Benignly Pompous

Now that impeachment is upon us we thought we’d let the guys do a long segment (that’s not a euphemism) on it themselves. Then, Niall Ferguson joins to explain why the Trump administration is like the Corleone family, but trust us — he means this as a compliment (calm down and read the column, MAGA folks). We go celestial with this week’s Lileks Post of The Week Winning the Cosmic Lottery by @brycecarmony. Are we alone? Give us your take in the comments. And finally, the Attorney General wants Apple to create a back door to our phones. Since we always forget to lock the back door, we tend to think this is a bad idea. How about you?

Music from this week’s show: You Ain’t The Problem by Michael Kiwanuka

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  1. Wolfsheim Member
    Wolfsheim
    @Wolfsheim

    In German, a resident of Davos is ein Davoser (or eine Davoserin); in French, the adjective is davosien/davosienne; in Italian it’s davosiano/davosiana. The origin of the place name is disputed, though the folk etymology would have us believe that it comes from hunters’ designating it as “behind those woodlands”… We reactionary literary types prefer to think of Davos as the setting for Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg and not as the site for various pompous conferences.

    C.S. Lewis didn’t pretend to be a scientist and, of course, wrote his science-fiction trilogy before it was known that Venus (“Perelandra”), for example, is much too hellishly hot to support life. But what is most interesting about his story is the theme of sin and redemption. Unlike the atheist Arthur C. Clarke, Lewis did not think that humankind’s destiny is the colonization of the universe. In fact, he thought that earth (“Thulcandra, the Silent Planet”) might be in a state of quarantine. 

    One of the most moving scenes in Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is at the end of the third book:

    “Please, Lamb,” said Lucy, “is this the way to Aslan’s country?”
    “Not for you,” said the Lamb. “For you the door into Aslan’s country is from your own world.”
    “What!” said Edmund. “Is there a way into Aslan’s country from our world too?”
    “There is a way into my country from all the worlds,” said the Lamb; but as he spoke his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane.
    Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”
    “I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.” 

    The scene clearly echoes the conclusion of St. John’s Gospel, but, not surprisingly, the film version could not do justice to it.

     

    • #31
  2. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Wolfsheim (View Comment):

    In German, a resident of Davos is ein Davoser (or eine Davoserin); in French, the adjective is davosien/davosienne; in Italian it’s davosiano/davosiana. The origin of the place name is disputed, though the folk etymology would have us believe that it comes from hunters’ designating it as “behind those woodlands”… We reactionary literary types prefer to think of Davos as the setting for Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg and not as the site for various pompous conferences.

    C.S. Lewis didn’t pretend to be a scientist and, of course, wrote his science-fiction trilogy before it was known that Venus (“Perelandra”), for example, is much too hellishly hot to support life. …

    Don Wollheim’s “The Secret Of The Ninth Planet” from 1959 has a slightly more realistic presentation of Venus although still figured that humans could survive there even if Venus weren’t capable of producing its own humanoid life.  And it still had water-filled “canals” on Mars and a somewhat sentient life although not really human(oid).  I still find it an entertaining read even recently.

     

     

    • #32
  3. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    And of course it’s far more likely that if there is other intelligent life in the universe, it won’t be human(oid). Which is one reason why the character Yaphit from “The Orville” is so great.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUbaGerSR5I

    • #33
  4. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    Rob Long (18:40):  “Here’s my working theory on Donald Trump. He is governing as an old-timey, patriotic Democrat … the kind of old-timey, patriotic Democrat that, in fact, Archie Bunker was.  Archie Bunker voted for Kennedy, probably …”

    Welcome to the club, Rob!

    Me, Dec. 2019:  “as a conservative, JFK Democrat [Trump] has refused to bow down to the progressives.”

    Me, Nov. 2019: “Trump is actually better described as a conservative, JFK Democrat.”

    Me, Oct. 2019:  “Trump is a patriotic, conservative, JFK Democrat.”

    Me, July 2019:  “Donald Trump has been involved in politics for FIFTY YEARS, mostly as a conservative, JFK-style Democrat (though 100 times less sleazy than JFK, I hurry to add).”

    • #34
  5. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Taras (View Comment):

    Rob Long (18:40): “Here’s my working theory on Donald Trump. He is governing as an old-timey, patriotic Democrat … the kind of old-timey, patriotic Democrat that, in fact, Archie Bunker was. Archie Bunker voted for Kennedy, probably …”

    Welcome to the club, Rob!

    Me, Dec. 2019: “as a conservative, JFK Democrat [Trump] has refused to bow down to the progressives.”

    Me, Nov. 2019: “Trump is actually better described as a conservative, JFK Democrat.”

    Me, Oct. 2019: “Trump is a patriotic, conservative, JFK Democrat.”

    Me, July 2019: “Donald Trump has been involved in politics for FIFTY YEARS, mostly as a conservative, JFK-style Democrat (though 100 times less sleazy than JFK, I hurry to add).”

    You’d think he could at least give you some credit for coming up with his theory!

    Of course, Trump being someone that Archie Bunker was and/or would (have) vote(d) for, isn’t exactly praise these days.

    It’s not exactly original with either of you, though.  I was saying in 2015-2016 that Trump would have run as a Democrat a) if Hillary weren’t running, and b) if someone like JFK could have won the Democrat nomination in 2016 which would have been impossible.  And not because of his sexual proclivities.  The Democrats lionize and PROMOTE people like that.  But JFK wasn’t a “liberal” by today’s standards, he would have to run as a Republican today.

    • #35
  6. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Just on Niall Ferguson’s Trump/Godfather nexus — it’s really just more of a Brooklyn/Queens thing (or Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island/New Jersey, since at lot of people from the outer boroughs moved even further out in the 25 or so years after World War II). Trump’s blunt style was pretty common there, and didn’t really have to be tied to any Mafia mythos, but was more just a part of life in the city’s more blue collar working class areas (and the nouveau riche from those areas who failed to shed those outer borough tendencies were pretty much subject to othering by the old-line rich of Manhattan, along with those who were willing to follow the rules. The fact that Trump wouldn’t back in the 1970s when he hit the spotlight is pretty much how we got where we are now in the 2020s).

    • #36
  7. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    kedavis (View Comment):
    On the other hand, it DOES still take weeks, even with warp drive, to get from place to place.

    Oh, I agree completely; I was just having sport. The problem with later Trek is the loss of this sense of distance – the Enterprise was out there, alone, in TOS; by the time “First Contact” redefined things, the 1701-E could be out on the borderlands, exploring gaseous anomalies, but make it back to Earth in time to join the battle. They never wanted to commit to the idea of Transwarp Drive, because that would betray the whole idea of being out there, alone, so they just waved away the distances you could travel at 9.9.

    One of the reasons I detested STD, by the way. 

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):
    On the other hand, it DOES still take weeks, even with warp drive, to get from place to place.

    Oh, I agree completely; I was just having sport. The problem with later Trek is the loss of this sense of distance – the Enterprise was out there, alone, in TOS; by the time “First Contact” redefined things, the 1701-E could be out on the borderlands, exploring gaseous anomalies, but make it back to Earth in time to join the battle. They never wanted to commit to the idea of Transwarp Drive, because that would betray the whole idea of being out there, alone, so they just waved away the distances you could travel at 9.9.

    One of the reasons I detested STD, by the way.

    Ah but there were, and still are, so MANY!

    One that annoyed me the most, right from the start, was, why make a ship with those rotating parts of the “saucer section,” when they couldn’t have known that they would be needed to make “spore drive” work, if they even were for THAT?  It was most likely just pointless BS.  (And how could you find your way around the ship when those sections would be constantly changing where things are?)

    But also, how could Michael Burnham have engaged in a mutiny when we know from Spock in “The Tholian Web” – which took place about 10 years later – that there’s never been one?

    Actually the “warp drive” problem existed even from the first pilot, “The Cage,” unless you want to say that Pike was just lying when he told the Talosians that he was from a planet “at the other end of this galaxy.”  Although I suppose he must have been, otherwise they couldn’t have reached it so quickly in “The Menagerie.”

    Supposedly the warp drive at the very start was supposed to be different though, the original idea as I’d read it was that the ship became transparent at warp, among other complications, which is why Lt. Tyler hand-signaled “7” to Pike.

    • #38
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Also, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski one said/wrote that the ships in that show – specifically the “Star Fury” fighters – traveled “at the speed of plot.”

    But they weren’t quite as outrageous as any Trek show/movie.  They frequently had Star Fury trips just in the area of their planet Epsilon 3, take several hours each way.  And going from there to Earth took, as I recall, 3 days by White Star-class ship.  However they never explained why it was so difficult to get fresh eggs, etc, from Earth in that time.  Did humanity forget how to do refrigeration?  I suppose they mostly relied on other types of ships for that, and some of them took weeks to make the trip.

    Someone should have brought some chickens and pigs to B5, or at least somewhere close by.  They could have made a fortune!

    • #39
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Hey, what happened to The Long Poll (also not a euphemism)?

    • #40
  11. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    kedavis (View Comment):

     

    Ah but there were, and still are, so MANY!

    One that annoyed me the most, right from the start, was, why make a ship with those rotating parts of the “saucer section,” when they couldn’t have known that they would be needed to make “spore drive” work, if they even were for THAT? It was most likely just pointless BS. (And how could you find your way around the ship when those sections would be constantly changing where things are?)

    But also, how could Michael Burnham have engaged in a mutiny when we know from Spock in “The Tholian Web” – which took place about 10 years later – that there’s never been one?

    Actually the “warp drive” problem existed even from the first pilot, “The Cage,” unless you want to say that Pike was just lying when he told the Talosians that he was from a planet “at the other end of this galaxy.” Although I suppose he must have been, otherwise they couldn’t have reached it so quickly in “The Menagerie.”

    Supposedly the warp drive at the very start was supposed to be different though, the original idea as I’d read it was that the ship became transparent at warp, among other complications, which is why Lt. Tyler hand-signaled “7” to Pike.

    Star Trek series set in the years after TOS had more freedom to expand the Federation and it’s ships’ capabilities to forward the plot and give the writers new options. The shows like “Enterprise” and “Discovery” which add things or create contacts with other civilizations that TOS supposedly made first contact with are irritating, because they alter canon simply because they’re not creative enough to come up with their own new characters and/or story lines.

    (As for time-lapses, you did have the occasional longer travel periods. They just weren’t expressed well in a show that had to be resolved in 48 minutes. The otherwise meh “The Paradise Syndrome” strands Kirk on a planet for over half a year due to the ship’s travel limitations.)

     

    • #41
  12. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I have listened to all of those smart guys that have read the Federalist papers. This is the quick and dirty impeachment lecture.

    Impeachment has two parts. The president has to engage in some kind of banana republic behavior that everyone is upset about. Something that sets a bad trend for the country with respect to the constitution.

    The second part is you have to have enough  bipartisan recognition of the first requirement that you will get 2/3 of the Senate.

    If you don’t meet both of those conditions you have to leave it as oversight with the intent of turning it into political ammo for the next election or censure. 

    On that last point I’ve heard at least two smart guys say that the trial should be dismissed immediately but the Senate should run all of those characters through oversight and make a big deal. Both Bidens etc.

    • #42
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    kedavis (View Comment):

     

    Ah but there were, and still are, so MANY!

    Supposedly the warp drive at the very start was supposed to be different though, the original idea as I’d read it was that the ship became transparent at warp, among other complications, which is why Lt. Tyler hand-signaled “7” to Pike.

    Star Trek series set in the years after TOS had more freedom to expand the Federation and it’s ships’ capabilities to forward the plot and give the writers new options. The shows like “Enterprise” and “Discovery” which add things or create contacts with other civilizations that TOS supposedly made first contact with are irritating, because they alter canon simply because they’re not creative enough to come up with their own new characters and/or story lines.

    (As for time-lapses, you did have the occasional longer travel periods. They just weren’t expressed well in a show that had to be resolved in 48 minutes. The otherwise meh “The Paradise Syndrome” strands Kirk on a planet for over half a year due to the ship’s travel limitations.)

     

    Only a little less than 2 months.  They got to the asteroid almost immediately thanks to warp drive, and then:

    SPOCK: Exactly fifty nine point two two three days, Doctor, and that asteroid will be four hours behind us all the way.

    leaving unexplained how they could travel without warp drive for 2 months in that episode, but only a few hours in “The Doomsday Machine.”

    But anyway.

    That was because of the lack of warp drive, although even impulse should have been enough to greatly out-run any asteroid unless it was going much faster than any historically-real asteroid.  So that was clearly Because Plot too.  A much bigger problem in that area was the shuttlecraft.  They were never indicated to have any FTL capability, and without that it was ridiculous to have them doing any kind of passenger service etc of the type in “Metamorphosis” for example.  Or trying to pursue a warp-driven ship such as in “Menagerie.”

    • #43
  14. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Series-wide though, they couldn’t possibly have gotten to all those places they went to, in each year the series ran.  And everything they did in 3 seasons would have taken a lot longer than the “five year mission.”

    And in TNG “First Contact” (episode, not movie) for another example, Troi says that Captain Picard is from a planet over two thousand light-years from their current location.  Since their speed limit seemed to be about 1,000 light-years per year (re: Voyager etc) that would mean they either took up to two years just to get to that planet for that mission, or they were already fairly close which means they couldn’t have gotten back to Earth as easily/quickly as they did (such as season 1 “Conspiracy”), nor could various people (Worf’s adopted parents, for example) show up to visit out there in deep space since other ships likely couldn’t catch up at all, certainly not some kind of mostly-civilian transport they’d be likely to use…

    They – especially Kirk – usually gave an order like “ahead, warp factor (1 or 2)” at the end of each mission/episode.  But they really had to be using at least warp 6 (1701’s top “cruising” speed) basically all the time, because otherwise things get REALLY ridiculous.  At warp 2, it takes a YEAR to get from Earth just to Alpha Centauri, which is the NEAREST star.  Warp 6 gets that down to “only” 6 weeks.  Which means that even if each of their missions is only Alpha Centauri-far from their last one, and they used Warp 6 all the time, their about-25 missions of each show year, would take 3 years.  For EACH YEAR.  I guess they should have said “its 9-year mission…” in the opening credits.

    • #44
  15. ParisParamus Inactive
    ParisParamus
    @ParisParamus

    If Rob Long isn’t a NeverTrumper, he’s disappointingly close to being one, as well as misinformed.

    Subsidies to farmers due to the tariffs of China will have been about $16 billion–That’s a whole lot less than the approximately $700 billion (really a lot more, given Fed policies) spent to bailout the banks in 2008.  And that $16 billion will be vastly surpassed by hundreds of billions of additional trade that will likely flow from deal deal (yes, the initial increase in trade will be close to the pre-tariff status quo, but that is likely to increase thereafter).

    A good deal of the promised increase in trade is non-agricultural–maybe that’s fair or unfair to farmers, but it’s not obviously the latter.

    Mr. Long claims that Phase 1 of the deal only reduces tariffs; actually, it does a lot more, including seting up an extra-Chinese-judicial mechanism for complaints regarding IP and improves transparency re currency issues (I believe there are six parts; can’t remember the others right now…)

    Perhaps the biggest value of the Trump trade policy toward China is not be measured directly in dollars; it is a greatly increased awareness that China is a questionable destination for investment.  President Trump has spotlighted how untrustworthy China is.  As a result, more businesses will opt to manufacture elsewhere in Asia.

    • #45
  16. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    ParisParamus (View Comment):
    Perhaps the biggest value of the Trump trade policy toward China is not be measured directly in dollars; it is a greatly increased awareness that China is a questionable destination for investment. President Trump has spotlighted how untrustworthy China is. As a result, more businesses will opt to manufacture elsewhere in Asia.

    We have got to get real about letting their economy compound for years and years so they can grow their military. It’s insane. They are fascist now and they are not going to change unless their economy implodes,

    The other thing is we have to get real about how we are going to deal with all of this wage deflation and job destruction if every western government is still going to run with inflation anyway. People with patience and brains need to listen closer what Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro are saying. It’s a very tricky problem.

     

    • #46
  17. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    ParisParamus (View Comment):
    Perhaps the biggest value of the Trump trade policy toward China is not be measured directly in dollars; it is a greatly increased awareness that China is a questionable destination for investment. President Trump has spotlighted how untrustworthy China is. As a result, more businesses will opt to manufacture elsewhere in Asia.

    We have got to get real about letting their economy compound for years and years so they can grow their military. It’s insane. They are fascist now and they are not going to change unless their economy implodes,

    The other thing is we have to get real about how we are going to deal with all of this wage deflation and job destruction if every western government is still going to run with inflation anyway. People with patience and brains need to listen closer what Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro are saying. It’s a very tricky problem..

    [Taras:]

    When Nixon went to China, it was to help win the Vietnam War, but middlebrow liberals interpreted it as, “Yay, we’re pals now! The misunderstanding is over!”

    When Reagan allied with China against the Soviet Union, again, this was misinterpreted as eternal friendship, rather than what it was, a strategic gambit in the Cold War.

    If Reagan had had a third term, he might have explained that China is the other “evil empire”.  China was merely our temporary ally against the Soviets, in the same spirit that, in another day, the Soviet Union was our temporary ally against Hitler

    • #47
  18. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    ParisParamus (View Comment):

    If Rob Long isn’t a NeverTrumper, he’s disappointingly close to being one, as well as misinformed.

    Subsidies to farmers due to the tariffs of China will have been about $16 billion–That’s a whole lot less than the approximately $700 billion (really a lot more, given Fed policies) spent to bailout the banks in 2008. And that $16 billion will be vastly surpassed by hundreds of billions of additional trade that will likely flow from deal deal (yes, the initial increase in trade will be close to the pre-tariff status quo, but that is likely to increase thereafter).

    A good deal of the promised increase in trade is non-agricultural–maybe that’s fair or unfair to farmers, but it’s not obviously the latter.

    Mr. Long claims that Phase 1 of the deal only reduces tariffs; actually, it does a lot more, including seting up an extra-Chinese-judicial mechanism for complaints regarding IP and improves transparency re currency issues (I believe there are six parts; can’t remember the others right now…)

    Perhaps the biggest value of the Trump trade policy toward China is not be measured directly in dollars; it is a greatly increased awareness that China is a questionable destination for investment. President Trump has spotlighted how untrustworthy China is. As a result, more businesses will opt to manufacture elsewhere in Asia.

    I think Rob has said elsewhere, although seemingly forgot to include it here, that he was referring to the car company bailouts, not the banks.  That is my recollection, at least.

    Edit: actually in GLoP Culture podcast “Extreme Affectation” it’s apparently Jonah who says it, and he does say it’s the auto bailouts, not the banks.

    • #48
  19. MISTER BITCOIN Inactive
    MISTER BITCOIN
    @MISTERBITCOIN

    the FBI should use the security software firm in Israel who unlocked the phone of the San Bernadino shooter.’

    problem solved.

    no more lawyers needed.

     

    • #49
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