The jiu jitsu SOTU speech

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m virtually certain that the Democrats had prepared a unified strategy in advance for reacting to the SITU.

Show unity. Don’t stand. Clap only for the things you must clap for, and do so tepidly. Make it clear you don’t agree with this racist, stupid, senile presidential pretender. Resist the very notion of his standing there and giving this speech as though he deserves to.

Trump surprised them and gave a speech for which they had not prepared, a speech they hadn’t expected: a unity speech, loaded with things they should actually have favored and applauded. Here’s one of the most blatant examples of what I mean, where we have the odd spectacle of a bunch of Republicans cheering a historic reduction in black unemployment and a bunch of Democrats (some of them black) sitting on their hands and refusing to be glad. Note some of them looking at each other for cues as to what they should do:

In his SOTU speech Trump caught them flat-footed by being almost 100% the Happy Warrior. Every time the cameras panned on their unhappy faces, they looked sunk in gloom and bile.

They didn’t seem to be expecting this, although they should have. And they didn’t seem to be able to wing it and come up with a better reaction.

It’s a grave danger to underestimate your opponents. The Democrats have gotten used to underestimating Republicans, and it’s not a mystery why. Republicans have often played into their hands. Trump confounds them for many many reasons, but one of them is that he doesn’t play into their hands and yet they perceive that he does. They keep thinking that he has cooked his own goose (or that they are helping him to cook his own goose) and they seem surprised and puzzled every time the situation manages to boomerang back at them.

If you spend a lot of time hammering home the idea that your opponent is stupid, crazy, and/or senile, then every time he acts smart, sane, and competent it makes you look stupid, crazy, and/or like a lying propagandist. If your opponent gets to show himself to the American people and he’s not as you’ve described, who ends up looking foolish?

It’s highly likely that the Democrats’ base loved that the party hung tough against Trump and his populist celebration of America and its people. But the great middle—what did they think? I can’t help but believe that they felt even more estranged from the Democrats than in November of 2016, when that gulf was responsible for the stunning election of Trump the underdog.

A lot—a lot—can happen between now and November 2018. But I don’t see that the Congressional Democrats helped their own cause last night. They were unable to improvise a response that made more sense to most people. Clapping enthusiastically would have seemed like they were approving of Trump, and they didn’t want to do that. But looking grumpy made them seem like they were disapproving not just of Trump, but of America and the success of ordinary Americans.

[NOTE: How many people watched the speech? Previous figures are here. Perhaps the Democrats are counting on the MSM to spin it for them and create a positive perception of their behavior. But I think that the larger the audience for the speech, the more difficult their task may be, and the Democrats may have caused extra people to tune in to see if the rumored disruptions would occur. And if CBS is tweeting that sit-on-their-hands moment for the Democrats in reaction to the black unemployment figures, that particular sound bite will be likely to reach even some people who didn’t watch the speech and would not otherwise have known.]

Open thread for the SOTU speech

The New Neo Posted on by

Talk amongst yourselves.

I assume it’s going to be a mite rowdy—not here, but there.

“To make America great again for all Americans.” A few Democrats manage to stand up and applaud that sentiment, at least.

A big “togetherness” theme so far.

Nice heads-up for Steve Scalise, who is beaming. He must be mighty glad to be alive.

Now it’s the economy, the economy, the economy, stupid.

(Is it my imagination, or does Trump’s face look a tad less puffy than usual? Is it possible he’s lost a couple of pounds?)

All this togetherness rah-rah talk is making the Democrats look especially curmudgeonly when they don’t stand.

If I was playing the drinking game, I’d say the word to drink on would be “America.”

The Democrats aren’t even standing for the idea of getting Detroit in gear again?

“Americans are dreamers too.”

Justified bragging about ISIS defeat.

These stories of heroes like Bronze Star recipient Justin Peck (I’m not sure I got that name right) are very moving. You can see the strength and determination on his stoic face.

Incredible story of a man named Sung Ho (spelling?) who escaped from North Korea and now helps other escapees.

Now he’s closing with a paean to America and its spirit. Sounds very Reaganesque to me.

I also was struck by the deliberate slowness of Trump’s delivery and articulation in this speech. That’s actually not easy to do; to pace a speech properly. I think he’s gotten quite good at it.

It’s the people who are making America great again.”

I think it was an excellent and thematically unified speech. He has a lot to brag about. The message of unity and Americans working together was almost constant. The failure of the Democrats to react positively to those things made them look mean-spirited. They couldn’t even muster up public approval for issues which would ordinarily by their issues, or at least obviously bipartisan issues.

Do you plan to watch the SOTU speech tonight?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m going to try, although regular readers of this blog know that I’m not fond of political speeches at all.

This one could be very interesting, though. The Congressional audience reaction could be a big part of the story.

Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told the Democratic contingent to behave:

Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered the message to the House Democratic Caucus at their weekly private meeting Tuesday morning.

“Let the attention be on his slobbering self,” Pelosi told members, according to two sources in the room. “If you want to walk out, don’t come in.”

I’ve heard Trump described in many pejorative ways. I’ve certainly criticized him myself, too. But “slobbering” isn’t one of the words that usually comes to mind.

The definition:

to let saliva or liquid run from the mouth; slaver; drivel.

to indulge in mawkish sentimentality:

Is she trying to say that Trump actually drools? Like this?

Because really, he’s not been known for sentimentality, mawkish or otherwise.

Root canal reprieve

The New Neo Posted on by

I spent part of the morning at the office of the endodontist. A few months ago, a tooth in my mouth had decided to give me trouble. It hurt when I chewed on it or pressed on it. It hurt when it was cold and it hurt when I ate something hot. It hurt when I walked fast. And sometimes it seemed to hurt just for the fun of it.

After a few weeks of that, it started to hurt less. And then less and less. That was good, but I knew that it was also potentially bad, because I once had a tooth that did that and it was a sign that it was dying.

They tried to save that tooth with a root canal. After ten years the root canal failed, and I ended up with a dental implant there. That dental implant is now having some troubles and I have a dental surgery to fix it scheduled in about ten days.

Dentists tend to love me. I am a gold mine.

But today the news was good. Whatever’s been going on with my tooth, it doesn’t need a root canal. And fortunately, since it (knock wood) barely hurts at all anymore, it may avoid one forever.

Update on the Hawaii nuclear false alarm

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not sure whether this news makes it better or worse.

I think perhaps worse:

The Hawaii employee who sent out a false alarm earlier this month warning of an incoming missile attack said they misheard a message played during a drill and believed a ballistic missile was actually heading for the state, according to a federal investigation.

This directly contradicts the explanations previously offered by Hawaii officials…

So “Hawaii officials” either lied about it or didn’t even know what had happened. Fancy that.

Or I suppose the feds could be lying about it. But the newer story has the ring of truth to me:

This mistake began when a night-shift supervisor decided to test incoming day-shift workers with a spontaneous drill, the FCC report stated. The supervisor managing the day-shift workers appeared to be aware of the upcoming test but believed it was aimed at the outgoing night-shift workers. As a result, the day-shift manager was not prepared to supervise the morning test, the FCC said.

Following standard procedures, the night-shift supervisor posing as U.S. Pacific Command played a recorded message to the emergency workers warning them of the fake threat. The message included the phrase “Exercise, exercise, exercise,” the FCC report said, but it also had the “This is not a drill” language used for actual missile alerts.

The worker who then sent the emergency alert said they did not hear the “exercise” part of the message. This person, who has not been publicly identified, declined to be interviewed by investigators, but they did provide a written statement, the FCC said.

Perhaps you’ve noticed, as I did, that this WaPo article repeatedly uses the word “they” instead of the more conventional “he” or “she” for the culprit. “They” is plural and gender neutral, and is grammatically incorrect, since only one worker misunderstood and sounded the alarm. Why the weird grammar from the WaPo? Are they (the WaPo writers and/or editors, plural) trying to cover up the fact that it was more than one worker? Or (more likely, I think) are they shielding us from knowledge of the worker’s gender, in order to protect that gender?

I’m not being sexist there. I didn’t originally assume it was a woman. But that’s the only explanation that occurs to me for the strange grammar the WaPo uses in the story. I am critical of the WaPo for many reasons, but they usually exhibit knowledge of the basics of grammar.

As for the substance of the report, it’s not what you’d call reassuring.

Morning shower, evening shower?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article comparing the benefits of morning showers versus evening showers, and why you might choose either (or both).

There are considerations of cleanliness, habit, and wakefulness (it wakes you up in the morning and/or it helps you sleep at night—which seems a bit contradictory to me). But I think I can simplify the whole thing for you: morning people shower in the morning, night people at night.

Now, I haven’t subjected that blanket statement to any empirical scrutiny at all. But as a night person who tends to take night showers unless I’m showering after exercise, and who just about never takes a shower in the morning (unless you define “morning” as after midnight), I think I may be onto something.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…

The New Neo Posted on by

…than are dreamt of in your philosophy:

From a seam in one of these [ancient Australian] hills, a jumble of ancient, orange-Creamsicle rock spills forth: a deposit called the Apex Chert. Within this rock, viewable only through a microscope, there are tiny tubes. Some look like petroglyphs depicting a tornado; others resemble flattened worms…

Last month, researchers lobbed another salvo in the decades-long debate about the nature of these forms. They are indeed fossil life, and they date to 3.465 billion years ago, according to John Valley, a geochemist at the University of Wisconsin. If Valley and his team are right, the fossils imply that life diversified remarkably early in the planet’s tumultuous youth.

The fossils add to a wave of discoveries that point to a new story of ancient Earth. In the past year, separate teams of researchers have dug up, pulverized and laser-blasted pieces of rock that may contain life dating to 3.7, 3.95 and maybe even 4.28 billion years ago. All of these microfossils””or the chemical evidence associated with them””are hotly debated. But they all cast doubt on the traditional tale.

The entire article is well worth reading.

Our knowledge of the geologic and biologic past has been slowly built up by looking at the clues that are left. That knowledge is necessarily imperfect.

When I think of this sort of thing I often recall how little credence was given to the “continental drift” theory of Wegener in my youth. I even wrote about it for a science report while in junior high school. I liked the idea, but probably because it appealed to my esthetic science more than anything—my observations about the way the continental puzzle pieces seemed to fit together. I certainly was not the only one:

Abraham Ortelius (Ortelius 1596), Theodor Christoph Lilienthal (1756), Alexander von Humboldt (1801 and 1845), Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (Snider-Pellegrini 1858), and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together…

…[T]he similarity of southern continent geological formations had led Roberto Mantovani to conjecture in 1889 and 1909 that all the continents had once been joined into a supercontinent; Wegener noted the similarity of Mantovani’s and his own maps of the former positions of the southern continents…

Alfred Wegener first presented his hypothesis to the German Geological Society on 6 January 1912.[13] His hypothesis was that the continents had once formed a single landmass, called Pangaea, before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations.

Wegener was the first to use the phrase “continental drift” (1912, 1915) (in German “die Verschiebung der Kontinente” ”“ translated into English in 1922) and formally publish the hypothesis that the continents had somehow “drifted” apart. Although he presented much evidence for continental drift, he was unable to provide a convincing explanation for the physical processes which might have caused this drift. His suggestion that the continents had been pulled apart by the centrifugal pseudoforce (Polflucht) of the Earth’s rotation or by a small component of astronomical precession was rejected, as calculations showed that the force was not sufficient.

He had the right idea, but the wrong mechanism. In the 50s and early 60s, when I was learning about this sort of thing, it was still thought to be silly. Sound familiar? [emphasis mine]:

The British geologist Arthur Holmes championed the theory of continental drift at a time when it was deeply unfashionable. He proposed in 1931 that the Earth’s mantle contained convection cells that dissipated radioactive heat and moved the crust at the surface. His Principles of Physical Geology, ending with a chapter on continental drift, was published in 1944.

David Attenborough, who attended university in the second half of the 1940s, recounted an incident illustrating its lack of acceptance then: “I once asked one of my lecturers why he was not talking to us about continental drift and I was told, sneeringly, that if I could prove there was a force that could move continents, then he might think about it. The idea was moonshine, I was informed.”

Things changed in 1968 with the publication of an article entitled “Seismology and the New Global Tectonics”, based on new seismological evidence.

The science on this sort of thing is never settled. That doesn’t mean scientists are charlatans. It just means that there’s always more to be learned and then integrated into present theories or requiring new theories that incorporate the new facts.

Coming attractions: Entebbe movie

The New Neo Posted on by

I was in a movie theater this weekend and saw a coming attraction for “7 Days In Entebbe.” I don’t know what stance the film takes on Palestine vs. Israel; it’s British, so it could be somewhat anti-Israeli and sympathetic to the terrorists.

But the trailer looked good, and it’s an inherently exciting story. It’s been told before, but long ago, and mostly in “made for TV” movies. Here’s the trailer:

Did you see that part where the planes are flying over the water very low (around 1:37)? That’s based on reality; they flew from Israel at a height of about 100 feet in order to evade radar. Maybe those of you who are pilots don’t find that so impressive (I wouldn’t know), but I certainly do.

The entire episode of history was impressive. I’m hoping they stick to reality and don’t start editorializing.

Here are some other fascinating Entebbe facts (as well as some heroic and/or tragic ones), many of which I had not remembered or never knew of in the first place:

It happened on our July 4 bicentennial.

Two of the four hijackers on the plane were Germans.

The four hijackers boarded the plane in Athens, Greece, but were met by four more in Entebbe.

Also these:

US citizen Janet Almog, Frenchwoman Jocelyne Monier (whose husband or boyfriend was Israeli) and French-Israeli dual citizen Jean-Jacques Mimouni, whose name had not been called up during the reading of the original passport-based list, reportedly joined the Israeli hostage group by their own choice.

Kenyan Minister of Agriculture Bruce MacKenzie persuaded Kenyan President Kenyatta to permit Mossad to collect intelligence prior to the operation, and to allow the Israeli Air Force access to the Nairobi airport. In retaliation, Ugandan President Idi Amin ordered Ugandan agents to assassinate MacKenzie. He was killed on 24 May 1978 when a bomb attached to his aircraft exploded. Later, Mossad Chief Director Meir Amit had a forest planted in Israel in MacKenzie’s name.

Israeli firms were involved in building projects in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s and while preparing the raid the Israeli army consulted with Solel Boneh, a large Israeli construction company that had built the terminal where the hostages were held. While planning the military operation the IDF erected a partial replica of the airport terminal with the assistance of civilians who had helped build the original.

And if you ever had any doubt about Idi Amin’s brutality, there’s this:

Dora Bloch, a 74-year-old Israeli who also held British citizenship, was taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala after choking on a chicken bone. After the raid she was murdered by officers of the Ugandan army, as were some of her doctors and nurses, apparently for trying to intervene. In April 1987, Henry Kyemba, Uganda’s Attorney general and Minister of Justice at the time, told the Uganda Human Rights Commission that Bloch had been dragged from her hospital bed and killed by two army officers on Amin’s orders. Bloch was shot and her body was dumped in the trunk of a car that had Ugandan intelligence services number plates. Her remains were recovered near a sugar plantation 20 miles (32 km) east of Kampala in 1979, after the Ugandan”“Tanzanian War ended Amin’s rule. Amin also ordered the killing of hundreds of Kenyans living in Uganda in retaliation for Kenya’s assistance to Israel in the raid.

[NOTE: The only Israeli killed in the Entebbe raid was Jonatan Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu’s older brother. I wrote about the anti-terrorist activities of the two brothers here.]

Last night I had a dream

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I drove about two hours up north to visit friends, and drove back very late. I was so tired when I got back home that I fell asleep without my usual bedtime ritual (elaborate toothbrushing and flossing, makeup removal and face-tending, various yoga stretches) and had a restless night’s sleep with many dreams that remain vivid.

One of them was this. I was hiking alone up on a ridge in a landscape that looked like many parts of California: dry and parched and hilly/rocky, with small straw-colored grasses and shrubs all around. I had some sort of GPS with me and was following its instructions, but I was also checking out the signs along the trail.

One sign pointed to an alternate route that led downhill, supposedly to a road I could see at the bottom. I decided to take it. But after I’d walked many minutes along that path, it started narrowing and finally came to an end.

All I could think of to do was to climb back up again towards the main trail. But it was rough going because of all the rocks, and of course it was uphill as well. I finally fell to my knees and started laboriously crawling. After quite a bit of that—with the rocks hurting and scraping me—I woke up.

I don’t think the dream was about politics, although someone might interpret it that way. I think it was about bigger things than that—including fear that I’ve taken a wrong path but can’t retrace my steps and go back, either.

Trump’s immigration bill proposal

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s big news, but I haven’t yet written on it.

Why? Because I think it’s just the opening scene in a play that will be revised several times.

Actually, that’s a bad metaphor. It’s not the opening scene; the play has come out in various versions for over a decade (at least, that’s the history I’ll focus on here; it’s actually a much more long-standing issue), as Congress considers a comprehensive immigration bill.

Remember the effort made during George W. Bush’s administration? If you don’t, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane:

The [2007] bill was a compromise based largely on three previous failed immigration reform bills:

—The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act (S. 1033), a bill proposed in May 2005 by Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain, sometimes referred to as the “McCain-Kennedy or McKennedy Bill.”
—The Comprehensive Enforcement and Immigration Reform Act of 2005 (S. 1438), a bill proposed in July 2005 by Senators John Cornyn and Jon Kyl, sometimes referred to as the “Cornyn-Kyl Bill.”
—The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S. 2611), sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter, which was passed in the Senate in May 2006 but never passed in the House.

The bill’s sole sponsor in the Senate was Majority Leader Harry Reid, though it was crafted in large part as a result of efforts by Senators Kennedy, McCain and Kyl, along with Senator Lindsey Graham, and input from President George W. Bush, who strongly supported the bill. For that reason it was referred to in the press by various combinations of these five men’s names, most commonly “Kennedy-Kyl”. A larger group of senators was involved in creating the bill, sometimes referred to as the ‘Gang of 12’. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana led the opposition to the bill, clashing with McCain and Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

The bill never passed, and drew a lot of anger. You can read its suggested provisions here. To go into the details would take a much longer post than I plan to write, but the gist of it was that it established a path to citizenship for every single illegal immigrant then currently residing in the country, although there were certain hoops to jump through. There also were some security provisions:

The bill would have increased enforcement of the United States-Mexico border, including increasing the number of border patrol agents by 20,000 and adding another 370 miles (600 km) of fencing, among others.

And then there was the case of the Gang of Eight in 2013:

…[T]he immigration bill passed the Senate with a strong majority””68”“32, with 14 Republicans joining all Democrats. The United States House of Representatives under Speaker John Boehner did not act on the bill, however, and it expired at the end of the 113th Congress.

You can read the proposals in the bill here. Once again, it provided a long-term path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already residing here (there were many many more changes, but again they’re too numerous to detail). It also purported to increase security (someday):

The bill contains many border security measures, some of which must be implemented before illegal immigrants can adjust from the provisional status to full green card status. However, the DHS Secretary simply must submit a plan for border security within the first six months of the bill in order to initiate the provisional legal status for illegal immigrants. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) explained that whether or not the border is secure will have no impact on the advancement of the legalization of illegal immigrants, saying, “We’re not using border security as an excuse or a block to the path to citizenship. [The Gang of Eight] wants to make sure the border is secure, but not to use it as a barrier to prevent the 11 million from eventually gaining a path to citizenship.”

Those who criticize Boehner as spineless and unconservative probably forget that he was the person who stopped this bill, which had already passed the Senate. His stated reason:

In our conversation last week, I told the president what I have been telling him for months: the American people and their elected officials don’t trust him to enforce the law as written. Until that changes, it is going to be difficult to make progress on this issue.

Obama responded through executive orders in order to circumvent Congress.

Now, take a look at the current proposals under Trump. The emphasis is on security. The visa lottery is eliminated and family chain immigration tightened up somewhat (the latter was done in some of the previous bills, as well). A path to citizenship is provided only for people eligible for DACA.

This is pretty much what one might have predicted of Trump, since (if you were paying attention) he was always waffly on DACA. And the Democrats have done what you might expect. Nancy Pelosi considers it racist, naturally. The basic Democratic response can be summed up this way:

“Dreamers should not be held hostage to President Trump’s crusade to tear families apart and waste billions of American tax dollars on an ineffective wall,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has fought for protection for participants in the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said in a statement.

Of course. Trump should just give Dreamers what the Democrats want without asking for anything in exchange, right? I’m sure if the Democrats were in power, they’d have returned the favor by starting with the wall and waiting patiently for the rest.

I wonder whether Trump made this proposal knowing the Democrats would balk. I doubt he’ll make it more amenable to them in response. He might make it less. The problem may be, as with all the other immigration bills, it will be hard to get enough votes to pass it because it is almost impossible to please enough people with any bill. Most of the opinions expressed by the GOP have been supportive, but some Republicans are unhappy with it as well, and the GOP holds only a very small margin in the Senate.

So, what else is new?