My photo “Don’t Know How Much Longer I Can Wait” was added to Flickr Explore

Don't Know How Much Longer I Can Wait - a photograph of a brightly lit interesection in the rain

I believe for the first time since Flickr parent SmugMug tweaked the algorithm, a photo of mine made it into Explore December 30th, 2023.

I took this photo December 28th, 2023, and developed it in my digital darkroom the next evening.

Photo Gear

  • Nikon D7000
  • 35.0 mm f/1.8
  • ƒ/2.8
  • 1/50 (the slowest shutter speed I can reliably use without a tripod)
  • ISO 400

Location: At the intersection of Lincoln, Halsted and Fullerton, in Lincoln Park, Chicago. I chauffeured to a local physical therapist1, and while waiting the hour for the appointment to be over, I walked around the area. It started raining pretty hard, and I was nervous that my camera might get wet but kept on walking, headphones on, listening to music, including to the Bob Dylan outtakes/alternate takes from the Time Out Of Mind Recordings. By the time I took this photo, I was pretty well soaked, but continued on for another mile or so. In my car, I had a raincoat, and a plastic protective sleeve for my camera, however was too lazy to trudge back to properly gird myself against the elements.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

At least I got a few good shots of the amazing city light during a rain storm out of it…

Darkroom (digital): Won’t bore you with every detail of what I did in Photoshop, but I do remember I used a graduated neutral density filter (in emulation) to balance the light, and Alien Skin’s Fuji Reala film (in emulation).

Footnotes:
  1. torn rotator cuff, yikes []

Voter Turnout Is Essential To Re-Defeating Trump

I voted Did you

Trump lost in 2020 by more than 7 million votes1 and hasn’t made much inroads into reducing that margin. Or even attempting to! Especially since the Republican agenda is very unpopular with a majority of eligible voters. Continuing to strip abortion rights is at the top of their list, but there are many other abominations in the GOP plan for America.

America is also one of those democracies that has been so stable that a plurality of eligible voters don’t bother to vote. Why bother when the country continues to plod along no matter what?

Agora

But I believe strongly the 2024 election is different, and thus participating in the voting process is more important for everyone. The oft repeated cliché, “If we want to keep our democracy…” has been chanted frequently enough, the key to keeping the violent, vulgar idiot Trump and his fascist bullies out of public office is voter turnout.

President Joe Biden has accomplished more than I expected, his administration should continue.

Footnotes:
  1. he lost the popular vote in 2016 too []

HMS Black Joke Seems Like A Hollywood Film Waiting To Be Written

HMS Black Joke (1827).jpg
via Wikipedia

I read about this historic ship today, built in Baltimore in the 1820s, used to transport slaves to Bahia, Brazil for a few years before the British Navy captured it. It was a fast, small and fierce ship, so they kept it in service as a slaver catcher.
From 1828 until it was decommissioned in 1832, HMS Black Joke freed thousands of slaves by capturing the boats transporting them.

When the Royal Navy ordered that Black Joke be burned, Peter Leonard, surgeon of HMS Dryad, wrote that she was the ship “which has done more towards putting an end to the vile traffic in slaves than all the ships of the station put together.”

Doesn’t this sound like the plot of a good movie? Maybe starring Idris Elba? Or someone like him in any case. In the Hollywood version, Elba is a slave, but freed, joins the crew, and rises through the ranks, yadda yadda. Who should the captain be? Russell Crowe already did a film based on the Master And Commander books, but maybe he’d make another navy epic? Maybe someone younger, like Robert Pattinson?

I’ll add it to my notebook of “Film Treatments I Really Should Write”, along with all the others…

Annual Daylight Savings Kvetch

Photograph of a clock tower - If You Ever Get The Time To Think Of Me

Today is the day we are allowed to lament the collective stupidity and inaction regarding Daylight Savings, right? I think at this stage of civilization, we could collectively choose a time and stay there all year, without moving it around on a whim. Sometimes in a year, based upon where you live, and the season, it will be dark when you get up, sometimes it won’t. Some parts of the year you’ll end your work day in darkness, some parts not. But your internal clock won’t be scrambling to adjust to the new time twice a year.

When I’m dictator of the world…

Weather Overload

Across The Evening Sky All The Birds Are Leaving - Polapan Blue

Sometimes I think the weather forecasters get bored, and just want to publish something, no matter if it really is important.

To whit:

Cook County Weather Alert:

Dense Fog Advisory issued November 5 at 12:33AM CDT until November 5 at 10:00AM CST by NWS Chicago IL
* WHAT…Visibility one quarter mile or less in dense fog.

Yeah, ok…

Shrinkflation Strikes Again

Shrinkflation Strikes Again

The bottle on the right held 120 sublingual B complex lozenges, bottle on the right that I just purchased holds 60…

Source Naturals basically doubled the price in something like 3 years. I don’t take B vitamins every day, only a few times a month, so a bottle lasts for a while.

The Weight Of The World’s Woes Rested Heavily Upon His Brow

The Weight Of The World's Woes Rested Heavily Upon His Brow

A Hipstamatic photograph of a solitary leaf that fell on my car’s sunroof during last night’s rain.

Lowy Lens and BlacKeys B+W Film

As far as the sentiment, you can probably guess as to its meaning without me being explicit. Right?

Turning my blog into a Fediverse server

Ganesha on Montrose

I’m adding this as a weekend project for myself.

Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse writes:

If you have a WordPress blog, you can turn it into a Fediverse server, which means people will be able to follow the blog and comment on it from Mastodon etc.

This is now possible for all kinds of WordPress blogs, including free blogs on wordpress.com, paid blogs on wordpress.com and blogs hosted elsewhere that are powered by WordPress software. The method you use to activate Fediverse compatibility depends on the type of blog you have, but they all work using the same technology.

(click here to continue reading WordPress: Turning your blog into a Fediverse server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse.)

So far, I’ve installed the ActivityPub plugin1 and attempted configuration. I’m not quite sure it is alive yet, but I have to stop for a few hours anyway to attend to other tasks. I’ll check back in and figure out what the final steps will be…

Footnotes:
  1. https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ []

Trouble Logging Into UT Alumni Email hosted by Google

Google Express

Great, I am having trouble logging in to my UT Alumni Google email1 . That’s the problem with “free” email I guess, if you need tech support, you might as well be asking a brick wall for advice about differential equations.

Nothing has changed on my side, and at least as of now, I can still receive/send email using my Mac’s mail program, but I cannot log in to Gmail via my browser (on multiple Macs). I receive an error message after I enter my password that reads:

Google couldn’t verify this account belongs to you.

Try again later or use Account Recovery for help.

If you still can’t sign in to your account, contact your organization’s admin for help. Your admin may need to temporarily update login challenge settings.

I sent an email to help@utexas.edu requesting assistance, but I am skeptical as always.

And I guess my alumnus status means that the email isn’t free, it was underwritten by all my years paying tuition. 

Footnotes:
  1. my name followed by @Utexas.edu []

Keep My Real Life Shining

Keep My Real Life Shining

Cloud Gate, aka The Bean, a favorite subject of tourists and photographers.

(click to embiggen)

  • Nikon D80
  • Lens 18.0-135.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
  • ƒ/8.0
  • 28.0 mm
  • 1/250
  • 100 ISO

I took this photo February 4th, 2007, and processed it in my digital darkroom in July, 2023. I remember it being a very cold day, and that my iPod battery died from being too cold, and then so did my Nikon D80 battery. Still took a bunch of photos before this happened though.

Short Posts

Jawbone, Upper Yurtistan

I really should be less reluctant to write short posts. In the golden age of blogging, I’d think nothing of typing a sentence or two and publishing, these days I ruminate endlessly, and then publish nothing.

I am happy with Mastodon as a replacement for XTwitter aka Xitter, btw. I guess that is my current stand-in for pithy posts.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unnamed Yet Delicious Rum Based Cocktail

Unnamed rum cockail

I wish I could source this cocktail, find it mentioned somewhere in one of my many bartending books, or on a recipe site. On the social media site, Mastodon, I follow the hashtag, cocktails, and about 2-3 months ago, someone posted this recipe. I’ve since made1 several, they are just so damn deliciously refreshing!

Mix ingredients over ice, and either serve in a coupe glass, as shown above, or on the rocks, which is what I usually do.

The worst part about this cocktail is after you’ve had one, you’ll want another right away. Might as well use the other half of your lime, right?

So what should the name of this cocktail be? Or do you know what it is called?

Plantation Barbados Rum

Footnotes:
  1. and consumed joyfully!! []

The United States vs Donald Trump, part 2

United States of America v. Donald J. Trump

The long awaited, long speculated upon indictment of Donald Trump for his attempted coup plot has finally arrived. January 6th, 2021 was a horrible day for all people who respect the United States Constitution, myself included. Trump and his cult did their best to end our country.

If you haven’t read the actual indictment, I urge you to do so. It is only 45 pages, and without much legalese or jargon to slow you down. Here is a PDF version, you can find it elsewhere with a simple web search.

After reading it yesterday afternoon, I had a few unanswered questions that I have found some answers for, and perhaps more will be available this morning. 

1. Who are the six unnamed co-conspirators? And will they have to face trial in the future?

Five of the six were fairly easy to identify by clues in the indictment itself.

Co-Conspirator 1 is Rudy Giuliani. 

Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.

…Co-Conspirator | responded with words to the effect of, “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

Co-Conspirator 2 is John Eastman, and his lawyer has already put out a statement confirming this.

Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.

Co-Conspirator 2 conceded that he “[didn’t] know enough about facts on the ground” in Arizona, but nonetheless told the Arizona House Speaker to decertify and “let the courts sort it out.”

Also on January 4, when Co-Conspirator 2 acknowledged to the Defendant’s Senior Advisor that no court would support his proposal, the Senior Advisor told Co-Conspirator 2, “[Y]ou’re going to cause riots in the streets.” Co-Conspirator 2 responded that there had previously been points in the nation’s history where violence was necessary to protect the republic.

Co-Conspirator 3 is obviously cuckoo-bananas Sidney “Kraken” Powell.

Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.

On November 25, Co-Conspirator 3 filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia falsely alleging “massive election fraud” accomplished through the voting machine company’s election software and hardware. Before the lawsuit was even filed, the Defendant retweeted a post promoting it. The Defendant did this despite the fact that when he had discussed Co- Conspirator 3’s far-fetched public claims regarding the voting machine company in private with advisors, the Defendant had conceded that they were unsupported and that Co-Conspirator 3 sounded “crazy.” 

Ms. Powell famously told a Fox News producer that she had gotten the evidence from a friend who heard it whispered in her ear. I’ve never decided if Ms. Powell was serious, or being metaphorical, but I lean towards her believing that spirits or maybe even some god whisper bits of evidence about Hugo Chávez, Italian satellites and what not in receptive ears. 

Co-Conspirator 4 is Jeffrey Clark

Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.

On the afternoon of January 3, Co-Conspirator 4 spoke with a Deputy White House Counsel. The previous month, the Deputy White House Counsel had informed the Defendant that “there is no world, there is no option in which you do not leave the White House [o]n January 20th.” Now, the same Deputy White House Counsel tried to dissuade Co-Conspirator 4 from assuming the role of Acting Attorney General. The Deputy White House Counsel reiterated to Co-Conspirator 4 that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant remained in office nonetheless, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” Co-Conspirator 4 responded, “Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

Mr. Clark was the EPA attorney who Trump was going to appoint as Attorney General, but the entire Justice Department threatened to resign if Trump did this, so after a tense few hours, Trump withdrew this plan.

Co-Conspirator 5 is probably Kenneth Chesebro, who I admit I don’t exactly recall his part in the coup attempt, but I do remember his name.

Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.

I just talked to the gentleman who did that memo, [Co- Conspirator 5]. His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send in their votes (even though the votes aren’t legal under federal law — because they’re not signed by the Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6″. (They could potentially argue that they’re not bound by federal law because they’re Congress and make the law, etc.) Kind of wild/creative — I’m happy to discuss. My comment to him was that I guess there’s no harm in it, (legally at least) — i.e. we would just be sending in “fake” electoral votes to Pence so that “someone” in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the “fake” votes should be counted.

On December 13, Co-Conspirator 5 sent Co-Conspirator 1 an email memorandum that further confirmed that the conspirators’ plan was not to use the fraudulent electors only in the circumstance that the Defendant’s litigation was successful in one of the targeted states—instead, the plan was to falsely present the fraudulent slates as an alternative to the legitimate slates at Congress’s certification proceeding.

Co-Conspirator 6 is the hardest to ascertain, there aren’t quite enough bread crumbs, and it could be a few different people.

Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.

Could Number 6 be Peter Navorro? Or Michael Roman? Or some other criminal? We’ll find out soon enough.

2. Who are the Senators that were part of the plot?

From the indictment:

Co-Conspirator 6 attempted to confirm phone numbers for six United States Senators whom the Defendant had directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call and attempt to enlist in further delaying the certification.

During the Jan 6th Congressional hearings, this came out:

The Jan. 6 select committee’s final report said Giuliani placed calls that evening to Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), as well as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Hawley, Cruz and Jordan all later voted to decertify Pennsylvania’s and Arizona’s presidential electors.

So either Congress got this wrong, Jack Smith got this wrong, or one of these Senators didn’t answer the phone, or something. Regardless, these Senators should have to be grilled about their part in the coup attempt, without fear or favor. If they were part of the coup, they should not serve in the Senate because they were insurrectionists. 

3. Who is the judge who has been assigned the case?

Perhaps to balance against MAGA Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge in the classified documents case, the universe assigned Judge Tanya Chutkan to this case. While she was appointed by President Obama, Judge Chutkan was confirmed in the Senate by a 95-0 vote, and she is not thought to be anything but impartial.

She was the judge who issued this noteworthy ruling in Civil Action 21-cv-2769 (TSC), Trump v. Bennie Thompson

"Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President"

 

She has already tried many of the Jan 6th “foot soldiers”, and is not sympathetic. In fact, per Josh Marshall of TPM, Chutkan is known for imposing longer sentences for guilty insurrectionists than the prosecutors ask for. 

The American Republic and the Constitution that sets out its rules and structure are the anchor of the law and the rule of law in this country. Attempts to overthrow the government, to overthrow the Constitution, are the gravest crimes since they challenge the basis of every other law. Murder may come with a stiffer sentence, but attempts to overthrow the Republic itself is still a graver offense.

I noticed this quote from Judge Tanya Chutkan, the D.C. district court judge who has drawn the Trump coup indictment: “It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment.” …Chutkan is known for her tough sentences for January 6th defendants.

4. Why is only Trump on this indictment, and will the case be tried before the election?

Informed speculation on this is that having multiple defendants necessitates longer trial times as the multiple groups of lawyers jockey and delay, file motions as is their right, etc. In other words, having a single defendant will probably speed the trial up. However, trials in America are ponderously slow, and take a long time to resolve. The courts already have over-full dockets, and we don’t actually know if this case will be tried and finished before November 2024. We as a nation can hope, but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Have the co-conspirators flipped? Or will they have their own indictment(s) soon? Again, we don’t know this, yet, but I assume we will sooner than later.

Trump wants to delay all of his trials as long as possible:

John Lauro, a lawyer for former president Donald Trump, pushed back Wednesday on special counsel Jack Smith’s desire to hold a “speedy trial” on charges related to Trump’s effort to reverse the 2020 election results.

“Well, the speedy trial right is the defendant’s right, not the government’s right,” Lauro said during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. “So we’re entitled to understand what the charges are. We’re entitled to do our own investigation.”

“The special counsel or the Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department, has had three years to investigate this,” Lauro continued. “To take President Trump to trial in 90 days, of course, is absurd. The question is why do they want to do that. If you want to seek justice, then you need to offer … President Trump an opportunity to get a hold of all the evidence and understand what the facts are.”

Smith suggested the idea of a speedy trial — defined as 70 days in federal law — during a brief statement Tuesday after the four-count indictment against Trump was announced.

5. Are “Talking Indictments” sometimes called “Speaking indictments” good?

A lawyer guest on Ari Melber’s The Beat program on MSNBC made the point that he doesn’t like “talking indictments”. I guess he prefers court documents to be heavily footnoted with legal opinions and language only lawyers use. I understand his point, and I also think that Count 3 and Count 4 of this particular indictment are fairly sparse on details, I would like more here. Perhaps it was rushed out a bit to get on the judicial calendar before the Fulton County DA’s impending case? Or for other reasons? Or I am wrong because I am not a lawyer?

As a layperson, I appreciate “talking indictments” because they form a narrative, but there is no reason that subsequent superseding indictments cannot veer into standard legal tropes, citing case law.

A lot of the narrative was already established by the Congressional Jan 6th committee.

In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.

For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.

“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”

Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.

(click here to continue reading Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work – The New York Times.)

There are undoubtedly other questions I have, but this post is already over 2,000 words, way over my typical length, I’ll end here.

Killer whale threw British sailor’s yacht around like rag doll

Count me on Team Orca still…

Whale Spit

The Independent reports:

He said his boat was wrecked by the mammals as they tore off its rudders.

“I noticed a fin then noticed a light bump and then a very big bump and looked round and there was a very large whale pushing along the back and trying to bite the rudder,” he told BBC Radio 4.

“To begin with there was one big whale and four smaller whales and they were just bumping it and bumping it and then one of them managed to take off one of the rudders – the boat has two.

“Then we lost the second rudder so we had no mechanism of steering the boat and the whales were in charge of the boat and they pushed us around like a rag doll,” he added.


Last month sailors in the straits of Gibraltar were warned to protect themselves against the growing number of orca attacks.

More than 250 boats have been damaged, with three sunk, since the attacks off the coast of Spain and Portugal were first reported in 2020.

Fifteen of the region’s 35 killer whales are said to be responsible – but it is thought a female orca called White Gladis was the one to “teach” others to attack the passing vessels after she collided with a boat.

(click here to continue reading Killer whale threw British sailor’s yacht around ‘ like rag doll’ in latest attack | The Independent.)

Not the Loch Ness

There are many, many places on Earth that humans have decided that other humans cannot go, there are many, many places on Earth that humans discourage animals from going, why can’t whales have a place where humans aren’t welcome? Why do humans always get to make these decisions?

Dirty Records

Dirty Records

A brand new vinyl still needs to be cleaned (presumedly from the paper sleeve) before dropping the needle.

I use an www.audioquest.com/accessories/vinyl-accessories/super-co… anti-static brush, and this is the typical result. But only takes a few seconds, and vastly improves my audio enjoyment by removing the source of pops and clicks…

Super-Conductive Anti-Static Record Brush

Featuring 1,248,000 super-conductive carbon fibers, our new record brush gently reaches into the groove, pulling out dust and dirt that would otherwise snap, crackle, and pop through your speakers. Don’t let those little intrusions turn into big interruptions.