Collected Links (06/10/2022)

•  At least 20 million people watched the prime time coverage of yesterday's Congressional hearing on the events around January 6, 2022. That is roughly equivalent to a Monday Night Football broadcast, and does not include watchers on PBS, which may have been several million. Presidential debates, by comparison, get numbers around 68 million -- three times as much. Fox News, of course, did not broadcast the debate live, with sound. During the first part of the debate Tucker Carlson was on, who said, among other things:

It’s deranged, and we’re not playing along,. . . . This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live. They are lying, and we are not going to help them do it. What we will do instead is to try to tell you the truth.

(Quoted in the NYT article linked; see also Fox News itself, or this similar article at Huffington Post.) The hearings were also covered or reported on by news networks outside the United States, and even on Fox News, eventually, so, I guess Tucker thinks there is a worldwide conspiracy against him.

• Also as reported in the NYT, a report from CDC data and analyzed by the Williams Institute at UCLA law school, the number of youth identifying as transgender has sharply increased. To quote the article:

The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report that captures a stark generational shift and emerging societal embrace of a diversity of gender identities.

The analysis, relying on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, estimated that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5 percent of all adults.
   . . .

But the numbers, which vary widely from state to state, also raise questions about the role of peer influence or the political climate of the community.

The article has superlative graphs of the variance by age and among states.

Collected Links (06/09/2022)

• “‘Needless to say’ is needless to say, needless to say.” — Enoch Haga, via Futility Closet
• A (simplistic) slyt video on the Langland Project in mathematics, video by Quanta Magazine Science Channel, link via Nag on the Lake.
• Fox News has been pestering me with stuff today, none of which suggests I watch (or which even references) tonight's Congressional hearings regarding the events of January 6, 2021. It does have an article regarding the hearing on its website. They suggest George Takei doesn't understand the Second Amendment because he says the millions of AR-15 rifles Americans have could be better used in Ukraine to fight the war there (yeah really, Fox News said that -- it is liberally mixing idiocy and mendacity on this one); "Fox News contributor Joe Concha took sharp aim at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's ‘tee ball’ interview with President Biden [hitting] Kimmel for being a ‘political activist’ and leaving all of Biden's claims unchallenged" (Concha's description of the interview is inaccurate, to be kind, but it's particularly absurd for a supposed news channel regularly engaging in distortion to accuse an overt comedian of not asking hard enough questions); Fox News claims false that "dem leaders" are supporting "menacing protests" outside of Supreme Court Justices homes (that is ridiculous and false for several reasons -- such protests have been denounced by "dem leaders" -- and such protests are not new or one sided); Fox News calls (or supports calling) Democrats "the party against civil rights" by seeking a ban on assault rifles; "Kayleigh McEnany blasts Biden's [supposed] silence on Kavanaugh murder attempt: 'Where are you, President Biden?'" -- these are just stories Fox News is pushing to me on social media -- its other overage remains the same shit-storm of bias and dishonesty it always is.
• Meanwhile, in Missouri the Governor signed a bill that, among other things, shields doctors who write and pharmacists who fill ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions. That's because these medicines "work so well" in treating COVID that we better make sure the doctors and pharmacists don't face consequences for using them. 
• Key points from the Congressional hearing regarding January 6, 2021, tonight:
• Donald Trump was explicitly told by the Attorney General and others that the evidence showed Trump was (a) going to lose the election as the votes were counted, and (b) lost the election;
• An independent investigatory body was sought originally: the Republicans in Congress torpedoed that;
• Trump and Mark Meadows were explicitly told by Trump's and the Republican's actual election experts, as well as their Attorney General (Bob Barr), that the allegations of fraud were groundless, and their claims regarding Dominion Voting Systems were false.
• Trump and his cronies lost over 60 lawsuits claiming the election was rigged;
• Donald Trump spent millions of dollars of campaign funds advertising his claims of election fraud even though he knew those claims were groundless and what he was saying was false;
• Trump and Jeffrey Clark at the Justice Department falsely claimed the Attorney General supported the fraud claims and tried to get Clark appointed as Attorney General so he could support Trumps false claims;
• Trump repeatedly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election -- Pence refused and knew if he had capitulated to the pressure it would be illegal;
• John Eastman, a lawyer, hatched a legal plan to try to get the Vice President to not properly certify the election but send it back to the States even though he knew the legal arguments for that action was meritless;
• Trump secretly met at the Whitehouse with cronies, excluding his Whitehouse advisors and lawyers, to hatch a plan to overthrow the election;
• Immediately following that secret meeting Trump tweeted, calling for his supporters to come to D.C. and engage in action against certifying the election results on January 6;
• Jared Kushner took the threats by Whitehouse counsel and others to resign as "whining" -- many officials, of course, had threatened to resign (and some did);
• On January 5 Steve Bannon said that "all hell is going to break loose tomorrow";
• At a speech on January 6 to a large crowd Trump told the crowd to march on the Capitol and to "fight like hell";
• The Joint Chief of Staff did not immediately act regarding the January 6 events because although the Vice President repeatedly and forcefully called for action, the President did not;
• Very compelling video of the January 6 attack on the Capitol shown;
• A police officer (Officer Edwards) testifies about her experience of the attacks -- it was very violent -- she was left unconscious -- she describes the officers injuries and calls it carnage -- she says she was in the middle of a battle -- hours of hand-to-hand combat;
• A documentary filmmaker (Mr. Quested) testifies about his experience on January 6 as well as a meeting between the leaders of the Proudboys and Oathkeepers the night before, which he filmed. The Proudboys and Oathkeepers on January 6 headed to the Capitol while the President was speaking -- he describes the events there as very violent;
• Rioters (on video) stated that Trump asked them to come and march on Capitol.

Collected Links (06/08/2022)

•  "Orson Wells" on the "Transgender  Question." Via Tim.
•  Also via Tim, a series of tweets by Lindsey Simmons on dark money in Missouri and their nasty business. These tweets, of course, are exactly right and very informative. Simmons is running for US Congress in MO 4th Congressional District, which is overwhelming conservative. It went 2/3 for Trump in the last 2 Presidential elections. She is running to replace Vicky Hartzler, who is running for Senate In MO. Hartzler herself is a real piece of work. A former high school home economics teacher, her political stances, as listed on Wikipedia, are a laundry list of every nasty and wrongheaded political position a US politician could take.
• Open Secrets -- the best site I know tracking political donations.
• Werner Herzog writes novel, feels "he has finally found his medium." NYT, free registration required.
• NYT print edition today has an article titled "C.E.O. Earnings Soar, Widening the Pay Gap," written by Stephen Gandel. I can't find it online by title, author, or keywords. Hmmmm . . . why NYT why?
• The school murders in Uvalde, Texas, are horrible and heartbreaking. The testimony of the parents of victims, testimony of a child who survived, and the testimony of a Uvalde pediatrician is overwhelming and terrible. The politicians (overwhelmingly, almost exclusively Republicans) who refuse to meaningfully address it are now acting well below "politics as usual," and worthy of our disgust. I would casually compare them to the police officers who sat in the hallway of the school and refused to confront the gunman for 45 minutes, but they are well below that threshold, too.

Collected Links (06/06/2022)

• The (initial?) Brookings Report on the January 6 insurrection attempt and the President Trump's involvement.
• Rolling Stone article on the very tortuous and very interesting writing of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
• Mark Strand's A Piece of the Storm -- with audio -- at the blog Chawed Rosin, via Nag on the Lake
• Skelling Michael (the island monestary that served as Luke's last home in the Star Wars sequels), also via Nag
• Lidar uncovered remains of buried ancient developed areas of what is now called the Casarabe culture in the Amazon in Bolivia.
• Another excellent walking map of London, again via Nag

Collected Links (05/31/2022)

• NYT Wirecutter "52 Things We Love" HP Officejet Pro 9015e printer, ChefsChoice Trizor XV knife sharpener, Milwaukee Fastback utility knife, Nektech 60W USB-C GaN charger, Nidra Deep Rest eyemask, Novaform Comfortgrand mattress, Channellock wirecutters, Cuisinart Chef's Convection toaster oven.
• Fox News: "Biden's refusal to send rockets to Ukraine shows 'complete lack of strategy' from White House: Victoria Coates" -- classic Fox News: irresponsible title of an irresponsible article -- irresponsibility here that extends to outright dishonesty. First, the U.S. is sending rockets to Ukraine -- indeed, the U.S. under the Biden administration is by far the leading supplier of arms to Ukraine. The announcement the Fax News story related to involves an announcement of an additional $700 million military aid to Ukraine, including advanced medium range rockets. So, the headline and article are dishonest. Second, in fact the U.S. is not sending one type of advanced long range rocket that would potentially expand the conflict by allowing Ukraine to begin an offensive against Russia as the missiles can be targeted missiles at sites in the Russian interior. Strategically, we cannot allow that, nor can we contravene our NATO allies on this, and they surely would not allow this. So, there's significant strategic concerns here, not a "complete absence of it. Third, the "complete lack of strategy" quote -- itself hyperbole even if there was some strategic disagreement (which there isn't) -- was not actually made on the missile decision per see but to the announcement of it. Coates says that our saying what we're going to do is a "complete lack of strategy." So, Fox News overtly distorted it for a headline and article. Fourth, using representing a cherry picked quote from "talking head" is not news although it is represented on the broadcast as news. Note, in this regard, Fox News has separate news and commentary divisions. This is from the news side. Fifth, the line between news and commentary at Fox, as demonstrated in part by this article, is becoming non-existent. Fox, apparently, is abandoning attempts to even superficially present news straight. This is why the most ethical of their anchors (in my view) -- Shep, Chris -- have quit. And Sixth this is not just casual dishonesty: this story was "pushed" to me by Fox News. UPDATE: It turns out the U.S. is in fact sending the very weapons in question. Not seeing a correction from Fox. Instead I see "Russia Stages Nuclear Drills After U.S. Announces Rockets to Ukraine" -- which flatly contradicts in its own deceptive way the thesis of Fox News's first salacious and untrue article, discussed above -- and "Biden's Latest $700M Ukraine Weapons Package: Here's Everything in It".
• Knee Drives for Exercise -- to stretch and exercise my weak points (well some of the many)
  
• Bionic Reading Font -- I, personlly, find this much easier to read quickly and with comprehension -- I think this is a great idea.
• "Trump’s Fiscal Legacy: A Comprehensive Overview of Spending, Taxes, and Deficits" -- bottom line: during the Trump presidency we added $3.9 trillion to the U.S. deficit.
• At Quartz: "A Harvard Economist Summarizes His Class on Monopolies in 54 Tweets"

"Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll"

I've written before about gun rights issues, and I think this article from The New York Times (yesterday September 28, 2013) adds an important dimension to the discussion. To quote it's first few paragraphs:

The .45-caliber pistol that killed Lucas Heagren, 3, on Memorial Day last year at his Ohio home had been temporarily hidden under the couch by his father. But Lucas found it and shot himself through the right eye. “It’s bad,” his mother told the 911 dispatcher. “It’s really bad.”

A few days later in Georgia, Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth.

Just a few weeks earlier, in Houston, a group of youths found a Glock pistol in an apartment closet while searching for snack money. A 15-year-old boy was handling the gun when it went off. Alex Whitfield, who had just turned 11, was struck. A relative found the bullet in his ashes from the funeral home.

     * * *

A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities. The killings of Lucas, Cassie and Alex, for instance, were not recorded as accidents. Nor were more than half of the 259 accidental firearm deaths of children under age 15 identified by The Times in eight states where records were available.

There's no gainsaying that the drafters and ratifiers of the second amendment had no idea how easy to misuse and how dangerous weapons would become. But evenso the amendment does not restrict safety devices for guns. The only argument against such safety devices is a policy argument, for they are nowhere in the text or meaning of the amendment, and the argument against them is a terrible policy argument.

Some Questions for Libertarians

I know a lot of people, which means that, among the many I know, I know a fair number of self-described "libertarians."  These range from a friend of mine who happens to be an auto mechanic and who believes that libertarians have discovered a new form of economics and likes to say "Who is John Galt?" to a friend who is a former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate and notable lawyer and is on the inside of the movement.  I've often been puzzled by the discontinuities in libertarian beliefs -- for instance, I am puzzled by libertarians who rail against "the right to privacy" -- and I know I am not alone in this.  An article by R.J. Eskow published yesterday in Salon (which I saw via Pharyngula) puts it right up front: "11 Questions to See if Libertarians are Hypocrites."

The whole article is worth reading, as Eskow puts the questions into context. Here, though, are his questions:

1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of “spontaneous order” [a term used by the Cato Institute to define libertarian thought] —and if not, why not?
2. Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded?
3. Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces?
4. Is our libertarian willing to admit that a “free market” needs regulation?
5. Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what’s wrong with governments that regulate.
6. Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn’t exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?
7. Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?
8. Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?
9. Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?
10. Does he think that [Ayn] Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were “parasites”?
11. If you believe in the free market, why weren’t you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?

I have to distance myself a bit from Eskow's questions (even in the context of the article in which they're propounded) as they make a few unfounded leaps and they're not that well phrased, complete, or ordered.  Still, they point up fundamental inconsistencies in libertarian dogmas.

And in so saying I have to point out that I am, as I supposed Eskow is, a strong believer in individual rights.¹ I seek a system which protects those rights and interests -- and provides the opportunity to exercise those rights and interests -- to the maximum extent for the maximum number of citizens. It's that last part that seems to me the too common rub with libertarians: they seem, too often, to seek to maximize rights for a few (usually themselves) to the detriment of everyone else. Yes, I think, democratic republican forms of government are the closest we've come so far to a regime of individual rights; and some government and some regulation, measured for it's reasonability, is necessary to protect our rights and interests.
____________________
¹ Here I have to make a controversial (if correct) comment: individual rights are not "natural rights." They are made by people. That is not a political or philosophical observation; it is a factual one. It is something we cannot change no matter how much we wish it to be different. One would have to be extremely ignorant of history to think that individual rights have existed for many centuries (let alone forever). One would have to be extremely ignorant of the world to think that individual rights exist everywhere. One would have to be extremely ignorant of culture to think that all cultures reflect or even understand western notions of individual rights. One would have to be extremely ignorant of the process of government and lawmaking to think that rights or laws magically exist. That individual rights are not "natural rights" does not mean that individual rights are unimportant; it means their explication and codification is critical.

Excellent Advice from Galileo Feynman Jezebel

This is not the Dick you're looking for

What with Anthony Weiner's weiner in the news again, Erin Gloria Ryan has come forward with some timely advice at Jezebel in an article entitled "Should You Send a Lady a Dick Pic? A Guide for Men."

The answer appears to be "no." Who knew?

I assure you the article and its comments are worth reading in full.

The Time Obama Was Mistaken for a Waiter at a Tina Brown Book Party

I thought this note at The Atlantic harking back to a 2008 article by Katie Rosman in The Wall Street Journal -- and accompanied by the perfect picture (from Kevin Lemarque for Reuters) -- expressed the issue of frequent racial assumptions with clarity and brevity:

"In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mistaken for a waiter among the New York media elite, to the president-elect. What a country."
      ...
And yet even as that country elected and then reelected its first black president, the easy assumptions about who black men are have yet to vanish.

(Link from Miss Cellania; interior quote from Rosman's article.)

Conservatives and Sewers (Is One More Full of Shit?)

This short Paul Krugman column from a few days ago is worth quoting in its entirety:

I see that some commenters on my traffic externalities post are speculating what Republicans would say about sewers if they didn’t already exist. Well, we don’t know about Republicans, but we do know what The Economist said, in 1848, about proposals for a London sewer system:

Suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions; they cannot be got rid of; and the impatient efforts of benevolence to banish them from the world by legislation, before benevolence has learned their object and their end, have always been more productive of evil than good.

Sewers are socialism!

It wasn’t until the Great Stink made the Houses of Parliament uninhabitable that the sewer system was created.

(I added the link to "the Great Stink" -- and it's a fun read -- the others are in Krugman's original at The New York Times.)

From the BBC: The Lyndon Johnson Tapes: Richard Nixon's 'Treason'

This, if true, and it is at least partially backed up by tapes, is scandalous: according to the BBC (not always the most reliable source) during the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign Richard Nixon, then a candidate in a very tight race with Hubert Humphrey, scuttled the Paris peace talks the U.S. was engaged in with the North Vietnamese. According to the BBC Nixon used Anna Chennault (born Chen Xiangmei (陳香梅), she was a Republican operative who had a very interesting life) to convince the South Vietnamese to reject an agreement the U.S. and the North Vietnamese had worked out because Nixon claimed the South Vietnamese would be better treated by his administration. Of course, they ultimately were not: South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975 after the additional deaths of more than 100,000 people. If the talks had been successful before the 1968 election it seems likely that the democratic candidate would have one.

And as to who that candidate would be, there's another significant historical note in the BBC story: President Lyndon Johnson wanted to go to the convention and re-enter the race and get the nomination himself. He didn't for several reasons. One, apparently, was that he then knew Nixon had prevented the peace accord, a fact he learned through NSA and other surveillance of Chennault and the ambassador, among others. Johnson called Nixon a traitor and said he had blood on his hands.

The claims in the BBC article have been in the public arena for several years, though they've received scant attention. Both Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, claimed it was true and not based on speculation. Numerous writers have claimed it was the case, and it seems to be supported (if by innuendo) by the former South Vietnamese ambassador's own memoir.

Via Kottke.

Helping Scientific American's Michael Shermer with Basic Statistics

Michael Shermer, who writes for Scientific American -- but, I might add, is not a scientist (he has a PhD in history and calls himself "Dr. Shermer") -- has a recent column entitled The Liberal's War on Science. To the extent the thesis of that column is that there are a lot of liberals who hold unscientific ideas and values, he's right. And he is right to decry that in general.

But that is not, alas, his thesis.  As you can tell from his title, he argues that liberals taken as a whole are against science. I don't know if all liberals should be lumped together except for the most general purposes any more than most conservatives should. But, regardless, such lumping he does, and he gets it a bit wrong.

Let's look: he states that 41% of Democrats are young Earth creationists (he says 58% of Republicans are), and that 19% of Democrats doubt global warming (while 51% of Republicans do). Accepting these as valid (he does not provide the study), they still unfortunately do not support his thesis of a "liberal a war on science." Let's help him.

By his numbers 59% of Democrats -- a majority -- are not young Earth creationists. So if "not being a young Earth creationists" is a measure of being "scientific" (and all Democrats are liberals, as he equates them), then a majority of liberals are scientific. Hmmm. And, by his numbers, a majority of Republicans, 58%, are not scientific.  Likewise, if believing in global warming is a measure of being "scientific," as he asserts, then the fact that 81% of Democrats believe in global warming would mean the majority of liberals are scientific. On the other hand, the fact that a majority of Republicans, 51%, doubt global warming, would make them not scientific. Again, hmmmm.

Upcoming Posts at Galileo Feynman

When I began this blog I imagined a mix of posts on art and politics, music and culture, science and society interspersed with short essays on a variety of more philosophical subjects. I haven't had much chance to focus on the essay side -- which I'd normally post under the tag Blah blah blah, among others -- but I thought I'd mention what's in the hopper. It's all pretty nerdy, so abandon all hope if you're looking for something else. A lengthy list follows bellow the break.

Deep Thinkin' by the Gun Advocates

The anti gun control crowd has screwed their thinking caps on real tight in response to the potential that dangerous weapons might be regulated. Here's what they've come up with:

• If blacks had guns slavery would never have happened.
• The President's children are protected by agents carrying guns, so the President's an elitist tax lover.
• Gun control apparently causes crime.
• Gun control attacks firearms (and the NRA is only thinking of the children, people!).
• Obama is acting like a king. A king! 
• Guns don't kill people, people (with guns) kill people, who are crazy people on psychotropics, and if you support gun control I am going to kill you.
• The Connecticut shooting is a "false flag" (and our media is controlled by the state, I am telling you on the radio).
• Chicago is Obama's mafia city and he's a psychopath and the time for insurrection is at hand.
• Obama is the antichrist.

That's some fine, fine thinking.

At Last Our Rights are Protected!

God Intervenes on Behalf of Cindy Jacobs' Shoes

Yes, ha ha, she's a nut and possibly should be institutionalized. Oh this is funny. Except that Cindy and Mike Jacobs run a huge evangelical Christian network and are leading supporters of Texas Governor Rick Perry. According to their site God Knows "[t]he ministry has moved from a small gathering in Texas to an international movement to reform the nations of the world through ministering in the prophetic and apostolic." Here's some summaries from Right Wing Watch which, although not intended this way, make for hilarity if, um, you have a good sense of dark humor.

Aw, This is So Touching!

As reported by The Onion, America's Finest news Source:

NRA Sends Complimentary Bereavement Gun Baskets To Families Of Shooting Victims

NEWTOWN, CT—As the nation continues to mourn the women and children who lost their lives in last month’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the National Rifle Association has reportedly joined the outpouring of support for families of victims by sending each household a bereavement gun basket. “On behalf of everyone here at the NRA, we extend our deepest sympathies to your family during this difficult time, and hope you enjoy this complimentary assortment of the finest semi-automatic weapons and ammunition,” read the note accompanying each wicker basket, which included a variety of magazine cartridges, shooting range memberships, dried fruits, and high-powered firearms. “If there is any other ammunition or handgun accessory we can send to you, please let us know. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” Sources said the NRA has also offered to match any assault rifle purchase in the Newtown, CT area.

Piers Morgan Interviews Gun Nut -- Well, Universal Nut -- Alex Jones on His Petition to Deport Piers Morgan

Alex Jones is not just any off-the-shelf/out-of-the-woods flake but is a talk show host with a substantial audience. Should you not want to listen to his bombast as it could cause you to lose several I.Q. points, let me summarize. In the seven minute interview, above, he manages to tie gun control discussion in the U.S. to the Russians, Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez, "globalism," the "New World Order," "mega banks" controlling the media, everybody but the Swiss, rape in India, Santa Anna attacking the Alamo, and Prozac and "mass murder pills" that are apparently part of a plot to get people in the U.S. to drug themselves then kill themselves and each other (I did not know this). He informs us that Britain took the guns and is now the crime capital of Europe (there were 37 gun deaths there last year versus 11,000 in the U.S., according to Piers Morgan), and now Britain wants to ban knives. Britain is a "total police state" and "everybody is fleeing it," says Jones. He offers to box Piers Morgan (suggesting Morgan should wear "Jolly Rogers" shorts, evidently believing that to be the symbol of England -- Jones is going to wear the red, white, and blue). “The government buys 1.6 billion bullets, armored vehicles, tanks, helicopters, predator drones, armed now in US skies, being used to arrest people in North Dakota.” "1776 will happen again if you try to take our guns."

Jones seems upset that people are trying to medicate him. Jones needs medication.

It has been suggested that Jones is not a good advocate for gun rights. That is true. There is a nuttiness and extremism he reflects, though, that is widespread, and, while his common travelers are not anything close to a majority of people, they should not be ignored. There's a reason so many buy into the crazy -- I suspect it's a combination of fear and ignorance, though that's speculation -- and whatever it is, it needs to be examined and addressed.

Dick Morris, Asshat (and Our Newest Guest on the Island of Idiots!)

That's a pretty crude title, but he really is a fat obnoxious shitheel. I'm keeping my feelings in here.

Morris, a tax cheat and patron of prostitution, is a darling of extremist conservatives for saying things he should know are untrue, and getting things so wrong so often that an award "for stunningly wrong political, social and cultural predictions" is named after him by Andrew Sullivan. A brief history of Morris's inane prognostications is given at The Guardian -- it's worth seeing, really it's phenomenal. But doing so helps him generate publicity for his salacious books and to generate income in his role with Newsmax, a hyper-conservative "news" site that sells financial products.  According to Media Matters Morris has a long history of fabricating smears of progressives, and Media Matters backs this up with a long list of documented instances.

The Concentration of Wealth and Power in China

Recently Bloomberg News has published several articles with interactive graphics discussing how some decedents of leading figures from the China's communist revolution have amassed incredible wealth, potentially through their family names and connections. It's a story that has been told in part elsewhere -- the New York Times, for example, published an article with its own interactive graphics on the wealthy relations of Wen Jiabao (温家宝) -- China's Premier of the State Council ("head of government" and leading the cabinet, compare Xi Jinping (习近平) who is the effective leader of China). I thought it might be interesting to combine some of the key graphics from some of the articles.

A couple of brief introductory notes: Bloomberg uses the phrase "eight immortals" to refer to the elders, but that's sarcastic -- the "eight immortals" were legendary apocryphal figures in Chinese history, sort of superheros who went around solving problems, and whose images, when solitary are sometimes confused with buddhas'. In addition, several of the elders and some of their descendants appear very unhappy with profiteering by their families or spouses. Below are just static images; the articles (linked above) are worth clicking through to; there's a lot I've left out, like, for instance, the entire interactive part.