Obsidian Wings

Light

by JanieM

(This was drafted and ready to go when lj's post went up on Christmas Eve. I would have used it as a comment, but I wanted to include some pictures.)

Christmas got diluted for me this year, what with car problems, illness (not mine and not serious, but hampering), the birth of another grandchild (a reason for rejoicing, but also a time sink 😊), storms and floods and a mass shooting to sap my energy.

So – I have lights in the windows, gifts wrapped, and a bit of celebratory food to make, but for the first time in my life, and I hope the last, no Christmas tree. I didn’t even get time to go cut some pine branches to bring that lovely scent into the house. (Maybe I still will.)

As always, though, I’ve enjoyed the light displays in public places and other people’s windows and yards, because for me, light is basically what this time of year is about. The season of increasing darkness in late fall always slows me down, so maybe it makes sense that this turning of the year cheers me up, despite the months of brutal weather yet to come.

Sending best wishes to everyone here for a new, improved year in 2024, personally and politically. Plus, thanks to all of you who hang around here continuing the conversation.

Open thread.

(Pictures below the fold.)

Merry Christmas and other holiday things

liberal japonicus

Hello from (one day) in the future. Thanks to the wonders of the international dateline, I can tell you that everything is pretty much the same (i.e. shitty), though I suspect that I'm walking around with an American day count while everyone around me has an Asian day count, as described in this page.

I say that because here in Japan, I've usually had to work on Christmas day, so we'd get up, try to the present opening stuff with the kids and then I'd go off to teach. This year, I don't have monday classes, but my youngest daughter is at a university that has classes until 27 Dec. So, we will bring the mountain (or at least the Christmas dinner) to Mohammed. Still not sure exactly what will be on the menu (my daughter only has a microwave, so we are cooking stuff now to be reheated and will stop by Costco on the way, which, being in Japan, is open)

Anyway, an open thread for folks to say what you are doing and eating for this holiday. And may the holidays treat all of you well.

SCOTUS Declaring Trump an Insurrectionist could be a huge win for the GOP

by Ugh

As you've no doubt read or heard the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Trump removed from the GOP Presidential Primary ballot in that state because he is an insurrectionist within the ambit of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and therefore ineligible to hold the Office of the Presidency.

I haven't read that opinion so have no view on whether it's correct.

That said, is seems to me there is significant upside to the GOP if the 6 SCOTUS conservatives affirmed the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, declared Trump ineligible for the Office of the Presidency, and invalidated any vote for him, including write-ins.  

It solves the establishment GOP's "Trump problem."  He's out - therefore Haley or DeSantis wins the GOP nomination without the "screw this Democracy sh1t" baggage (I would hope!).  Further, Haley and (maybe but maybe not) DeSantis are more likely to defeat Biden than Trump.  Thus the GOP would be more assured of enacting their - admittedly horrible - policy agenda at the federal level depending on the makeup of Congress.  Finally, if it's the 6 conservatives removing Trump from the ballot, the "it's all partisan politics" viewpoint rings hallow, even if the 3 progressives join them.

Essentially - this is the moment for the GOP as represented by SCOTUS to at least at the margins live up to being "the party of Lincoln" (however much that makes me lol) while getting what they want at the end of the day anyway.

That said, the Trump MAGA "they're all members of the Deep State" viewpoint may act up and try a more violent repeat of January 6th, whether or not the GOP candidate wins.  But they would do that anyway.

So, what say you John Roberts?

Imagining

by JanieM

I’m having a hard time finding a topic encompassable in a blog post. Partly a problem with my aging brain and the ability to condense and prioritize…partly a problem with current headlines/topics.

Factoids: The Gaza strip consists of almost 2.4 million people in an area of 141 square miles. My school district consists of 4 towns with an area of 123 square miles, home to about 8000 people. (Data courtesy of Wikipedia.)

I keep trying to imagine 2 million people living in these four towns of my school district. Then I try to imagine it being bombed relentlessly for two months, and everyone being made to live in one corner of it, in tents, maybe getting fed, maybe not, maybe getting killed, maybe not, maybe having homes to go back to, maybe not.

Then I try to imagine the people on both/all sides who want to make peace getting their way.

Someone wrote a song about that once.

Open thread.

*****

The picture is of the Kennebec River flowing through Augusta, Maine.

There’s a bigger version here.

Yet another open thread

liberal japonicus

To toss out some things that we've previously mentioned

• PPT of a fuel ammonia presentation
• OpenAI and Altman
• Black Friday winners and losers

Have at it.

The X-files

by liberal japonicus

Thought I'd crack open a thread on X (i.e. ex-Twitter). This is an old article about what the X might have meant. The hole article is a fun look at what X could mean, but a pull graf

X can symbolize divinity and harmony as a symmetrical letter, but references to death, toxicity and the concept of error (cast yourselves back to your schooldays) are never far. With this in mind, Twitter’s new logo feels oddly perfect when taking into account X as the visual representation of two paths crossing. A pair of souls meet and, having failed to establish respectful dialogue or settle on a middle-ground, continue on their original momentum and go their own separate ways. A failed connection, representing a defeat of dialogue in a splintered digital world that was intended to unite in connection, but only succeeded in fostering division.

A pretty apt encapsulation of the Twitter platform, all things considered.

What has me post about this is the Guardian note

Another line of reasoning is that Musk wants to kill Twitter because his investment was in user accounts rather than a social network. There’s a mysterious method to his madness and he wants to destroy the current business model so he can transform it into something a lot more profitable.

Lou Paskalis, former head of global media at Bank of America, seems to be one of the proponents of this theory. “[Musk] is smart, he knows it’s illegal – although usually hard to prove – to intentionally devalue an asset to manipulate creditors, and he knows how to make money so I have to believe he sees an entirely new revenue model that the rest of us don’t yet recognize,” Paskalis told Business Insider. In other words, everything that looks like self-sabotage to the common man is actually a genius business decision.

It’s possible that there is some substance to these theories. But it’s also possible that the simplest answer is the correct one: Musk is a narcissist who has let his enormous ego get in the way of making sensible business decisions. He’s realized that he can’t actually make X profitable so he’s letting it all burn to the ground while casting himself as some sort of free speech martyr.

Again, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Musk’s brain (I’m not sure he does either) but I do know this: theories that Musk is playing some sort of four-dimensional chess with his bizarre decisions and unprofessional outbursts demonstrate that an awful lot of people find it hard to believe that a rich white guy might not be as smart as he thinks.

I'd put my money on the latter.

I've never been a big Twitter user. Balloon Juice moves to fast for me to keep up, so Twitter is like that Star Trek episode where the aliens are all sped up. And that's just in English. I made an attempt to follow it in Japanese, but it was like drinking from a firehose. Anyway, a thread about Musk's Bonfire of the Vanities or anything else you want to talk about.