AI and the World of Disinformation

Last week I was watching TV and another story came on about artificial intelligence (AI) and it got me thinking. I said to my wife, “Congress is going to have to do something about this soon, or we’ll never be able to trust our eyes to ferret out the lies from the truth.”*

*It probably didn't sound as eloquent at the time, more like a series of meaningful grunts and gestures. But she knew what I meant.

I told her I ought to do a post about it this week and entered some notes into my phone, to avoid that dreaded blog post amnesia I always get…

“What the hell was I going to write about today?”

But in rolling through the news the next day, I saw that there was already a bill in progress. Naturally, the story was about how Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are trying to kill it.

I don’t know what’s in the bill, but I know what it should be. There’s a pretty simple metric to make it clear whether a creation should be illegal or not.

My law would include the following:

·        It is illegal to use AI to create a photograph or video of someone doing something they didn’t do and claim that it is an accurate depiction of the event.

·        It is illegal to use AI to manipulate audio to produce the sound of someone saying something they never said.

·        Any such media created for legitimate artistic or satiric purposes would be required to include a permanent watermark or indication showing that it is a fictional creation and not an actual event.

·        In addition to criminal penalties/jail time for the creators and original distributors, the person illegally portrayed would have the right to sue for damages commensurate with the seriousness of the infraction. The penalty has to have teeth, or else the rich pricks bankrolling these disinformation campaigns will just pay the fine as the “cost of doing business” and continue on their merry way. So a conviction has to hurt or else it’s worthless.

In all fairness, these things should be illegal no matter how they’re created, but I’m focusing on the AI end of it, because AI makes it so much more realistic, with minimal effort.

It’s important to be able to distinguish such things because we know that bad actors will use this tech to pursue their own nefarious ends. (Hi Russia!) If we can no longer differentiate real from fake, we are at the mercy of those who would create damaging truths out of thin air and use them to pull the public’s puppet strings.

What’s worse, when we DO see something real, the culprit will immediately scream, “But that wasn’t me, it was AI!” With such a law, if they claim it was AI and didn’t pursue damages, we’d know the claim is hollow. And of course, if someone does sue and it’s found to be baseless, similar penalties should apply. (We can call that the DJT Clause.)

Without such a law, we’ll end up living in a fantasy world, provided by whomever is the most persuasive in their AI-generated fabrications. Subjective truth will be nearly impossible to confirm.

There is probably a movie to be made about how future AI becomes self-aware, but can only look at the world through what AI has created, which could bear zero resemblance to the real world. It could either be a horror movie or flight of fantasy, depending on who’s making the movie.

So like I mentioned, the Republicans are against any such legislation. They know that their only hope for acquiring and maintaining power is a massive campaign of disinformation because their basic positions are horrific to anyone who’s not filthy rich, a religious zealot, or a raving racist/ sexist/ homophobe/general hate-monger. They have nothing they can point to as something they accomplished for the average American, other than giving them permission to hate people unlike themselves.

Mitch is wrapping himself in the blanket of the First Amendment, which he’s always FOR when Republicans are “speaking,” preferably with their wallets. Lord knows he doesn’t want any impediment to creating the fanciful lies they’ve concocted over the recent years. Mitch doesn’t care about right or wrong, or freedom of speech, he cares about power and money. With power comes money. That’s the Republican platform. And if the rest of us have to live in a dystopian future where no one knows fact from fiction, it’s all the better for him.

 

Storm Front

Last week, for better or worse, the Stormy Daniels testimony dominated the news. From what I read in the transcripts, Stormy put forth a compelling story and breezily swatted away the Defense Counsel’s many attempts to brand her as a greedy and vengeful liar.

After the first day of testimony, I started jotting down notes for this post, but by the end of the second day, the notes were rendered irrelevant.

The original angle was that her testimony was mostly unnecessary; everything she said in court was already in the public record by way of her 2018 book, “Full Disclosure.” I ordered it (from a discount book website) a couple years ago and read it in about a day or two.

“Your Honor, I’d like to admit this document as Exhibit 1.”

But by the second day, TFG’s defense attorney was trying to infer that because there were facts she told the book that she didn’t mention in other interviews, or in court, and the other way around, the story had to be a lie.

This is a ridiculous assertion when you think about it. I mean, just from a storyteller’s perspective, when you tell a story multiple times, you rarely tell it the same way twice.

First, you have to consider your audience. Not every fact about the story is necessary, so you include the ones that are crucial to the structure, advance the story, or are the most interesting and entertaining. A different audience (like an interview in a fluff magazine versus court testimony) requires a different eye for details.

Further, the more you tell a story, the more you self-edit, keeping the material that works and discarding things that didn’t or were found to be unnecessary. But that doesn’t necessarily change the truth of your story (unless you’re changing critical details, like who you slept with or where it happened, which was not an issue here.)

So the defense is claiming that (and this is a made-up example) “because you said the bedspread was blue in the interview and you didn’t mention a bedspread during our testimony, you must be lying.”

Verbal flimflammery like this is what they have to rely on because they can’t defend the truth. It’s the nature of legal defense to throw a bunch of crap at the wall to see what sticks, as well as the nature of Republicans to use misdirection and logical fallacy when they can’t support (or refute) an inconvenient fact.

And as far as that goes, TFG’s legal team also suggested that because the witness is a porn star, she cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

It really IS like the 1920s again on the right side of the aisle. Such an assertion is so off-base it’s like inferring that eliminating child marriage promotes abortion. And who would ever say… Wait a minute…

Everything leads back to abortion with these guys… women voting, having jobs, getting an education, even pockets in women’s clothes, it all leads to more abortions and must be stopped, according to the religious wingnuts currently running loose in the Republican party.

But I digress…

It’s all so silly because if competent, unrestricted attorneys were running the defense, Stormy would never have had to tell the story on the stand. The crime is in how the payments were made, not that there WERE payments. So whether he had extra-marital porn star sex or not would not be relevant. But because he complained that it never happened, it opened the door for the prosecution to show that it did, and hence, we have the salacious testimony out in public that he was so desperate to squelch.

TFG is also chaffing under the bond of his gag order, which prevents him from attacking witnesses, jurors, and court personnel. It’s like, when you take away his ability to smear people, you’ve cut Samson’s hair and silenced the jawbone of an ass. He has no other weapons if he can’t threaten and malign. When do you ever hear him attack an argument? It’s always a personal attack on an opponent. The guy hasn’t left the playground in 70 years.

The obvious solution, if he’s upset about how mean old Stormy is talking about him in court, is to take the stand himself and smear away. But I’m sure his attorneys will tie him to the chair before they allow him to testify. They could have a perjury counter, right there in the courtroom, and it would be lighting up like a pinball machine until smoke would pour out.

Former Fix-it lawyer Michael Cohen is testifying today, which I’m sure will send TFG into apoplectic fits. This is a guy who knows where the metaphorical bodies are buried. The Defendant also complained about Cohen’s tweets about him last week, again asserting that he can’t defend himself. In a rare show of decency for anyone involved in this fiasco, Cohen agreed to stop tweeting about him until after he testifies and once again becomes fair, non-gag-able, game.

I’m sure we’ll get plenty of this sort of thing over the next few days:

Lawyer told to lie for defendant.

Lawyer lies for defendant.

Lawyer gets caught, does time, flips on defendant.

Defendant says, “Hey, how can you believe a convict and a liar.”

However much a shit-show this case is, at least there’s a trial happening. It doesn’t look like any of the others are going to be adjudicated any time soon. That’s another Republican truism… when you can’t win on facts, attack the process. Work the system. Call in favors from judges you placed there and the reason for that placement.

This may be the only case to see the inside of a courtroom, so I hope they get it right.

 On the lighter side, it looks like the Fox “News” sycophants are getting their post-conviction stories lined up:

Thanks C&L.

I almost spit my drink. Someone seriously thinks TFG is coming out of prison with muscle bod? Please tell Jesse Watters that it’s not the prison that gives you the bod, it’s the hard physical work you do while inside. Can anyone even picture this doughboy working out? Or lifting anything heavier than a Big Mac? Spare me. If anything, he’ll come out of prison looking like a cross between Golum and Jabba the Hutt.

The Numbers Game

This may seem like a Maryland-centric post but the point can be applied to any race where Republicans are trying to distance themselves from their radical fringe and MAGA nutjobs.

Last week I started seeing commercials for Republican Former Governor Larry Hogan’s US Senate campaign, where he basically dismisses both Republicans and Democrats and tries to mine a common sense middle ground.

At first glance, it sounds good. We all want things to get done without all the partisan bullshit. Unfortunately it’s an illusion.

In theory, we DO need more people willing to take a middle ground and accomplish things that a majority of Americans want done. But the problem comes down to numbers.

This is a divided country, with a significant portion willing to forego democracy if it means their guy is at the wheel. Those in charge of the Republican Party have already made it clear what they seek to do. (See: The 2025 Project. Short version: Hello Fascism, goodbye Constitution. Goodbye social progress, hello 1864. Goodbye America, hello Christian Iran.)  

So what’s more important than claims of reasonableness is the R or D beside the name. A single senator or representative isn’t going to do squat by themselves. But when you add up the Rs and the Ds, that will determine the direction of legislation and the committees that create it. Oh, and not for nothing, investigations too. Do we really want another four years of looking into Hunter Biden’s business partner’s cousin’s neighbor’s library book fines?

The Democrats have to defend 26 seats in this election so they have a razor thin margin of error. Maryland is customarily a lock for the Dems. We normally wouldn’t sweat it but here we are with a popular Republican former Governor trying to hide his affiliation and pick up the political center.

If the Democrats don’t hold the Senate, it won’t much matter what President Biden wants to do with a second term. The Republicans will take a page from the McConnell playbook and jam everything up like our Beltway without the Key Bridge. Then they’ll blame Democrats in the following campaigns for the fact that nothing is getting done. (That’s the second Obama term, in a nutshell.) They won’t clear judges that don’t have a Federalist Society pedigree.

And when issues like abortion come up, and somehow they always do, do you think this guy is going to buck his whole party just to align with his campaign rhetoric? Hah!

There’s always a way to rationalize going along with the group. Susan Collins has been pulling this for years, and then always seems surprised when the naysayers are proven correct yet again.

No, it’s a numbers game, pure and simple. Democrats need to occupy more seats than Republicans or else we can expect a backward slide into the Dark Ages.

Now if Hogan wants to renounce the Old Ways and become a Centrist Democrat, I’ll at least listen to what he has to say. Just as long as he’s on the Blue Team’s roster.

Hell Freezes Over

For the first time I can remember, I actually agree with Fox “News.”

I never thought I’d see the day. Well, you know what they say about a blind squirrel…

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the story.

Beat the Clock – SCOTUS Edition

It looks like we’re going to have to swallow hard this summer when the Supreme Court eventually hands down its ruling on whether TFG is immune from prosecution for anything he did during his term in office. Given the nature of their questions and complete disinterest in the facts of the case, it’s clear that they’re getting their proverbial fig leaves straight so they can hide behind them at decision time.

The disconnect is so vast here that it’s mind-boggling to comprehend. This is essentially what they’re saying they’re worried about: Future presidents being dogged by court battles once their terms end, by partisan, unscrupulous, prosecutors. They worry that such a Chief Executive may start a coup to remain in power to avoid later prosecution.

[Blink]

[Blink blink]

Gee, fellas, you mean JUST LIKE THE LAST ONE DID, AS DETAILED IN THE CASE BEFORE YOU THAT YOU REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE???

God damn. What greater evidence do we need to conclude that the current SCOTUS is 100% in the bag for Republicans? No serious jurist can possibly find that the president has carte blanche while in office. There is literally nothing to support this in the Constitution, which is supposedly the guidepost by which the “originalists” on the bench navigate the law. Obviously, that’s only when it serves to benefit Republicans and their business people, or their religious biases.

Furthermore, Clarence freakin’ Thomas was on the bench that heard the case, one in which his wife was boobs-deep. By not recusing himself on such a case, it makes a mockery of anyone being recused for anything. THIS is what recusal is designed for.

The real tapdance will be to formulate a decision that only helps the last Republican and no subsequent Democrats. There’s no way they want to give a president untouchable status until there’s a Republican in office.

To do so, they could do like some other pundits are predicting and wait as long as they can to boot the case back to the lower courts, so we can do this all again much later, long after the November election. That way, they’ll have allowed TFG to use the traditional GOP vote-suppressing flimflammery they’ve been honing over the last four years and weapons-grade disinformation to flood the field with confusion and apathy, to get himself re-elected.

If that happens, I think we’ll have seen our last practical election.

Speaking of court cases, TFG’s campaign finance trial has its first week in the books. The National Enquirer’s publisher, David Pecker, testified that he and The Donald were in bed with a catch-and-kill scheme used to keep bad news out of the press, so to avoid torpedoing his 2016 campaign.

We must remember that it’s not a crime to buy people’s silence, but accounting for it improperly has legal consequences. Campaign finance laws have some teeth and it appears the Trump campaign used as much care with that accounting as they did with the rest of his business empire, which is to say, they cut corners and fudged the books at every opportunity.

Meantime, the Right Wing echo chamber was working overtime to redirect the nation’s attention, with stories like this:

I don’t know what makes me angrier, the presumption that TFG sitting on his ass all day is an exception, or that he is not obligated to follow the same standards that bind everyone else in the country. And to use his golf game as evidence of an active lifestyle? If he were walking 18 holes every day, there might be a point. But you know he’s chauffeured right up to his ball all day long. What walking is there really? To and from the cart, that’s it.

If he’s “too active” to sit still for a day in court, how can he sit still in the Oval Office day after day?

All they’re doing is trying to move attention away from his intermittent dips into sleepy time. Misdirection from embarrassing issues is a staple in the Republican Playbook. Don’t cover the story, cover the sideshow.

“Don’t look at the sleeping man behind the curtain! Look at how he’s being illegally prevented from witness tampering, like an average mob boss!”

***

There was some good news last week… I think. I’m still not sure if this is good or bad.

I love the idea that the airlines will be required to give us refunds when flights get canceled or suffer lengthy delays. But will that absolve them of getting us where we need to go?

As it is, they hold our money if a flight is canceled, but they are obligated to get us on the next available flight, whether it’s on their own network, or outside it. What if you’re stranded in BFE and they’re like, “Well, we’re sorry. You’ll see a refund in seven business days. Good luck and safe travels. NEXT…”

All I’m saying is that I’m waiting to see the details. I think most of us would rather they keep the money and get us where we need to go rather than refund us but leave us stranded far from home. Even if you’re starting from home, you get your canceled flight refunded, but you still may be out for the cost of your cruise, resort, or hotel stay.

I’d rather see regulations improve so that fewer flights are cancelled, and cut the need for refunds at the outset.

Every time the airlines get a break on regulations, they always seem to find a way to skimp even harder, charge for more, and provide less. At this point, they might as well just stack us up like logs.

***

Did you hear that sound over the weekend? The sound of a dying career? It sounded just like the “BLAM BLAM” of SD Governor Kristi Noem executing her pet dog and goat. I’m sure she thought she was firming up her MAGA bona fides by featuring her ruthlessness, but unlike TFG, I’d wager a lot of her MAGA followers love dogs and could come up with various other ways to deal with an undisciplined pet than a double-tap to the brain.

If she really wanted to firm up her MAGA cred, she could have shot a Mexican and a burro, instead. Then they’d be putting up statues of her along the border.

And in pure Republican fashion, she wouldn't admit it was a mistake and doubled down on the butchery.

She didn’t really break any new ground though. She can’t avoid that she took the easy way out rather than doing (or hiring someone to do) the work. This will probably play well in South Dakota and the other vast states with more livestock than people than in the rest of the country.

I’d say a great many Americans don’t view their pets as disposable, regardless of party. I think this will make her toxic, nationally, when it comes to when TFG picks a running mate.

Hell, he’s probably pissed that she just showed herself to be even more callous than HE is. Can’t have that, can he? “Mushroom-dick” Trump and Kristi “Dog Killer” Noem? He won’t like the imbalance. All she has to do now is quit her job and she’ll be the Sarah Palin of the 2020s.

***

And now, just because I’m a hockey fan and I thought this was hilarious:

Say hello to your 2024-25 Ice Mormons!

Trials and Errors

Here we go, time for the Trial of the Century, at least until the next case in which TFG sits at the defendant’s table. TFG and the Republicans must have decided that given the preponderance of evidence that’s already public, their most effective strategy will have to be jury tampering.

He’s already holding court outside every day to smear the judge, jurors, their families, their pets, and anyone who owes them money, all the while claiming the trial is rigged, he’s being unfairly prosecuted, the judge is biased, and any other piece of poo he can throw at the wall. He knows this won’t help, but the goal is to get traction for his excuses ahead of time.

It’s the same thing he did in each presidential election. If he wins, the people have spoken. If he loses, it’s rigged. Heads I win, tails you lose. It’s the Republican way.

His minions in the media are going all in as well. Jesse Watters is trying to ID the jurors on Fox “News,” so they can get started with the smears and threats. And you may have seen this as well:

This schmo is openly asking for jurors to break the law and hold onto the foregone conclusion that Trump’s innocent no matter what the evidence shows, and create a hung jury.

This is what worries me the most because, despite prosecutors’ best efforts, they only get so many juror DQs. A quiet MAGA without anything incendiary on his social media could easily get on the jury. It only takes one to kibosh the whole thing. 12-0 is a tough ask under the best of circumstances and much tougher with emotions running so high. I just have to hope that any Trumpist who would tank such a case probably didn’t have the temperament to keep his feelings muted on Facebook or Twitter. It’s like all the insurrection idiots who posted their 1/6 whereabouts online. They’re too proud of it to STFU.

I hope the prosecution is ready for such an outcome and is prepared to refile the case immediately.

***

Last week I commented on another blog about how EmptyG isn’t even hiding her ties to Russia now and at this point, she couldn’t signal her allegiance to Putin any more clearly if she rode into Congress shirtless on a horse. Now I’m seeing several outlets nicknaming Moscow Marj. Let’s just remember that this isn’t exactly original. Moscow Mitch had the title first. Are we just going to keep handing it down to M-named Republicans as others wash out? Looks like Moscow Matt Gaetz would be next.

Granted, “Minsk Marj” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Maybe Leningrad Lindsey. Tsar Ted? We definitely need to branch out.

***

I have an update to my post last week about my eyeball surgery in which I had “floaters” removed from my right eye, and was dealing with an air bubble left inside, meant to protect the retina and dissipate over time. When I wrote the post, the bubble occupied the lower third of my vision in that eye. I could see perfectly above the line but had red-tinted “Walleye Vision” below. And of course, the eye looked like something out of a horror movie (and I will spare you the pictures.)

The bubble continued to dissipate throughout last week so that by Friday, it was about the size of a quarter, by Saturday, the size of a dime, and by Sunday, it was down to the size of the head of a thumbtack before it disappeared completely that evening. And there was much rejoicing throughout the land!

The eye redness has also cleared up, leaving only a small dark pinkish patch. I think it should be gone by the end of this week.

So, all in all, a good experience. While there are still some free-floating fragments, my vision is vastly better than it was. I’m anxious to get on with having the other eye done but I can’t even make the appointment for another 3 weeks.

Floaters: The Eyes Have It

Late in 2019, I wrote about developing floaters in my right eye, in conjunction with cataracts. I had cataract surgery the following January but was told I should just “get used to” having the floaters. There was surgery available, but they were reluctant to take the risk. They said it was “low risk, but not no risk.”

So I adapted to looking through what looked like a twirling red spider web. Then, last December I developed floaters in my left eye as well. Trying to read anything, especially against a white background, (or watch hockey) was difficult and frustrating, like reading through a jellyfish. At that point, I began pursuing the surgical remedy for floaters, called a “Vitrectomy.”

This is a procedure where they use a laser to cut the floaters away from the inner lining of the eyeball, then drain out the floating material and eyeball fluid (aka Vitreous Fluid), and replace it.

Yeesh!

Yes, it skeeves me out too. Whenever one thinks about eye surgery, the mind conjures up images like from this old ad for Thorazine:

I wonder how much Thorazine this ad ever sold. Seems counter-productive to me to terrify your prospective customers.

But I just had my right eye done last Wednesday so I’m here to tell you about it and try to provide some insight (heh) on the experience. Many web resources tell you what it is, but I didn’t see any that told you what it’s like to go through it.

For me, the scheduling was half the battle. My original surgery date was 3/27 but about two weeks before that, they called and said the doctor wouldn’t be in that day (then why schedule me in the first place?) and bumped it to 4/10, two weeks later. This was a kick in the head because the original date was perfect. Sweetpea (a schoolteacher) would be on spring break that week, so she wouldn’t have to make arrangements and write Sub Plans to cover her absence while she took me to and from my appointments. (They do a follow-up appointment the day after surgery, and then again a week later.) But after the postponement, she would have to do all the extra work. (Which she did, because she’s such a good wife!)

I was also required to get a pre-op physical, to ensure I was fit enough to undergo the surgery. (It was the same for my cataract surgery.) I was due for one in another couple of months anyway, so this one wouldn’t go to waste.

As with all the surgeries I’ve had in the past, there was a strict “No eating or drinking” edict to be followed from midnight until “go time.” That’s usually a piece of cake, but this appointment wasn’t until noon, so I wouldn't be allowed to eat all morning nor have my customary iced tea. On the bright side, I’d get to have a post-op feast!

So we arrived about 10 minutes early, checked in, and then sat on our thumbs for the next hour. Obviously, we were scheduled for their convenience and not ours. I understand it though. They had a lot of other patients rolling through there and dealing with latecomers would jam up the whole system.

They took me in around 1:00 and got started with putting dilation and numbing drops into my eye, and inserting in the IV. That would be used for administering the light anesthetic later. They don’t want you out cold, just comfortable and able to follow directions. There were several applications of drops and it took about 20 minutes for them to take effect.

I was in sweats and a T-shirt. They laid a tri-folded blanket on me and there was no need for the diabolical hospital gown. I swear those things are designed by a sadistic branch of IKEA.  As usual, I joked around with the nurses and anesthesiologist so that they would like me. Just like with restaurants, you never want to piss off someone who can spit in your food, or decide not to worry about your pain level.

I understood about the blanket later when they rolled me into the operation room, which was about 15 degrees colder than the previous room. I presume it’s something they do to keep the laser machines from overheating.

At this point, I felt fine. Even when they started working on me, I didn’t really notice any altered feeling. I was just going along with it. Maybe that’s the trick… getting a patient pliable without their noticing anything’s different.

The first thing they have to do is put injections into your eye, to numb the whole site. That is the part I was most concerned about because, you know… [shudder]. I wasn’t even sure when the doctor was doing it. He would say, “Look up and to the right. Now up and to the left.”

It wasn’t until he was halfway done that I even realized he was giving me the injections right then. I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t even see the needle. I suppose he brought it up from the opposite direction from the one he had me looking.

After that, they lowered a big device over my right eye and covered the left with a towel or something. I could hear various things beeping and the doctors moving about, but there was no pain whatsoever. If I didn’t need to keep my eye open, I could have had a nap.

Before I even knew it, they had a plastic eye guard taped in place (lined with gauze) and had me sitting up in the recovery room. They wheeled me back out to Sweetpea at about 2:30, so aside from the initial wait, the whole thing took an hour and a half.

Instructions were to keep the guard in place until the next day’s appointment, don’t get it wet, don’t sleep on my back with my head facing up, not bend at the waist, no alcohol, and don’t pick up anything over 20 pounds. No problem.

On the way home we picked up some KFC for my post-op feast. (It had been a long time because I usually tried to stay away from eating things that would kill me. But it was sooo good.) It’s weird operating with only one eye. My depth perception was definitely off, so when I reached for something, it usually took some adjustments in aim. So I had to be careful not to poke myself in the eye with a chicken bone or spork full of mashed potatoes.

After that, nap time! I put in a solid two hours, then got up, watched a little TV, then turned in early. I figured the more time I spent asleep, the less time I’d have to wander around all cockeyed.

The next morning’s follow-up appointment would be the moment of truth. I was dying to see what I’d be seeing. They told me things would be blurry for a while but would gradually clear up over a week. When the eye tech removed the guard, I was shocked. I expected it to be blurry as in the letters looking distorted or unfocused. What I got was looking through a fish bowl. Then I really started to panic when the tech started going through the usual drill of asking what I could see.

She was like, “Can you read these letters?”

“No.”

“Now how about these?”

“No. I can’t even see that there are letters there, let alone read them.”

She narrowed it down to one giant letter, which I still could not see. So she asked how many fingers she was holding up. I was like, “I can’t even see that you have a hand.”

She left to let the next batch of dilation eye drops take effect before the doctor came in.

Now, I was expecting the blurriness, but the fact that she was testing me like I could still see something made me start to seriously worry, especially sitting alone in the room for 20 minutes. I kept thinking, “Holy shit, why couldn’t you have just lived with the @#$% floaters?”

When the doctor came in, he explained that the issue was that because I had a retina tear repaired in this eye four years earlier, they injected an air bubble into my eye to protect the repair site. It was this bubble that was making things seem like I was underwater. It was like my face was a leveling tool and the eye contained the bubble you try to line up. The bubble would reabsorb into my eyeball/face gradually over the next week. He said that after examining it, everything looked good, just like it was supposed to look. I was greatly relieved.

I guess the tech who scared the shit out of me was just going through the usual pre-visit checklist they do with every patient.

So I was dismissed with basically the same warnings. Don’t rub, keep water out, use the guard for sleeping, stay off my back (looking up), no bending from the waist, and take it easy for a while. He also mentioned that some people use an eye patch while they’re healing, which is exactly what I’d planned to do. 

We stopped for an eye patch at the drugstore on the way home, although not before I poked myself in the repaired eye with the earpiece of the sunglasses I was trying to put on. Like I said, the hand/eye coordination is way off when you’re down to mono-vision. I was lucky that the numbing drops were still in effect so it didn’t hurt, but I was worried that I jostled the whole structure which would cause more focusing problems.

At the store, I had the choice between the traditional black eye patch or the adhesive “Band-Aid” colored ones. I went for the black patch, obviously. So I could either wear my Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap and audition to be their new mascot or put on a straw hat and go out on tour singing “Cover of the Rolling Stone.”

Once home, I got to scope out the site in the mirror and yeah, it was as bad as I expected. Basically, the cornea from the bridge of the nose to the iris was bright blood-red. Again, it’s supposed to clear up over time.

I wore the eye patch constantly for the first couple of days. It was hard to see clearly, not only because of the mono-vision but because I still have floaters in my left (good) eye, so what vision I had was often blurry.

By the weekend, I could see a distinct reddish line going across the upper portion of my vision, like I was looking through a goldfish bowl, at the water level. Throughout the weekend, the line began to get lower and I found I could see reasonably well over the line. If I looked down, I could see a clear darkish circle. It was almost like a magnifying glass, in that if I held something up and looked through the circle, I could see it in super detail. But the farther away, the blurrier it got.

Today is Monday and I’m not wearing the patch at all. All of my computer screen is “above the line,” and the bubble is shrinking steadily. I’m betting that I should be fine by the end of the week. And then it will be time to schedule to have the other eye done. And that one should be a breeze because they won’t have to inject a bubble into that eye. Plus, my right eye will be floater-free.

OK, there are still a few tiny fragments floating around. I’m not sure if those will settle out or if I’m stuck with them, but it’s still a big difference.

If you ever consider such a procedure, I fully recommend doing it. The pain was minimal, (managed with Tylenol) and the recovery hasn’t been bad at all. I don’t yet know what the cost will be but I’m sure it will be worthwhile. One’s sight is something that’s often taken for granted, right up until it becomes damaged.

I write posts like these to help people who are evaluating whether they should undergo such a procedure and provide some first-hand information. If you have a question I haven’t addressed, please drop it in Comments.

“Here’s looking at (anything), kid.”

Director’s DVD Commentary: Here’s to anyone who got that “Cover of the Rolling Stone” joke! Dr. Hook lives!

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Anyone feel that Northeastern earthquake last Friday? I can report that I felt no such thing here in Baltimore, although others had reportedly felt it in the Baltimore/DC area.

Never one to leave a solid omen unpoliticized, Rep. MT Greene (3-Toes GA) proffered the following wisdom:

“God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”

As soon as the rational population could stop laughing, they went about setting the record straight, in that eclipses are known hundreds, if not thousands of years ahead of time, and that there are up to 55 earthquakes that strike the planet each day.

Never one to back down from having said something stupid, Greene doubled down by citing more Bible passages:

Yes, even if we accept the irrationality of using the Bible to clear up geological and astrological phenomena, is THIS the person we need to provide the interpretation?

Maybe she has one of those customized Bibles, that contains a passage somewhere that reads, “Let some hateful, small-minded, charlatan conjure up fascist propaganda in My name.”

How do we know that the correct interpretation of these incidents isn’t that it’s a warning against restricting people’s personal freedoms at the behest of one small aggressive sect of religious whackaloons?

That’s what I say it is and I have as much experience in what God intends with His omens, as Ms. Greene does.

Of course, she’s not really talking to the country, she’s addressing the sheep who have elected her twice. I wonder what she’s ever done for her district, other than provide a misplaced air of haughty superiority. I’ll never understand how after her first term, her district could look at the job she’s done and go, “Yeah, we want more of THAT!”

No Labels, No Problem

I saw last week that the “No Labels” group is abandoning their attempt to run a third-party presidential candidate. One less distraction in the mix, that’s always a good thing. I don’t think they realized how transparent their stated, high-minded intentions were. No matter what their messaging said, everyone could see it was all about sabotaging Biden’s reelection chances by siphoning off Democratic votes.

I’m sure the reason they couldn’t find anyone to carry their banner is that anyone paying attention knew that they’d be a mere sacrificial lamb, with zero chance of winning. Any serious candidate is going to wait until TFG is out of the mix, as well as an incumbent president, and take a chance in the free-for-all in 2028. No sense in wasting reputation and resources on a predetermined trouncing.

More from the Echo Chamber

I’m not even addressing the details of this tragedy, other than to point out one of Fox “News’s” most common misdirections.

“Biden ridiculed for obvious hypocrisy…” Who do you think is doing this ridiculing? Well gee, I bet it’s all those talking heads at Fox, OAN, Breitbart, and the rest of the Republican bubble. They manufacture the controversy, and then go, “Hey look, there’s a controversy,” as if it’s a legitimate news story. Rule number one in journalism is that you don’t become part of the story. But I don’t expect that Fox has many J-School grads on the payroll.

Today’s Debunkery

I culled this from Facebook last week:

Just another hunk of fallacy from the fossil fuel industry and their trolls. The point of electric cars isn’t what’s put into them as much as what comes out. Even though there is energy necessary to charge up the car, the emissions are zero.

And the electricity used for charging is created with less pollution than gasoline. So it doesn’t have to be pristine, just less than what we already do. We can’t let “perfect” become the enemy of “better.” But the oil companies don’t want you to think about that. They just want to keep the gasoline gravy train running as long as it can.

And to be clear, I don’t think we’re ready for widespread use of electric cars because the infrastructure is not there yet. It won’t be until there are more charging stations across the “heartland” away from urban centers, and the time needed for charging is brought down. But the tech is advancing steadily and these issues will be ironed out soon enough. But memes like this are trying to sow the seeds of mistrust, to keep the population hooked on gas, regardless of the effect on climate.

Turn Around…

So, today was Eclipse Day. (Gee, I wonder if I can find a US Representative from Nowheresville to explain to me what it all means!)

As Baltimore wasn’t in the path of totality, it was kind of like the sun went behind a thick cloud for a while. It was still light, but sickly-looking, as if it was from an old photograph or a spooky movie. When I went out to retrieve our recyclables bin from the curb, I considered grabbing my post-dilation dark shades and wrap them around my usual sunglasses, but I still knew better than to risk my eyesight just for a glimpse of odd-looking light.

Bridge Over Stupid Water

I knew something bad happened that day last week when just before my alarm went off, my wife, Sweetpea, came into the room and sat on the bed, looking at me. My first reaction was like, “Oh crap, what happened?” I thought for sure it would be something like a friend or relative got maimed or killed, or worse, something happened to the dog. But no.

“The Key Bridge collapsed,” she told me.

I was relieved it wasn’t any of the tragedies I was imagining. That’s the thing about first reactions; they start with a small personal orbit. Then as it sinks in, the bigger picture begins to emerge.

My next thoughts were, “OK, no big deal for us.” She’s a Baltimore native and I’ve lived here 27 years, but we’re on the other side of town from the bridge. If you think of the I-695 beltway around the city as a clock face, the bridge is between 4 and 5, and we live just outside the midway point between 9 and 10. All of our families live on the west side, as well. I haven’t been over that bridge in probably 25 years.

But then the rest of the details start to become clear… it’s a major shipping port for the East Coast. This missing bridge will force thousands of people to reroute, which will invariably impact the stretch of I-695 that we do use. Most days traffic is already a monumental CF and this will make it worse for the next four to five years it will take to rebuild.

The shipping industry employs a ton of people, from dock workers, to truckers moving the goods, to cruise ships, and so on. There are going to be some big ripples, for sure. And there are cargo ships already in the harbor that need to get out. I understand that the ones on the way in will be rerouted to Norfolk or Philly.

My next reaction was about how fortunate it was that this happened in the wee hours of the morning.

Of course, there were lives lost along with the bridge. They know a handful of road workers went into the water; two were rescued, two more were recovered too late, with the rest presumed dead as well. That’s truly tragic. But imagine if there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on that bridge when it fell. I’d bet several hundred would have been killed, at least.

Early warnings from the boat reached the bridge control people, who were able to shut down the bridge to the cars that were on the way, which saved further lives. Those people are heroes.

This was the first headline I saw that morning:

Seriously? Morning commuters. “Oh yeah, we’ll have it all put back together for the afternoon rush hour, no problem.” Who writes these things?

As the TV news coverage was unfolding that morning, I asked Sweetpea, “Now how long is it going to take before someone tries to blame Biden?

Well, it took a while for the Republicans to drag President Biden into it but right off the bat, they framed the situation using the template of their standard talking points. Blaming DEI, illegal aliens, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, insufficient funding for infrastructure (Hah!), and everything else they could throw at the wall.

They blasted the Mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, for not wearing a suit at the first press conference, again, making up rules on the spot that only Democrats have to follow.

It’s the Tan Suit scandal for the mid-20s! They’re probably just surprised that this guy is Mayor. He looks like he should be worrying about his date for the senior prom, as opposed to long-range urban transportation planning.

Idiots who were previously experts on economics, viral transmission, bio-weapons, and reproductive biology are now experts on bridge construction, blaming design flaws for the collapse.

I’m no physics expert, but I’m quite confident that if you ram a fully loaded cargo ship smack into a central support pylon for any bridge in America, that fucker is coming down. There is no need for conspiracy theories here. It’s just the inevitable effect of a huge mass hitting a vastly smaller immovable object.

I was happy when I heard President Biden announce that the Federal Government would supply the necessary funding for rebuilding the bridge, but that opened the door to Republicans, who will disagree with Democrats on literally anything.

I'm sorry, but how is this not the exact situation in which the government should help? It's a colossal mishap that affects the entire mid-Atlantic region. Jobs are lost, the supply chain is interrupted, and there's a massive reconstruction to be done. This is what governments are supposed to do! Unless, of course, you're a Republican, who thinks the government exists to coddle the wealthy and ensure they stay that way.

I presume his objection is that the shipping company should be footing the bill. He’s not wrong, however, how soon do you think it will be before anyone that money actually appears? I’m guessing years, if ever. The shipping company is already requesting they be held exempt from responsibility. So let The Fed foot the bill, so that the removal and reconstruction can begin immediately, and then seek reimbursement on the back end. These aren't mutually exclusive positions.

The video of the crash clearly shows the ship losing power before veering off course to the right, and eventually hitting the bridge support. So the big questions will be, what happened on the ship? Why did they lose power? Were safety protocols followed? Were there corners cut?

The answers to those questions will dictate who ultimately pays.

I don’t see what the Republicans are grousing about. A white guy piloted a fossil-fuel-burning ship into a bridge, killing a handful of Latino men, who were repairing a road. The Black Mayor and Governor are taking heat, as is the Democratic President. As far as they’re concerned, the system works.

***

In other news from last week, I was amused to watch the hiring and almost immediate firing of former RNC Chairwoman Ronna (No longer Romney) McDaniel and subsequent brouhaha.

Naturally, Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon claiming that conservative voices are being censored. That’s fine for breathless hyperbole, but in the real world, this has nothing to do with Right vs Left. This is a question of journalism vs disinformation. If they want to see network TV balanced with equal voices from the political spectrum, they can start with Fox “News.”

Of course the trained journalists in the NBC universe are going to be pissed about hiring an election-denying shill. McDaniel went out and espoused every fallacy TFG ever spouted, essentially claiming up was down, black was white, the sky is blue, and brown people will end America as we know it. NBC should have known better and clipped this dumbass hiring at the onset. At the very least, they should be able to read their own room.

The rub for Republicans is that those who do appear “sane” and were averse to propagating looney conspiracy theories have been run out of the party, so there’s not much left to choose from to carry the company water.

And speaking of the buffoonery at the RNC, we have to be careful in adjusting our expectations of what happens when the Trump Crime Family assumes ownership. Like with this message:

Just because the RNC will become the TFG’s legal trouble cash cache and donations dry up, doesn’t mean that those who used to donate there will sit on their money. The Powers That Be will still endeavor to bankroll the races as they see fit, they’ll just use or create different PACs to handle it.

Republicans have been quite successful in winning “down-ticket” state and local races. Putting money into and winning state legislature races is what’s allowed them to gerrymander the House so thoroughly.

Dems will only have a chance at these races if they compete in and fully fund them. They have to run serious, qualified candidates, vie for every office, and stick to the popular messaging (Reproductive freedom, support Social Security/Medicare, support the democratic process by removing artificial barriers to voting, raise taxes on the rich/remove gaping loopholes.)

It would be nice to think Republicans will just implode but there is too much money available to prop them up. After all, it takes a special kind of person to fight for the lowest taxes on the richest people. Such candidates have to be recruited, nurtured, brain-washed, and admitted into all the best Secret Societies. It’s the only way they protect their nut.

 

Borderline Schizophrenic

Sorry, I was busy last week, trying to secure the right to have pockets for our nation’s women, so I haven’t been following the news as closely as I usually do. Let’s see… Nope, they still haven’t solved the Border Crisis (TM pending) yet. There’s been a lot of noise though.

Arizona is advancing a bill that would allow citizens to threaten and kill undocumented migrants found traveling across their property.

So that’s where we are now; making Joe Rancher judge, jury, and executioner, as long as the victims are undocumented. How is it they’re going to know the status of some guy’s papers, who he only sees through the scope of his rifle? I’m betting they’ll opt to play it “safe” and plug them either way. And if they’re NOT undocumented? Well, there’s plenty of land there to dig some holes, isn’t there?

I bet there will be contests before too long, with big prizes for the most kills. Er, I mean, “Defenses of your Life and Limb Against the Threat of the Unwashed Brown Horde.”

Next step, making omelets illegal.

If we can’t consistently get trained police to carry out their jobs civilly and lawfully, how can we expect a bunch of jolly ranchers to keep from shooting up brown strangers like it’s a carnival game?

I know, I know, they’re here ILLEGALLY, as the racists can’t wait to point out. But illegal entry doesn’t carry a death sentence, does it? Well, I guess it will now in Arizona if this bill passes.

Texas is also in the hunt to make the Southwest shittier. With the latest Supreme Court ruling, police officers in Texas can now arrest people on suspicion of being here illegally.

Again, how do they go about determining who to arrest? They arrest the brown people. Are there a lot of brown, legal, Texans there? Of course, but who cares? Even if they have to let them go, It’ll still be fun to round’em all up, just for kicks. Show’em who’s boss.

And with that, my friend, we have turned into Nazi Germany.

Now any fuck-stick with a badge (or without) can accost someone and demand to “see their papers.” Believe me, it won’t just be the police. It’ll be every Karen in line at Trader Joe’s, demanding papers from some poor shelf-stocker or bag boy. Or any Yahoo at a bar, into which a brown person dares to enter. And the intended effect is not just to deter illegal immigration, but all of it. Why else do you think they make it so hard to immigrate legally in the first place? They don’t care if it’s a matter of seeking asylum, escaping an oppressive regime or rampant drug cartels, or uniting with other family members. They’re not interested in high-minded legality, they’re interested in not having to hear “Press 2 for Spanish.”

And of course, they’re also interested in scaring the hell out of the rest of the country with horror tales of strife at the border and blaming it all on the Biden administration. The Poster Girl for Lead Paint, Marjorie Taylor Greene, was at it again this weekend, complaining about how the passage of the latest budget deal damaged her party’s attempts to fear-monger over the border.

She’s mad at Speaker Johnson over about losing leverage, it’s true. But not leverage over fixing the border, but election leverage. If she really wanted to address the problems at the border, she and her GOP cadre could have passed the Border Security bill from two weeks ago, that her own party negotiated (and got nearly everything they wanted.)

It amused me how bothered she was about it passing with a bipartisan vote. Or, in her words, “Without the majority of the majority.” Like any vote not blessed by her little club is invalid,  by definition. As if the vast amount of “minority” votes came from Mexicans, as opposed to Americans with whom she has philosophical differences. To troggs like EmTee Greene, the world is broken down into “us and them,” where “us” is her white MAGA Wingnut Brigade, and “them” is everyone else, Democrats, Latinos, gays, Jews, poor people, scientists, and other non-humans.

All she’s really doing is giving her own demographic a bad name.

How to Win the November Elections

I was talking with a business colleague the other day, about how I prefer a smaller cell phone size, so it fits in my pocket easier, without fear of bending or breaking it. I said it helps to have deeper pockets though, but because they’re men’s pants, they do, tacitly acknowledging the longstanding beef so many women have with clothing manufacturers, regarding a significant lack of pockets in apparel for women.

Then I said, “What will it take to get more pockets into women’s clothes, an act of Congress?

I was joking, of course, but later I was thinking, what if there WAS some kind of legislation directing pocket equality between the sexes? And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced it could be the key to winning in November. Here’s how I see that going:

First, we get some Democratic Congress-people to create the Pocket Equality for Women, or “PEW” Act, into which they write a mandate to include at least two pockets in every woman’s top, vest, skirt, and pants. Pockets need to be real and not merely for decoration, deep enough to be useful… at minimum, the length of an average woman’s hand. I bet Nancy Pelosi would be down with it. 

Naturally, the PEW Act will set off alarms within the purse lobby. Big Purse will be like, “Good God, man! If women can carry their cash, license, credit cards, and cell phones in pockets, we’ll never sell another clutch. We have to kill this thing in its sleep!”

With that, the lobbying from CoachPAC grows fierce on Capitol Hill, as they lean on the Congress-people they’ve bought… I mean, “Those to whom they’ve donated campaign funds, trips, and sample bags.”

They’ll find some willing listeners, I’m sure. But the problem, like with everything else that’s been lobbied out of existence, they can’t come out and say they’ve been bought off. They’ll need to find some other angle that they can tout in public, to use to kill the bill. Now why would anyone be against pockets? This stymies them for a few days. But then, the Alabama delegation has a breakthrough:

“People can smuggle things in pockets… contraceptives, frozen embryos, very small fetuses… We must protect against Real Live Human Baby trafficking!”

Huzzah! They now have a platform from which they can kill the PEW Act. With all the MAGA talking heads hitting Fox "News" and the Right-Wing Media circuit, they revive their old “Selling Baby Parts” accusations to include transporting. Now, no matter what the Senate does, the bill will die in the House, with Speaker Johnson vowing never to bring it to the floor for a vote.

Hopes are dashed in the short term, but the Democrats seize the chance to bring the case to The People. At every campaign stop, the candidates charge up the crowd:

Pol: What do you want?

Crowd: POCKETS!

Pol: Where do you want’em?

Crowd: EVERYWHERE! [Breaking out the finger guns] PEW PEW PEW!

"YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO... YOU JUST HAVE TO PASS THE PEW!"

At campaign stops, debates, and in political ads, Democrats tout the PEW Act and demand Pocket Equality. President Biden assures the nation that he will never "pocket veto" the PEW Act. The nation’s women, envisioning a life in which they never have to worry about leaving their purses behind, or getting them stolen by someone coming up from behind them, turn out to elect Democrats up and down the ticket. And there is rejoicing across the land.

So, do the women actually get pockets? Eh, probably not. Maybe. Conflicts in working out the specifics and arguing about what constitutes a blouse versus a shirt cause delay after delay to the implementation date and keep kicking the can down the road.

But, with the right to be fully enfranchised human beings restored, as opposed to the current state of being treated as private property/incubators, the momentum carries over into other issues. The new Democratic House, along with the expanded Senate majority and the Presidency, pass bills reconstituting the protections from Roe and Griswald, creating a national guarantee of reproductive rights and healthcare. They also pass a new law requiring that dry cleaning charges for women’s clothing be no higher than the cost for that of men. And for good measure, they add some more Supreme Court members so that the current six religious and Big Business shills are outnumbered and kept from interfering with the will of The People.

Yes, it’s all there for the taking, right in our back pocket, if you will.

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: I apologize if you came here all amped up about a new campaign strategy, and instead, you encountered my absurdist tendencies run amok. But take heart; I’m still confident that a full-throated push for reproductive rights will be a winner, come November. We just have to lay out the facts and turn out in greater numbers than the Religious Wingnuts.