Quote of the Day
I disapprove of what you say,
Help/The Beatles
The first observation may be biased by my own Presidential choice: Jo Jorgensen; obviously, I think that Jo, who represents a fiscally conservative small central government, pro-market, non-interventionist point of view in terms of economic and foreign policy, would have provided a necessary alternative policy perspective than the political duopoly and should have been invited to the debate.
The second observation was about moderator Chris Wallace, probably my favorite of Sunday talk soup moderators. I can't really blame him for Trump and Biden violating preestablished code of conduct agreements, both of them talking over, interrupting, and constantly insulting each other. They both were acting like juveniles in a sandbox trying to throw sand in each other's eyes. But some of his questions were frankly absurd. For one thing, Wallace at one point argued that Trump was deploying a free market policy. If I had been eating at that point, I would have choked on my meal. Seriously? "Tariff Man", "Mr. Anti-TPP", the guy who repeatedly bashes companies (Apple, Ford, Carrier, etc.) which don't do what he prefers, e.g., by shifting production out of the country? The same guy who is bashing Big Pharma and pushing pharmaceutical drug imports, drawing from a favorite Dem proposal from at least 15 years back? On the latter point, a real free market proponent would be criticizing the FDA approval monopoly, lowering barriers of entry, reciprocal drug approval arrangements, etc. Jo was missing from the discussion.
Second, Wallace brings up the protests, riots, and lootings. This gives Trump a chance to hype his unconstitutional national police, which he credits with intimidating violent leftists in Seattle and other cities, and he spent a lot of time pushing his endorsements from innumerable police unions and law and order officials and baiting Biden to list any endorsing him. At the same time he's constantly trying to divide and conquer Biden's leftist allies, pointing out, for instance, Biden's hawkish crime bills had exacerbated incarceration of urban minority youths/young men. This is rich coming from a man whose own attorney generals have fully prosecuted the failed War on Drugs, opposing state drug decriminalization. But more to the point, other than incidental attacks on federal property, Trump's goons have no constitutional authority, because by the Tenth Amendment, police powers are restricted to the state and local authorities. So what exactly was Wallace's point, unless he was suggesting that state and local authorities were violating civil rights of protestors, say, in the deaths of George Floyd and others? It's not like the POTUS has a chain of command to local police commissioners, and federal law restricts the use of military troops for domestic law and order purposes. In other context, he served up a softball to Joe Biden, pointing out Trump's morally ambiguous "there are good people on both sides" in response to the Charlottesville tragedy.
A third observation was I think this was Trump's best debate performance I've personally seen (which is not saying much), even ignoring Trump's typical unprofessional behavior of interruptions and insults; on my scorecard, Trump won on points, although this mostly had to due with Biden's poor debate performance, his overreliance on dubious talking points and abysmal economic illiteracy which I'll discuss in more detail below. I give Biden credit for not letting Trump define him, e.g., on the Green New Deal, where Biden forcefully said that he was running on his own energy proposal, not some party platform; Trump basically responded with a childish taunt that Biden was alienating his leftist allies like AOC, Comrade Bernie, and Cherokee Lizzie.
A fourth observation, though, was that I thought Biden won from a standpoint of political strategy. For a long time, Trump's campaign has been pushing the theme that Biden was this aging, incompetent buffoon who couldn't manage without his teleprompter. Biden was well-prepared to hit Trump back; it's sad to say, but perhaps the most quoted line was "will you just shut up, man?"; I didn't agree with much of anything Biden said policy-wise, but he was able to respond coherently and nail his talking points. The only caution I have is that you aren't going to out-Trump Trump. By throwing sand back in Trump's eyes you may be able to prove you have a spine, but you run the risk of raising the unfavorables of "I like Uncle Joe" with swing voters.
I wrote in a recent journal post that I thought that the debates represented Trump's best opportunity to cut into Biden's 7-point or so national lead. And keep in mind there are still 2 debates ahead, and I do expect the race to tighten a bit from here. There will be a number of analyses of "who won the debate", but my standpoint is that while Trump may have won on points, he didn't land a knockout punch and I didn't notice, at least at the time, any obvious gaffe for the Biden campaign. I tweeted out a joke after the debate: "who else thought they were watching a remake of 'Grumpy Old Men'?" But it didn't seem to me that Trump landed a serious blow during the debate that will narrow Biden's lead significantly, which I think he needed to do under the circumstances. So from that perspective I think Biden achieved what he needed to get from the debate; he was articulate and showed he could stand up to Trump and hold his own.
Finally, let me articulate a few points, primarily based on my perspective, not necessarily endorsing Trump's own responses:
Quote of the Day
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do,Political Cartoon
I Got You, Babe/Sonny & Cher
I'm sort of mystified and amused when a nearly 11-year blog post suddenly gets 30 or more pageviews over 2-3 days, better than any of my more recent posts. I have no idea; I had to pull up the post and much of it was a rant on Sarah Palin (but that's an inference). I haven't seen Palin in the news lately, so if that's what drew readers to the post, it puzzles me.
As observed, my hot Twitter stats have crashed lately. Part of it is a recent illness, but most of the trends haven't interested me.
A couple of notes to one of my brothers-in-law:
Ronald A Guillemette (on disqualified PA mail-in ballots):
One of my research areas has been human factors/ergonomics, and I've published on usability design, basically designing for human error. It's just hilarious they didn't anticipate their "two envelope" problem. A hell of a time to figure out that they have usability problems with their ballots. Remember the infamous 2000 butterfly ballot in Florida
Ronald A Guillemette (on BIL agreeing with my estranged Trumpkin cousin that the election is going to be a shithole, based on the Pennsylvania kerfuffle):
Your statement is misleading. Trump has been incompetently and wrongly asserting massive voter fraud with mail-in ballots. There's no question in-person voting has better internal controls, ballot chain of custody, etc. But Trump knows more convenient balloting is not to his advantage and has been promoting insane, unsupported conspiracy theories. Note that I don't support Trump or Biden; I'll be voting for Jorgensen. But anyone who buys into Trump's crackpot self-serving BS is stupid.
The last time I cared about what British royals thought, it was the 1770's.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 24, 2020
"Meghan Markle"
America survived sore loser Gore's attempt to steal the election in 2000, and it will survive loser Trump.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 24, 2020
"GET RID oF THE BALLOTS"
Every time I see "Tina Turner" trend, I've got to play "River Deep, Mountain High".
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 24, 2020
Let me guess. You're one of those lying retards who tries to credit Obama over an expiring temp law while Trump signed a law making the program permanent.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 25, 2020
Even a Never Trumper like me can appreciate how Trump gets under every leftist's skin and yanks their chain. Every. Single. Time.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 25, 2020
"Trump"
My brother-in-law notes that Pennsylvania is having to disqualify mail-in ballots ignoring their "two-envelope" instructions. One of my research areas is human factors/ergonomics--in particular, usability design (designing for human error). This is government incompetence.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 26, 2020
You would think after the infamous kerfuffle over the 2000 Florida butterfly ballot that state/local election officials would usability test election procedures to anticipate and design for prospective voter error. Apparently the state of Pennsylvania is run by incompetents.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 26, 2020
I'm not a fan of Trump politicizing the RBG vacancy during the general election campaign. But Judge Barrett would be a definite upgrade to the restoration of the Constitution at SCOTUS.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 26, 2020
"Trump intends to nominate Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, multiple reports say"
This is Soft Rock America. Lindsey Graham is facing a battle for survival just 4 years after running for POTUS. He's going to need some powerful help to get reelected and face another 6 more years of Lady G trends. https://t.co/OgZRF4xLuK#SaveLindsey
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 26, 2020
My latest post was triggered by a relative's Facebook post trying to rationalize Trump's crackpot voter fraud allegation, using a purported issue in Pennsylvania's early mail vote.https://t.co/aGx6kZNk4p
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 26, 2020
Almost everything Trump says or does is wrong. And then he sometimes does the right thing by accident or for the wrong reasons. Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Judge Barrett is easily one of his best decisions ever.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 27, 2020
The so-called "Biden Rule" appears nowhere in the Constitution. I know for a fact Judge Barrett is a superior nominee to any Biden pick. Trump and the Senate are, at minimum, in office until January.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 27, 2020
"Voters Believe Winner of Election Should Fill Court Seat, Poll Shows"
I endorse Roman Reigns to kick The Rock's candy ass.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 27, 2020
"Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson endorses Joe Biden and Kamala Harris"
My latest post reflects a nuanced take on the RBG SCOTUS vacancy and Trump's politically opportunistic, hypocritical position to try to fill the seat before the election. However, I enthusiastically endorse Judge Barrett's nomination.https://t.co/LmcVezXLhy
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 28, 2020
This proves just how stupid progressives are. Public education is a state/local responsibility. At most all Trump can do is to try to use the 8% of federal funding as a carrot/stick, and states can and have said, "No."
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 28, 2020
Second, I have one relative teaching in-person safely.
This is pretty stupid, even for a "progressive". Children have parents, not goddamn villages.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 28, 2020
I happen to be pro-immigration, but this is hypocritical, provocative rubbish. Where the fuck were you under Deporter-in-Chief Obama? Democrats have traditionally opposed immigration under constituent union labor protectionism.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 28, 2020
I never attacked Sasha and Malia Obama over the fact their parents are assholes. And I don't blame Trump's kids because he is an asshole.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 28, 2020
"Barron"
Quote of the Day
Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.
Henry the VIII, I Am/Herman's Hermits
I have heavily disliked politicization of judicial nominations. Familiar readers know I left the Democratic Party while a young professor as one of a vanishing breed of conservative Democrats over the sabotage of Robert Bork's nomination to SCOTUS. The odd thing today is as my libertarian views have emerged, I have become more critical of his infamous inkblot discussion in reference to the ninth amendment, in essence a proxy for unenumerated individual rights. I am more skeptical of the rights of the tyranny of the majority to undermine individual rights. (For a fuller expression of my perspective, see here.)
Now I have mixed feelings over application of the Biden rule (involving delaying SCOTUS nominations in a Presidential election cycle). Generally speaking, I don't like the politicization of nominations, including the notorious nominations of Bork, Thomas, and Kavanaugh, where all 3 men were personally attacked, especially over dubiously evidenced sensational allegations.
From a Constitutional standpoint, the Trumpkins, wanting to exploit filling the RBG vacancy for electoral advantage (probably one of the few rallying points of Trump's base, including conservative Republicans), are correct: there is no Constitutional "Biden rule" by which we defer judicial nominations in an election year. Trump is President (barring unusual circumstances) until January at worst and can nominate judges his full term(s). Similarly, the Senate can deliberate on those nominees, even in a lame duck session, but need not do so, as in Obama's replacement nominee to Scalia's seat, Merrick Garland (who I opposed).
But let's be clear: the Senate Republicans in 2016 did argue that the Scalia replacement should be nominated by the new President, and the Scalia vacancy was lengthier than the RBG vacancy, which has occurred during the general election campaign. The blatant hypocrisy will exacerbate already hyperpartisan gridlock in Washington; smong other things, "progressives" are threatening to pack the court and eliminate the legislative filibuster if and when they regain a Senate majority. (And notably GOP incumbent senators in AZ, NC, ME, and CO are in deep trouble this cycle; 538 currently rates a Senate flip better than even.) And replacing a key liberal justice is as serious as in 2016's replacement of a key conservative justice.
Jamming through a Supreme Court justice nominee is pure power politics and invites political blowback. The Senate GOP majority is thin and could easily flip (and if the GOP are viewed as politically opportunistic over filling the RBG seat, it could be a deciding factor in the November election). It's unlikely the House will flip back to GOP control; the last polling I've seen the Dems were just 4 seats away of clinching the House majority. So even in the unlikely event Trump would get reelected, he is facing odds of almost certainly dealing with an opposition Congress utterly opposed to Trump's second term agenda (whatever the hell that is) with both chambers stepping up oversight of his administration. He would no longer have a free pass on judicial nominations.
Just a side note over Dem threats to eliminate the filibuster and pack the court: first, that's a double-edged sword; it means a future Dem minority would lose its own leverage to shape legislation and see a repacking of the Court for purposes of the GOP agenda. Second, FDR's unsuccessful attempt to pack the court for political purposes backfired after breezing to a second term, one factor leading to heavy losses in the midterms, not to mention alienating the Southern Conservative Dems in the party. Third, it would undermine the appearance of the Court as an independent branch of government. Not to mention that the GOP has avoided eliminating the filibuster or packing the court while they've held the majority. I do not think answering conventional political warfare on the courts from the GOP with nuclear warfare from the Dems would gain or sustain political support.
Does that mean I'm satisfied with the Court? No; for one thing, as I've repeatedly discussed in earlier posts, I think that the Courts have largely abdicated scrutiny of individual rights in the aftermath of Carolene Products; the core of the case was Congress, influenced by Big Dairy opposed to filled milk products, forbade interstate transportation of said products, a clear violation of the free market principles underlying the Constitution (e.g., outlawing interstate protectionist tariffs), a crime against consumer choice. Even worse was the correlated Footnote 4, an evil doctrine that, among other things, basically assumes the legitimacy of federal legislation/regulation (assuming it is not out-and-out "irrational"). There are other criticisms I would make, including judicial intervention in policy matters ("judicial activism") (it's one thing to declare a law unconstitutional, another thing to outline what an acceptable law should be), erosion of federalism (state rights) and individual rights, the deference to the unaccountable administrative state, and the growth of the imperial Presidency at the expense of the Congress (including dubious executive orders, diverted funding, and non-defensive military operations.) I could go on indefinitely, but I think I've made my point.
I'm particularly opposed to lifetime appointments to judicial office for much of the same reasons I've opposed tenure for fellow academics. (Of course, my critics would argue that's easy for me to say, because I was never offered tenure in academia; that's true but misleading. I never went up for tenure, which generally is up for consideration, e.g., in the sixth year of appointment, although this can vary. I was in 3 appointments for 5 years, the last a temporary, non-tenure track position. Would I have accepted it if offered? Probably; who wouldn't like the related job security? (There are some nuances to tenure; for example, if a university decided to eliminate its MIS program, my job might go with it.) But, for instance, I might attract a job offer from a more prestigious program, maybe a position with a chair and/or funding asssociated with it. However, I worked with or for people I didn't respect at those 3 universities, and I didn't want to use contracts to stay at a school where I was no longer welcome. I felt my teaching record and scholarship spoke for themselves. I went on multiple campus visits after ISU and only got one belated offer, so obviously the market didn't agree with my self-confidence. But I had no intention "to retire" from scholarship upon gaining tenure like so many other tenured professors I encountered, who seemed defensive over my more prominent research record and implied I had done it at the expense of my students (utter bullshit; I did it at the expense of my social life). (To give a telling example, I recall a couple of classes at OLL where I needed to complete say X modules to get an A; I did more like X+15, because it wasn't just my professor's standards but my own. I knew I was capable of doing more, better work.) Similarly, I don't think a judge needs to be guaranteed 30-40 years of federal/other employment to guarantee objective decisions against fears of political blowback. I'm sure that ex-judges can head their own law firms, win appointments at law schools, and/or serve in a number of law firms, corporations, etc.
But as much as I tweeted (multiple times) sympathetic tweets on RBG's hospitalizations and her passing, I've also been critical of her staying on the court with serious health issues at an advanced age. I think I read she had recurrence of cancer something like 4 times over the past 20 years. Eight of those years were under the Obama Administration. If she wanted to be replaced by a fellow judicial progressive, she could have retired under Obama, who had Senate control through his second midterm. Why didn't she? I don't see a conclusion beyond her putting up her own career ahead of a favorable transition. I'm sure she had hoped to retire under President Joe Biden.
And of course I differed from RBG's general judicial philosophy on the Constitution, which reflected some of the criticisms I make above.
I started this essay before Trump announced his selection of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. After Justice Gorsuch's inspired nomination by Trump, this is probably my favorite Trump decision and one I enthusiastically endorse to succeed RBG. I have no doubt that the Democrats will go after Judge Barrett for precisely the reasons I'm thrilled. This is a double-edged sword for Dems, though; going after an accomplished mother of seven (like my own)? This makes a mockery of Dem ideological feminism. No, the selection won't sway me to vote for Trump vs. Jo Jorgensen, but I tend to support Presidents, even Obama, when they've done the right thing.
Quote of the Day
You have succeeded in life when all you really want
Satisfaction/The Rolling Stones
I think all of us know and fear strokes. I may be showing my age here, but beloved "Grandma Walton" Ellen Corby, who won 3 Emmy awards playing the role, suffered a stroke in the mid-70's, and it affected her performances post-recovery. Other prominent victims include legendary actor Kirk Douglas.
Strokes occur in different forms of severity, including mini-strokes; in fact, there were unconfirmed rumors that Trump suffered a mini-stroke over the past year, including possible symptoms like balance issues coming off planes, slurred words, struggles drinking from water bottles, and an unexplained visit to Walter Reed hospital.
Doctors will often look out for stroke factors as we age, keeping an eye out for factors like bad cholesterol and maybe advising supplementation of statins and/or a daily aspirin.
Ron Paul this past week was doing a live feed during his signature daily Liberty Report video clip, something I've embedded in my daily miscellany posts probably dozens of times, when he reportedly started slurring words and talking incoherently. I haven't heard Dr. Paul or his doctors explicitly confirm these rumors, some based on the observations of medical professionals.
Ron Paul sent out a cheery thumbs up from his hospital room. Quite often hospitals will admit suspected victims for observation after an incident to ward off a follow-up, more catastrophic stroke.
My best wishes to Dr. Paul and his family, and I wish him a fast, full recovery.
Quote of the Day
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries,
Mr. Tambourine Man/The Byrds
As much as I love and respect my late maternal uncle, a highly intelligent, articulate diocesan priest who had earned his licentiate (like a Master's degree in theology) from a prestigious seminary in Montreal (he had to write his exams in Latin (like my Mom and Dad, bilingual in French and English)), he, very conservative politically, was a total skeptic on the issue of election polling: "After all, I've never participated in one. How can they predict how I would vote?" Well, I had taken several applied math courses in probability, statistics, sampling, and research methodology; I tried, to no avail, to get him to understand how unlikely it is for sample results to radically depart from general population ones, never mind the proven track record of polling and related election results. Maybe in theology he had unquestioned expertise, but his understanding of statistics was uninformed.
Let's even start with the right-wing's favorite case in point: Trump's unlikely win in 2016. It really wasn't as unlikely as people might believe; if you go to RCP, you'll see Clinton had nearly a 3-point lead on Trump going into the election, and she won a plurality of popular votes by about 2 points. This was well within sampling error. Trump's victory was due to a highly improbable run of photo finish victories in WI, MI and PA and probably due to a number of favorable factors: including a change year election, Trump's lack of a track record in politics, a highly unpopular Clinton, and a disunited Democratic base after a divisive battle for the nomination. I'm not yet forecasting a Biden victory, but Trump's approval ratings have usually trailed his 2016 share of the popular vote, which is never good for an incumbent and his handling of the COVID-19 crisis has been and remains unpopular. He has trailed all 3 normally Dem states responsible for his 2016 victory, isn't competitive in any Clinton state (they are targeting MN, but that's unlikely to flip), while Biden is very competitive in a large number of Trump states, including AZ, TX, NC, FL, IA, and OH. (If Biden flips TX, I'm sure Trump is done; I think Trump is generally favored to win there but by a small margin, within upset range.) Still, Biden's lead is within the margin of error of battleground states, and Trump has 3 debates over the coming weeks to try to win over voters.
Ironically, what led to this rant was a relative by marriage's recent Facebook post basically trying to link a certain Pennsylvania kerfuffle mail ballot controversy to Trump's self-serving, manipulative attacks on mail ballot elections. Now I've published on this issue recently and made it clear: (1) I generally disapprove of the irrational fear-mongering, especially by Democrats, that in-person polling is a COVID-19 death trap; (2) I am worried about the less robust internal controls of vote-by-mail (how do you validate the target ballot was completed by the legitimate voter, what about the chain of custody of ballots, etc.) and whether validation of completed ballots (say, signature checking) can scale up beyond the usual volume for absentee ballots. I'm concerned about ballot harvesting from distribution to poorly maintained, invalid poll mailing lists.
My brother-in-law (who isn't outwardly Trumpkin but makes use of anecdotal evidence in thinly-disguised support of Trump's voter fraud nonsense) pointed out a recent Pennsylvania issue where voters weren't following the prescribed two-envelope directions and hence their ballots were being disqualified. (I don't know if we are talking Democrat voters, but it's highly probable most are.) From a partisan standpoint, I would think Trumpkins are happy that ballots are being validated. My estranged female Trumpkin cousin remarked the mail-in voting was making the election a "shitshow".
Just a side note on the "two envelope" issue. I have a research interest in human factors/ergonomics and have published on the concept of usability design, roughly designing for human error. It's actually incredible to me (especially after notorious incidents like the 2000 Florida butterfly ballot debacle) that public officials would roll out novel ballot programs without usability testing which would have provided early evidence of issues. Just another example of government-run incompetence and chaos. But there are other preventable election validity problems, like crosschecking for duplicate voting registrations (consider out-of-state college students, who may also be registered in their own states).
Let's be clear; voting fraud can and does occur, and this election, especially when trying large-scale novel voting changes, will be no different. But there is little evidence that fraud materially affects election results, if and when there are anecdotal incidents detected. Most of the fact-checking literature I've seen suggests similar conclusions. We have 50 different states running elections plus DC, all with varying processes. Trump wants to force in-person voting which he feels plays to his advantage. But there are practical issues; for example, I pointed out in a recent post that Maryland is having trouble recruiting election day judges (they intend to provide in-person voting as an option). This also poses an internal controls issue. Trump is asserting unsupported, unspecified problems with election processes that he has no conceptual understanding of. This is little more than same-old, same-old FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). It's immoral and disgusting behavior, unworthy of any sitting President.
Quote of the Day
I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
I Can't Help Myself/The Four Tops
Quote of the Day
Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall
Back in My Arms Again/The Supremes. The Beatles and Supreme trade off #1s.
Quote of the Day
You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
I seriously doubt anyone is particularly interested on the little issues I face, e.g., in publishing a daily blog post. A lot of what I've done in professional IT over the past 25 years involves working with an operating system called Unix and its more recent cousin called Linux. I've been quite skillful at developing scripts or custom programs/utilities to configure alerts, like email notifications, for all sorts of things (say, the need for more storage space in my database, filter a log for error messages, or schedule a backup). Naturally, I liked to manage my own personal computing resources for similar purposes. I initially licensed an expensive tool like MKS Toolkit to provide a Unix-like environment for working with Microsoft Windows. (Windows has its own batch/command files and its upgraded powershell capabilities, but I don't want this writeup to get too wonky and complex). I can write adeptly in a number of Unix/Linux shell scripting flavors, including Bourne, C, Korn, bash, etc., plus enough sed, awk, etc., to get by and do what I want. It's difficult to give typical examples, but maybe I want to categorize some downloaded files by unique filenames and/or timestamps. At some point, I migrated from my expensive MKS software to a freeware Unix-like distribution cygwin (which is supported to the current day). And then Windows provided a native interface for an Ubuntu distribution (a flavor of Linux).
So let me give a practical example of how I use this stuff. In my daily miscellany posts, I always regularly feature a signature quote of the day. And I've amassed thousands of quotes in text files. I think I've discussed one freeware utility, Qliner Quotes in my SoftDoc blog and technically is still installed but for technical reasons I no longer routinely use. One of the reasons I used it was it provided some support for including randomly chosen quotations for email signatures for Thunderbird, a freeware email product. In the past I had some odd little hobbies like recording unique daily messages for my answering machines (now that's old school). I had some talents like voice imitations and the like, and believe it or not, some of my friends would call me up just to listen to my entertaining messages. I remember one or 2 occasions my friends told me to hang up and not answer the phone so they could hear my message of the day.
My email signature didn't have the amusing vocal impressions but it was analogous in context. And I've had a lot of people over the years, especially IT recruiters, who became obsessed with my randomly selected quotes (thousands over the years) and even occasional requests for my quote files. As my signature daily newspaper-like format evolved, I decided on regular features like a daily quote, cartoon and music video, and I developed a utility which I used to select random quotes for the blog and emails.
For some reason, my Ubuntu/bash setup has stopped working recently, and I really didn't want to spend time troubleshooting the issue. So I quickly downloaded the latest release of cygwin and adapted my bash script accordingly, It still takes a few seconds to manually refresh my quote. I've got other issues that I'm dealing with like a particular Microsoft patch that doesn't seem to want to install and some sort of search engine hijacking issue which I think may have been seeded by a freeware product I've since deinstalled.
It's amusing; I remember being a young pup, before the age of 30, going through my rigorous PhD program and all 3 doctoral qualifying exams, thinking I was finally finished with the drudgery of taking university classes and tests; I would be the one giving tests. Yeah, right; was I ever that naive? Yeah, I suppose I could pursue a fifth college degree. It reminds me of John Lennon's infamous quote around the time of "Get Back": "I hope we passed the audition." As if the greatest musical performers in history had to prove themselves. They were competing against their own legend.
It often amuses me when I find myself not finding something at Walmart, something I know it carries, in abundance, but it seems like they're constantly reorganizing stuff. Or it's organized in what I consider an illogical way. Let me give a simple example to make the point. I once needed to pick up a ream of office paper. Think you would find any in their printer section, like say printer cartridges? Nope. Maybe in an office supply section aisles away. (Maybe that's changed since I last checked.) I remember on another occasion I was looking for a replacement bath scale. Think you might find them in a section with bathroom supplies? Nope. They were in a home improvement section, near things like water filtering supplies.
I remember some time back running into hundreds of bath towels in a dedicated section when I really wasn't looking for them. Long story short, it was time for me to replace some worn-out towels--and I couldn't figure out what happened to their aisles of towels. I did find some displays of beach towels on sale (as we head into autumn). I was determined to find them without asking an employee, and I eventually ran into a couple of dozen in a different section of the store. It could be they stocked them in multiple sections, and I somehow overlooked their major supply. I just don't understand their logic. For example, you can find K-cups for sale in their coffeemaker section as well as their grocery coffee section. But these things aren't consistent/predictable.
Don't ask me why; maybe it's my Howdy Doody face or they think I look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.. But more people ask me where to find something than some Walmart associates. Dumb stuff like "where are the hot dog buns?". I'm sorely tempted to ask them, "Did you try the bread aisle?" I'm a low-carber; I don't recall the last time I bought a hotdog or hamburger bun. I'll usually substitute something like a slice of whole wheat bread. Still, I try to be nice and tell them the bread aisle is next to the frozen food section. And I'll sometimes go there myself just to double-check what I was telling them.
I just mentioned Walmart, but the most obvious change in my last trip was their long wrap-around line to the store entrance was FINALLY gone for about the first time in 6 months. I didn't mind so much the extra exercise of the Kubuki dance, but on a few occasions they had no carts in stock and you had to go back to the parking lot, fish one out and go the long way back.
I knew that the media would be obsessed with the 200K COVID-19 milestone and nearly 6M cases reported nationwide, I continue to focus on shorter-term trends, like this sample from Washpo:
The number of tests reported rose 21.8% from the previous week.
This sounds worse than it is. For example they recently recorded around a 2700-death cumulative spike out of NY. We are seeing sub-1000 death and sub-50,000 case days. The positivity rate is a little higher than I would like, but not bad. My brother's sister-in-law, with serious health issues in Texas, was tested 4 times recently with negative results. And, of course, you can't ignore incidental outbreaks, notably recently on the Notre Dame football team.
I originally joined my high school choir for the half-credit or so which helped me graduate a year early. This song, sung beautifully by one of my folks' favorite singers, was featured in our first performance.
Quote of the Day
Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something,Ticket to Ride/The Beatles
Well, my Twitter stats have gone to hell over the last 3 weeks, although I've been mostly ill over that period and have largely been off Twitter. Not to mention that most of the trends have bored me. I don't think I've had a 1000+ impression day, never mind Tweet, since late August. Nevertheless, even though my stats suck, I still think most of my tweets are spot on and familiar readers will appreciate them.
This Putin obsession is an indication of feeblemindedness on the Left. Real left-faiscists want to elect Biden as POTUS as if 4 decades of idiocy in DC never happened.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 13, 2020
Only Biden is retarded enough to believe a national mask mandate is constitutional.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 13, 2020
This is a perversion of federalism. Fuck billionaires trying to buy elections! https://t.co/SXVH9Q6bOT
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 13, 2020
Rent control is and always has been economically illiterate and counterproductive public policy, intrinsically corrupt. The fact that this policy comes from the administration of a real estate mogul is ironic. https://t.co/VQUT8aas7a
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 17, 2020
Propaganda is a necessary consequence of the curse of nationalism, whether from the left or right. https://t.co/mwJENPrnc1
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 18, 2020
This is Soft Rock America. It's Constitution Day, but leftists insist it's a livin' thing. https://t.co/epNbDJXLlw
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 18, 2020
The 1619 project is not "history" but historically inaccurate ideological claptrap.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 18, 2020
It's inevitable for a backlash to the presentist heresy of cancel culture. But public education is a state/local responsibility; what we need in the classroom is a free market of ideas and tolerance, not propaganda from the left or right.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 18, 2020
"Patriotic Education"
George Will draws an explicit comparison between the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of California. There is much evil in California, and its anti-liberty platform embodies it. https://t.co/KoelcAnP6l
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 18, 2020
McConnell's hypocrisy in applying the Biden rule to SCOTUS nominees in 2016 vs. 2020 is morally indefensible.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
"Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death means a seat is now open on the Supreme Court during an election year"
Tweeting under the influence of drugs is never a good idea. No, the opportunistic nomination of the incompetent Garland was an egregious violation of his own VP's rule against election year nominations. You're just a hypocritical bastard.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
An especially stupid progressive, but I'm being redundant. Biden himself posed the rule to prevent Bush 41 from an election year nomination. Hypocrites like you should shut the hell up.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Personally, I did not agree with the late Justice Ginsburg on constitutional issues, but I respect her principles, passion and tenure on the court. My thoughts and prayers for her surviving family and friends.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
You're confused. Trump was a registered Democrat in the 2000's who supported Clinton and Obama for POTUS.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
I hate to see the late Justice Ginsburg's replacement becoming a political football about 6 weeks before the general election. I do think it gives nominee Biden an opportunity to discuss the types of jurists he would nominate and the people should decide the outcome.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Trump sees his judicial nominations as a principal rallying point especially in his "conservative" base. Never mind the fact he benefited from the Biden rule in replacing Scalia after the 2016 election. His shameless hypocrisy on the Ginsburg vacancy on SCOTUS will exacerbate all
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Trump's touchdown dance after the Big 10 football reversal this fall was ugly. Sports are contaminated by Trump's rank nationalism. We need to celebrate individual and group achievement, not use athletics for crass political talking points.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
I'm just grateful it wasn't "Candle in the Wind", Elton's epic tribute to Marilyn Monroe, playing in the background, which was retooled to the death of Princess Diana. The idea that Justice Ginsburg is in Trump's head? Trump's words are meaningless lip service.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
"Tiny Dancer"
No, you don't, you hypocritical politically opportunistic bastard. The same argument you are using could be applied to Obama's right to replace Scalia, which you opposed. In this case, we are less than 2 months from a national election that all polls show you will lose.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Ruth Ginsburg was not one of the 7 SCOTUS justices who decided Roe v Wade. She was 1 of 9 justices. I know the anti-federalist decision which voided traditional police power over homicide is morally unjustifiable, but scapegoating Ginsburg is intellectually dishonest.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Wow, the latest NPR national poll shows Jill Jorgensen with 5% of the vote. If it's part of a trend, Jill could break Johnson's all-time record in the 2016 election.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
I'm old-school conservative, meaning the anti-interventionist, small central government type. The idea that Trump would nominate one of the nationalist pigs like Cotton or Hawley or a pseudo-conservative like Cruz to replace Justice Ginsburg is something I would oppose.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Hell?????
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
Stop calling Sen. Graham "Lady G"! He's never worn a meat dress!
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 19, 2020
My latest post takes on the rubbish of cancel culture and the equally evil Trumpkin response of federal intervention of "patriotic education".https://t.co/nHIKOe6Q94
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 20, 2020
Perhaps Justice Ginsburg should have retired before the end of Obama's tenure as POTUS instead of putting her own interests above the office she served.https://t.co/dfO0y1wrxX
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 20, 2020
I do agree Trump's anti-TPP stand was a first-order economic and diplomatic blunder. I also think he has roiled our relationships with allies with provocative, incoherent, unorthodox amateurism. However, Biden is just another anti-trade interventionist.https://t.co/LWgCxSyD2i
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 20, 2020
Justice Ginsburg put her own interests over the position of public trust she held. Her health had been an issue before Obama's election. We need to rethink public service in terms of nonrenewable extended single terms, not individual entitlements.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 21, 2020
Wow, Scientific American has turned political. It's lost my respect.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 21, 2020
It seems like the left hasn't forgotten how to attack Romney's religion since the 2012 campaign. I assure you most fellow Catholics don't have a fetish over smelling women's hair.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 22, 2020
"Mormon"
No, conservatives think that women have the liberty to control their sexual behavior and accept responsibility for their decisions. Nobody is assigning child quotas (unlike China) or determining who your partner should be. Lose this ideological claptrap!
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 22, 2020
Let a native Texan tell you what it's like driving from El Paso to Ft. Worth or San Antonio to Dallas. I've relocated between Arizona and the East Coast twice over the past 5 years and a lot of driving was just in Texas, the size of several states.
— raguillemette (@raguillemette) September 22, 2020
"Texas and Florida"
Quote of the Day
When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability
Familiar readers probably remember one minor personal feud I had with with libertarian podcaster/historian Tom Woods on Facebook. Woods is a pretentious self-promoting personality who had a profound distaste for certain people, including Romney, while obsequious of others, including a promoter of Ron Paul's quixotic Presidential campaigns. I suspect that Romney's defeat of Ron Paul in his final Presidential run left a particular foul taste in Woods' mouth. At the time I was in Woods' Facebook group and had been promoting his emerging podcast; Woods then posted something of the nature, "Happy birthday, Ron Paul! Every day I thank God you're not a phony like Mitt Romney" I just took exception to this cheap shot and shot back at Woods' incivility. If anything, this amused Woods as he encouraged his minions to take care of this Romney interloper. Now I have my own criticisms of Romney, but I was more than ready to dispatch Woods' eager minions while challenging Woods to a public debate, which Woods laughed off. I decided the best way to respond to Woods' nonsense was to leave the group (and I've never looked back) while dropping Woods' podcast. Woods mocked me for that, portraying his sponsored podcast as his gift to mankind. Yeah, Tom; play the world's smallest violin. As most readers of my daily blog know, I later reversed my decision and will typically (but not necessarily) include 2 or 3 of his podcasts a week, depending on topics.
But Woods can be repetitious and annoying and one thing in particular has been his obsession with the Sandmann incident; I think I have personally heard Woods bring this up at least 6 to a dozen times. Now let me point out that Woods has a certain point, particularly over how the media and Twitter went after MAGA-cap wearing Sandmann and his fellow Catholic high school march, I believe during the annual Jan. 2019 March for Life protest against Roe v Wade. Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, for unknown politically correct reasons, decided to target the high school group for intervention in puzzling support of certain black religious extremists which had been, in fact, taunting Phillip's own group. Sandmann and his fellow students were confused by the intervention, at first thinking that Phillips and the others were joining their protest. Then came Sandmann's "smirk seen across American", seeming to mock Phillips' drumming in his face. Twitter world erupted at the "racist" white Trumpkin students targeting Native Americans. I myself wasn't happy with how Sandmann had responded to Phillips, which I considered disrespectful, and that hasn't changed, although perhaps I should have been more tolerant of how young people might respond to the unusual circumstances.
Woods has painted his own response to the kerfuffle in heroic terms, how he went through the available tapes of the entire kerfuffle, which showed the black religious extremists taunting the Native Americans for losing their land, etc., because of their religious practices which had offended God. The white Catholic students largely ignored the insults the same group directed at them. Woods is particularly disdainful of Phillips' post-protest disingenuous spin of his purported peacekeeping intervention between the Catholic group and the black extremists.
I do think the facts mostly back Woods' perspective; I just don't think it's the broad indictment of the mainstream media that Woods makes it out to be. In fact, I thought the media had largely reversed the initial rush to judgment over the coming week of coverage as other video coverage became available. I really don't see conventional coverage that continues to support Phillips' account of events.
It's interesting to me how people's tastes in the opposite sex will differ. Some of the women I've been attracted to were very attractive and to some extent attracted to me. I remember a very pretty blonde about 3 years older at OLL to my 18 as a junior/senior. For a shy male who had never dated in high school (and who got his first drivers license as a Navy ensign about 4 years later), S made it easy; she asked me out to a taco stand off campus for our first date (and she paid). Even the dorm resident playboys were complimenting my taste in women. I don't think I would have ever had the confidence to ask her out. On a campus two-thirds female, she stood out as a gorgeous blonde. I can only guess that I had gotten a reputation as a guy who treated coeds with respect, which somehow stood out as different. I have written a few times about getting invited to join a coed table at lunch one day; the pretty Latina who had invited me said, "Ron, we heard you treat the ladies just like the guys." I literally choked on my food in response, stammering out, "I hope not; I like girls."
S and I had an unusual relationship which often had unorthodox dates. She was a Catholic Pentecostal, and I remember one of the college sisters/nuns (CDP) had chaperoned a skeptical me with S to this event. This one guy nearby got up and started channeling "Ba-la-kun-ga-sha-la-ka-da." The crowd embraced this like divine revelation, and I turned to S and judgmentally said to her, "Oh, COME ON. Give me a break." I don't think I ever saw a woman look at me as pissed off as she did at that moment. And then she did the one thing I never expected: she got up and started "speaking in tongues" herself. I was beyond mortified. I immediately walked a row or two away from her. The Ice Age had nothing on the atmosphere in the car back to campus.
I don't think the relationship ever really got past that point, but there were other moments I remember. We had sort of a prayer date and she showed up in red hotpants. I knew that female legs can be quite attractive, but I never realized until then how much so; I caught myself almost compulsively staring at her beautiful legs almost every chance I could get (which I'm sure she was going for).
I got the distinct impression she wanted a commitment from me. She had been invited to a Catholic Pentecostal commune somewhere in the Dallas area. I could barely manage my own school expenses and the idea of getting married and starting a family was not something I had prepared for. I told her she had to make the decision that was right for her; I wanted her to stay in San Antonio, but I wouldn't stand in her way. I never heard from her again.
She wasn't the only coed. I even had an unwanted secret admirer. One of my coed friends F who I had a bit of a crush on had a little (taller) sister J who was in desperate need of a typewriter for end-of-the-semester papers. I had already finished my papers and my Smith-Corona was available. I never gave a second thought to letting her borrow it.
The following semester (one of my men's dorm friends played the go-between) started a mysterious secret admirer exchange. I wouldn't call them love letters, but they came from a woman who really liked me and wanted to brighten up my day. But to a certain extent it was freaking me out because I had never experienced this before. The final straw was when my dorm friend delivered a fresh pan of brownies. And I was a little paranoid that maybe the admirer had baked marijuana into the brownies, and I was pretty straight in avoiding anything to do with illicit drugs. I had a come-to-Jesus moment to my dorm friend this obsession had to end. I got a final heartbroken note from my crush saying she never intended for me to feel that way and she would honor my request to leave me alone.
Now the story would have ended then and there except for a chance meeting with my friend F some time later. F wanted me to know her sister J now had a boyfriend and was happy in her personal life. I couldn't figure out why F was telling me this--when it suddenly dawned on me that J had been my secret admirer. And I felt like a piece of crap because I wouldn't have hurt F or J for anything in the world. Who knows if J and I ever dated? Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I just never expected how J would respond to a simple favor. I think if F had simply introduced me to J, things might have evolved differently. She obviously thought I knew J was my secret crush. Nope.
But my taste in the opposite sex didn't follow any particular formula. I remember this red-haired high school military dependent, like me, seemed to want to impress me at the bus stop, claiming that she had a 37-inch bust, one inch shy of a perfect figure. To be honest, I hadn't particularly noticed her figure and wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to respond to the revelation: congratulate her on her genetic fortune? I was actually more interested in a brainy sophomore with glasses who also happened to run track. I did have a high school friend who was attracted to the busty redhead.
There was no particular pattern of attributes; for example, two of my biggest crushes have been petite women barely 5' tall if that, while I was also attracted to a tall high school blonde who claimed to measure a quarter inch shy of 6 feet, nearly 3 inches taller. It was hard not to notice her when our geometry teacher had her come to the chalkboard to solve a problem; JE always wore flat shoes but still towered over our average height teacher wearing a decent pair of heels, looking straight up at her. (JE was born into a tall family; I ended up graduating early with her 6'6" big brother. Her little brother nearly stretched 7 feet and ended up playing center for the Rice Owls.) I had been a little sensitive about my height since my pre-puberty sixth grade days when a tall girl, several inches taller than my own parents and nearly a full foot taller than me, had ridiculed my height. JE, though, was always nice to me. I remember years later as a graduate student at the University of Texas approaching an intersection and seeing a tiny blonde barely reaching the shoulders of this statuesque blonde next to her. waiting to cross the street. The tall blonde must have sensed I had noticed her, turned around, glanced down at me, broke into a big smile and called me by name. JE I think was a BBA student majoring in finance. (Of course, tall girls in Texas are not unusual. I remember at one point standing in line at the DMV behind 4 consecutive women, each at least 2 inches taller than me.)
I also found some women particularly interesting. One was a female trainer I had met while working for a branch of STSC in Houston. STSC (a defunct computer timesharing company) was headquartered in the wealthy LA suburbs. Anyway, my trainer friend was despondent while in Houston because she had to be away from her car baby on its birthday. So she went to buy a card and mailed it home. I thought this was an amusing quirk to her personality and she was putting me on. Until I had to visit LA a short while later for some other orientation/training stuff. I'll never forget; the airline had John Stewart's "Midnight Wind" with Stevie Nicks wailing backup on heavy rotation, which I continue to play to today. This business trip was like out of some stereotype of California. We had some social at an executive's mansion and a blonde bombshell trophy wife actually went around saying stuff like "Mellow, man." My trainer friend was also one one of those babes who went rollerblading down muscle beach in Venice. So somehow I end up in the blond trainer's convertible to go to lunch or wherever, and without saying a word, she points to a birthday card hanging from a lanyard from her dash mirror. No shit! Now her quirkiness probably would have driven me crazy, but it would certainly have made life more interesting.
Nobody I really met from work where I had a relationship. There was an overweight computer programmer who seemed to have a crush on me in Houston, but there was no connection or attraction (was it just her weight? No, but it did affect how I perceived her). I had met a couple of women while in the military but it was more a matter of poor timing with both women in other relationships at the time. My office neighbor at UWM, a tenured faculty member, seemed a little too personally interested in me (no interest in her whatsoever; in fact, it creeped me out; she was also a bit weird, who had come back one weekend with an adopted baby from South America; the last thing I expected as a junior professor was a wailing baby in the office next door); I remember at one point she had insisted on my bringing something from her office to her condo which I really didn't want to do; no, the dean's office couldn't have it delivered. I don't know what her intentions were, but I treated it as nothing more than a dropoff. There were over the years maybe a handful of co-workers or former students I tried to ask out (the latter after they were no longer my students), but they weren't interested, and I actually almost got terminated a couple of times, in one case over a nepotism policy (I knew my STSC co-worker liked the Nutcracker Suite and wanted to buy her and me tickets for a local performance. One day I got called into the branch manager who pointed out he had fired our receptionist after she married one of the programmers. He "knew" I was interested in J, and if the relationship went anywhere one of us would have to go (and she worked on a key, high-profile account). There was only one way he knew about this, and I don't know why she told him.) I actually didn't have a romantic interest in J; she was a bit of a mess and a coffee junkie unlike anyone I've ever met. She would actually start shaking without caffeine.
So most of my dating has been sporadic over the years. I once dated one of my sisters' college roommates (and she had subsequently done something that had upset my sister, and I wanted nothing more to do with her), I met women in church groups, I met some single Brazilian women during a business trip, while a professor, I sometimes met women in other ways (e.g., a female grad student who was managing a statistics lab I was using at UWM).
In one case I even reconnected with a girl I had met as a high school freshman in south Texas. (She was the sweet younger sister of a math/science prodigy who eventually got accepted at MIT straight out of junior year.) She loved her brother and saw some of the same qualities in me, encouraging me to join him in interscholastic league science contests, etc. (which I did later). She would tell me some of her favorite accomplishments would be like getting the next highest grade (to mine) on a math test, etc. There were some sad aspects to her life story, including parental abuse. (She left our high school after a year. I think her brother had aspired to be a Nobel laureate. He apparently never graduated MIT but became involved in some startup, cashing out as a millionaire by his early 30's.) The sister apparently married 3 times, including once to an airline pilot, had at least two sons, one who took his own life. I think she had ended up as a high school English teacher in California, who had some sort of incident where she fell in the classroom resulting in some head injury, eventually leading to disability retirement. She was supplementing her income in various ways, like gatekeeping, house sitting, and pet handling.
Now I have to admit WWE had swerved me in the long-predicted breakup between best pals and two-time tag champions Sasha Banks and Bayley. The lead up to the loss of the tag titles and Bayley's subsequent heel attack on Sasha had led me to believe that Sasha would attack Bayley, after in a prior PPV, she had helped fend off Asuka's attack on Bayley's Smackdown title, just to find Bayley didn't return the favor as Asuka took back her Raw title. So I thought the logical storyline response was for Sasha to go after the Smackdown title in return. Bayley, at one time the ultimate babyface, didn't really have an obvious motive in going after Banks, except with a preventive attack on someone she always saw as a threat to her own championship (keep your enemies closer). I suspect they are saving the real program for a live show down the line, although the way they have been stressing Bayley's tenure, I could see them write Sasha's interference into the coming PPV costing Bayley her cherished title.
I really liked to see them book Sami Zayn's return as the "real" Intercontinental champion (his title had been vacated earlier in the year during the COVID-19 crisis) into a 3-way feud with former champ AJ Styles and current champ Jeff Hardy.
I have never liked Roman Reigns the babyface, but I think his return as the stoic heel champ paired with the brilliant manager Heyman works. Having him go after his cousin in his first major defense helps cement the heel turn; could we see The Rock himself return to confront the Big Dog?
I've also been intrigued by Alexa Bliss' slow migration into a Bray Wyatt counter-character, including his Sister Abigail finishing move.
The Drew McIntyre/Randy Orton feud has never appealed to me. Putting the US title on Lashley has an appeal, although I think the ultimate match is to have Lesnar resurface and confront Lashley.
I still don't see how WWE has supported the Money in the Bank storyline which put the championship contract in the hands of tag team novelty talent Otis, never mind his unlikely romantic storyline with blond beauty Mandy Rose, recently sent off to the rival Raw brand.