It has been hot...

January was hottest month on record in Sydney and Brisbane, says weather bureau

I have been meaning to post about how unpleasantly, and continuously, hot and humid it has been in Brisbane this summer, and I'm glad to see it was not just in my imagination. 

A conservative judge and a silly argument

Of course I don't spend much time contemplating the US Supreme Court and how sensible its judges sound, but I do note that an article says of Trump's appointment (Gorsuch):

In the Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor cases, which challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate on religious-liberty grounds and were eventually heard by the Supreme Court, Gorsuch sided strongly with the plaintiffs.

“The opinion of the panel majority is clearly and gravely wrong—on an issue that has little to do with contraception and a great deal to do with religious liberty,” he wrote in a dissent in the Little Sisters of the Poor case. “ When a law demands that a person do something the person considers sinful, and the penalty for refusal is a large financial penalty, then the law imposes a substantial burden on that person’s free exercise of religion.”

But the Little Sisters of the Poor case was based on a contorted and silly argument:  that by the sisters signing a form that said they would not provide an employee cover that included contraception, they were morally complicit in the government then providing the cover  that would cover it.

As this article explained in detail - this was a nonsense argument.  If Gorsuch's line is taken literally, there would be a heap of things the religious could avoid.   

I agree with this explanation

David Roberts at Vox:

Trump isn’t an evil geniusAnd that’s not what matters anyway.

My theory is that authoritarian demagogues are more alike than they are different. Most of them are narcissists. They are, at root, fearful, paranoid, and tribal, which drives the macho posturing and obsession with loyalty. They have a kind of animal cunning for how to manipulate people, dominate, and accrue power.

But for the most part they aren’t evil geniuses. (One of Russian journalist Masha Gessen’s recurring themes about Putin is what a “grey, ordinary man” he is.) Indeed, evil geniuses are pretty rare — or, to put it more precisely, narcissistic, paranoid tribalists are rarely geniuses, because genius requires a certain detached perspective, an ability to step outside oneself, which is precisely what narcissists lack.

What authoritarian regimes do is blunder forward, grasping and grabbing power whenever and wherever they can, building secretive inner circles, surrounding themselves with supplicant state media, demonizing dissenting voices, and punishing enemies. They do this not because of some 12-dimensional chess analysis of the political landscape, but because that’s what narcissism and zero-sum thinking does. They are more like animals driven by instinct than chess masters driven by strategy, though of course there’s a range (with Trump being on the far blinded-by-narcissism end).

If we’re looking to understand the course an authoritarian takes through a country and its history — what’s he’s accomplished, what’s likely to happen next — the place to look is not his intent, but the institutions and norms of the country he seeks to dominate. They, not his ultimate goals and desires, are what most determine the ultimate shape and consequences of a regime.

Rich and weird

From a book review of an autobiography by the daughter of famous reviewer and socialite Kenneth Tynan:

From an early age,” Tynan writes, “I had learned to accept my parents’ aberrant behavior with a kind of voyeuristic fascination.” Recounting a variety of incidents — some intimate, often funny, frequently uncomfortable, bizarre or upsetting — Tracy contends with the bedazzlements of her parents’ world, and her awareness that it fails to deliver the basics required for her well-being. Take this account of a screening her father arranged as part of the celebration of her 21st birthday:

My father told me that our friends George and Joan Axelrod had a special birthday present for me. (George was the writer of many classic screenplays, including The Manchurian Candidate and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Joan was an interior designer.) They wanted to give it to me on the evening prior to the big bash. Their pal, Sammy Davis Jr., was in town, and they had arranged to screen his personal copy of Deep Throat, the infamous porn film that had come out the previous year in the States but was still banned in Britain.

She goes on to state that she’s never seen a porn flick at this point; she barely has managed to get it on with a mellow boyfriend called Mike, also present. The 20-person screening is introduced by Sammy Davis Jr.:

As I watched him, I could only think how incredibly small he was and wonder what kind of a person traveled around the world with a personal copy of Deep Throat. I supposed he did it to impress people like my father — and this night he had clearly succeeded...

When the lights went up, I was so embarrassed I wanted to flee. But as the daughter of Kenneth Tynan, important critic and writer and übercool purveyor of all things sexual, I felt compelled to hang around, chat with the guests, and act nonchalant, as if I’d been watching this kind of thing since I was a toddler. After profusely thanking my father, Michael and his parents quickly left. Actually, I think everyone felt a bit awkward, and as soon as they could, they too escaped.

 This was a particularly 70's "sexual revolution" kind of thing, wasn't it?   That it was a sign of alleged sophistication that you were not only not embarrassed to talk about being a private viewer of pornography, but that it was cool to share in it with a like minded, insider audience.  

I was going to say that I'm glad we're over that;  but then again, I did notice the publicity being given to 50 Shades of Grey being shown on free to air TV soon.  (Yes, no doubt, it's not quite the same as Deep Throat.)

And now I crown you: Mr Supreme Court Justice

With the New York Times reporting:

President Trump summoned his top two candidates for the Supreme Court to Washington on Tuesday as he worked to build suspense around a prime-time announcement of his choice to fill a crucial vacancy, a selection certain to touch off a bruising ideological clash that could shape his presidency and have sweeping consequences for American law.

one can only hope that it will be truly crass and weird in a Trump beauty contest/reality TV kind of way:  make both candidates wait on TV for the announcement, and one have to congratulate the other.  Maybe the winner gets a bunch of flowers.  Or a gown?  Yes:  Melania can bring out a judicial gown and cloak it around the winner. 

More authoritarian dysfunction

As I say, if you can't see the danger and dysfunction in the way Trump and Bannon are trying to run the White House, you're a complete fool.

Message to monty:  why do you continue to comment at a blog full of complete fools?   Seriously, they are too stupid and (in most cases) obnoxious to be seen with in the same room. 

China benefit from Trump

The point made here seems quite plausible, doesn't it?:

Donald Trump Is Handing China the World 

President Donald Trump wants to build up the U.S. Navy, a move that could help the United States counter China’s aggressive expansion into the Western Pacific.

But the new, bigger fleet will come too late to save America from a rising China. That’s because Trump’s other initiatives—rejecting foreign alliances, throwing up barriers to global trade and withdrawing from efforts to combat climate change—are creating a power vacuum that China naturally fills.

I wouldn't be surprised if nearly all of the world moves towards the view that they'd prefer China just to have the South China Sea islands they're building, rather than an outbreak of fighting with a man-child as President who you don't want to see contemplating use of nuclear weapons.

Questions about his mental health

This article from the Daily News:

President Trump exhibits classic signs of mental illness, including 'malignant narcissism,' shrinks say 

is not as over the top as you might think.   Its explanation of what happened with Goldwater is a bit of history I didn't know, too.

What is somewhat interesting, in a way, is the matter of who is using who in the White House at the moment.   Or does the inner circle (which seems to be a mere handful) share Trump's delusions so much that they genuinely share his alternative reality and have no concerns about it?

The psychological trick, that I've noted before, is that if you pretend something is true for long enough, you can inadvertently start to believe it.   That might be what is happening there at the moment, but who knows?  Lots of good insider books to come out in the future, at any rate...

What's it like in the White House at the moment?

I wonder how long it will take before Trump and his White House controllers will admit making a mistake?   Because it seems their "alternative fact" reality-in-their-mind is that the immigration executive order implementation went swimmingly, with the main problem being the media. 

A post at Axios, though, cites someone with inside knowledge summing up the situation realistically:

Despite the bravado, others who are high-up inside the administration worry that the ham-handed handling of the ban and its rollout are indicative of bigger problems ahead. These sources say:

• Big decisions, and edits to crucial documents, are made in the dark of night, with scant input beyond the inner circle. "There are a few guys who keep everything to themselves," said a top official.
• The insular inner circle is getting more insular, as it amasses more power.
• No force within the West Wing is a sure-fire counterweight to Bannon/Miller.
• The inner circle, resentful of leaks, seeks little input from the Cabinet, outside allies or Hill leaders. A leadership aide told us yesterday afternoon: "Congressional leaders had no hand in drafting this and haven't been briefed from the White House on how it works."
• Trump is showing no signs of WANTING order: He loves the competing views, internally and externally, allowing him to be the (usually last-minute) decider.
• The place oozes paranoia. So every bad move is simply chalked up to media-hate.

I can't see an obvious way to link to individual posts at Axios, which is a pain.

A great cover

I happened to watch Late Night with Colbert through to the end last night (the inauguration day episode, where his opening monologue was funny and heartfelt), and so caught this band (The Avett Brothers) who I see have been around for a while and have quite a following in the US.   This is,  I think, a lovely cover of the George Harrison song, and they would have to be the coolest looking folky/bluegrassy band around:

Shorter Kellyanne:

"President Trump can invent facts as much as he likes because none of the mainstream media predicted he would win.  And they're mean.  They should resign and if they don't, be sacked, and leave it up to Fox News."

Link. No absurd and quasi-despotic sense of entitlement there, at all...

Having it all ways

David Frum does seem to be trying to have a bit both ways, criticising Trump but also blaming the Left for more-or-less provoking unreasonableness.   (This is a common tactic by those of the Right who don't want to fully endorse Trump - blame the Left for being silly or nasty in their identity politics and trying to "shut down debate" on all sorts of matters.  It is an unconvincing argument that seeks to justify people being stupidly ignorant of facts and adopting policies that make no sense by saying "well, you drove them to their stupid position."  Nah, sorry.   The answer to a bad policy is a better, well argued, policy.)
 

Trump and security

A good article here by Fred Kaplan at Slate, noting that there's at least one General who hates Trump's visa ban, and that rearrangements regarding the National Security Council are being driven by personalities and make no sense.  Here's a part:

On the other hand, the director of national intelligence has been a permanent member ever since the post was created in 2005, and before then, the director of central intelligence was a member. It makes no sense for the secretaries of state, defense, treasury, and other Cabinet heads to meet in the White House with the national security adviser (and sometimes with the president) to discuss and make policy without the nation’s top intelligence officer—the coordinator of the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies—being part of that discussion.

The backstory here is that Trump’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has floated the idea of abolishing the DNI and having all the intel agencies report to him. It is pertinent to note that a few years ago the outgoing DNI, retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, fired Flynn from his last job in government, as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency—a move that has since embittered Flynn against the DNI and against much of the intelligence community, which disagreed with him on a number of issues. The removal of the DNI from the Principals Committee suggests that Flynn’s broader plan may be in the works.

Another new and senseless feature of this executive order is putting the president’s political strategist onboard. Karl Rove never attended NSC meetings during George W. Bush’s presidency, as important an adviser as he was on all sorts of issues. David Axelrod sat in on some NSC meetings during Barack Obama’s tenure, though he always sat along the wall, along with a few other aides and deputies; he never sat at the table or said a word.

As the president weighs national security matters, he can mingle his own political interests and instincts with the advice of Cabinet heads and the chiefs of the military and intelligence agencies; in fact, it’s his job to do just that. But the advice of this council should be rooted in U.S. national security interests; that’s why the group is called the National Security Council. Giving the president’s political strategist a seat at this table—elevating him to the same level as the secretaries of state and defense—is bound to inject a perspective that these meetings are expressly supposed to avoid. And given the inclinations of this particular strategist, Steve Bannon, the injections may sometimes be toxic.

Not the party of Reagan

Further evidence, if you needed it, that the Republicans have veered to the Right of Reagan. 

As readers know, I was no fan of Reagan, and think he lucked out more than anything, but I would still say he had more common sense and decency than Trump.  Then again, almost anyone does...

Muslims, Christians, Trump

Here, at NPR.

I see that the Right wing media is arguing along the lines of "Hey - Obama put a halt on Iraqi visas for 6 months in 200911 and no one freaked out.  Why freak out over Trump doing something similar?"

The reasons:

*  the fact that most people had forgotten Obama's action indicates that, unlike Trump, Obama wasn't throwing it out as red meat to his base, and drumming up their fear and despising of all Muslim refugees.  What's more, he had a specific reason for his actions.  Trump, as we well know, even conflates terrorism from Muslims born in America with the risk of terrorism from refugees - a dishonest and stupid thing to to.

* Recent attacks show the issue of "self radicalised" terrorism is a real problem.   Going over the top with publicising actions readily interpreted as attacks on Islam generally is, if anything, likely to make the home grown problem worse.  From the NYT:

“In my opinion, this is just a huge mistake in terms of counterterrorism cooperation,” said Daniel Benjamin, formerly the State Department’s top counterterrorism official and now a scholar at Dartmouth. “For the life of me, I don’t see why we would want to alienate the Iraqis when they are the ground force against ISIS.”

At home as well, Mr. Benjamin said, the president’s order is likely to prove counterproductive. The jihadist threat in the United States has turned out to be largely homegrown, he said, and the order will encourage precisely the resentments and anxieties on the part of Muslims that fuel, in rare cases, support for the ideology of the Islamic State or Al Qaeda.

“It sends an unmistakable message to the American Muslim community that they are facing discrimination and isolation,” Mr. Benjamin said. That, he said, will “feed the jihadist narrative” that the United States is at war with Islam, potentially encouraging a few more Muslims to plot violence. 

For an action aimed at terrorism, the order appeared to garner little or no support among experts and former officials of every political stripe with experience in the field. Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said that if the temporary visa ban was used to review and improve immigration vetting procedures, it might be justified.

But he added that he knew of no obvious problems with those procedures, and no specific plans to address such issues over the 120-day ban. “The order appears to be based mainly on a campaign promise,” he said.

Update:  the Washington Post deals with how the Obama response to the Iraqi visa issue in 2011 is completely different to Trump's pandering to his base, and refusing to help Europe with the Syrian problem.

Someone else would do it better, no doubt...

A lack of moral seriousness

Yeah, it's all just a big culture war game to the likes of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt.

Blair writes of Trump's refugee (temporary) immigration ban:  "Leftist media will be entertaining today."   Yes, that's what really matters for a writer whose sole output is anti-Left wing snark.

Bolt gets obsessed with media calling it a Muslim ban, and gets totally on board with the claimed justification - to work out better "vetting procedures" from certain countries - while not showing any interest at all in what the current procedures are, or wondering how it could be at all possible to get perfect vetting from a war torn nation, or for people who have come (for example) via living in a tent in a desert refugee camp for the last 3 years.   He is completely in the tank for Trump on this, because it aligns with his own contemptuous disregard for refugees, despite the West's role in helping generate more globally by its attempted Middle East interventions.

Bolt is the most dishonest and disgraceful writer on immigration matters in Australia today - continually blaming government for letting in thoroughly deserving refugees (be they Muslim or not) in the event that any of them, or their children, commit a crime even years after their arrival.  Governments are supposed to be able to tell which 10 year olds will be a 17 year old thief, apparently.

Neither of them are morally serious on this, or indeed on climate change, another topic of long term consequence on which they prefer to play the short sighted fool and culture war warrior.

La La Landed

My wife and I saw this much talked about movie yesterday.

I think it's very good for 3 main reasons:

1. Emma Stone is utterly charming and fantastic and they should just send her to Oscar now and tell the other contenders there is really is no point in them coming to the ceremony.  

2. It's very pleasingly directed, and avoids, in large part, the annoying over-editing of dance sequences that has afflicted modern musicals for so long.  I only read up on director Damian Chazelle after seeing the movie - 32 years old and obviously very talented.  (He co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane too - quite a genre difference there!)

3.  The dancing is just right for this type of movie, in that it doesn't overwhelm with technical virtuosity in the way that Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly always seemed to be dancers trying to act (this movie is the reverse), and it shows how well non professional dancers can do if they practice enough.  I think it makes the viewer feel capable of sharing in dance, too, even if it's never attempted.

It's not a perfect film - personally, I think the final interaction between Stone and Gosling should have been more intense, and some of the music tends to the bland.  Would I have been happier with a less melancholy story?  Perhaps, but it is what it is, to quote from the recent episodes of Sherlock.

It's well worth seeing.

More leaking - like a sieve

Isn't it truly remarkable that a recording of a behind closed doors Republican meeting (dealing with the huge practical difficulties of repealing Obamacare) should be leaked to the Washington Post, so early in this administration?

There is some internal turmoil going on in that party, the extent of which will no doubt be the subject of many future books.

The last Sherlock

We watched the last Sherlock last night.

Many readers from The Guardian didn't like it.  I thought it wasn't too bad, actually.  Rather too James Bond in the settings (both the prison island, and then the house surely reminded people of Skyfall?). Thematically, it reminded me a bit of a minor Graham Greene novel too - Doctor Fischer of Geneva.

It was all very improbable all round, of course, but improbable done with good intensity and directorial flare, most of the time.   (The shot of the jump out of the Baker Street flat was very poor, though.)

I would be happy to see the show continue, actually, now that its biggest mistake - the silly story arc of Mary - is well and truly gone, as is Moriarty.