Obsidian Wings

Happy Tax Reform Week!

by Ugh

Just when the GOP is getting ready to drop their huge (yuuuuge!) plans for tax reform on Wednesday, Mueller drops his first indictment: of Paul Manafort for....tax fraud! Or at least failing to file FBAR reports.

You can't make this sh1t up. 

Perhaps the GOP proposal can be labeled tax fraud, instead of tax reform, and it will die.  

In other news, I picked a hell of a week to stop sniffing glue.

Whee.

Interstellar -- Weekend Open Thread

by wj

However much our political concerns dominate our focus, it is well to remember that the universe is bigger than our day to day concerns.  So we shouldn't miss this one:

For the first time ever, an asteroid or comet from another star has been caught hurtling through our solar system, astronomers announced late Thursday. Provisionally designated A/2017 U1, the object appears to be less than a half-kilometer in diameter and is traveling at just over 40 kilometers per second—faster than humanity’s speediest outbound space probes. [emphasis added]

I was particularly taken by this.

A/2017 U1 was first discovered on Oct. 19 by Rob Weryk, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii. He found it—a faint, pale dot streaking across the sky—while reviewing images from the university’s Pan-STARRS telescope, which searches for near-Earth objects (NEOs) from the mountain Haleakala. “When I first saw the object in question, I immediately thought it was an NEO that had not been seen before, being quite close to the Earth,” Weryk says. “But then I started to look for additional detections from other nights—and when I found it [in images from] the night before, the data didn’t make sense.”

At first look, he thought it was a near-Earth object???  It got that close, before anybody noticed.

It's going to be really fascinating to see how much we can learn about this thing before it recedes out of sight.  Even if it's too much to hope that the measurements trying to determine its dimensions and make-up will give back numbers that say "artificial construct".

Schooling, home or otherwise

by liberal japonicus

There was a brief blip about homeschooling in the comments, before it got swamped by all the crappy things happening. So, an open thread about homeschooling with an article by a friend on some aspects of that here Japan. My thoughts below the fold

Mighty Mite -- Rebuilding Puerto Rico

by wj

I was caught by this article.  It appears that sucking up to the Trump administration has spread (or maybe this is just me belatedly noticing).

Briefly, a tiny Montana firm (run by a friend of the Secretary of the Interior) has gotten a no-bid, $300 million contract contract to re-build Puerto Rico's power system.  As of two weeks before the hurricane, it had two (2!) employees -- plus some contractors.

Shortly before Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Whitefish landed its largest [second] federal contract, a $1.3 million deal to replace and upgrade parts of a 4.8-mile transmission line in Arizona. The company – which was listed in procurement documents as having annual revenue of $1 million – was given 11 months to complete the work, records show.

Obviously they are well qualified to rebuild a system which has 2,400 miles of transmission lines across the island, and 30,000 miles of distribution lines with 300 substations.  So well qualified that there is no reason to activate the mutual aid process which has been used by systems in Texas, Florida, etc. with great success.

But apparently it's not what you know, it's who you know.  Or who you are known to know, that the local authority feels the need to keep happy.  To the tune of $300 million dollars.

Halfway

by liberal japonicus

We've just passed the halfway point for Las Vegas shooting victims. 

1. Lisa Romero
2. Denise Salmon Burditus
3. Rhonda LeRocque
4. Victor Link
5. Charleston Hartfield
6. Chris Hazencomb
7. Calla Medig
8. Thomas Day, Jr.
9. Jack Beaton
10. Keri Galvan
11. Rocio Guillen
12. Cameron Robinson
13. Jennifer Irvine
14. Candice Bowers
15. Kelsey Breanne Meadows, 28
16. Stacee Ann Etcheber, 50
17. Carrie Rae Barnette, 34
18. Kurt Allen Von Tillow, 55
19. Michelle Vo, 32
20. John Joseph Phippen, 56
21. Heather Lorraine Alvarado, 35
22. Stephen Richard Berger, 44
23. Bailey Schweitzer, 20
24. Andrea Lee Anna Castilla, 28
25. Erick Silva, 21
26. Laura Anne Shipp, 50
27. Patricia Mestas, 67
28. Denise Cohen, 58
29. William W Wolfe, Jr., 42

 

Gacela of the Remembrance of Love

by Federico Garcia Lorca, translation by James Wright

Do not carry your remembrance.
Leave it, alone, in my breast,

tremor of a white cherry tree
in the torment of January.

There divides me from the dead
a wall of difficult dreams.

I give the pain of a fresh lily
for a heart of chalk.

All night long, in the orchard
my eyes, like two dogs.

All night long, quinces
of poison, flowing.

Sometimes the wind
is a tulip of fear,

a sick tulip,
daybreak of winter.

A wall of difficult dreams
divides me from the dead.

Robots, get yer robots!

by liberal japonicus

Marty, in the comments, points to this interesting article

A 45 year old married father of two with a mortgage and a pair of college educations to fund. The remote yet persistent threat of a nuclear war is not what keeps him up at night. In fact, he might almost see it as a relief should it come. He is a bundle of raw nerves, and each day brings even more dread and foreboding than the day before. What’s frying his nerves and impinging on his amygdala all day long is something far scarier, after all. He, like everyone else, is afraid that he doesn’t have a future.

He is petrified by the idea that the skills he’s managed to build throughout the course of his life are already obsolete.

The article riffs on Vonnegut's novel Player Piano, though the idea of coming thermo-nuclear war as a relief has a Walker Percy ring to it, though Percy made do with hurricanes. 

As an indication of where my mind is, I immediately googled up sex robots, which the Guardian has been fascinated with recently. from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/27/race-to-build-world-first-sex-robot

There are 20 possible components of Harmony’s personality, and owners will use an app to pick a combination of five or six that they can adjust to create the basis for the AI. You could have a Harmony that is kind, innocent, shy, insecure and helpful to different extents, or one that is intellectual, talkative, funny, jealous and happy. McMullen had turned the intellectual aspect of Harmony’s personality up to maximum for my benefit – a previous visit by a CNN crew had gone badly after he had amplified her sexual nature. (“She said some horrible things, asking the interviewer to take her in the back room. It was very inappropriate”.) Harmony also has a mood system, which users influence indirectly: if no one interacts with her for days, she will act gloomy. Likewise, if you insult her, as McMullen demonstrated.

“You’re ugly,” he told her.

“Do you really mean that? Oh dear. Now I am depressed. Thanks a lot,” Harmony replied.

“You’re stupid,” McMullen shot back.

She paused. “I’ll remember you said that when robots take over the world.”

This function was designed to make the robot more entertaining, rather than to ensure her owner treated her well. She can tease him and say he has offended her, but Harmony exists for no other reason that to make her owner happy. At several points during my conversation with McMullen, she would interrupt us to tell him how much she liked him:

“Matt, I just wanted to say that I’m so happy to be with you.”

“You already told me that.”

“Perhaps I was saying it again for emphasis.”

“See now that’s pretty good. Good answer, Harmony.”

“Am I a clever girl or what?”

If she wanted to take Wolf Blitzer to the back room, I'd say not. Anyway, have at it or anything else that strikes your fancy.

A Bright Light Seen Across the Universe

by wj

This is really more Dr Science's area.  But since she is having problems connecting, I figured someone else needed to put it out there. 

Basically, on August 17 (but just formally announced today) astronomers detected both  electromagnetic radiations and gravitational radiations for an explosive merging of two neutron stars.  These sort of events are thought to be responsible for creating everything from iodine (without which life as we know it doesn't happen) to gold to uranium.  They are not thought to be particularly rare, but this is the first time one has been observed like this. 

It made the local paper, as well as the Economist and probably lots of others, so you may have seen it already.  But what you might have missed is today's NASA "Astronomy Picture of the Day", which has a video that is simply awesome.

What we have lost

by liberal japonicus

With this comment by the Count, which names Las Vegas shooting victim Michelle Vo, age 32, 19 out of the 58 victims names,or just about one-third, have been posted as comments. Janie and the Count have been doing this, I went back after I realized what they were doing and added links, but for the past handful of names, Janie and the Count have found links.

I started adding the links to try to give a sense of what was lost/what we have lost. I looked for individual articles (as opposed to obituaries) from local news sources rather than what has been published in by either national media or the Las Vegas Review Journal, which has listed the victims in their crimes section. The Count and Janie have followed that, trying to find links that present the victim in a way that helps make clear what was taken away. I especially appreciate Janie finding this NYTimes article by a NYTimes reporter who discussed his connection to one of the victims. Janie also listed Floyd East, Jr., the officer killed in a shooting at Texas Tech, thinking that maybe we should expand this. However, according to the Gun Violence Archive, roughly 450 gun homicides have occurred since the Las Vegas mass shooting. 

In the last comment, the Count provided the name and Janie the link, about Michelle Vo's death as it related to a person she had just met at the concert site, Kody Robertson. The Count's comment came as I was reading this article on William Walker. I'm a big believer in diversity, because with diversity comes new ideas, new outlooks, new possibilities. The person that is shut out might have, under other circumstances, had an insight to a cure for cancer, or been able to do something that would have changed life for the better. That second article shows that we can usually only talk about what we know we have lost. All the possibilities, unseen chances and relationships, the network of potentials that undergird our lives can only be hinted at.

With google, it is relatively simple to find an article, but at this point, where we still have 2/3rds of the victims to go, I thought it would be good to post the google spreadsheet, open for comments, so anyone from ObWi who finds a link they think is particularly good can post it in a comment, so that spreadsheet is here. Though I'm not sure about the math of the probabilities, I think that it is not inconceivable that someone reading here knew one of the victims personally and it is much more probable that someone knew someone who knew a victim. The list so far, hot linked to the articles that they were linked to in the comments, are below

1. Lisa Romero, 48
2. Denise Salmon Burditus, 50
3. Rhonda LeRocque, 42
4. Victor Link, 55
5. Charleston Hartfield, 34
6. Chris Hazencomb, 44
7. Calla Medig, 28
8. Thomas Day, Jr., 54
9. Jack Beaton, 54
10. Keri Galvan, 31
11. Rocio Guillen, 40
12. Cameron Robinson, 28
13. Jennifer Irvine, 42
14. Candice Bowers, 40
15. Kelsey Breanne Meadows, 28
16. Stacee Ann Etcheber, 50
17. Carrie Rae Barnette, 34
18. Kurt Allen Von Tillow, 55
19. Michelle Vo, 32 and this 

But he played such a convincing gay guy in Miss Doubtfire

by liberal japonicus

Not meaning to make light of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, but this was funny:

On Oct. 5, The New York Times published a disturbing report detailing sexual harassment allegations against film producer and executive Harvey Weinstein, some of which dated back nearly three decades. After news of the allegations broke, the Weinstein Company fired the 65-year-old movie mogul, who co-founded the studio with his brother, Bob. The claims against Weinstein intensified Tuesday when the New Yorker published an investigative report, written by Ronan Farrow, that detailed rape allegations brought by three women. 

Unfortunately, the similar spellings of their surnames have lead many to confuse Weinstein for Fierstein, the legendary actor-playwright of “Torch Song Trilogy” fame and an LGBTQ rights icon. 

“I just can’t believe all these accusations of sexual harassment about Harvey Fierstein,” one person wrote. “I always thought he was gay.” Added another: “Am I the only one who confused this weekend because I didn’t know Harvey Weinstein and Harvey Fierstein were two different people?”

I should also add that Fierstein has also noted that "I’ve had some fun with the mix-up but, as you are well aware, the underlying issues of women being objectified is no laughing matter. So I think I am going to bow out of this discussion, stop making jokes, and let that story play itself out without my two cents.”

I have some thoughts about this, but thought we needed to another thread to hijack for gun control. Have at it.

Adult Day Care -- Open Thread

by wj

I really wanted to share this, but couldn't find a reasonably recent thread to fit. (Besides, we seem to be overdue for a new Open Thread.)

Senator Corker definitely turn a phrase here:

It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.

Zing! Perhaps Trump picked the wrong guy to go after. Especially since Corker isn't going to run for re-election, he doesn't have to live in fear of Trump voters the next time out.