Put him in, coach, he''s ready to play

       I have a feeling Derek Jeter will be in Yankee Stadium on Thursday for the debut of his spiritual successor at shortstop.   Anthony Volpe will make his major league debut at the same age as the 21 year old Jeter did in 1996.   That season ended in a championship for the Yankees.  It's time to see if Volpe can provide the same spark for the team in 2023.

      After a great spring training record, Volpe vaulted past his competition for the shortstop position with a combination of skill and enthusiasm which has already endeared him to fans.  Unless he has a catastrophic fall off in offensive numbers, his number 77 jersey will rival Aaron Judge's number in sales.  

      Anyway, it's spring and everyone's team has a shot.  Now it's time to get Alexa to play "Centerfield" and crank up the volume!

The old man is not giving up

       Winter continues its assault on our collective psyche with 3 inches of snow predicted for Saturday here in the north country.   there are still a few inches of the white stuff in the back yard here at Casa Monzeglio, but the sunnier areas, where my raised beds sit are snow free for the time being.

      All things considered it has been a fairly mild winter, but we have had snow cover for extended periods, especially in February and March.   I'm sure the higher elevations in the Adirondacks have plenty of snow and will remain covered well into April.  But for those of us on the valley floors, it's time to start thinking about gardening and golf!

The waiting game

        Waiting for Alvin Bragg to indict the twice impeached, disgraced ex president would seem to be a fool's errand.  After tRump's announcement of his impending indictment on Saturday, his post has been dissected more often than a worm in a 10th grade biology lab.  So, get on with it, already.

20 years on

      I can still remember the tears of rage and sorrow the Divine Mrs. M shed as the Iraq war kicked off in a campaign of "shock and awe" bombing.   Hundreds of innocent civilians were killed and the stage was set for one of the most inept post war experiments in imposing democracy on a people wholly unprepared for the experience.  Thousands of US troops stood around as Iraqi looters destroyed the infrastructure missed by American bombs.

     The litany of American mistakes and hubris which eventually led to the deaths of over 4400 Americans and perhaps 200,000 Iraqis will continue to fill books for the forseeable future.   A majority of my fellow citizens probably started out as war supporters, but many eventually opposed this example of unbridled nationalism due to the stupidity and incompetence with which it was conducted.  The war was no more righteous than Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

AI is coming for us, phase 2

       In recent days, i have read blogs by Kevin Drum and listened to podcasts by Ezra Klein regarding the speed at which artificial intelligence is developing and i have to admit if i was 25 or 50 years younger I would be absolutely terrified of what will happen in the next 25 years.

      Most of my generation will shuffle off the stage before 2050, but what kind of world will our children and grandchildren live in by that time.   Drum is optimistic about the eventual blessings general AI will bestow on the human race, but even he envisions an interregnum of up to 100 years before the blessings are evenly distributed.  In the meantime, the jobocolypse will reduce the living standards of the general population.   But wait, won't the AI revolution, much like the industrial revolution create different jobs which we can't yet envision?  No, says Drum.  If AI can do anything a human can, it will also be able to do any new jobs created by its disruption.  

      Klein's musings on the speed of the AI revolution are truly terrifying.   Extrapolating his belief that AI beings will tell us what they believe we want to hear will result in maximum profit taking with no regard for the bulk of humanity.  it's the Sorcerer's Apprentice on steroids and it doesn't end well for us.  We really have to count on luck to bail us out, since there seems to be no regulation envisioned for AI in the short or medium term.

Slow watching an indictment

       For those of us who have spent the last 8 years waiting for the indictment of a certain disgraced ex-president, this past weekend started with the electric announcement by tRump that he would be charged in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush money payment case.   Of course, as in all things tRump related, this was a lie promulgated by Cheeto Jesus in an attempt to rile up his followers when the inevitable finally happens and he is indeed indicted. 

      The cable news networks, Fox excepted, spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday in endless speculation as to how and when accountability would come.   It got repetitive and boring after a couple of hours, but the fascination kept me tuned in far longer than i expected.  The emerging consensus among the many pundits was it's a shame the first trial of an ex president should be for paying off a porn star and then lying about it, but hey, Al Capone was finally brought to justice for tax evasion,   I'm laying in a supply of popcorn for when the real action begins.

Pulling our own weight

        An essay in the NYT this morning inveighs against poverty and insists all of us have a duty to combat poverty in any way we can.  There are many anti-poverty programs on the books at the Federal and State level.   Many of them, especially TANF are riddled with corruption once the money, in bloc grants, is distributed to the states.

       What the author of the essay points out is that if the anti-poverty programs were fully funded and fairly administered, it would go a long way toward eliminating poverty in the US.   Here's the rub;  we don't collect all the taxes necessary to fund the programs and indeed seem hell bent on cutting taxes further for the wealthiest Americans.

      I defer to the patron saint of this blog, the late, great, Jerry Shulman.  He was always proud to pay taxes every year and said it was part of the duty for all of us.   Joe Biden would have us believe we can reach the promised land by only increasing taxes on those who make over $400,000 per year.  If we can eradicate poverty by raising taxes on everyone who makes over $100,000/year, then by all means, let us do so, while at the same time making the whole system more progressive and fair.

Springing and Falling

         For most of my life, growing up in the northeast US, Daylight Savings Time has been an unalloyed good thing as far as I was concerned.  I have always felt a large majority of my fellow citizens agreed with my sentiments regarding DST.   But it seems I am wrong.

        A minority of the population, according to recent polls, favor full time DST.  A smaller percentage don't care one way or the other.  Adding the two together, 42%   of us favor full time DST.   The argument against DST and for full time ST mainly revolves around safety issues and interruption of circadian rhythms.   Of course any time regime is arbitrary and with artificial lighting the latter argument seems pretty bogus.   Safety issues would be transferred from morning to evening.  

      I think the whole issue is more about resistance to change .   

Fighting the last war

     It's common wisdom that generals always fight the last war.  Vietnam was the perfect example.  Instead of large, set piece battles like WW2 and even the Korean War, Westmorland and other generals found an opponent who used guerilla war and attrition to sap the will of their opponent.  We never really found an answer to this kind of warfare.

     The fall of SVB and its aftermath teaches a similar lesson.   SVB, despite what its right wing critics opine was a typical, fairly well capitalized bank which made investment mistakes which made it vulnerable to a run on its assets.  Now, the pundits all want to compare it to Lehman Brothers in 2008 and say the sky will fall unless every depositor is made whole.  As it happens, SVB probably has enough collateral to do that with minimal bail out money.  It's funny how the silicon valley tech bros are ardent libertarians until they become socialists when their money is threatened.  But I digress.

       The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 is nothing like what just happened to SVB, but nonetheless, we will drag out all the hoary cliches to make it so.

We may not have started the fire, but...

        The Biden administration is on the verge of approving new oil drilling leases in the Arctic, Ohio is in the process of criminalizing cross dressing drag queens, a US air force general is calling for low yield nuclear armed cruise missiles and oh, by the way, AI is coming for you.

       This is just a sample of what today's headlines and blog posts are telling us about what is going on in today's world.   A lot of the information is speculation, but the basic premise is we are either going to self immolate or thanks to the wonders of AI be on our way to the stars in  short order.  I have a feeling reality is somewhere between the extremes.  I certainly hope so.

Meanspirited Nonsense

       What Krugman said in today's NYT.   The House GOP has a budget to answer the Biden administration's document and according to Krugman it's about what you would expect from them.   Purporting to trim 3 trillion dollars from the federal deficit over the next 10 years without raising taxes, the House budget would include savage cuts to Medicaid and virtually every discretionary spending on government programs outside  of Social Security, Medicare and Defense.

       As anyone with a modicum of intelligence and decency knows, much of the spending that would be cut benefits many of the voters these congresscritters represent.   Medicaid pays for grandma's stay at the local nursing home.  SNAP, the successor to Food Stamps sometimes makes the difference between paying utilities and putting food on the table.   It would serve MAGA world right if these cuts were enacted.  Then we would find out how many people actually buy what Republicans are selling.

Opinions differ

          On virtually any subject, peoples' opinions differ.  In our present society, it is seemingly hard to get people to agree the sky is blue, let alone in debates on more esoteric topics.   However, I was surprised at the various takes on the potential of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligences who seem to have the potential to surpass the human brain.

       The most common argument against these AI is that for all their abilities, they mostly rely on pattern recognition and are derivative rather than creative.  These computers are able to generate high school level writing and may soon match college and indeed PhD level writing.  At what point will critics take AI potential seriously.  Even if the descendants of ChatGPT solve some intractable problems, will diehard human apologists belittle the accomplishments?

     Over at Kevin Drum's blog, Jabberwocking, Drum makes the point most humans are even less creative than present day AI and that there is nothing transcendent about our grey matter.  He seems to be saying that outside of a smattering of geniuses throughout history, most of humanity cannot even match ChatGPT and its ilk.  When a computer matches or exceeds an Einsteinian level of intelligence we will need to change the way we think about humans and machines.  Drum feels that reckoning may come sooner than later.

The end of Faux News

        Whether Dominion Voting Systems wins its defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation or not, the latter's reputation as a journalistic organization has taken a fatal hit.

        Recent revelations of e-mail exchanges between Fox hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham show they, along with Rupert Murdoch and other executives were unabashedly cheerleading GOP candidates and pushing the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump even though they privately acknowledged Joe Biden had won the election fairly.

       It seems to me Faux News will lose three ways in coming months.   They will almost surely lose the lawsuit and be forced to pay over a billion dollars to Dominion.   Further, with their reputation as an honest purveyor of facts in tatters, they will lose at least part of their audience who will abandon them in favor of more mainstream media outlets.  Meanwhile, the MAGA diehards will quit Fox in disgust and move their eyes to hardcore outlets like Newsmax and OAN.  

      I've discounted Faux News before, but this time it feels different.

March snow showers bring...

       The Divine Mrs. M is off today to the Philadelphia flower show to store up a few pleasant memories and help stave off depression as the north country winter drags on.   With temps here in the mid to upper 20s, even the false hope of an indoor flower show featuring forced flowers and trees sounds somehow comforting.  The 10 day forecast here is unremitting clouds with chances of snow showers most days.

       Talking about the weather and breaking away from it for a few days is better than surveying the present political situation here in the US or the international problems we face or the recession everyone is predicting.  What we need right now is flowers and green leaves!

Slowly it turned...

      I watched my first spring training game on Saturday, so it must be springtime, right?   I also blew 6 inches of snow off the driveway, so it's still winter, right?   During March, you can hold both thoughts in your head at the same time, at least in northern New York.   Thanks to the vagaries of climate change, this area as well as northern New England seems not to be reaping the benefits of early springs.  An NYT columnist from Tennessee is terrified by the unfolding spring in her area.  Many spring flowers and trees are up to six weeks early this year and the possibility of a late spring freeze troubles her.  Meanwhile, there is a foot of snow in my backyard and the chickadees are grateful for the feeders out there.

     

Murder, they wrote

      While I am not ordinarily attracted to florid tales of family murder, the trial of Alex Murdaugh for the murder of his wife and oldest son held a strange fascination.   It may have been the exhaustive article in the New Yorker magazine I read several months ago.  The writer painted an over the top picture of a small town in the South dominated by the Murdaugh family for several generations.

     Alex, the seeming black sheep of the family, failed to follow in his father's footsteps, instead opting for a supposedly lucrative personal injury practice.   It turns out he stole millions from his clients to finance a lifestyle he could not afford otherwise.   How all this led to murder was always a tenuous speculation at best, but the prosecution convinced the jury with a mountain of circumstantial evidence.   Some columnists felt the electronic evidence was accepted to credulously by the jury.

     In the end, it was a gothic tale of family privilege and righteous retribution which captured the nations attention for a few months.   I look forward to the movie.

Calling balls and strikes

         Since Major league baseball spring training is in full swing, it seems only right to apply a baseball metaphor to a political situation.   Just as umpires behind home plate call balls and strikes, it would seem we need non partisan umpires to call BS on political hardball.  

      The media has abdicated that role by indulging in aggressive "views on the shape of the earth vary" journalism.  We need, but will never find, an arbiter respected by both sides to adjudicate claims from the left and the right.  Might as well wish for a unicorn, but it's worth a shot.

National security and tRump

        New polling shows tRump is the prohibitive favorite to capture the GOP presidential nomination for 2024.   I'm not sure how the data can support this conclusion, but I guess the 30% or so of the Republican electorate who are diehard tRump supporters are enough to power him to victory in many of the winner take all GOP primaries.

      Of course this sets up a rematch with Joe Biden next year and the possibility of election deniers in position to alter the voting in key battleground states, not to mention Republican controlled state legislatures enacting vote suppressing legislation.  Biden could conceivably beat Cheeto Jesus by 10 million votes nationwide and yet lose in the electoral college if a few states flip to tRump.  I prefer to think the 2024 election will go the same way as the 1956 contest between the incumbent Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson with the incumbent winning handily.  The alternative is too terrifying to contemplate.