He Probably Choked on His Own Bile

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died at age 79.

I have noted over the past few years (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) excessive levels of bile have appeared to produce neurological complications.

The Republicans are already saying that the next SCOTUS nomination should be put off until after the elections, which is no surprise.

I really do not think that they have anything to worry about though:  I cannot see the Obama administration selecting someone in less than 3 months, at which point there will not be time.

While I do understand that the friends and family of Antonin Scalia, including Justice Ruth  Bader "Notorious RBG" Ginsburg, are mourning their loss, the fact that a partisan hack who had stopped caring has left the court is a net plus for the people of the United States.
 

Not Enough Bullets

It appears that Republican members of Congress made a request to the government of Iran that they not release detained Americans until after the election:

Iran released four US citizens being held in Iran on January 16, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. In return the US said it was offering clemency to seven Iranians being held for sanctions violations and dropped charges against 14 more.

In his first interview with French media, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, told FRANCE 24 that US Republicans – wary of allowing President Barack Obama to win a public relations victory ahead of the US presidential election in November – asked for the swap to be put on hold.

“We were carrying out negotiations with the Obama administration, when representatives of the Republican Party got in touch with us,” Shamkhani said. “As a favour, they asked us to do what we could to hinder the talks and to push them back until after the next US presidential elections – in other words, after President Obama's departure.”

………

“It seems that the Republicans relegated humanity to second place after political expediency, which I found very surprising. But we succeeded, and the prisoners were released during Obama’s mandate.”

See also here, here, and here.

Shades of Ronald Reagan's and GHW Bush's deal with the Iranian in 1980, the so-called "October Surprise", where they promised to release military hardware if the Iranians held the embassy hostages until after the elections.

I misspoke in the title though, traitors should be hung, not shot.

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

F%$# Me, I Agree with Donald Trump

Trump wins Twitter today:

How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016

Earmning a Capitalism Merit Badge

An enterprising Girl Scout set up shop selling cookies outside a marijuana dispensary:

It's that time of year again. Time when your local market entrances are flooded with Girl Scouts selling boxes of Samoas, Tagalongs and Thin Mints. But one 13-year-old Girl Scout in San Francisco and her mother made a rather business-savvy decision to sell cookies outside of a medical marijuana dispensary.

On Monday, Danielle Lei and her mother set up shop outside the Green Cross store with the cookies. With the store's blessing, Lei sold 117 boxes in two hours.

Holli Bert, a spokeswoman for the Green Cross, said that after just 45 minutes, Lei had to call for backup cookies to replenish her stock.

Future venture capitalist, I guess.

Well, This Explains Why Chris Matthews Has Been Felching* Hillary Clinton on His Show Lately

Did you know that Kathleen Matthews, the wife of MSNBC's Chris "Tweety" Matthews is running to replace Chris Van Hollen in MD-8?

Did you also know that her campaign is getting lots of donations from friends of Hillary?

Funny, that:

After what can only be described as an absolute disaster of an electoral showing in the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton’s hopes of becoming the Democratic nominee in 2016 increasingly hinge on her support from the Democratic establishment.

The establishment, which is connected to Clinton and her financial backers by ingrown threads of funding and financing, is panicking over the surging campaign of Bernie Sanders. It will turn to its people in the media and party leadership to reverse the trend.

………

Chris Matthews has been under considerable fire from the left recently for what’s been interpreted as “relentless shilling” for Hillary Clinton on his MSNBC talk show, Hardball.

………

His endless devotion to the Democratic Party got Matthews the kind of attention that many people only dream of from party elders. Over the past decade, his name has been bandied about as a candidate for Senate or Governor in his native Pennsylvania. He’s been the subject of a speculative New York Times Magazine cover story on his political aspirations.

But in the end, it appears Matthews is sticking with television. Instead, his wife Kathleen is running for political office as a Democrat, in Maryland, where the Matthews family lives.

And herein lies the crux of the matter. As the Daily Caller reported on February 9, many of the wealthiest Clinton donors are funneling money to the Kathleen Matthews Congressional campaign. This, in turn, makes Chris Matthews’ constant kow-towing to the Clinton campaign suspect at the very least. Although it may just be part of ingratiating himself to the Democratis establishment.

The money trail from Hillary Clinton to Chris Matthews crosses the path of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. The support each of the latter gives to the former is a direct by product of that financing.

So not a surprise.

^*If you do not know the definition of the word, "Felch", do NOT Google it.

Tweet of the Day

Carly Fiorina is dropping out of the presidential race to pursue kidnapping Dalmations to use fur for coat.

— Michael Blackman (@ParaComedian09) February 10, 2016

Quote of the Day

Clinton: “I know I have had a blessed life, but I also know what it’s like to stumble and fall. And so many people across America know that feeling” [WaPo]. No. Wrong. Just wrong. People don’t feel they’ve “stumbled and fallen” (note lack of agency). They feel they’ve been tripped, or had their legs kicked out from under them, or screwed over. That’s not the same thing.

—Lambert Strether at writing at Naked Capitalism

About that Congressional Black Caucus Endorsement of Hillary Clinton………

Not so much.

It was the PAC for the organization. Many CBC members were not consulted:

Cong'l Black Caucus (CBC) has NOT endorsed in presidential. Separate CBCPAC endorsed withOUT input from CBC membership, including me.

— Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) February 11, 2016

Funny, that.

Crap

I missed the latest Dem debate.

Remember When I Wrote About a College President Who Described Shooting His Student and Drowning Them Like Bunnies?

Basically, it was his plan to game the college ratings.

Well, as I mentioned in the above link, the President of Mount St. Marys University used these analogies for his plan to artificially boost the retention numbers throwing out higher risk students in the first 3 weeks of class, when they don't count:

You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads.

It made the national news, and the college, and its President, former bankster Simon Newman, were held up for condemnation.

Unsurprisingly, President Newman is handling this like the guardian of capitalism that he is: killing he messenger:

When student reporters at Mount St. Mary’s University, a small Catholic institution in Maryland, published an article in January that quoted the university’s president likening struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned, they knew it might get a big reaction.

It finally came this week, it appears — in the form of a pink slip for the faculty adviser of the campus newspaper.

The university informed the adviser, Ed Egan, that he had been disloyal and was now fired, a move seen by many on the campus in Emmitsburg as a retaliatory strike.

The decision, along with other recent punishments of faculty members at Mount St. Mary’s, has triggered outrage well beyond its rural campus in northern Maryland, earning condemnation from thousands of academics across the country as well as national monitors of academic and journalistic freedom.

The article, by Rebecca Schisler and Ryan Golden, was published in The Mountain Echo under Mr. Egan’s tutelage on Jan. 19 and presented two explosive pieces of news.

………

The report said that the administration was planning to cull struggling freshmen from the institution as part of an effort to improve retention numbers — a big factor in rankings published in outlets like U.S. News & World Report — and that the university’s president, Simon Newman, had used disturbing language to sell the idea to a skeptical professor last fall.

“This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can’t,” Mr. Newman is quoted as saying. “You just have to drown the bunnies.”

He added, “Put a Glock to their heads.”

………

“Ed, as the faculty adviser, could really frame the battlefield, if you will, around what the issue was,” Mr. Coyne said. “We had a president in a private conversation with a colleague says the bad-metaphor-hall-of-fame statement, and that was the story. And the position behind it about a retention program that was never enacted, was suddenly lost in the conversation.”

Mr. Egan and both student reporters, who said they had spent weeks investigating their article, rejected Mr. Coyne’s depiction of editorial manipulation. (The private conversation, the students reported, was relayed by two professors who were there.)

“There was no pressure at all,” Ms. Schisler, a junior, said. “We are a student-run paper. All of the articles are the ideas of students, and all of them are written by students.”

Mr. Golden, a senior who is also The Echo’s managing editor, said the newspaper’s staff members had been blindsided by the administration’s move to fire Mr. Egan, who, he said, had been a staunch advocate of their work.

“We were really appalled by it,” Mr. Golden said. “He’s really a good mentor for a lot of students at this school. He absolutely encouraged us to pursue journalistic integrity, absolutely encouraged us to be ethical, to be fair, to be thorough, to be objective and to do the best work that we could.”

Mr. Newman, a former private equity chief executive, was hired last spring to help raise the college’s national profile and increase its endowment. Some faculty members have since pushed back against what they see as his sharp-elbowed business approach.

Mr. Egan’s dismissal was the third case in less than a week of faculty members’ facing censure from Mr. Newman’s administration. The cases were being portrayed by some professors and alumni as a concerted effort to purge the faculty of those with dissenting views.

There have been two other people fired, including a tenured faculty member, and get a load this bit from his dismissal letter:

“As an employee of Mount St. Mary’s University, you owe a duty of loyalty to this university and to act in a manner consistent with the duty,” read the letter addressed to Dr. Naberhaus and signed by Mr. Newman. “However, your recent actions, in my opinion and that of others, have violated that duty and clearly justify your termination."

Between potential lawsuits, bad PR, and what I am sure is quite a few enraged alumni, Egan is a 2^nd generation alumnus, it does appear that I was being prophetic, and not just sarcastic, when I suggested that when Simon Newman wanted to run the University like a business, it meant, "Burning it down for insurance money."

This is what happens when you hire finance types to do real jobs, BTW.

Ég er Íslendingur

When I heard that Iceland has sentenced 26 bankers to a over 70 years in prison, (total, not each) my first thought was, "What's the Icelandic for, "Ich bin ein Berliner?"

In a move that would make many capitalists’ head explode if it ever happened here, Iceland just sentenced their 26th banker to prison for their part in the 2008 financial collapse.

In two separate Icelandic Supreme Court and Reykjavik District Court rulings, five top bankers from Landsbankinn and Kaupping — the two largest banks in the country — were found guilty of market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach of fiduciary duties. Most of those convicted have been sentenced to prison for two to five years. The maximum penalty for financial crimes in Iceland is six years, although their Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments to consider expanding sentences beyond the six year maximum.

………

Almost eight years later, the government of Iceland is still prosecuting and jailing those responsible for the market manipulation that crippled their economy. Even now, Iceland is still paying back loans to the IMF and other countries which were needed just to keep the country operating.

And how many big banksters have been prosecuted in the United States?

Crickets.

Carly Fiorina has Left the Race

I think that this needs the same musical accompaniment that occurred when her firing from HP was announced:




I am not embellishing here.

When HP finally fired her, groups of people at multiple locations literally started to dance among the cubicles, while singing this song.

I Endorse this Group

The Repair Organization is dedicated to the idea that people have the right to repair the stuff that they own without being locked out through IP protections:

Last summer, when the Copyright Office asked if anyone wanted to defend the right for video game console jailbreakers to mod or repair their systems, no one had a formal legal argument prepared. A new association representing repairmen and women across all industries was just formed to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Repair groups from across the industry announced that they have formed The Repair Coalition, a lobbying and advocacy group that will focus on reforming the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to preserve the “right to repair” anything from cell phones and computers to tractors, watches, refrigerators, and cars. It will also focus on passing state-level legislation that will require manufacturers to sell repair parts to independent repair shops and to consumers and will prevent them from artificially locking down their products to would-be repairers.

………

That problem—that manufacturers of everything are trying to control the secondary repair market—has two main sources, Gordon-Byrne said. First, manufacturers use federal copyright law to say that they control the software inside of gadgets and that only they or licensed repair shops should be allowed to work on it. Second, manufacturers won’t sell replacement parts or guides to the masses, and often use esoteric parts in order to specifically lock down the devices.

These problems have been well known in the smartphone, computer, and consumer electronics for years, and it’s why groups like iFixit and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have been able to mount successful challenges to the DMCA in recent years. Increasingly, however, these problems are spilling over into just about every other industry.

………

And so The Repair Coalition will primarily work at a federal level to repeal Section 1201 of the DMCA, which states that it’s illegal to “circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the DMCA].” Thus far, activists have tried to gain “exemptions” to this section—it’s why you’re allowed to repair a John Deere tractor or a smartphone that has software in it. But the exemption process is grueling and has to be done every three years.

………


On a state level, the group will push for laws such as one being proposed in New York that would require manufacturers to provide repair manuals and sell parts to anyone—not just licensed repair people—for their products. The thought is that, if enough states pass similar legislation, it will become burdensome for manufacturers to continue along with the status quo. At some point, it will become easier to simply allow people to fix the things they own.

“We want to become an umbrella organization for repair,” Gordon-Byrne said. “We want to help the small repair technicians that aren’t getting help from anywhere else.”

When the DMCA was passed, we were warned that this would happen.

And now it has.

The law needs to be fixed, though repeal would be a better option.

The Trump and Sanders Campaigns Have Something Very Important in Common

Both of the campaigns are joyous, in contrast to the dour campaigns of the rest of the candidates.

Of course, the joy of the Trump campaign is the joy that one might find amongst the residents of Bedlam.

Even at their most effusive, the other candidates seem to have a stick up their ass.

Feeling the Bern

Both Bernie Sanders and the Donald Trump won big in New Hampshire, with Sanders ahead by 21% (with 82% reporting), and Trump leading by 19%.

Both Sanders and Trump outperformed the most recent polls by a bit.

I will note that this is a different time from 1992, when Bill Clinton came in 2^nd in New Hampshire, because he was so far ahead in fund raising that Paul Tsongas was simply unable to compete in the later primaries and caucuses, particularly Super Tuesday.

Largely due to Act Blue and similar internet related institutions, Sanders has the financial wherewithal to continue on and to compete a number of simultaneous races, particularly given his campaign's significantly smaller burn (Bern?) rate, which means that his cash on hand is in pretty good shape.

On the 'Phant side, Kasich came in a solid 2^nd, which sets him up to be the next establishment Republican "Great White Hope".

This has Gotta Hurt

The mother of British Prime Minister has signed a petition against her son's cuts of children's services:

Among the 10,000 names on a petition against planned cuts to children’s services by a local council is a name that will cause embarrassment to British Prime Minister David Cameron — his mum.

Mary Cameron, 81, told the Daily Mirror newspaper that she had signed a petition to save children’s centers earmarked for closure by Oxfordshire county council, which is run by her son’s Conservative Party.

“My name is on the petition but I don’t want to discuss this any further,” Mary Cameron, a former magistrate, said.

The petition says: “Our children’s centers are a lifeline to new parents who rely on locally accessible advice and support at a time when it is most needed. Cutting these essential services would leave families vulnerable and isolated and fail an entire generation of children.”

………

Mary Cameron has intervened in her son’s career before. In 2013, she was asked about her son’s support for gay marriage despite opposition from Tory grassroots supporters, and reportedly replied: “I know, but David just won’t be told.”

From his mother?  That's harsh.

Today in IP Stupidity

The Harvard Law Review Society publishes a book called the "A Uniform System of Citation," for lawyers.

It's more generally referred to as "The Blue Book", and a group of law students at NYU are publishing a similar set of instructions, which they have referred to as the "Baby Blue".

The response from the HLRS? A cease and desist letter to the students from their lawyer:

War is brewing over the most boring piece of intellectual property imaginable: the “Bluebook,” the 580-page quasi-authoritative source of proper legal citation formats published by the Harvard Law Review, described by Adam Liptak of the New York Times a few months ago as “a comically elaborate thicket of random and counterintuitive rules about how to cite judicial decisions, law review articles and the like [that] is both grotesque and indispensable.”

Students at NYU Law School have prepared a new, streamlined, open-access citation system and gotten it ready for publication; but Chris Sprigman, a law prof at NYU, posted this open letter to his “law professor friends” yesterday:

I am writing to ask you to help me with something important. You may know that for the last year, I’ve been working on a public domain implementation of the Bluebook’s Uniform System of Citation.

The work, which I’ve named ‪#‎BabyBlue‬, is now done, but we’re holding it, because the Harvard Law Review Association has hired counsel and is threatening to sue (me, and Carl Malamud of PublicResource.org, the publisher).

………

The conflict has been brewing for a few months — starting with a letter from Harvard Law Review’s lawyers to publisher Carl Malamud of PublicResource.org:

I write concerning . . . your imminent release of an “implementation of the Bluebook’s Uniform System of Citation” called “BabyBlue,” possibly as soon as December 31, 2015. Based on the description of “BabyBlue” … we believe that “BabyBlue” may include content identical or substantially similar to content or other aspects of The Bluebook that constitute original works of authorship protected by copyright, and which are covered by various United States copyright registrations.

………

It’s copyright nonsense, and Harvard should be ashamed of itself for loosing its legal hounds to dispense it in order to protect its (apparently fairly lucrative) publication monopoly.

Here’s a bit of free legal advice: If you want to assert copyright protection over something, don’t call it “A Uniform System of Citation” — because systems are, by definition, unprotected by copyright. Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act couldn’t be clearer:

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, [or] method of operation, … regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

It gets even better.

It appears the Harvard Law Review Society is not the creator of this document:

Among the low points in an American legal education is the law student’s first encounter with The Bluebook, a 582-page style manual formally known as “A Uniform System of Citation.” It is a comically elaborate thicket of random and counterintuitive rules about how to cite judicial decisions, law review articles and the like. It is both grotesque and indispensable.

The Harvard Law Review has long claimed credit for creating The Bluebook. But a new article from two librarians at Yale Law School says its rival’s account is “wildly erroneous.” The librarians, Fred R. Shapiro and Julie Graves Krishnaswami, have done impressive archival research and make a persuasive case that their own institution is the guilty party.

“It’s clear that the idea of a uniform citation manual came from Yale, and a lot of the specifics of the early rules came from Yale,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. “Harvard entered into the picture later.”

………

The new article ends on a sheepish note.

“Some readers may question whether originating the hyper-complicated Bluebook should be a source of pride for Yale,” it says. “Our response is that, although the Bluebook version that subsequently developed under the leadership of Harvard Law Review currently consists of 582 fairly large pages, the two earliest Yale precursors of the Bluebook were, respectively, one page and fifteen pages long.”

“And these were,” the article says, “very small pages.”

Shades of the song, Happy Birthday to You, where the evidence is fairly clear that the copyright holders never actually wrote the song.

Our IP system is broken, and needs to be fixed.

Actually, it needs to be burned to the ground, because the system has engendered attitudes that lead to this crap.

Well, This Explains Why the Young-Uns Like Bernie

His campaign is the only Presidential campaign that pays its interns.

Unpaid internships are the bane of many people starting off in life:

Employers may argue that professional experience gained via an internship pays for itself - which is hopefully the case, as most of the presidential candidates are not prepared to pay you to work for them.

A new study has revealed that only one presidential hopeful out of a total of 16 candidates pays their interns.

Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator and Democrat, pays his interns $10.10 per hour, as reported by The Washington Post.

Christina Greer, assistant professor of political science at Fordham University, and Alexis Grenell, a political strategist and columnist, hired a student at $15 per hour to find out how each candidate employs interns.

 BTW, the term for the Sanders campaign is doing is, "Walking the walk."

Tweet of the Day

When the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different staff, at what point do the principals say, "Hey, maybe it's US?"

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2016

Harsh, but Mr. Axelrod has a point, and in just 140 characters.

Maybe I am a Cynic, but I Think that Hillary was Forced to Do This

You know that if Bernie Sanders were at 10%, Hillary Clinton would not have just pledged never to cut Social Security:

Hillary Clinton promised on Friday that she would not cut Social Security benefits, winning praise from progressive groups that had pressured her to take such a stance -- but drawing questions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who challenged her commitment to the issue.

"I won't cut Social Security," Clinton wrote in an initialed tweet that included a link to her campaign website’s Social Security page. "As always, I'll defend it, & I'll expand it. Enough false innuendos."

The post was a response to something Sanders had tweeted earlier in the day, when he urged Clinton to "join me in saying loudly and clearly that we will never cut Social Security."

Let me make this clear, I am NOT suggesting that Clinton is lying.

I am suggesting that she was dragged into this kicking and screaming.

Back Loaded Bribery

I've always said that much of the corruption in politics is not the result of an explicit quid pro quo, but an understanding that, once your political career is done, if you promulgate the agenda of the malefactors of wealth, you will be taken care of.

It's a lot like being a "Made Man" in the mob.

Case in point, Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner:

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to borrow from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help fund his new career in private equity.

Geithner, 54, secured a credit line with JPMorgan, one of the largest banks he oversaw during the financial crisis, to finance personal investments in funds started by his current employer, Warburg Pincus, according to a filing with the New York Department of State. He is borrowing money to invest in a $12 billion private equity fund that the firm raised in November, its first main fund since he joined almost two years ago, a person familiar with the situation said.

………

The regulatory filing doesn’t disclose the size of the loan or the financial terms, such as the interest rate. Warburg Pincus hasn’t said how much Geithner agreed to commit to the new fund, and the filing doesn’t say whether he made use of the credit line to finance it.

Mary Zimmerman, a spokeswoman for New York-based Warburg Pincus, declined to comment or make Geithner available. Officials for JPMorgan declined to comment.

This is the Timothy Geithner who claimed that he was not a banker, after being the fucking President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

It now appears that he was enough of a banker to get a sweetheart loan from JP Morgan for what is probably north of $100 million.

Make no mistake.  This is a payment for his being one of them, and for running the Treasury Department for the banksters benefit.

Today in Historical Illiteracy

At Salon, Andrew O'Hehir takes aim at Marco Rubio, and effectively targets his own foot:

Let me explain “Potemkin Super Bowl party,” because I don’t even know whether that’s a totally obscure reference. In the Soviet Union under Stalin — and Marco Rubio is already deeply unhappy about where I’m going with this — the state built “Potemkin villages,” idealized rural towns full of happy peasants for foreign visitors, while behind those façades the populace lived in misery.

Ummmm...Stalin?

You are only off by almost 200 years, and the reference is only a Google away.

A Potemkin Village was a fake town created by a courtier in the court of Catherine the Great, Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tavricheski, who allegedly created an elaborate fraud to convince the Czarina that the lands in the south of Russia were happy and loyal.

Attributing this to Stalin, when the term literally has its own Wiki page, does not inspire confidence on your grasp of the facts Mr. O'Hehir.

BTW, it appears that after reading comments to his article he corrected that bit, and he should get props for that, but if you have an only vague knowledge of this sort of cultural reference, just f%$#ing Google it.

Eric Arthur Blair Knows the Term for This

Classification stupidity

The prosecutor for the military commission at Guantánamo is retroactively classifying pubic hearings:

The war court prosecutor is arguing that public disclosure of a transcript of a public hearing held at Guantánamo last year could endanger national security in response to a legal motion brought by 17 news organizations protesting pick-and-choose secrecy in the Sept. 11 pretrial hearings.

Army Brig. Gen Mark Martins makes the argument in a filing obtained by The Miami Herald that was still being reviewed for sensitive information on Thursday and not publicly released. At issue is the Pentagon’s decision to black out large portions of a 379-page transcript of an Oct. 30 hearing that included testimony from two soldiers who work at Guantánamo’s most clandestine prison, called Camp 7.

“That this information was uttered in a public session or is reported in news coverage does not render the information unprotected or vitiate the damage further disclosures would beget,” prosecutors wrote Jan. 29 in the 29-page filing in the war court case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

In defending the decision to censor what was public information, the prosecutors included a less-redacted transcript that showed previously blacked out sentences and in the same filing sealed up a declaration from the Guantánamo prison commander explaining what is at risk.

………

Reporters, Sept. 11 victim family members and other members of the public heard the testimony on Oct. 30 through a 40-second audio delay designed to let the judge or a court security officer mute the sound if anyone spilled national security secrets. No one ever pushed the button. But when the transcript came out weeks later, portions that the Miami Herald had reported in a routine Twitter stream were gone.

Now, a comparison of the two different censored transcripts of the same hearing offer a study in over-classification. Nearly every redaction is refined in the updated version.

The term to describe this sh%$ is "Orwellian".

Hillary Retreats to Yet Another Firewall

It looks like Hillary Clinton is ceding New Hampshire and trying to create another firewall in Nevada:

Hillary Clinton is way behind in New Hampshire, and she is running there like a candidate prepared to cede the first-in-the-nation primary.

As polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders continuing to hold a sizable lead here, Clinton strategists are positioning their campaign to weather a loss here, shifting their focus to holding Latino voters in Nevada, which votes Feb. 20, and then win in South Carolina, with its large black population, the following week.

One of Clinton's most valuable campaign assets with voters in New Hampshire — her husband — is thousands of miles away in Nevada instead of working the coffee shops and union halls where the primary takes place Tuesday. Daughter Chelsea, another key surrogate, is also elsewhere. And even Clinton's hearty corps of volunteer door-knockers, who were out in force braving the wintry mix that hung over the region Friday, seemed less than sanguine about her New Hampshire prospects.

………

Hillary Clinton is way behind in New Hampshire, and she is running there like a candidate prepared to cede the first-in-the-nation primary.

As polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders continuing to hold a sizable lead here, Clinton strategists are positioning their campaign to weather a loss here, shifting their focus to holding Latino voters in Nevada, which votes Feb. 20, and then win in South Carolina, with its large black population, the following week.

One of Clinton's most valuable campaign assets with voters in New Hampshire — her husband — is thousands of miles away in Nevada instead of working the coffee shops and union halls where the primary takes place Tuesday. Daughter Chelsea, another key surrogate, is also elsewhere. And even Clinton's hearty corps of volunteer door-knockers, who were out in force braving the wintry mix that hung over the region Friday, seemed less than sanguine about her New Hampshire prospects.

………

"You know, there's a lot of states," said campaign manager Robby Mook. "This is a delegate race. We're not looking to win every single contest, every single time. We have a strategy and a plan for the long term."

………

But she'll also be flying out of the state two days before the election, a rare move for such a prominent candidate behind in the polls here. Clinton will be visiting Flint, Mich., to meet with the mayor about the drinking-water crisis that continues to grip that largely African American city. The visit will likely impress Democratic voters in New Hampshire, but the message of racial justice Clinton is sending through the trip is sure to resonate even more in South Carolina, where African Americans dominate the Democratic primary vote and Clinton remains popular.

I recall a similar firewall.  It was called the Maginot Line.

I still think that the chance that Hillary will win the nomination is a bit better than even, but this is a campaign is serious array

A Thought on the Democratic Debates………

I didn't catch them all, I had to shuttle the Sharon^* and Charlie to rehearsal, but I caught a lot of it.

In the foreign policy portion, Clinton spent a lot of time touting her foreign policy bona fides.

Sanders went back to her history, specifically her vote in favor of the Iraq war.

What he did not discuss, and he should have brought up, was her bloodthirsty blunder on Libya, where she was later (in)famously quoted as saying of Qaddafi, "We came, we saw, he died."

As a result of the overthrow of that government, we now have a country where Libyans are fleeing the country in droves, its educational and healthcare systems demolished, its economy a mess, ongoing genocide against black Africans, and the rise of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Whatever in the country.

Also, the overthrow of Qadaffi led directly to the death of ambassador Christopher Stephens in Benghazi.

And yet she continues to brag about overthrowing Libya.

This is not an indication of foreign policy prowess, this is an indication of thoughtlessness and incompetence.

^*Love of my life, light of the  cosmos, she  who must be obeyed, my wife.

This Is Not an Endorsement to Tout

In the Democratic Debates, Hillary Clinton touted Henry Kissinger's support of your stint of Secretary of State.

Anyone who is proud of being endorsed by that amoral war criminal is not, "A mindful human being," to borrow Ron Reagan Jr.'s description of Dick Cheney:^*

I mean, Jesus H. Christ in a Chilean dungeon.

"I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time."

Dear Ms. HRC: There is being tone-deaf, and then there is not being able to tell the difference between the New York Philharmonic and an abbatoir. What putative progressive—hell, what putative human being—would brag on being endorsed by the most pus-blooded vampire in American public life? Here with an opposing opinion are 40,000 dead Chileans, 100,000 dead East Timorese, and countless dead Laotians, Vietnamese and dead Cambodians.

And she's the one with the foreign policy chops.

Good god.

Actually, the fact that Kissinger is still living in freedom might lead one to doubt the goodness of God.

The fact that Hillary Clinton lauds his support, and is by all reports a good friend of his, means that her much lauded foreign policy chops are highly overrated, but we already knew that.

^*RRJ said about Dick Cheney, "I don't think he's a mindful human being. That's probably the nicest way I can put it," when describing Cheney's behavior toward his mom, Nancy Reagan at his Dad's funeral.^†
†The Link is here. The Cliff Notes version is that Dick Cheney escorted her to Reagan's casket, and he stopped at the bottom of some stairs, and allowed an 80 year old woman with glaucoma to flounder her way up the stairs. (Really classy)

Gloria Steinem, How about a Nice Glass of Shut the F%$# Up?

Feminist icon Gloria Steinem has just suggested that young women are supporting Bernie Sanders because they are looking to impress boys:

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem on Friday suggested that young women support Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders over rival Hillary Clinton because they want to meet boys.

On HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher asked Steinem why Clinton, who has campaigned on the historic nature of her candidacy, was losing the young female vote.

“I don’t mean to over-generalize … but men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, and women get more radical because they lose power as they age,” Steinem responded.

“So it’s kind of not fair to measure most women by the standard of most men, because they’re going to get more activist as they get older,” she added.

“And when you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys?’ The boys are with Bernie.”

Maher joked that if he had chalked up Bernie’s support among young women to their desire to meet boys, Steinem would have slapped him.

Seriously?

After a lifetime of supporting equality, you blithely dismiss the attitudes of women as some sort of attempt at catching the right man?

She is saying that young women have no agency of their all.

I understand how some people are excited about the possibility of Hillary Clinton being the first woman President, but this is nuts.

The bigger picture is that identity politics is morally bankrupt, but I'm not a big picture kind of guy.

I'll just call lame beyond belief.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!! (On Saturday)

We had 2 3 more failures this week, all of them credit unions.

2. Montgomery County Credit Union, Dayton, OH
3. Cory Methodist Church Credit Union​, Cleveland​, OH
4. ​CTK Credit Union, Milwaukee, WI​

Here is the Full NCUA list.

So, we have 4 credit union failures, and no commercial bank failures so far this year, continuing on, and exptending on, the trend that began last year.

It is odd that credit unions are failing faster than commercial banks.

I Swear, the Iowa Democratic Party Could Not Organize a Piss-Up in a Brewery

And that's the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that we saw fraud in the tabulation of the caucus results.

Given that it's the Iowa Democratic party, my guess is that the increasing number of irregulatities:

Iowa Democratic Party officials are reviewing results from the Iowa caucuses and making updates where discrepancies have been found.

Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire the day after Monday's caucuses said no review would be conducted, and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory over Bernie Sanders was final.

But as errors are being discovered, the final tally is being changed, party officials confirmed to the Des Moines Register on Friday.

"Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis," Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau told the Register.

………

The Register, too, has received numerous reports that the results announced at precincts Monday night don't match what the Iowa Democratic Party has posted on its official results website.

Just one example: Grinnell precinct No. 1.

At least three caucusgoers there (including Dan McCue and Zack Stewart) and the Grinnell College newspaper reported that Sanders won 19 county delegates and Clinton 7, but party officials said the final tally was Sanders 18 and Clinton 8.

“19-7 is right,” Pablo Silva, a Grinnell College professor who was precinct secretary, told the Register Friday. “It is complicated, but the issue comes down to a problem with the math that can be complicated in large precincts. Short version: On Monday night, the IDP felt we had not done it right, and they attempted to correct what they saw as errors. We’ve been in touch since then. They are acknowledging our results, but, as I write, will wait on the arrival of our paperwork.”

Iowa Democratic Party, you had one job………

Whip Me, Beat Me, Make Me Buy Apple Products

Seriously. If you feel a burning need to be dominated and degraded by a pro, then you clearly need to own the newest iPhone:

Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.

Relatively few people outside the tech world are aware of the so-called “error 53” problem, but if it happens to you you’ll know about it. And according to one specialist journalist, it “will kill your iPhone”.

The issue appears to affect handsets where the home button, which has touch ID fingerprint recognition built-in, has been repaired by a “non-official” company or individual. It has also reportedly affected customers whose phone has been damaged but who have been able to carry on using it without the need for a repair.

But the problem only comes to light when the latest version of Apple’s iPhone software, iOS 9, is installed. Indeed, the phone may have been working perfectly for weeks or months since a repair or being damaged.

After installation a growing number of people have watched in horror as their phone, which may well have cost them £500-plus, is rendered useless. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable.

Tech experts claim Apple knows all about the problem but has done nothing to warn users that their phone will be “bricked” (ie, rendered as technologically useful as a brick) if they install the iOS upgrade.

Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home button, and it worked perfectly.”

He says he thought no more about it, until he was sent the standard notification by Apple inviting him to install the latest software. He accepted the upgrade, but within seconds the phone was displaying “error 53” and was, in effect, dead.

When Olmos, who says he has spent thousands of pounds on Apple products over the years, took it to an Apple store in London, staff told him there was nothing they could do, and that his phone was now junk. He had to pay £270 for a replacement and is furious.

“The whole thing is extraordinary. How can a company deliberately make their own products useless with an upgrade and not warn their own customers about it? Outside of the big industrialised nations, Apple stores are few and far between, and damaged phones can only be brought back to life by small third-party repairers.

It appears that Apple's new motto is, "There is a sucker born every minute."

This is Insanely Sensible

The Virginia AG has set up an task force specifically to go after patent trolls:

Suing a company for patent infringement just got a lot tougher in the state of Virginia.

The state (technically a commonwealth) has created a new legal office focused entirely on patent litigation. Specifically, the state's Patent Troll Unit will look to extract penalties and legal fees from companies who make unjust patent infringement claims against businesses operating in the state.

The task force will seek out companies who file infringement claims on dubious or vague patents, seeking a quick payout. The legal team, reporting to the Attorney General, will file for injunctions against companies it deems acting in "bad faith" with infringement claims.

………

"Virginia businesses of all sizes can be targets, from a small, local business up to a large, high-tech firm," Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring told the local Augusta Free Press.

"Under the bipartisan legislation we were able to help craft last year, my office has strong new enforcement powers and we’re going to use them to protect Virginia businesses from these bad actors.”

………

Those who believe they are being targeted by a patent troll are being advised to contact the Attorney General's office with details including the demands of the patent troll, contact information and patent details.

This is an excellent idea.

Defending against a patent troll is frequently expensive, and so companies frequently settle. 

Having the Attorney General's office on your makes it far less ruinous to fight patent extortion.

Elizabeth Warren Is Not Going to Make an Endorsement in the Primaries, but This Comes Close

The distinguished Gentlewoman from Massachusetts just cut Lloyd Blankfein a new asshole over his whining about Bernie Sanders criticizing him:

Elizabeth Warren entered the intensifying battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, defending Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from a new attack by the head of Goldman Sachs — a Wall Street behemoth whose executives have delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, her presidential campaign and her family’s foundation.

In an interview with International Business Times hours before Wednesday night’s Democratic town hall in New Hampshire, the Massachusetts senator — whose endorsement is coveted by both Democratic candidates — slammed Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein for asserting earlier in the day that Sanders’ criticism of Wall Street had created a dangerous environment in America.

"He thinks it’s fine to prosecute small business owners, it’s fine to go hard after individuals who have no real resources, but don’t criticize companies like Goldman Sachs and their very, very important CEO — that’s what he’s really saying,” Warren told IBT.

In January, Sanders pointed to billionaire Blankfein as a prime example of the corporate greed he says is harming the United States. Sanders also released a television ad in which he slammed Goldman Sachs by name, and he has criticized Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state, for accepting $675,000 of speaking fees and $930,000 of campaign contributions from the firm and its executives during her career. Goldman Sachs has donated at least $250,000 to her family’s foundation — which in 2014 held a donor meeting at the company’s Manhattan headquarters.

Blankfein responded to Sanders’ criticism on Wednesday in an appearance on CNBC, saying the intensity of the criticism created an environment that “has the potential to be a dangerous moment — not just for Wall Street, not just for the people who are particularly targeted, but for anybody who is a little bit out of line.”

Warren, a Democrat, disputed that notion in harsh terms, telling IBT that such statements show why American voters should focus on Wall Street’s power during the 2016 election.

“When Blankfein says that criticizing those who break the rules is dangerous to the economy, then he’s just repeating another variation of ‘too big to fail,’ ‘too big to jail,’ 'too big even to prosecute,'” she said. “That tells you here we are, seven years after the crisis and these guys still don’t get it. Seven years. That crisis cost an estimated $14 trillion, it cost jobs, it cost homes, it cost retirement funds. And Lloyd Blankfein stands up and says ‘Don’t even criticize me, I ran a company that was right at the heart of some of the biggest financial frauds in history and made money off it, but don’t you dare criticize me.’ That’s his position? That’s why we need voters to get really engaged.”

This isn't an endorsement as such, but it is a pretty clear indication that she has his back.

It Ain't just the Caucuses that are F%$#ed up In Iowa

There is a bill being mooted in the Iowa Senate proposing that Stanford University be published because their marching band is too mean.

There is something seriously wrong here, even without the whole "Bill of Attainder" thing:

………

Stanford's football team defeated the University of Iowa 45-16 in the game. In addition, the Stanford band, which has a history of irreverent performances, poked fun during the halftime show with a dancing cow, a frowning farmer formation and other tongue-in-cheek gestures that upset some Iowans. ESPN, which televised the game, cut away from the band's performance. State Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, told The Des Moines Register at the Iowa Capitol on Wednesday that he introduced Senate File 2081 because he believes Stanford officials have condoned improper behavior by the marching band. "I think it's unfortunate because here in Iowa we try to teach sportsmanship," Chelgren said. "We try to teach courtesy, and when someone behaves in a way that is contrary to that, we need to point it out."

Good thing we can all ignore Iowa again until the 2018 state fair.

Seriously, what the actual f%$#?

The Snake Had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

Another victim of repeated head trauma in the NFL, only this time it is a quarterback, Ken Stabler of the Oakland Raiders:

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, who died in July at the age of 69 of colon cancer, was found to have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease found in people who have had repeated blows to the head, according to a researchers at Boston University.

Stabler’s diagnosis is the latest in a line of former NFL players who have been found to have the disease. Scientists in Boston said that on a scale of one to four, Stabler had high stage three CTE.

“He had moderately severe disease,” Ann McKee, the chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston healthcare system and a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University school of medicine, told the New York Times.

………

After his death, Stabler’s brain was removed and donated to researchers at the NFL’s “brain bank” at Boston University, who spent months dissecting it for clues as to why the quarterback’s mind declined in his final years. During the last few years of his life, Stabler rapidly slowed down in his cognitive functions. He began complaining of a high-pitched ringing in his head, couldn’t handle bright lights or loud noises, and began repeating himself.

McKee, who conducted the examination, called Stabler’s case “pretty classic”.

“It may be surprising since he was a quarterback, but certainly the lesions were widespread, and they were quite severe, affecting many regions of the brain,” McKee, who conducted the examination, said. “There was no question about the diagnosis.”

If this happens to a quarter back, it happens to everyone on the field.

Mothers, do not let your kids play football.

Lloyd Blankfein Just Gave the Best Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Ever.

It appears that he considers the fact that Bernie Sanders does not worship his brilliance akin to terrorism:

Just days after a Bernie Sanders campaign ad singled out Goldman Sachs as "one of the Wall Street banks that triggered the financial meltdown," the head of the global investment banking firm said such criticism is "dangerous."

According to The Hill:

Sanders has railed against Wall Street throughout his populist campaign, accusing the sector of ruining the economy and holding down the middle class. And he has singled out [Goldman CEO Lloyd] Blankfein and his firm as a poster child for the greed and recklessness he says is endemic in finance.

In a January interview with Bloomberg, he specifically mentioned Blankfein as representing greed on Wall Street, for taking massive pay packages “after destroying the economy.”

"To personalize it, it has potential to be a dangerous moment," Blankfein told CNBC on Wednesday. "Not just for Wall Street…but for anybody who is a little bit out of line."

Blankfein also reportedly argued "that Sanders and his ilk are too rigid to get anything done," as The Hill put it.

On the campaign trail, Sanders has criticized not only big banks, but rival Hillary Clinton's cozy ties to them.

Bloomberg notes that Blankfein—who supported Clinton for president in 2008—also "declined to endorse a candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, saying his imprimatur could harm that person's chances."

Oh, you poor delicate flower.

Bernie says mean things about you, and it's the end of the world.

Get over yourself, you pampered, overpaid, psychopath.

Damn You. You Are Forcing Me to Defend Hillary Clinton, and I Do Not Want To.

Aver at Sic Semper TyrannisRichard Sale unloads on Hillary Clinton, with a level of venom that really is really off putting:

………

There are few things as ugly as this rampant self-worship. Under its gaze, ordinary life shrivels and diminishes. The vast universe contracts to a mere tawdry bauble kicked to and fro by contending rivals. Hillary has eyes only for those circumstances, facts and incidents that suit and confirm her own biases and which advance her own designs, however morally dubious they may be. Self-worship like hers is not blind in the least-- her temperament, her disposition, her power of analysis, enables her to select people whose ideals and ambition and desires are similar to her own. A political leader estimates his or her allies based on their usefulness in furthering the leader’s designs and schemes. Think of the people who occupy high positions in her campaign: her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, or her deputy chiefs, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, loyalists all, all working to cover up the e-mail scandal, a scandal that clearly threatens Hillary’s viability as a candidate. Staffers like hers bend the rules until they break. One suspects that aanything or anyone that doesn’t serve Clinton’s appetite for public power is cast aside, belittled, scoffed at, undermined or marooned. A political leader like her, sees people as furniture, objects to be moved here, moved there, placed where they will do the leader the most good. A close supporter of a leader has no will or desires or designs of their own. They suspend such things in the hope that their subjugation will be generously rewarded. They accept that their purpose in life is to be used by someone greater, someone who will prove a generous giver of favors, advancement, money and prestige. In other words, their destiny is to be the tool of another’s more powerful and decided will.

This is complete bullsh%$.

I do not support Hillary Clinton, but by the standards of mainstream Presidential Candidates,^* she is not especially narcissistic or immoral.

In fact if there is one thing that is remarkable about her political career it is that there have been no tell-all insider books published by people who work closely with her.

Even Bill had a few while president, and if one of Hillary's acolytes had an axe to grind, they would get a 7 figure book advance from Regenry or other right wing publishers.

If she used people as you asserted, there would already have been such a book published.

Heck, it would have been published in the mid 1990s.

The loyalty of her people under these circumstances is remarkable.

I don;t like Clinton, but she is not a Borgia Pope.

^*Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play.

Told Ya So

Yesterday, I suggested that we wait a couple of days to see what the final vote tally in Iowa.

Today, we hear that votes are still trickling in:

Votes from one precinct in Iowa were still missing Tuesday morning, and Democrats from that neighborhood scrambled to find party officials so that they could report their tally: Bernie Sanders won by 2 delegates over Hillary Clinton.

With Des Moines precinct No. 42's results, Clinton's excruciatingly close lead narrowed further, making the final tally for delegate equivalents in the Democratic Iowa caucuses:

Clinton: 699.57

Sanders: 697.77.

It quickly raised questions about whether Sanders had won the popular vote in Iowa. Sanders backers called for Iowa Democratic Party officials to release the raw vote totals.

This is what happens in very close elections, and it won't be fully resolved until well after New Hampshire votes.

Of Course He Handled Losing Graciously. He's Gone Bankrupt 3 4 Times. He Knows How to Do This.

Donald Trump gave a remarkably magnanimous in acknowledging his 2^nd place finish in Iowa:

Donald Trump, who no one thought was a viable candidate for President just 6 short months ago, managed to come in a solid second place in today's Iowa caucuses. For some, the fact that he didn't come in first was shocking, for other's, it was a relief.

Throughout the entire election season thus far, Trump has been the voice of xenophobic hate talk, blathering about building walls, deporting immigrants, ridiculing disabled reporters and offending pretty much everyone except white Americans. The fact that he was poised to come in first in Iowa terrified many. Although, having Tea Party favorite, Ted Cruz, come in first may actually be more terrible in the long run.

Regardless, Trump took his narrow loss with grace and gave a fairly humble and short speech.

It's almost classy.

Bullsh%$ Bingo Winner of the Day

There is a mildly amusing parody web site that does a compare and contrast of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, things like:

• Bernie: Star Wars is a great series, and I thought that episode 7 is a nice return to the Franchise's roots,
• Hillary: [Makes "Live long and prosper" hand signal]

It's kind of silly, and not too deep, and pokes fun at Hillary Clinton's perceived lack of authenticity,^* but someone at Salon decided to use the meme to attack all Bernie Sanders supporters as male chauvinists, aka Bernie Bros:

………These jabs at Clinton’s imagined sonic preferences reinforce the tired idea that the tastes of non-cis-male cultural consumers—from teenagers on through boomers and beyond—are something to be mocked and disrespected.………

Don't even bother trying.

Annie Zaleski has won the bullsh%$ bingo game for this month, and possibly for the entire f%$#ing presidential campaign.

She has her head so far up her ass that she resembles a Klein bottle.

^*Not her fault.   Bill Clinton does authenticity so well that if he were sharing a bill with Pope Frank, the Pontiff would look like the Andy Kaufman character Tony Clifton.

This is the Funniest Moment of the Election ……… So Far

On CNN, Van Jones, by way of a compliment, called Bernie Sanders a, "79,000-Year-Old Muppet-Looking Socialist."

The YouTube is prize:

Iowa Caucuses

And tomorrow is Groundhog day, so expect the same crap from the pundits, day, after day, after day, after day

In terms of the actual numbers, as of 11:50 PM EST, with 98% of Republican caucuses reporting, a Ted Cruz has won the Republican caucuses, with Trump second, and Rubio a fairly close third.

Clearly, Rubio is not the (lame and not particularly intelligent) great white hope of the Republican establishment.

With 94% of Democratic caucuses reporting, it looks like the delegate talley will be pretty close, as Hillary Clintonhas 49.9%  and  has Bernie Sanders 49.6%, with O'Malley at ½%.

The race has not been called, and there are reports that O'Malley has dropped out of the race.

The Democratic caucus results seems to indicate that very little bit has been settled.

I would guess that the results will be the same in the morning, but given that the reporting software is written by Microsoft, I would wait about 48 hours for the final count.^*

Ongoing results here.

^*I am not suggesting fraud here, I am suggesting incompetence and poor execution, kind of like Windows Vista, Windows 8, Office 2007, and Microsoft Bob.

No Butts About It

I am not referring to the tuchas. I am referring to the archery practice, which for many centuries was mandatory for English yeomen.

And now an English vicar has invoked this ancient law:

A vicar has revived an ancient law to call members of her parish together for archery practice.

The Reverend Mary Edwards, of Collingbourne Ducis, near Marlborough, called residents to the village recreation ground on Friday.

Residents were rewarded for complying with the law with a bar, a barbecue and live music.

Church warden Mike Cox said: "It seems she's still entitled to do that."

"I've been checking on the web and most archery experts and clergy seem to agree she is," Mr Cox added.

………

"We are celebrating the building of a new loo [bathroom] in the church. After all these years we have at long last brought running water to the church."

It's a wonderful story, but it appears that their understanding of the law is not accurate:

……… And, in fact, it appears that the archery requirement was repealed quite a while ago.

While I would have preferred to fly to England and go rummaging through the Parliamentary Archives to confirm this personally, I had a deadline to meet, plus I am not especially welcome there anymore because of what I see as a simple misunderstanding as to whether their reading rooms are clothing-optional. So I have relied on the Internet, which is less authoritative but also less judgmental.

It is clear that there were laws requiring archery practice dating back to at least the 13th century. The motive was to make sure England had enough men trained to use the longbow, which for centuries was a crucial weapon for the English. (The most famous example is Agincourt, a battle that Henry V won in 1415 and is still going on about.)

The training requirement was usually combined with prohibitions on other kinds of games and sports so that people would focus on archery instead of, for example, “tennis, football, [quoits], dice” and other “games inappropriate.” The point was not so much to condemn games as to make sure they did not get in the way of longbow training. In other words, they saw nothing morally wrong with tennis, it’s just that it is hard to kill a French knight with a tennis ball, no matter how good your serve is.

In 1511 the requirement was expanded by “An Act concerning Shooting in Long Bows,” even though by then the importance of the bow was declining. This law provided that “All sorts of men under the age of 40 Years shall have bows and arrows” and practice using them. The playing of games continued, however, and in 1541 the law was expanded yet again by “An Act for the Maintenance of Artillery, and debarring unlawful Games,” the preamble to which declares that said games were believed to be the “Cause of the Decay of Archery” skills in England (There was another very important cause by then, namely guns–or, more specifically, bullets–but games always seem to get blamed for social problems.)

The archery requirement was extended to all men under age 60, and the list of banned games was expanded. As before, though, these restrictions did not apply to the aristocracy. They tended to become knights, not archers, plus they had the God-given right to play games if they liked. According to them, that is, not God.

At least some of this was still on the books well into the 19th century, but was probably repealed during the reign of Queen Victoria. In 1845, “An Act to Amend the Law concerning Games and Wagers” repealed any part of King Henry’s 1541 law making any “Game of Skill” unlawful or “which enacts any penalty for lacking bows or arrows … or which regulates the making, selling or using of bows and arrows.” If any of the older stuff survived, it was most likely repealed by more recent acts intended to get some of the ancient stuff off the books.

Seeing as how the good vicar did not threaten any sanctions against those who declined to practice archery, I won't spoil her fun, but it appears that she does not have the law on her side.

H/t Jill Junkala on Facebook.

So Not a Surprise

Global Witness, a not-for profit anti-money laundering organization, and ran a sting on lawyers who aid people in getting their ill gotten gains into the US:

With attention growing on the use of shell companies in high-end real estate, an activist organization released a report Sunday night that said several New York real estate lawyers had been caught on camera providing advice on how to move suspect money into the United States.

The report is the result of an undercover investigation carried out in 2014 by Global Witness, a nonprofit activist organization that has been pushing for stricter money-laundering rules.

The lawyers featured in the report include a recent president of the American Bar Association.

“It wasn’t hard to find lawyers to suggest ways to move suspect funds into the United States,” said Stefanie Ostfeld, a spokeswoman for Global Witness. “We went undercover because it is the only way we could show what really happens behind closed doors. The findings speak for themselves — something urgently needs to change.”

The real estate industry has been under growing scrutiny as evidence has emerged that suspect money is flowing into luxury real estate. Global Witness cited an investigation last year in The New York Times that documented numerous foreign officials and their family members buying multimillion-dollar properties in Manhattan and quantified the rising use of shell companies in real estate transactions.

This is not a surprise.

There is whole industry of unethical but (barely) legal money laundering, on Wall Street in New York, and in The City of London.

Hopefully a this additional attention will make doing this harder.

Our financial sector is aggressively complicit in the looting of the poorest societies on earth.
.

A Good Start

For profit academic research publishers are firmly in the category of, "Mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

A particularly nasty player in this sphere is Elsevier, the publisher of such items as The Lancet and Cell, and Gray's Anatomy, and it is particularly aggressive in its charges, and in its aggressive use of copyright to enforce its charges.

All for publications where the content providers, and the editors work for volunteers.

It has now engendered a boycott in its home base of the Netherlands:

A long running dispute between Dutch universities and Elsevier has taken an interesting turn. Last week Koen Becking, chairman of the Executive Board of Tilburg University who has been negotiating with scientific publishers about an open access policy on behalf of Dutch universities with his colleague Gerard Meijer, announced a plan to start boycotting Elsevier.

As a first step in boycotting the publisher, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has asked all scientists that are editor in chief of a journal published by Elsevier to give up their post. If this way of putting pressure on the publishers does not work, the next step would be to ask reviewers to stop working for Elsevier. After that, scientists could be asked to stop publishing in Elsevier journals.

The Netherlands has a clear position on Open Access. Sander Dekker, the State Secretary of Education has taken a strong position on Open Access, stating at the opening of the 2014 academic year in Leiden that ‘Science is not a goal in itself. Just as art is only art once it is seen, knowledge only becomes knowledge once it is shared.’

Dekker has set two Open Access targets: 40% of scientific publications should be made available through Open Access by 2016, and 100% by 2024. The preferred route is through gold Open Access – where the work is ‘born Open Access’. This means there is no cost for readers – and no subscriptions.

However Gerard Meijer, who handles the negotiations with Elsevier, says that the parties have not been able to come close to an agreement.

 ………

The 2015 Dutch boycott is significant. Typically negotiations with publishers occur at an institutional level and with representatives from the university libraries. This makes sense as libraries have long standing relationships with publishers and understand the minutiae of the licencing processes . However the Dutch negotiations have been led by the Vice Chancellors of the universities.  It is a country-wide negotiation at the highest level. And Vice Chancellors have the ability to request behaviour change of their research communities.

This boycott has the potential to be a significant game changer in the relationship between the research community and the world’s largest academic publisher. The remainder of this blog looks at some of the facts and figures relating to expenditure on Open Access in the UK. It underlines the importance of the Dutch position.The 2015 Dutch boycott is significant. Typically negotiations with publishers occur at an institutional level and with representatives from the university libraries. This makes sense as libraries have long standing relationships with publishers and understand the minutiae of the licencing processes . However the Dutch negotiations have been led by the Vice Chancellors of the universities.  It is a country-wide negotiation at the highest level. And Vice Chancellors have the ability to request behaviour change of their research communities.

These folks are leeches, who have made their business plan out of the free effort of academics.

I'd love to dance on their corporate grave.

Interesting Factoid about Sanders

When you take a look at at previous "insurgent" challengers, they tended to get a lot of support from more affluent Democrats.

Not for Sanders:

Sanders’s strength with voters making less than $50,000 a year  —  and his relative lack of appeal among voters making above $100,000  —  sets him apart from Democratic primary challengers in years past like Bill Bradley, Howard Dean, and Barack Obama. All these “progressive” underdogs attracted their strongest support from wealthier voters, while struggling, in relative terms, to win lower-income support. (Nate Cohn notices the same trend in today’s New York Times.) 

Also this:

Bernie Sanders’s coalition once looked very familiar: He had strong support among well-educated and affluent liberal white voters of the sort who backed Barack Obama, Bill Bradley and Jerry Brown. He struggled among less affluent voters.

But his coalition has evolved over the last few months. He now fares much better among less affluent whites than Mr. Obama did eight years ago, suggesting he’s attracting a group that traditionally supports more moderate establishment candidates, someone like Hillary Clinton. If confirmed in the voting, it would vindicate his hope of building a progressive coalition based more on class than the coalitions put together by liberal predecessors.

I'm not surprised that the Democratic establishment hates Sanders.

There is an saying, "Republicans fear their base, and Democrats hate their base."

To the degree that Sanders talks to the base, and talks about the existential issues surrounding excessive (and undeserved) inequality in our society.

He is talking directly to the base, and they hate him.

It should make interesting time in South Carolina.

Lunchtime Thought on the Iowa Caucuses

I think that Hillary is likely to win, even though I think that most of O'Malley's support will end up in the Sanders camp, (O'Malley is also running a liberal populist campaign, like Sanders) because anyone who gets less than 15% in a caucus has to move to another candidate.

I think that it is going to be close though.

I think that Clinton has to win this, because if she loses it, then Sanders will clearly win in New Hampshire, and then South Carolina becomes iffy for Clinton, and Sanders is likely to run the table.

On the other hand, if Sanders loses, he still is likely to win in New Hampshire, particularly with the just announced debate on Thursday, which will be intensely watched by likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters.

Sanders is, I think, less effected by the results, because his campaign was intended as an issue campaign, and remains that at its core, and could return to that with a minor adjustment.

With his large base of small donors, and a low burn rate, he can run throughout the primaries.

In either case, I do not expect O'Malley to continue his campaign beyond the March. He's just not getting any traction.

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