spelling and grammar plotzes fixed Jan 10, 2018]
  5. william.scherk
    Elsewhere on Objectivist-Trumpism Living, the Republican run-off between Luther Strange and Roy Moore was highlighted. 
    ...
    It made me wonder just what qualities and policies an Objectivish person might celebrate in the Republican candidate for the December 12 special Senate election.

    I have narrowed it down to 24 attributes exemplified in direct quotes from the man ...
    "Homosexual conduct should be illegal"
    “We have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting. What’s going to unite us? What’s going to bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No. It’s going to be God.”
    "Now, I haven't seen one thing in the press about this, and yet the President of the United States will not produce his birth certificate [...] That's very strange indeed. Why we don't hear about it — because the press won't report it."
    "We have child abuse, we have sodomy, we have murder, we have rape, we have all kind of immoral things happening because we have forgotten God.”
    “False religions like Islam who teach that you must worship this way are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for"
    “I want to see virtue and morality returned to our country and God is the only source of our law, liberty and government”
    "I'm sorry but this country was not founded on Muhammad. It was not founded on Buddha. It was not founded on secular humanism. It was founded on God,"
    “[Islam is] a faith that conflicts with the First Amendment of the Constitution”
    “Just because it [homosexual behaviour is] done behind closed doors, it can still be prohibited by state law. Do you know that bestiality, the relationship between man and beast is prohibited in every state?”
    “There is no such thing as evolution. That we came from a snake? No, I don’t believe that.”
    “Homosexual behavior is a ground for divorce, an act of sexual misconduct punishable as a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one’s ability to describe it.”
    "When we forget God, we lose the only true basis for morality and ethics, and we are cast upon the shifting sands of moral relativism in which anything goes, including lying, cheating and stealing."
    “God’s laws are always superior to man’s laws.”
    “Buddha didn’t create us. Mohammed didn’t create us. It’s the God of the Holy Scriptures. They didn’t bring a Quran over on the pilgrim ship, Mayflower. Let’s get real. Let’s go back and learn our history.”
    “You think that God’s not angry that this land is a moral slum? How much longer will it be before his judgment comes?”
    "God is the only source of our law, liberty and government,"
    "The free exercise clause of the constitution does not apply to any religion but Christianity."
    "Anytime you deny the acknowledgement of God you are undermining the entire basis for which our country exists."
    “Muslim Ellison should not sit in Congress”
    “We’ve got to remember that most of what we do in court comes from some scripture or is backed by scripture.”
    “‘It was the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America that Christianity ought to be favored by the State’”
    “There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country. Oklahoma tried passing a law restricting Sharia law, and it failed. Do you know about that?”
    "But to deny God — to deny Christianity or Christian principles — is to deny what the First Amendment was established for. The rights of conscience are beyond the reach of any human power; they are given by God and cannot be encroached on by any human authority without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural or revealed religion."
     
  6. william.scherk
    This is no longer a placeholder.  Some 'on the record' wild guesses are already out -- notably our Bob Kolker -- so  I too am going to publish a prediction/analysis, knowing full well I might be picking through bird bones on November 9.
     I think Donald Trump will lose the election on November 8th. I have some definite reasons why. I thought to post the reasons here, even if I am shown to be gawdawfully wrong later on. How 'off' will my analytic take be? Only time will tell. 

    Reason? Reasons?
    Donald Trump lost because of the Republican Lady Vote, ultimately. He could have rallied a few more Latinos and African-Americans and other visible minorities to his base within his party's grasp, but that wouldn't have mattered as much as a seizing and a hold on Educated Lady votes.
    That is the main reason he lost, looking back at me from the crystal ball. Ladies.
    By state, he didn't capture the ladies of the Philadelphia suburbs, which cost him. He failed to capture the urban-suburban college-educated lady vote in Ohio and lost more crucial electoral votes.  He failed to capture the conservative educated ladies in Florida in enough numbers to beat Romney's showing in 2012  He failed with the ladies of Utah.  He failed with the ladies of North Carolina. He didn't get the crucial lady vote in states he needed.
    There may be nuance, and other subsidiary reasons rooted in Mr Trump's behaviour and the challenges every Republican faces in terms of hostile and adversarial media.  There may be ground-game reasons, money reasons, biases galore, party mutiny and backstabbiness, ghost-voting, sinister plots and precinct rigginess beyond the pale, but when the totals were officially-certified in places Trump had to dominate to be the Winner, he fell short with the ladies ...
     
    -- with my Red Hat on, my reasons all turn on treason, or behaviour just-shy-of treasonous, by a panoply of bought and paid for agents against democracy.  Not with a centre anywhere in particular, no grand plot, just a functional-structural bias on every dimension against Mr Trump. In the whole landscape of media small and large and fringe and newsworthy in themselves, it was ultimately Bannon and Trump against the world's sleaziest big-audience manipulators.  That built-in structural disadvantage was key. Allied structural impediments were important but secondary and amplified by his own party's elite class, whether in the party itself or in positions of prominence and power in Wall Street and Washington.  
    That covers treasonous, bought, biased and elite party elders and candidates. Where were they when he needed them?
    Those factors 'conspired' in a sense to depress turnout among previously likely voters.  The ticket-splitters and the stay-homers of the GOP great coalition of voters gave Hillary Clinton an extra advantage that was totally undeserved, a side-effect of elite 'treason' against the candidate.
    Finally, with Red Hat still firmly on, Trump lost because of loathing, not rational fear, not reason.  The supine media and the fractured, corrupt party, and the 'got' functionaries of Clinton Inc put a false mark upon him and triggered an hysterical emotional reaction. They stoked phobia, hatred and division, and blamed Trump.They stoked loathing of the man and excused their complicity in feeding the hate.
  7. william.scherk
    Six fun (sad/awful/false/infuriating) stories emerged from the swamp in the last couple of days. Peter Taylor noted elsewhere on the site some vows made by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions on the issue of "leaks."  Some of the usual suspects have pretended that this is a "Threat" against the noble profession of prostitution journalism.
    The strongest or least-false coverage of this issue from that point of view may be from font of evul Politico ... in a story called Jeff Sessions' Attack on the Media Is Worse Than You Think.  Of course, Objectivist analysis might find that the threat is more than necessary, and that it will encourage a proper "chilling effect." Less clear is the notion of "Lie Detectors" (in the White House). Polygraphs are a useful investigative tool, but not accepted by US courts on the whole. 
    Less intrusive than a lie detector is the power to subpoena ... but see the story for all the convolutions. (one stand-out point was that it is relatively rare for journalist-itutes to be prosecuted or held in contempt for refusing to reveal sources [think Judith Miller]; the Politico story points out that the four arrested cited-but-not-cited by Sessions were not recipients but those who had purloined secret and often highly-classified 'spy' entrails from the DC borg.)
    *********************************
    The second story circulating is that Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington, DC.  This may or may not be true -- even though everyone and the dog has been biting on the "news." I do not know if this would become public in the normal course of justice.
    The third story is that President Trump is a lazy do-nothing, who spends far too much time at his golf clubs ... instantiated in a nasty Newsweek cover.
    The fourth story is related to the Mueller grand jury suggestion ... this excerpt is from the brief Slate article "U.S. Reportedly Intercepted Suspected Russian Agents' Chatter That Manafort Asked for Their Help With Clinton:
    Manafort was the first somewhat hinky part of the Trump campaign and influence apparat to appear in posts here on OL, back a year and more ago.  It's not surprising that Mueller would request documents and testimony from the Manafort axis.  It isn't that he was a tool of Russia or an obvious go-between, but that he could have been a major conduit for the wink-wink quid pro quo that the crazy Russia conspiracists are certain is going to be found.
    Did Mr Manafort wink-nudge the Trump attitude that 'we take help from where it comes, given that politics  is a dirty dirty game'? I mean, isn't the essential question reduced to who promised what in return?  
    I take the tentative position that Trump's stated positions on Russia during the campaign and since being in office are obvious. So it will be exceedingly hard to show him 'promising' things on the down low, since he did it on the stump. Then, if he was inclined to reduce sanctions bite on Russia and to warm things up between the superpower and the also-ran, it was open and public.  Which requires that underlings and satellites were going to be the ones dealing with the details of wink-wink, nudge-nudge. If you are a Menshist, or not.
    (the more hysterical of the Russia hoopla employees and hobbyists are those who think every rumour is true, every leak informs the big picture. So the Flynn Effect [very pro-Russia relax] and other fizz from the week means Russian "information warfare" was coordinated. Which is alarmist nonsense, right?)
    *************************************
    The fifth story is about vacation-time, but in this instance taken by the manly President of Russia. Here's a sample:

    The sixth story is as usual performed by two casts, in two theatres. In the permutations, a Cernovich wing in the White House leaks out a broad range of accusations against Trump's National Security Adviser Lt. General HR McMaster -- that he is a tool of Soros/Rothschilds/Saudis, an enemy of Israel, and ever-so Swamp-Like that his hideous influence must be extirpated from Cabinet.
    Two guys come shambling up the alley. First guy looks like Steve Bannon, the second guy looks like  McMaster, and the guy with McMaster is brown and in a turban**. Which one would you ask out on a date/for help?  Which one is leaking to the Washington Post, or -- as this week -- to Cernovich-Breitbart-Gateway Pundit?
    I think there is a mini-war of ideas in the White House, which slops over into a war of words and Grand Hoopla Theatre in the mediatic multiplex. But what do I know. I am that guy who wrote "Why Donald Trump lost the election." 
     
    Incidentally, as a bonus seventh story -- did you know that obsessive humans do such things as rigorously analyze Twitter accounts that peddle the Kremlin lines of attack?
    Yes you did, but did you know that PR and political attack campaigns have a particular 'footprint' or pattern? Of course you did, so it won't be a surprise that there is a website that tracks real-time information-warfare memes and their flows in Kremlin-friendly orbit. If you squint and pretend to be Louise Mensch, yesterday's peak trends like the Cernovich Leaks from the angry West Wingers about McMaster were coordinated with a robust 'managed news' campaign directed by the drunk guy in the alley. See if you can find your favourites bot link or alt-news site here. I add a screenshot of the crazy site, but first an intro from the feverish topic ends of Twitter.
     
    __________________________
    * I am picturing Harjit Sajjan, who rarely togs out in his Commander outfit, but still. Who doesn't feel safer when a turbaned Sikh gets on the bus?  I would think Bannon was a drunk, and McMaster probably a loud talker. Which makes me think how many more generals should join the Trump cabinet and administrative apparatus.
  8. william.scherk
    The phrase "all polls are wrong" was a cool hinge-point of argument last year, as the Trump train rolled on ...
    Yesterday a Democrat penned an interesting article at The Hill. It didn't say that "all polls are wrong," but that surveys of President Trump's popularity in the USA are flawed and in no way indicative. In other words ... Why the polls are still wrong.  Here's a few excerpts from the article:
    The Penn article also received some pushback, in this instance from Philip Bump of the fey canoes Washington Post: Why is a former Clinton pollster writing iffy poll analysis that panders to Trump supporters?
    Here's a snapshot from the folks at 538 [updated July 3 2020]:

  9. william.scherk
    I thought Caroljane and Michael had some interesting  brainstorm results, laid out below. I also had some storms of creativity ... which I will add once I finish furiously scribbling notes on a break by the river. We have secretly kept everything green behind our fencing, despite the water-restrictions. I hate when Israel steals our clouds all summer.
    My basic notion is weather weapons, weapons of war, that is what the protagonists come to be up against, discovering and destroying the military-industrial-scientific projects that have been used to manipulate weather events in aid of endless war. 
    The thing is, it is a Deep kind of thing that our heroes have to get at. My favourite character-in-mind so far is a refugee from an intelligence agency. He is justifiably paranoid about his design of a master database. He knows too much, courtesy of his eidetic memory.  But which of his fears of rogue action are true?  Is he really just one of thousands on The List, the Kill the Designers list?
    In my flight of fancy we would get to fabulous settings, some of them mirroring or paying homage to Atlas Shrugged. Glaciers, underground CERN-style secret facilities. Low earth-orbit nuclear 'climate helper' satellites, that thousand screen command room deep underground. The 'database cities' of the INTEL surveilance future. On supersonic 'chemtrail' secret weapons.
    I'd also keep the political shenanigans sort of in your face but slightly out of focus, save that just as in Atlas Shrugged we are in a kind of alternate era where implausible events have already taken place.  One of the questions the protagonists learn to ask is, "Does the President Know?"  
    In my characters I want a 'rescue team slash commando force' to coalesce so I am looking to ex-military intelligence people, disparate people from a disbanded training unit, who have made the transition out of the forces for successful contract or independent careers. I want them to be bonded somehow conceptually, as a Protect Whistleblowers and Defectors unit, in the end. As if they all swore an oath and the oath comes in handy. Meaning the team our hero assembles or acquires should have a point of identity in common, to make the whole shelf of sinister secrecy and secret agent of technology stuff plausible.
    I need a bad-ass name for the Giant Computer Cloud that eats snow and steals clouds from nations and regions, thus 'false-flagging' weather manipulation events that may be possible in the next thirty-odd years. If Rand could have a free-energy motor, then we and the Frankensteins of CERN-7 can have gravity-enhancers, dark-matter sinks and sleeves and other theoretical devices almost ready to go. This on top of a semi-secret Space Programme where local weather is enhanced, altered, made wet or dry or whatever to punish Mexico.
    Somehow we got to stick the Vatican and on-three-continent catacombs in there. I want to avoid the nightmare pace of State of Fear, by having characters sleep and eat and so on. Not too much, just enough so that they don't seem freaky.
    So, plausible or wildly not -- Iranians can't get used to Israel-CERN-rogues-hidden-hands stealing their snow and clouds.  Things is gonna blow up if we don't stop the sinister secret organization from carrying out its plans.
    And Caroljane gets to write all the terse sex scenes.
     
     
  10. william.scherk
    The work history of the folks in the Robert Mueller team is reported on by the Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff.  For those unspooked by a relatively quiet news front on the special counsel's activities, and for those who are curious about credible/non-credible implications of the activities. And maybe for those who use "Muh Russia" unironically ... (& for those who may have forgotten the details of the inquiry's frame of reference: the Rosenstein order establishing his authority)
    The DB article's subheadline slug:
    To probe alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, the special counsel has essentially built his own miniature Justice Department. Meet the experts he’s recruited.
    Here is an excerpt from the conclusion (emphasis added):

  11. william.scherk
    I've mentioned the author Frederick Crews a few times on OL** ... and now I am ploughing steadily through his book "Freud, the Making of an Illusion."  

    It's the kind of book people reserve the word 'magisterial' for, so far.  The subject is Freud's story-telling, in essence, and the divergence from the actualities. Crew is the first to exploit the new availability of previously censored or suppressed materials.  He has previously rubbished mythic Freud in some earlier work referred to by the lesser term "tour-de-force."
    What will appeal to the Objectivist or Objectivish is the hard line, the hard line for reality trumping bullshit.  Crews was the first to achieve a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of the Freudian-derived Recovered Memory movement and its associated Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations, trials and injustices. He was able to 'wrap it up' like a good prosecutor, with an at-my-fingertips-knowledge of what went down where and when and how and why.
    A good taste of what would be to come were you to purchase or borrow the book comes from its Preface, which I quote from (you can also Look Inside at Amazon):
    Among historical figures, Sigmund Freud ranks with Shakespeare and Jesus of Nazareth for the amount of attention bestowed upon him by scholars and commentators. Unlike them, he left behind thousands of documents that show what he was doing and thinking from adolescence until his death at age 83. Although many of those records were placed under lengthy restriction by followers who felt both financial and emotional incentives to idealize him, that blackout has at least partially expired by now. More revelations will emerge, but they are unlikely to alter the outlines of Freud's conduct and beliefs as they appear in the most responsible recent studies.
    [...]
    Of course, hardcore partisans can be counted upon to dismiss this book as an extended exercise in Freud-bashing -- a notion that gets invoked whenever the psychoanalytic legend of lonely and heroic discovery is challenged. To call someone a Freud basher is at once to Shield Freud's theory from skeptical examination and to shift the focus, as Freud himself so often did, from objective issues to the supposedly twisted mind of the critic. Like other aspects of Freudolatry, the charge of Freud bashing deserves to be retired at last. The best way to accomplish that end, however, is just to display the actual record of Freud's doings and to weigh that record by an appeal to consensual standards of judgment.
    _________________________________
    **
    totalismCult Warning Signs
    william.scherk posted a blog entry in Friends and Foes
    ...One of the many astute chroniclers of this time wasFrederick Crews, whose "The Memory Wars" still stands out above the rest. I note in passing his most recent book, a stunning tour de force in my opinion. See Freud: The Making of an Illusion. I have mentioned his work a couple of times here...  January 12    30 comments Solving a Puzzle-- Understanding Some People's Reactions
    william.scherk replied to Philip Coates's topic in Objectivist Living Room
    ...ThenFrederick Crews saved me. He let me see that crashing through the Dominant Discourse of Freudian Bullshit was a dangerous job. Those who had peddled that shit all the years were deadly opposed to being pushed off their thrones, their departmental thrones, their kingdoms of influence and tenure...  January 30, 2012    358 replies Emotions as products of Ideas
    william.scherk commented on nealelehman's blog entry in neale's Blog
    ...readFrederick Crews on Freud/psychoanalysis, anything you can get by Allen Esterson, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Frank Cioffi, and the very interesting current-philosophical-outrages site Butterflies and Wheels , a British site that is part of my regular reading. My favourite living philosopher is Susa...  June 30, 2007    6 comments http://wsscherk.hostingmyself.com/VIDEOCASTS/A13KF/lookInsideFreudAmazon.png
  12. william.scherk
    From Rick Ross's Cult Education Institute -- Getting Started:
    See also the fascinating Objectivist Living topic, "Secret Objectivist Cult," a funny and intriguing thread started by Dear Leader seven years ago: 
    I am a big fan of Tony Ortega's blog The Underground Bunker. Tony is former editor of the Village Voice, where he began his decade-long examination of Scientology. Some readers here may have seen him on various episodes of the Leah Remini cable series "Scientology and the Aftermath.
    Tony had a 'public service' announcement in an awful GQ article that dared to compare Trumpism to a cult ...

    It seems to me, rightly or wrongly, that the word cult gets flung around with wild abandon at the best of times. My first immersion into "cult studies" came in the mid-nineties, when a couple of trends in psychotherapy met and melded with moral panic into a belief that an intergenerational and international "Satanic Ritual Abuse" cult was stalking children and adults (sound familiar?). 
    One of the many astute chroniclers of this time was Frederick Crews, whose "The Memory Wars" still stands out above the rest. I note in passing his most recent book, a stunning tour de force in my opinion. See Freud: The Making of an Illusion. I have mentioned his work a couple of times here on OL.  He is the author of a book review just out, published at the online site of Skeptic Magazine, which is -- to say the least -- becoming massively controversial.  See this critical blog entry to grasp the contours of the controversy.  In a nutshell, the book reviewed suggests that Jerry Sandusky may be innocent ... 
    Anyway, back to the main subject, cult warning signs, and what to do or say and how to behave if you suspect someone is trapped in cult-thinking or a 'High Demand Group.'  Here's another PSA:

    -- finally (save for edits), what compelled me to post this rambling topic. 
    NB: I have never, ever used the word "shithole" on Objectivist Living, to the best of my memory (which unfortunately, may not approach the 'best memory' of the US President). I much prefer "socialist hellhole."  
  13. william.scherk
    A weird story that will probably continue to simmer for the remaining months of the 2106 2016 Presidential election:  what are Donald J Trump's ties to Russian interests?  How can the purported ties be established in fact? Is there any record that can be examined?  Would Trump tax returns show something hinky or surprising in this regard?
    The biggest headline is that experts named and un-named have found the fingerprints of the Russian state on the Wikileaked DNC emails.  That the supposedly "Romanian" 'Guccifer' was a Russian FSB agent. That is no surprise. What is surprising is how common-sense rational inquiry flies out the window, and how unusual are Mr Trump's policies in contrast to the bipartisan stance that views Russia as a non-democracy opposed to Western values.  
    The Russian "Connection" with Trump takes three main forms:
    Russian Investment in Trump's real-estate ventures (rumoured and real) Russian Interests represented by Ash Carter Carter Page, a close Trump advisor on foreign policy/Paul Manafort's oligarchy-lobbying in DC USA/Russian policy changes under a Trump promise (ie, most significantly on NATO). A few things stick out in my mind: the very specific way Mr Trump denied he has investments in Russia (without the corollary "I have no Russian-money investment in any of my projects and plans")**;  the actual NATO/Russia policy changes Mr Trump has promised to put in action.  The common-sense understanding that this is a weakness for the Trump campaign, not a winner.  A slow drip kind of weakness.
    A funny side-issue is Mr Trump's nomination for a Pulitzer Prize to the National Enquirer. Put that worthy news magazine's attention on Ted Cruz's father's involvement in the JFK assassination in perspective.  Today, multiple lines of evidence suggest a corruption in the Trump machine, a back-door 'understanding' with the Russian point of view.   It's the stuff of tabloids, and yet it could shake out true.  If the roles were reversed (a Russian 'nod' to a Democratic candidate, etc), the drips would be Front Page News. That a  Democrat refused to clear up the record by releasing tax returns would be scandalous, if not proof of the corruption of/meddling in American democracy by foreign interests.
    [a CBS4 News 'exclusive' may not appear in all browsers. Here is the link to the breaking interview with Mr Trump: 
    CBS4 News Exclusive: Trump Denies Ties To Russia
    July 27, 2016 1:09 AM By Jim DeFede ]
    ____________
     
    ** '“Is that the theory? I haven’t heard that at all,” Trump told the Miami station. “I mean I haven’t heard that. But I have nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do, I never met Putin, I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.”
    Trump went on to say he has no outstanding loans with Russian banks or Russian investors.
    “Absolutely not,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”'

    I predict this issue will hang and hang and drip and drip and become a millstone about  The Candidate's Neck.   His suggestion today that the FSB continue to probe US computer networks is not the kind of thing we have heard before in an election campaign. 
    I will of course revisit my prediction in the months to come.  I smell smoke. 
    Is Trump a Russian Stooge?
  14. william.scherk
    There are times when I miss the Objectivist Living stalwart "Adam Selene." I am definitely going to miss his wonkish, passionate opinions on the coming mid-terms. I put this blog entry up to have a place for OLers who are interested in tracking the campaigns, the shoddy and unconvincing polls, and the final night of returns.  With the disbanding of President Trump's "voter fraud" commission** we will have no executive guidance on where or how various states are vulnerable to rigging or other hinkiness.
    In among the news-hoopla today, a few reports that stand out. This from The Week: A record-breaking 31 House Republicans won't seek re-election in 2018
    A whopping 31 House Republicans will not be seeking re-election in November, NPR reports, including Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), who announced his impending retirement from Congress on Wednesday. The 2018 GOP exodus is a new record: The last time there was such a massive departure from Congress was when 28 Democrats left in 1994, and Republicans subsequently seized control.
    Most significantly, Republicans in states won by Hillary Clinton are leaving in droves. "Vulnerable House Republicans would clearly rather call it quits than stand for re-election with a deeply unpopular agenda hanging over their heads," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Tyler Law told NPR.
    [...]
    Democrats would need to flip 24 seats to take back the House, with the Senate being more of a long shot; in the upper chamber, Democrats have to defend 25 seats and pick up an additional three in order to take back the majority. A Washington Post/ABC News poll from November found that hypothetical Democratic candidates are favored by voters against their Republican counterparts 51 percent to 40 percent.
    One of my favourite election handicapping sites is Decision Desk HQ, a relatively-nonpartisan group of wonks and dweebs. Their DDHQ 2018 House Midterm Forecast is a good place to come up to speed on the challenges and excitement ahead.
    The 2018 House Midterm Election is bound to be one of the more interesting in recent memory. With Donald Trump in the White House, infighting on both sides of Congress, and an American public that is bursting at the seams we have a recipe for a perfect political storm. Keep your eye on this page, which houses our forecasts for all 435 congressional districts, and stick with us as we attempt to answer the ultimate questions: who will win majority control of the US House of Representatives?
    Here is an image from that page:
    http://www.thecrosstab.com/data/forecast-2018/leafletmap/index.html [Guy keeps 'fixing' his blog layout. He now works for the Economist]
    https://www.thecrosstab.com/project/2018-midterms-forecast/
    Click on the image above to go to the fully interactive version of this image, where you can zoom in and examine each race's details and present-day forecasts. Eg, 

    -- another very good site is Ballotpedia. Here is a link to their comprehensive 2018 elections page.
    ___________________
    ** a welter of reports on the controversial commission and its end can be accessed here. Click the following for a snapshot ...
    Prediction:  surprise surprise!  
    Countdown clock.
  15. william.scherk
    Peter Taylor left a crumb trail to an entertaining video from FoxNews' ratings juggernaut Tucker Carlson's show.  Featuring the Objectivist lawyer and scholar Amy Peikoff.  Veddy interesting ...
    "I must say, you seem like a logical atheist ..." sez the man with the Beatles haircut.
    [ ...]

    [... see below for the video missing above: Atheist and Haircut]
    From the "Friendly Atheist" ...
     

  16. william.scherk
    No one knows at the moment how the impeachment process will end up, though OL members will generally have in memory the Nixon and Clinton impeachment efforts for use in comparing and contrasting.  At the present moment, nose-counting wonks have counted noses,  providing spreadsheets of current House members who have indicated they support an impeachment inquiry. There is enough to agree articles of impeachment at last count -- if the process gets that far (see also the Politico breakdown of impeachment-supporters).
    I'll add in links to extant discussion in varied front-page threads and beef up a rough timeline [over the next couple of days]. 
    The so-called  whistleblower's "whistleblow" has been allowed to emerge in slightly redacted form -- Dated August 12, 2019: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6430376-Whistleblower-Complaint.html
    -- this is what is being examined in the House right now. 
    Previously ...
    I'll ask that folks who may join in commentary here keep the personal insults to a minimum, if possible. Refer to the OL Posting Guidelines, please.
    Keys to understanding what may come down the pike is ... what has come down the pike already. In other words, a list of names of interest from roughly 2014 until now.  Ukraine is at the nexus of the foreign-policy muddle between the United States and Russia.
    Names and entities to keep track and/or place on a timeline range from (presidents) Yanukovych, Poroschenko, Zelenskyy to prosecutors-general Yarema, Shokin, Sevruk, Lutsenko. 
    For a reminder of what Ukrainian corruption looks like, the palatial estate of former president Yanukovych, who fled the country during the showdown known as "Euromaidan."  

    At the risk of alienating a few readers, I'll be referring to a few 'mistrusted' writers and outlets who have cobbled together various timelines and constellations of events. interpretations and spin.
    Any timeline will be necessarily limited, but the simpler ones can be double-checked for factual, 'on the record' events.  There are a lot of factors to be accounted for, suggestions entertained and claims tested. 
    The most expansive timelines will come after the first spate of tell-all books whose "pitches" will be landing on editors' desks this week.
    An objectivist hierarchy of conceptual knowledge is more like a database than a list or timeline, maybe. This is kind of a first wrong stab at how various states could be tied to a index/timeline.
    Open question:  how do you best organize 'what you know' or 'what is claimed' about the last five years of Ukrainian-USA-Russia-EU events?

              Foreign policy and corruption   Russian interests, actions, explanations         Associated timeline of events       Date Ukraine President Ukraine Prosecutor Person of interest Cases adjudicated, abandoned, avoided (in US and Ukraine Trump -- campaign actors / Ukraine policy Trump administration Ukraine policy       Cases of international significance. Meetings, contact, employment, associated suspicions                 2012-2017 Manafort-Ukraine Manafort FARA                                    
  17. william.scherk
    At this point in the American presidential election cycle, Trump supporters should be excited -- not despite the challenges, but because of the challenges.  Their candidate is an assertive, even aggressive personality, a fighter.  What does a fighter relish if not challenging, high risk/high reward situations? 
    Imagine you have been summoned to Trump Tower. Can you make 'contact' and a persuasive argument that some of these challenges are central, some peripheral, some not even challenges at all? 
    Electoral College arithmetic / Swing-state uncertainties Raising and spending money Hostile and adversarial media environment National campaign strategy and tactics "Unfavorable" opinion / Demographic change since 2012 'Lack' of conventional campaign superstructure Coordination with GOP campaign Wavering support from GOP / Unity at the Cleveland Convention "Incoherent:" policy proposals Bias, prejudice, "political correctness,: conventional wisdom I will flesh the list out in separate comments.  What have I missed, what have I  split, what else do you think are the top challenges for the Trump campaign?
    (I have re-ranked the Top Ten list, in light of feedback from members. We now have one Trump supporter in the mix!)
  18. william.scherk
    Some thoughts from the author of 'The Righteous Mind,' Jonathan Haidt (see OL mentions here), at Spiked online: 
    The Fragile Generation
    -- my favourite conceptual creep is with the weasel-term "Fake News."  Where the species-genera distinction is obscured mightily.
    On an unrelated note, "Hate whomever you want. It's your right."  Lauren Southern bashes back at micro-aggressions from the folks at Reason TV.
     
  19. william.scherk
    No.
    Yes.
    Trump is working from a self-limited palette. 
    I guess you people hear lots of different things.  "Why did he do it?" is psychologizing?  It sounds like your people are incurious.   If there are others just like this killer,  laying in wait ... 
    This is weird.  Your 'holier-than-thou liberal secularists here' -- do they have names?  Is it possible to lift up their awful comments and show them relevant? No?
    Hardly relevant, IMO.  And not recently. Sentence fragment.
    Unpack this mock-English.  Discard the first clause and and put an "I" in your claims.  "It mustn't be escaped"  [It is] "evident here" .  Of course, in my estimation, the murders were committed with pure terrorist intent, with a perfect correlation to the spurious theology of the Al-Qaeda/ISIS religious leaders and their enablers and sycophants.  The killer wanted glory [sic]  attached to his name and his bloody achievement.  He wanted the approval of the savage and murderous  god of his imagination.  He wanted to die. He wanted to be famous and to credit the monsters of ISIS.
    If that is good enough, if that is all the blame that needs to be attached, Tony, you can step down.  Forestalling pointless points of view and short-selling discussion by sorting out nameless numpties into 'liberal secularists' .... is that what you meant to do? End discussion?  I mean, is disrupting the plans of the next mass-shooter something you want to have happen, to put it passively?  
    In other words, on your Must Do list for America's response, are you on board with the Trump plan? Does it seem wise to you?
    One thing that stands out in discussion of mass shooting/terror attacks -- it is hard for people to give up their certainties, once held.  We stand on our knowledge as if on a locked chest: nothing need be learned outside of what we already know.  Everyone "knows" what it all means and what must be done.  I should know, because I am an expert.
    The saddest thing I have seen -- beyond the grief and horror of the mass murder -- are the few sick voices who engender hate and exclusion and stupidity.   For example:
    Luckily, there is a candidate for President that has a  plan to make America safe again. It is time to 'turn in'  dangerous people who show signs of incipient murder.   It is time to begin screening all visitors to America using rock-solid religious tests.   It is time to know the enemy, and the enemy is (a tumour within) the Islamic faith.  It is time to raise vigilance  and perhaps deploy demagoguery, to simplify the challenge  of preventing mass shootings (by Muslims).  Nobody can deny that one candidate has answers.  Nobody can deny that they are the best answers and the only answers and the Total Package American needs.
    On an alternative soapbox, somebody might call for big I Intelligence. "Until we figure out what's going on."
    -- on another topic, I am missing the presence of bigly poster Adam Selene. Has anyone heard from him or checked in on him?  He has been silent for  a while now.
    For another example of why OL might be circling the drain -- our tedious hate-filled Moralist takes time to denigrate the dead--  as perverts being taken out by another pervert.  It takes some personal skill and fine heart to leave that impression of gross and persistent unreason.   Tony, I look forward to your critical comments.  
  20. william.scherk
    I was thinking about some of the life-learning and wisdom of Nathaniel Branden, half-convinced in my mind that I was remembering a quote accurately, that Nathaniel Branden had written "disagree" and "disagreeable" much like I thought in the title of this entry.
    I did find a phrase, something like I remembered and put it in fuller context at bottrom. But first some thoughts from the departed.
    The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
    Nathaniel Branden  

    We do not hear the term "compassionate" applied to business executives or entrepreneurs, certainly not when they are engaged in their normal work. Yet in terms of results in the measurable form of jobs created, lives enriched, communities built, living standards raised, and poverty healed, a handful of capitalists has done infinitely more for mankind than all the self-serving politicians, academics, social workers, and religionists who march under the banner of "compassion".
    Nathaniel Branden  
     “When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
    Ayn Rand  
    Thinking of someone with whom I have useful disagreements.  
    Watauga Lake, Tennessee. 

  22. william.scherk
    A few perspectives on the white nationalist "road rage" incident in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

    US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions called the vehicular homicide a clear case of "domestic terrorism."
    Youtube sensation Mike Cernovich: "Civil War is here! #Charlottesville."
    Townhall columnist takes a swing at Presidential equivocation: "The Charlottesville Dystopia: Dark Souls, Tested Principles, and Presidential Weakness."
    Cernovich again: "President Trump Delivers a Statement."
    A thread introduced by OL's foremost  thought leader MSK, who did not (yet) mention the murder/road rage victim** (kind of a 'sanitizing' operation?):

    [editing between laptop and tablet. Will unlock the thread when I finish adding some 'brawling' videos ...]
    Here is a tweet with embedded video. Keep your eye on the stout fellow with long grey hair. He appears to direct a charge into a crowd of 'counter-protesters.'
    The same fellow, tentatively identified as Michael Tubbs, appears to lead the beating of a defenseless man:
    Tubbs has a history of violence. 
    ____________
    ** still no mention of the murdered woman, nor the injured, not a word, because ... George Soros.
    It took the US President two days to denounce the KKK and neo-Nazis. I won't hold my breath waiting for our forum leader to write a few words about James Alex Fields, the alleged terrorist.

    "The white power dudes are stupid and talk tough, and you will find a deranged individual or so among them, but they are not destructive in the sense the race riot people under President Obama were."
    Domestic terrorism, said AG Sessions. "Not destructive," says our forum leader ...

    "Tracking 101." Yeesh.
    ++++++++++++++++++++
    Interesting perspective from the III% (aka the Three Percenters) who supplied some faux-military protection during part of the events in Charlottesville.
     
  23. william.scherk
    Three hundred and twenty-five days until the first chance Democratic electors have to select a candidate (beginning with the Iowa caucuses), plus the time between that caucus and the end of the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee Wisconsin on July 16 2020.
    I'll be using this topic thread to note various peaks of excitement between now and then.  I don't think there will be much excitement on the Republican side -- since barring unforeseen circumstances, President Trump is assured the nomination of his party. 
    Ballotpedia has a good, clean, in depth section devoted to the exciting Democratic candidates ...

    President Trump had the kindest words for one declared Democratic hopeful, Senator Kamala Harris. From an interview with the New York Times shortly after she declared:
    Michael has debuted a new topic, 2019 Dem Primary Watch [May 8 2019]
     
  24. william.scherk
    Readers will have seen this week one tyrant near the end of his reign -- Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who will likely be impeached next month -- and may have speculated on what the ruckus in Saudia Arabia portends for the family autocracy there (setting aside humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen).
    I've been following the activist Iyad el-Baghdadi for quite a while on Twitter. He was jailed and expelled from Saudi Arabia and found refuge in Norway, after having become a stinging thorn in the side of autocrats throughout the Arab world.  As he added entries to his "Arab Tyrants Manual" his relative fame/notoriety/danger grew. Readers here may be interested to know of his self-identification as an "Islamic Libertarian."
    Long story short, he has launched a new project that I like the looks of ... he is wicked smart, incisive, funny and informed. Here we get a close look at Saudi Arabia's failures as a regime. Not as much zany fun as an hour with Loren Lockman, but hey.
    Here's the Soundcloud embed:

    Here I add a striking video that depicts the relentless economic development of the alternative Saudi Arabia, the jewel of the Emirates, Dubai. 
     
  25. william.scherk
    Bloomberg has a short Trump-whisperer item on the President's supposed impatience with negotiations to "update" the North American Free Trade Agreement.
    Trump’s Impatience Emerging as Biggest Threat to Nafta Agreement
    Some of you may have read the earlier report in which he instructs General Kelly that he "wants tariffs" ... while his weepy loser staff won't bring him tariffs.
    That report could be 100% shit, and since said tariffs were to be imposed on China, not perhaps pertinent. The Bloomberg story could be shit too, yet the President has been clear since the campaign that NAFTA is the shittiest deal the USA has ever signed.
    The upshot of the story is his purported wish to withdraw from the trade deal. That kind of talk gets Canadians antsy, since these are among the biggest trade flows on the planet, somewhere around the trillion dollar mark. Or so the could-be-lying bean counters tell us.
    Whither NAFTA and the USA-Canada relationship? I don't believe Trump wants to punish Canada as much as he does Mexico, but in the end, why not? Why not punish Canada for fucking you guys over?
    This is a boring topic, trade between the two giant geographies, and my belief that compromise will occur may turn out to be falsified. 
    Is Bloomberg under the giant umbrella FallSnooze?
    Zzzzzzzzzz ...