tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54510992024-03-28T08:51:58.767-04:00rubber hosewhere i blather on about stuff and you read it and like itupyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comBlogger9544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-24379754876270959252024-03-28T08:50:00.005-04:002024-03-28T08:50:57.443-04:00Gee Whiz, that human rights violation was awesome!<p>The New York Times has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/technology/israel-facial-recognition-gaza.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gE0.OgI_.ISv8dNZPIjJq&smid=url-share">a front page article</a> (gift article link) about the sophisticated racial recognition technology that Israel uses to find people to detain in Gaza. The article starts with the story of how they identified and detained <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Abu_Toha">Mosab Abu Toha</a>, a well-known Palestinian poet in the early ground invasion of Gaza in November. While the article seems to gush about the high-tech methods the IDF uses to find people to imprison and interrogate, it ignores the obvious question: why the hell were they detaining a poet?</p><p>It's not in this article, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/world/middleeast/abu-toha-palestinian-poet-gaza.html?smid=url-share">when it happened the Times reported that he was taken to Israel and beaten</a>, and then only released <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/570567/palestinian-poet-gaza-mosab-abu-toha-captured-israel/">because </a><a href="https://time.com/6338183/palestinian-poet-mosab-abu-toha-arrested-gaza-israel/">of the</a> <a href="https://lithub.com/where-is-mosab-abu-toha-a-poem-from-gaza-in-21-languages/">international</a> <a href="https://irishwritersunion.org/mosab-abu-toha/">outcry</a>. There has never been any explanation for why he was targeted for detention and then abused. But I guess that was really cool how they used computers so they could beat the shit out of a poet.</p><p><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-43974830117078789302024-03-25T12:06:00.001-04:002024-03-25T15:36:49.518-04:00Can someone just write IS-K?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdATerYwGfAqE25TTH75XBljQ4cra67CivIALVrS53j_FDy4tKMsFxm3serZItw3hVHfhZb-h8sPnGDOCWsH6gEVS8aclHwxkIVN9jATM6u0ekk7RTwUOW4M52LsVJ2kbgC9CmC-uLL6Hb8K676Be165A_KCHQ4wsbzWVLApTdIgZPyb3T-ME/s1280/Greater_Khurasan.png.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1280" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdATerYwGfAqE25TTH75XBljQ4cra67CivIALVrS53j_FDy4tKMsFxm3serZItw3hVHfhZb-h8sPnGDOCWsH6gEVS8aclHwxkIVN9jATM6u0ekk7RTwUOW4M52LsVJ2kbgC9CmC-uLL6Hb8K676Be165A_KCHQ4wsbzWVLApTdIgZPyb3T-ME/w470-h333/Greater_Khurasan.png.webp" width="470" /></a></div><br /><div>This only comes up when the Islamic State Khorasan does something awful so it <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2021/08/it-should-be-isk.html">always seems petty</a> for me to raise the issue, but <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/why-did-isis-k-attack-moscow-theater-2024-03-23/" id="id_c641_ac1f_338f_2b55">why does the press always call them ISIS-K</a>?</div><div><br /></div><div>“ISIS” stands for “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (or sometimes “…of Iraq and Sham”, Sham being an old Arabic word for what it now the area around Syria. Sham sometimes gets translated as "the Levant” which is what for a why some called ISIS “ISIL”). “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Khorasan?wprov=sfti1" id="id_e9ba_3491_270e_a6a2">Khorasan</a>” is an old term for the region of what used to be the Eastern part of greater Persia, so what is now Afghanistan and the Southern parts of former Soviet Central Asia. In other words, not Iraq or Syria. “Islamic State Khorasan” should be ISK or IS-K, not ISIS-K. What is that second set of IS in the acronym supposed to stand for?</div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-23540395989487110292024-03-21T21:13:00.001-04:002024-03-21T21:14:41.909-04:00Our Ace in the Hole<div style="text-align: left;">One silver lining to having the Republican Party dominated by a greedy narcissist, is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-campaign-fundraising-rnc-c0e8f1e7b59f70c5237e13a3462e5790">he might suck up all the money</a> that could be used to defend vulnerable Republican seats in Congress.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-820466532146364752024-03-08T08:01:00.004-05:002024-03-11T13:54:10.980-04:00I have now written this post 20 times<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the 20+(!!!!!) years that I have run this taco stand, I have not been very consistent about anything. Remember when I never used capital letters? Or when I had this weird February 15th Turkish Star Trek tradition? When I used to plug other people's blogs? Or when other people <b>had</b> blogs? Almost all the old shit I did has been replaced by new shit, or no shit at all, or new shit that isn't replacing anything.</span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />My point is that the only constant in life is change, except that I will always, every year, put up a whiny post about how much I hate the State of the Union Address. I really have done it every freaking year since this place launched in mid-2003. I even complained about the SOTU <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2010/01/sot-what.html">from Kazakhstan</a>. <b>That's</b> how important this issue is to me.</span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Sometimes my SOTU post will be half assed and sometimes it will be full assed. But the anti-SOTUism is my one constant, even when everyone is saying that Biden did a really good job last night. My beef is not about any particular SOTU performance, it is that the SOTU is nothing more than a performance. That is terrible even when the performance is good.<br /><br /></span>The Whine Cellar: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2004/01/state-of-union.html">2004</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2005/02/sotu.html">2005</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2006/01/state-of-union.html">2006</a><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2006/01/state-of-union.html">,</a> <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2007/01/state-of-union.html">2007</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-hate-those-things.html">2008</a><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-hate-those-things.html">, </a><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2009/02/state-of-union.html">2009</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2010/01/sot-what.html">2010</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2011/01/state-of-union-is-whiny.html">2011</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2012/01/state-of-union-is-sauteed.html">2012</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2013/02/sotu-meta-3-whine.html">2013</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-state-of-union-is-unwatchable-event.html">2014</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/01/sigh-its-sotu-time.html">2015</a>, <a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2016/01/sotu-again.html">2016</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2017/03/not-sotu-whining.html">2017</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-state-of-union-is-for-sale.html">2018</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-state-of-union-sucks.html">2019</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2020/02/now-most-people-can-see-that-state-of.html">2020</a> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">2021</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2022/03/finally-closer-to-noz-ideal.html">2022</a>, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2023/02/does-anyone-even-care-anymore.html">2023</a>.</span></div></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-3894374454696802322024-03-05T08:17:00.002-05:002024-03-05T09:52:05.158-05:00Another shitty Supreme Court decision<p>Before the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/04/supreme-court-trump-ballot-decision/">Supreme Court ruling yesterday</a> that forced Colorado to put Trump back on its primary ballot, I thought two things about the case:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>If you look at the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, there was a strong case that Trump is not eligible to run for president.</li><li>There was virtually no chance that the Supreme Court would find Trump to be ineligible to run for President.</li></ol><div>I still think that #1 is true, and like plenty of others have mentioned, the per curiam decision the Court issued yesterday <a href="https://www.publicnotice.co/p/scotus-ballot-ruling-trump-colorado-explained">really doesn't make any sense</a>. The opinion said that the exclusion clause only applies if Congress passes a law giving teeth to the exclusion, but the language of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment already states explicitly what role Congress has in deciding ineligibility, and it is not what the Court just ruled. <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/">The text of that section says</a> that if someone is excluded "Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." If the drafters of the Amendment intended Congressional action to be necessary to exclude someone in the first place, they would have said so, just as they explained how the "disability" can be removed.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I do think if the Supreme Court went the other way, there would be huge potential for abuse. If Trump was excluded from Colorado and a handful of other state ballots because he engaged in insurrection, red states would immediately exclude Biden on some bullshit theory that he committed "treason" because (mumble) (mumble) border, or something. The <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/dan-patrick-joe-biden-off-texas-ballot-18574947.php">Texas Lt. Governor has already said as much</a>. Let's face it, a lot of state leaders suck and giving the carte blanche to knock anyone they want off the ballot by just declaring them an insurrectionist is ripe for abuse.</div><div><br /></div><div>If the Court gave a shit about the actual Constitution they could have issued a much more narrow ruling. Like, for example, they could have ruled that you can't be excluded for "insurrection" unless you have been convicted of the crime of insurrection. That would at least be consistent with what the Constitution says. It would also mean that Trump would remain eligible to run for President. But that's more because Merrick Gartland didn't immediately bring charges or appoint a special prosecutor at the beginning of the Biden Presidency. It wouldn't be because the Supreme Court is terrible. The ruling we actually got is because the Supreme Court is terrible. There's almost no opinion these days that isn't a scream for Court reform.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><p></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-38507415445863165392024-02-29T12:53:00.001-05:002024-02-29T12:53:06.993-05:00The "uncommitted" protest vote in Michigan was a failureIf I was a Michigan voter, I might have voted "uncommitted" yesterday<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-these-michigan-voters-are-choosing-uncommitted-in-the-primary"> to send a message to Biden about his Gaza policy</a>. I still would vote for Biden over Trump in the general, of course. But why not use an otherwise meaningless mostly uncontested primary as an opportunity to express my disappointment.<br /><div><br /></div><div>But to send a message, it would need a lot of support. Just a small statistical blip is not enough to send a clear message to Biden about his policies. Despite all the hype for the uncommitted protest, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/27/us/elections/results-michigan-democratic-presidential-primary.html?smid=url-share">"uncommitted" got just 13.2% of the vote in the Democratic primary</a>. Maybe that sounds significant, until you realize that there always is an uncommitted vote when an incumbent democrat is running uncontested in a primary in the reelection year. I<a href="https://mielections.us/election/results/12PPR/">n 2012, there was a 10.7% "uncommitted" vote in the Michigan Democratic primary</a>. That was not the sign that Barack Obama was in any real danger of losing Michigan or reelection later that year. In fact <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election">he won both</a>. I don't think the difference between 13.2% and 10.7% is enough to represent a large groundswell of Biden backlash this year, As much as I would like it if Biden changed his policy towards Israel and the conflict in Gaza the uncommitted vote in Michigan wasn't loud enough to deliver a clear protest message.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-57340036934833355532024-02-29T08:14:00.002-05:002024-02-29T14:39:08.802-05:00Just another day of our highly politicized corrupt Supreme Court<div style="text-align: left;">It's worth remembering that "presidential immunity", the concept, is completely made up. There is nothing about presidential immunity in the Constitution. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/legislative_immunity">Congressional immunity exists, it's in Article I.</a> So the founders knew how to do immunity if they wanted to create legal immunity. But presidential immunity was not a thing for 200 years until it <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/731/">was invented by the Supreme Court in 1982 to protect Richard Nixon when someone he illegally fired sued him</a>. And it was only made up to be immunity from civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecution. So Trump's presidential immunity claims in his criminal cases are pretty frivolous and based on nothing but an attempt to extend an immunity doctrine that was created out of thin air (the very kind of creation that conservative "original intent" jurists claim to hate... except when it comes to creating new immunities for public officials and police officers, and whenever it results in something that conservatives like) and extending it by judicial fiat into a brand new area without any real basis in the law. Or at least in the law before our judicial overlords tell us it is the law now.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, I think there is a fair chance that even the current arch-conservative Court will reject Trump's presidential immunity argument. Not because it is frivolous (it is) but because a Democrat is currently in the White House. The joke is the day after the Courts rule that Presidents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for anything they do while President, Biden orders the murder of Trump. I don't think that will literally happen, but the current arch-conservative majority is going to be aware of the dangers of telling the current sitting president, who they don't like, can do anything he wants without fear of consequences.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So instead I think <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/us/politics/trumps-immunity-supreme-court-delay-strategy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZE0.T15S.E1i-4zVxL53Y&smid=url-share">this is just a delay tactic</a>. The Supreme Court didn't just decide to take the case they <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/28/how-the-supreme-court-just-threw-trumps-2024-trial-schedule-into-turmoil-00144043">declined to expedite it</a>. Oral argument is scheduled for the end of April, two months from now, after first denying the special counsel's request for expedited review in December and then taking weeks to announce whether they would even take the case after Trump submitted his appeal. So a ruling won't come out until the end of June, 6 months after it could have summarily dealt with it (and that's assuming the Court doesn't kick it to the next term, one year from now, which they could, but probably won't, do). By contrast <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore/Majority-opinion">Bush v. Gore</a> was an appeal of a December 8, 2000 ruling of the Florida Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court took the case on December 9, heard arguments on December 11, and issued their ruling on December 12. When the Court wants to expedite something they know how to do it. By not quickly declining to hear the case or expediting the argument and decision, they are deciding to help Trump make sure he is not convicted before he is able to become President and shut the prosecution down. While the Court has not formally ruled on the case yet, that is already a significant decision they have already made.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Maybe Clarence and Ginny will get a shiny new R.V. out of this.</div><p><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-89943038720210705502024-02-16T12:40:00.002-05:002024-02-16T12:40:08.762-05:00How to get undeserved attention<div style="text-align: left;">I want to take this opportunity to announce that I, upyernoz, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/16/manchin-not-running-for-president/">who never had a serious shot at ever being President</a>, will not run for President of the United States this year.</div><p><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-24678914843859091292024-02-11T13:04:00.004-05:002024-02-11T13:04:37.157-05:00Trump's latest on NATO<div style="text-align: left;"> What I find so fascinating about <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/11/trump-nato-remarks-democrats-putin-00140848">Trump's latest comments about how he would encourage Russia to attack any NATO ally who doesn't pay</a>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>T<b>rump still has no idea what NATO is</b>. Way <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2016/07/trumps-crayon-drawing-of-what-nato-is.html">back in 2016, before he was elected president, I noted</a> that Trump seemed to think that NATO obligates other NATO countries to pay the U.S. It's one thing when he is a semi-joke of a presidential candidacy based on his history as a reality TV start and with no previous political experience, but once he has actually severed as president, he really should know better. But he still clearly thinks that NATO is some mafia-esque protection racket (where the U.S. requires members to pay them in exchange for protection) as opposed to a mutual defense treaty.</li><li>The U.S. news media is remarkably uninterested in stating the obvious, that <b>Trump's claim that NATO members owe the U.S. money has no factual basis at all</b>. That <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/us/politics/trump-nato-russia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Uk0.-ePF.GfF1NBP18jw9&smid=url-share">this NYT article</a>, which spins Trump actual's remarks that clearly indicate that Trump believes NATO allies are supposed to pay the U.S. (when he talks about NATO allies being "delinquent" or brags that when he was president "hundreds of billions of dollars came flowing in" from NATO allies), into Trump saying that members were not meeting the alliance's unofficial goal that each member states should spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. That's clearly not what he was saying. If a NATO ally spends 2% on defense, that money would go to pay their soldiers or to their domestic arms industry. No money would "come flowing in" to the U.S. They are just distorting what Trump is saying to make it more coherent than it is.</li><li>I think <b>this is a much bigger indication of dementia</b> than mixing up the names of a leader. It's not a simple mix up (the kind that everyone does sometimes and older people definitely do more often), it shows real detachment from reality.</li></ol><div><br /></div></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-38336612389750471842024-02-10T13:04:00.002-05:002024-02-10T13:04:54.013-05:00Cheering Israel's self-destructive behaviorGiven the reaction of even the pro-peace friends and relatives I have in my life, I'm not surprised at all that <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/j-streets-pro-war-stance-prompts-staff-departures">J Street has largely supported Israel's war in Gaza</a>. What I don't get is why so many people who both support Israel and really do seem to care about Palestinian lives (even if, in the end, they are valued less than Israeli lives), think it is supporting Israel to cheer them into a war that they will probably lose. And Israel almost certainly will lose. I mean, the goal they set, to "destroy Hamas" cannot be achieved with military force. Even if they kill every Hamas member (which is not a real possibility), Hamas' popularity skyrockets whenever they brutalize civilians and Hamas is the only force fighting back. Almost all of Hamas' leadership is outside of Gaza and this is the best recruitment ploy they could ever dream of.<div><br /></div><div>Israel, like many countries, including the U.S., has over-idealized the military victories in their founding myths. The Israel-against-all-odds-defeated-a-half-dozen-Arab-states (based largely on 1948 and 1967) leaves Israelis with the idea that military force is more effective than it actually is. Plus, Israel in the 40s and 60s is very different than Israel is today. Back then, Israel did not have to care about what the world thought about them. They were a minor economy that was not strongly tied to anyone else. Nowadays the Israeli economy, especially its tech sector, is deeply integrated into the European, American, Canadian, and Australian markets, plus the markets of numerous developing countries, such as India, and the former Soviet Union. It actually matters if the world consensus decides that Israel is committing war crimes, and that is potentially a massive blow to the Israeli economy. I just can't see any scenario where this war plausibly makes Israel more safe or better off in any way. Watching friends and relatives cheer on Israel's self-destructive behavior in the name of being pro-Israel is a truly strange sight.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-23184296868949655482024-02-05T08:12:00.001-05:002024-02-05T09:45:48.945-05:00Immigration<div style="text-align: left;">I have no idea what a fair and humane solution to deal with the high number of people showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border might be. But it seems like everything that I ever hear proposed is absolutely terrible. It's a really complicated problem, one that requires careful consideration and thought that, I fear, our political system is completely incapable of providing at the moment. So instead we have leaders trying to one-up each other to be the champion at mistreating foreigners and pushing policies which will almost certainly lead to increases in the number of undocumented people in the U.S., the very thing the people pushing these policies claim to hate.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So no, <a href="https://jabberwocking.com/senate-immigration-bill-expands-detention-increases-asylum-judges-and-allows-the-president-to-shut-the-border/">I don't think this Senate-White House deal is worth it at all</a>. (I'm probably fine with the aid to Taiwan and Ukraine, although I really don't know enough details to say for sure, and I support the increase of immigration judges, giving work authorization to asylees, and increasing the number of skilled immigrants. The rest of it, at least the stuff that made it into Kevin Drum's summary, sucks). So does that mean it is good news that <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4448033-scalise-senate-border-bill-house/">the radical rightwing cabal that controls the House is not going to let this pass</a> because it doesn't require enough brutalization of migrants?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What I'm really afraid of is the administration's desire to get a big aid package to Ukraine and Israel will get Biden and the Democrats to compromise further from here, leaving us with an even worse immigration package that might pass. Luckily a not-insignificant portion of the House GOP will not pass any immigration bill, no matter what it says, as long as Biden is President. It's just odd to pin my hopes on a bunch of frothing racists.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-65673740556296220732024-02-02T08:18:00.001-05:002024-02-02T09:47:37.089-05:00Stop calling them "proxies"<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2024/01/proxy.html">As I've said before</a>, i<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/01/iran-proxies-intel-houthis-00139099">f Iran does not have full control over those militant groups</a> in other countries, they are not "proxies."<br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">What is interesting is how "intelligence officials" in the U.S. government are now telling the press that Iran does not call all the shots for these groups. The "proxy" label is convenient for people who want a war with Iran because it means that Iran is responsible for every single thing any of these armed groups do. If you want to build a case to kill Persians, that's really useful. In the past U.S. officials freely referred to the Houthis, Hezbollah (all the Hezbollahs, really), and sometimes Hamas as an Iran proxy. The fact that officials are moving away from that claim is an effort to avoid a direct war with Iran.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-2636044400101344942024-01-26T08:06:00.001-05:002024-01-26T14:09:09.511-05:00Republican governors support the right of the New Mexico Governor to declare an open border with Mexico when Trump is President even if the Supreme Court orders the state not to<div style="text-align: left;">That's <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/25/gop-governors-texas-border-standoff-00137986">the logical consequence</a> of these Republican governor's position. Then again, since when do GOP governors think about logical consequences?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-13940298829460119242024-01-18T08:46:00.005-05:002024-01-18T08:46:51.959-05:00NYT sucks at covering domestic politics<div style="text-align: left;">What exactly is the "border deal" that Biden has negotiated with Senate Republicans in exchange for aid to Ukraine? What changes will it make to the law? And what additional changes to Mike Johnson and his right flank in the House want?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/us/politics/johnson-biden-border-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok0.Cvex.4msUuiuzLF1F&smid=url-share">This whole article doesn't say</a>. This is why I hate the New York Times' coverage of Washington. Policy is what actually matters and its also what the NYT Washington bureau is completely uninterested in.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Which is weird because they their foreign coverage gets into policy questions all the time)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-67040764422479215722024-01-16T15:24:00.005-05:002024-01-16T16:25:38.346-05:00The play<div style="text-align: left;">Congressman Matt Rosendal <a href="https://themessenger.com/politics/gop-rep-blasts-speaker-johnsons-staff-for-giving-him-terrible-counsel-exclusive">tells the press that he blames</a> Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's staff for the deal that Johnson is making with Democrats to keep the government from shutting down. When Kevin McCarthy made essentially the same deal last year, the party's right flank threw such a temper tantrum, McCarthy lost his job as speaker. But the bottom line truth is that a government shut down will hurt the GOP in an election year and there really isn't a better deal to be had that would avert a shutdown.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So maybe the play is for Johnson to close the deal, but get everyone to blame his anonymous staffers for it. Then after the government is funded, they can fire the staffers and keep their speaker. Yeah, it's a stupid and transparent ploy, but all it would take is for Fox News to whip up the base against Johnson's treacherous staffers, and Johnson might be able to keep his gavel.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Also if someone doxes the staffers, their houses might get firebombed. But you can't keep a speaker without breaking a few expendable eggs!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-52294016050671457232024-01-16T08:09:00.001-05:002024-01-16T10:15:15.577-05:00Yet another reason that Iowa really doesn't matter.<a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2023/06/lets-be-real-here.html">As I said before</a>, there is a non-zero chance that Trump will die or be completely incapacitated before the general election, allowing someone else to slip in as the Republican nominee, at least until Trump announces his VP.<div><br /></div><div>That fact is the only thing that explains why DeSantis and Haley are running. Trump trouncing them both in Iowa doesn't change that fact at all. The opening could still come. Unless they run out of money entirely, they might as well stay in the race, at least until Trump announces his VP (because once a VP is announced, that person would presumably be deemed Trump's successor if something happens to him).<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-54853699715971901012024-01-15T08:45:00.002-05:002024-01-15T08:45:19.785-05:00Iowa!<div style="text-align: left;"> Why is anyone paying any attention to the Iowa caucus this year? All the American news sources I follow are awash with breathless stories about a horse race that doesn't even exist. We all know the results already. Whether Iowa is really important in a normal presidential nomination contest is debatable (plenty of candidates that "win the first caucus in the nation" go on to lose the nomination). But this year it's even more absurd because there isn't even a real nomination race. Everyone already knows the outcome. The race is a mere formality. Why aren't news sources treating it like what it really is?<br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-3982193094811216752024-01-14T09:46:00.001-05:002024-01-14T10:07:14.279-05:00Proxy<div style="text-align: left;">For years <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/03/cotton-made-boo-boo-but-not-one-nicole.html">one</a> <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/04/saudi-arabias-second-biggest-export.html">of my</a> <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-rock-solid-logical-foundation-of.html">pet issues</a> is the widespread assumption that any time a shia group does anything bad in the world they must be doing it as a proxy for Iran. In the past I've referred to it as the "<a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/02/shiites-have-no-agency-unless-they-are.html">Shiites have no agency unless they are Persian</a>" theory. Since the current war in Gaza erupted it has become common again. Anything that Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen, or even sometimes Hamas (who are not shia but have received Iranian support) say or do is assumed to be something they say or do on behalf of Iranian leaders.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's absurd because obviously local people are going to have their own local interests. Receiving military assistance from a country doesn't automatically push all those local concerns aside and make someone into a pawn of the funders. People just don't work that way. And we don't make that assumption about other groups that receive outside military funding. Ukraine and Israel are not pawns of the U.S. even though both have received a ton of military assistance from the U.S. We may call them "allies", which retains the sense that they might have the ability to act on their own, but we don't call them America's "proxies." Why are people always making that assumption about Shiites? (okay, I guess I have already kind of answered that question, <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/04/saudi-arabias-second-biggest-export.html">I blame the Saudis</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So I was amused when I read this bit in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/politics/mideast-war-israel-yemen.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Nk0.T7oN.TdoyFZKInu4T&smid=url-share">an article</a> (gift link) this morning:</div><blockquote>
Iran is using proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis to distance itself from their actions and maintain its credibility in the region, attempting to avoid a direct attack, which could put at risk the Islamic Revolution and its nuclear program. </blockquote><blockquote>But Iran is also being pulled along by those very proxies. </blockquote><div>A "proxy" is someone who acts on behalf of someone else. When someone is a proxy they are not pursuing their own interest. If Iran' is being "pulled along" by its "proxies", that means they are not really Iran's proxies. The article tries to frame the Houthi's actions as if they present some kind of logical paradox. But there's no paradox, the proxy framing is just wrong. It's funny that it never occurs to the authors to question the proxy frame even after running into a circumstances that suggests it's incorrect.</div><div><br /></div><div>The simply-minded assumption that the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Syrian government, Shia rebels in Saudi Arabia, certain military units in Iraq, etc. are all just arms of Tehran's policies, might not be the right way to look at the world. It's weird that so many authors and commentators in our press can't let it go.<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-62216676232156687152024-01-10T10:01:00.001-05:002024-01-10T10:38:53.283-05:00US-Israel-Saudi recognition deal is not dead, it just seems to require something that Israeli leaders will never agree to<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/world/middleeast/blinken-israel-saudi-palestinian-state.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Mk0.j33s.gLTGJxhj9WQY&smid=url-share">I can't tell if the Saudi government is as delusional</a> (gift article) as the Biden Administration about what the current government of Israel would actually ever allow to happen, or if MBS has a solid understanding of the situation and is simply using Biden's commitment to a two-state solution to manipulate Biden's administration.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Either way, I think entering into a formal defense treaty with the Saudis is a terrible idea. I don't think getting formal Saudi recognition of Israel is worth it.</div><p><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-47364272372965080452024-01-07T21:43:00.002-05:002024-01-07T21:43:13.513-05:00New Kyrgyz flag<p>I try to follow Central Asian news, at least broadly speaking. I don't think it's really possible for to ever really understand the politics of a foreign country, especially if you did not grow up in that culture, don't live there, and don't speak the language. But I try to keep up with the five former soviet stans, although they are not covered much in the Western media. </p><p>While my ability to follow politics there is limited, I had heard that Kyrgyzstan suddenly changed its flag at the end of last year. Just now I listened to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/majlis-podcast-kyrgyzstan-flag-japarov-government-pannier/32764501.html">the Majlis podcast episode</a> about how the change spurred protest, created confusion (apparently the parliament passed one new version of the flag, the cabinet approved a slightly different version, and a third version was hung up in the main square in Bishkek, the capital). I actually have always liked the Kyrgyz flag, so I <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstan-flag-change-sunflowers-lawmakers-approve-japarov/32740275.html">googled to see how they changed it.</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimc0zxjGj-qw6Fz-jC1UYq0Ei7GJ6YgoYen4EBzDi7J4z-4asczcdUNnvotZ_2goWo4D4WhzodeEpzZLmETZgzIwB2lQyE6N3gz-VEKLbdyWMkzIegf5bnWnK4v11ZuKeuUlCGDOMXm3KwenjkdTBf9d8Prlu7eK3LxjZ4kHkh2gMkqTNWIPyr/s1587/KG%20flag%20crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="1587" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimc0zxjGj-qw6Fz-jC1UYq0Ei7GJ6YgoYen4EBzDi7J4z-4asczcdUNnvotZ_2goWo4D4WhzodeEpzZLmETZgzIwB2lQyE6N3gz-VEKLbdyWMkzIegf5bnWnK4v11ZuKeuUlCGDOMXm3KwenjkdTBf9d8Prlu7eK3LxjZ4kHkh2gMkqTNWIPyr/w501-h159/KG%20flag%20crop.jpg" width="501" /></a></div>The one on the left is the old flag and the one on the right is the new version that was approved by parliament last month. (The one approved by the cabinet, which the Kyrgyz experts on the podcast said was different than the one approved by parliament <a href="https://en.kabar.kg/news/kyrgyz-parliaments-committee-approves-changing-countrys-flag/">looks the same to me</a>. I couldn't find a picture of the one that was raised over the main square in Bishkek)<br /><p>I have two main impressions: First, WTF?!? that's not much of a change. I don't get why they bothered or why so much hubbub for what looks like minor tinkering with the image while keeping the same overall design. Second, I really do like the old one better. Wavy sun rays are better than pointy ones, and the <a href="https://trvlland.com/blog-kazakhstan/shanyrak-the-symbol-of-kazakhstan">shanyrak</a> (or whatever the lattice work in the center of a yurt is called in Kyrgyz) looks a lot better in the old version.</p><p><br /></p>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-20766328141535504382024-01-01T00:01:00.032-05:002024-01-01T13:09:53.405-05:002024 predictionsIt's that time again! A new year! Breathe deep that new year smell. It's also when make a bunch of half-assed predictions, post them on the internet for everyone to see, so that later everyone can point and laugh abut how naive I was. As I say pretty much every year, these predictions are what I currently think will happen, not necessarily what I want to happen.<br /><br />1. Trump will appear on both the primary ballot and the general election ballot of all 50 states and Washington D.C. in the 2024 elections.<br /><br />2. The current war in Gaza will be "over" in the sense that the year will end with a long-term ceasefire in effect (whether formal or informal), but Hamas will still exist and the humanitarian disaster that is Gaza will still be a humanitarian disaster.<br /><br />3. Netanyahu will not be Prime Minister of Israel at the end of 2024.<br /><br />4. There will be no new peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, or any other Arab nation, in 2024.<br /><br />5. Trump will not just be the GOP nominee for President in 2024, but no other candidate will win a single state, or come closer than being double digits (10%or more) behind him in the primaries or caucuses of every single state.<br /><br />6. Biden will be reelected President in 2024.<br /><br />7. None of Trump's criminal cases will go to trial in 2024.<br /><br />8. There will be at least one more corruption allegation against Justice Thomas and/or Alito in 2024, but it will not result in any real reforms of the Court.<br /><br />9. The Supreme Court will end 2024 with the same Justices that it began the year with.<br /><br />10. The war in Ukraine will still be going on, with only minor changes in the territory that Russia and Ukraine control in Ukraine by the end of the year.<br /><br />11. The Democrats will lose control of the Senate but gain control of the House in the 2024 elections.<br /><br />12. Mike Johnson will not be speaker of the House at the end of 2024.<br /><br />13. Trump will pick Vivek Ramaswamy as his running mate.<br /><br />14. Trump will mangle the name "Ramaswamy" on camera at least once in 2024.<br /><br />15. The UK will finally hold a general election in 2024 and the British Prime Minister at the end of the year will not be a Tory.<br /><br />16. Ukraine will not hold a presidential election in 2024 because of their national emergency and Zelensky's approval will be lower at the end of 2024 than it was at the end of 2023.<br /><br />17. The U.S. economy will not have a recession in 2024.<br /><br />18. The Supreme Court will overrule the "Chevron deference rule" in <i>Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo</i>. <br /><br />19. The Supreme Court will rule that Trump has no immunity (not even a partial or qualified immunity) from prosecution for anything he did after he ceased being president.<br /><br />20. The head of state in the five Central Asian stans will be the same at the end of 2024 as it today.<br /><br />21. Biden's approval according to the 538 polling average will be higher at the end of 2024 than it is currently (<a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo">as of 12/31/23 it is 39.3%</a>), but his rating will still be underwater (meaning Biden's disapproval number will be higher than his approval number).<br /><br />22. Trump will have some kind of health crisis in 2024, but he will not tell the public what it is. So he might just disappear from public view, or check into the hospital without any announcement of what happened (although it is possible some reporters will figure it out).<br /><br />23. 2024 will be the hottest year ever recorded, beating the current hottest year, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/06/climate/2023-hottest-year-climate/index.html">2023</a>.<br /><br />So those are my predictions! Did I miss anything, absolutely! I don't pretend to be able to see the future. Feel free to add your own half-baked predictions in the comments.<br /><br />upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-10283787250874968582023-12-31T23:59:00.148-05:002024-01-01T13:08:47.378-05:00Grading my 2023 predictionsThe ball has dropped over Times Square, which can only mean one thing: it's time to grade the predictions I made at the beginning of the year! It's a New Years present that everyone can use, more proof that I am often wrong.<br /><br />The predictions I made last year <a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2023/01/2023-predictions.html">are here</a> but I've cut and pasted each one into this post so you don't even need to click if you don't want to.<br /><br /><i>1. Joseph Biden will announce he is not running for reelection in 2024.</i><br /><b><br /></b><div><b>Wrong</b>. I guess I thought that was plausible a year ago. I always say these predictions are what I think will happen not necessarily what I want to happen. But I think sometimes what I want to happen does creep in.<br /><br /><i>2. Donald Trump will be indicted for at least one crime in 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>! <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/">91 times right, in fact</a>! But I'm only going to count this right once.<br /><br /><i>3. Trump will still be running for President at the end of 2023 (i.e. he will not announce he is no longer running, and he will still be alive)</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>! Okay this was a bit of a gimme. Trump wasn't ever going to announce he wasn't running. He could have dropped dead. So it was a half gimme. I still get points for gimmes.<br /><br /><i>4. No Supreme Court Justices will leave the Court or announce they are leaving the Court in 2023.</i><br /><br />Right! Barring a sudden death, we're probably stuck with these set of yahoos until the next Republican president. All the really old ones are conservative and there is no way they are stepping down without assurances that their successor will continue the reactionary court.<br /><br /><i>5. Republicans in the House will launch several (2+) investigations into the Biden White House and/or the Biden family, but it will not have any clear impact on Biden's popularity or the Democrats other than exciting Republicans.</i><br /><br />I'm going to call this <b>right</b> even though there are a few details that are arguable. First, it is not easy to count how many investigations there have been. James Comer has led investigations that he groups under the broad umbrella of the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/landing/biden-family-investigation/">Biden family investigation</a>. But it looks to me like he has tossed every bullshit rightwing conspiracy theory about Joe Biden, his kids, his brother, or whatever else they are ranting about on Fox News this week into a big mess that only makes sense if you are snuggled deep into the wingnut information bubble. So that alone could count as several investigations. But if you're inclined to count the Comer mess as just one, there is also the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-special-counsel-classified-documents-025f25d04a5c0e45d758fbaaa2f231b8">independent counsel investigation of his handling of classified documents</a>, so that makes it 2+, which is good enough for this prediction.<br /><br />Whether it has had any impact on Biden's popularity is hard to say, mostly because Biden is so unpopular and it is not totally clear whether Republican attempts to drum up a scandal have contributed to that. I think Biden's low approval has more to do with the public's view of the economy and the feeling that the world is going down the tubes while he is in charge. I don't think anyone who doesn't already hate Biden is paying any attention to the investigations.<br /><br /><i>6. The Israeli government will fall in 2023, meaning there will either be another Israeli election in 2023 or one will be scheduled during the year.</i><br /><br /><b>Wrong</b>. The Netanyahu government is really unpopular but it has lasted a whole year.<br /><br /><i>7. The War in Ukraine will still be raging at the end of 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>.<br /><br /><i>8. The U.S. will continue to send aid and military supplies to Ukraine at the end of 2023, although a significant portion of the Republican party (at least 40%) will be opposed to that aid.</i><br /><br />I'm going to count this one as <b>right</b>. Congress has refused to approve the Biden Administration's latest aid proposal for Ukraine, but that's about funding for next year. The Administration still has aid money to spend based on an appropriation passed earlier in the year. In fact, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3627179/biden-administration-announces-new-security-assistance-for-ukraine">just a few days ago, it sent more military aid to Ukraine</a>. As for the second part (at least 40% of Republicans opposing aid to Ukraine) is <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/21/republicans-gop-oppose-ukraine-aid-divide-democrats">clearly right</a>.<br /><br /><i>9. Biden's approval in the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo">538 Presidential approval average</a> will still be underwater (more disapproval than approval) but slightly better, with at least 45% approval in the average.</i><br /><br /><b>Wrong</b>. In fact, Biden's approval has <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo">gotten worse</a> in the past year (from 42.1% on December 31, 2022 to 39.3% today)<br /><br /><i>10. Ron DeSantis will declare a presidential run in 2023 and by the end of the year he will be polling ahead of Trump (use <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/">538 polling average</a> if available).</i><br /><br />I guess I got the first half of that right, but the second half was so wrong, I'm going to count this one as <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/?ex_cid=abcpromo">completely <b>wrong</b></a>.<br /><br /><i>11. Tayyip Erdoğan will still be President of Turkey (or Türkiye) at the end of 2023, either by winning the Presidential election, cheating in the election, disregarding the election results and insisting he is President, couping his way to stay in office, etc. However he does it, Erdoğan will be in charge.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. Ole Tayyip didn't even have to do anything as creative as a coup, he just <a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-presidential-election-erdogan-kilicdaroglu-d4f8adee43d7cc807b39d1f47ef4baea">won his reelection campaign</a>.<br /><br /><i>12. The Supreme Court will not fully adopt the "independent state legislature doctrine" in Moore v. Harper, thus preserving the ability of state Governors and Courts to have a say in the manner of conducting an election. (That said, the NC legislature could still win in that case, But if so, it would be on narrower grounds).</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. The <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/north-carolina/moore/">Court rejected the "independent state legislature doctrine"</a>, thus giving the reactionary Roberts Court one of those not as crazy as everyone expected decisions so he could claim moderation.<br /><br /><i>13. Biden will not sign any major legislation in 2023, other than budgetary bills.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. This year the House proved that it is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/us/politics/house-republicans-laws-year.html?mwgrp=a-dbar&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share">utterly incapable of passing any legislation</a> other than most-pass continuing resolutions and debt ceiling deals, and it only barely managed to pass them.<br /><br /><i>14. The U.S. government will not default on its debt in 2023, although the House may try to use the debt ceiling to extract concessions out of Biden and the Democrats.</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/us/politics/debt-ceiling-house-vote.html?mwgrp=a-dbar&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share"><b>Right</b></a>.<br /><br /><i>15. The U.S. government will not shut down in 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. I can't believe I got this right. At various points in 2023, I considered a shut down to be all but certain.<br /><br /><i>16. Rishi Sunak will still be Prime Minister of the U.K.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. Sunak has lasted much <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce">longer than a head of lettuce</a>.<br /><i><br />17. There will be a "really bad" (meaning category 4 or higher) hurricane that will make landfall on the U.S, mainland in 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Wrong</b>. Why the fuck did I think I could predict the weather from months in advance?!?!?!<br /><br /><i>18. Right wing extremism will continue to be a major issue in the U.S. (that's the intro, not the prediction). There will be at least one mass killings (at least 5 killed or at least 10 injured/killed) by a rightwing extremist and/or racist in 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. There's probably more than one example, but <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/08/allen-mall-shooting-right-wing-death-squad/">this is what comes to mind</a> for me.<br /><br /><i>19. Vladamir Putin will still be in charge of Russia at the end of 2023 even though the war in Ukraine will still be dragging on and there will be rumblings of dissent in Russia, but no serious challenges to his authority.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. The rumblings aren't even that loud.<br /><br /><i>20. The annual inflation rate in the U.S. will be below 5% by the end of 2023.</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. Although <a href="https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_inflation_rate#:~:text=US%20Inflation%20Rate%20(I%3AUSIR)&text=US%20Inflation%20Rate%20is%20at,in%20price%20over%20a%20year.">inflation is only 3.14%</a> at the moment, the public seems to think inflation is still high (<a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2023/11/prices-not-inflation.html">I still think it's because people are confusing prices with inflation</a>)<br /><br /><i>21. Elon Musk will no longer be the owner of Twitter at the end of 2023 (note: if Twitter ceases to exist as a social media service, I will still get this right)</i><br /><br />I'm going to count this one as <b>wrong</b> even though I guess I could argue that I a, technically right because Twitter ceased to exist in 2023 when it became X. X still exists and Musk is still the owner, so those technicalities won't save me from being wrong.<br /><br /><i>22. A Republican will be elected governor of Louisiana in 2023. (The current Democratic governor John Bel Edwards, is term limited)</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/republican-jeff-landry-elected-governor-of-louisiana">Jeff Landry won</a> and will be governor in early 2024.<br /><br /><i>23. There will be no change in the head of state of any of the five former Soviet Central Asian "stans" (so Tokayev will still lead Kazakhstan, Mirziyoyev will still lead Uzbekistan, Japarov will still lead the Kyrgyz Republic, Rahmon will still lead Tajikistan, and Berdimuhamedow will still lead Turkmenistan. This isn't an official prediction, but if one does leave office for whatever reason it will be Rahmon)</i><br /><br /><b>Right</b>. No change in leadership in Central Asia is always a pretty safe bet, although they do die sometimes (okay that hasn't been how leadership has changed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but still the current leaders are seem to be planning to stick around for life)<br /><br /><br /><u>The Tally</u><br /><br />I got 17 right and 6 wrong, that's 73.913% right! That is the best I've done in over 10 years! Am I getting better at this again (after a serious dip in the past few years), or am I just making easier predictions? I have no idea but here is the record:<br /><br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2008/12/grading-my-2008-predictions.html">2008</a>: 20 right to 4 wrong (83.333%) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2010/01/grading-my-2009-predictions.html">2009</a>: 14.5 right to 7.5 wrong. (65.909%) <br />2010: (none because Kazakhstan) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2011/12/grading-my-2011-predictions.html">2011</a>: 15.5 right to 6.5 wrong (70.455%) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2012/12/grading-my-2012-predictions.html">2012</a>: 15.5 right to 6.5 wrong again (70.455% again) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2013/12/grading-my-2013-predictions.html">2013</a>: 15.5 right to 9.5 wrong (62.000%) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2014/12/grading-my-2014-predictions.html">2014</a>: 17 right to 9 wrong (65.385%) <br /><a href="http://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2015/12/grading-my-2015-predictions.html">2015</a>: 11.5 right to 13.5 wrong (46.000%) <br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2016/12/grading-my-2016-predictions.html">2016</a>: 17.5 right to 9.5 wrong (64.815%) <br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2017/12/grading-my-2017-predictions.html">2017</a>: 18 right to 8 wrong (69.923%) <br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2018/12/grading-my-2018-predictions.html">2018</a>: 14.5 right to 11.5 wrong (55.769%)<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"></a><br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2019/12/grading-my-2019-predictions.html">2019</a>: 15.5 right to 11.5 wrong (57.407%)<br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2020/12/">2020</a>: 10.5 right to 10.5 wrong (50.000%)<br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2021/12/grading-my-2021-predictions.html">2021</a>: 10 right to 13 wrong (43.478%)<br /><a href="https://upyernoz.blogspot.com/2022/12/grading-my-2022-predictions.html">2022</a>: 14 right to 8 wrong (63.636%)<br /><br />What are we in for in 2024? No one knows! But that's won't stop me from guessing under the illusion that they are educated guesses. Tune in just two minutes from when this post will appear for the appearance of my new prediction post.<br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-78658241184086045832023-12-21T08:17:00.001-05:002023-12-21T14:24:59.271-05:00A half million starving people<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-12-21-2023-7d9718b32bf0d308c44c7c9e3c4e0deb">And unless there is a long-term ceasefire</a>, it's going to get worse.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is a completely unsurprising result of the war in Gaza. If you take a territory that is already dependent on international aid to feed the population, then cut off any food imports for more than a month, and then only letting a small trickle of food to get in after that on an erratic schedule, you're going to end up with mass starvation. Unless Israel lets in a huge influx of aid, it is just going to get worse.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-57224002483934152072023-12-20T08:43:00.000-05:002023-12-20T09:01:13.223-05:00You can't watch Andor to distract yourself while driving anymore<div style="text-align: left;">I know <a href="https://mashable.com/article/tesla-removes-disney-plus-app-elon-musk-feud">this story</a> is supposed to be about a rich racist baby having a rich racist baby temper tantrum on the social media platform he is personally destroying because of a company's business decision that the rich racist baby is taking as a personal slight, but the decision to remove the Disney Plus app from Teslas just made me wonder why the fuck a <i>car</i> has streaming video apps at all? Is he trying to make Tesla drivers kill people? We already know that <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-recall-2-million-vehicles-215359279.html">Tesla's self-driving system</a> is barely more than hype. Now I'm hoping that the owner of every other streaming app pisses off Elmo just for the sake of pedestrians.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451099.post-81105765412573022572023-12-15T08:11:00.001-05:002023-12-15T11:13:46.306-05:00QOTD<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/nyregion/bronx-defenders-israel-gaza.html?mwgrp=a-dbar&hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share">link</a>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>The rancorous politics of the Israel-Hamas war have put immense pressure on leaders to issue statements on the conflict, even if such statements have little effect. </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>upyernozhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13468075957480441353noreply@blogger.com