Author: A.T.

A trillion other intelligent civilizations over the course of cosmic history?

Could ours survive long enough to find concrete evidence of one of them?

Should Britain exit the European Union?

(No.)

It’s not only America that’s having a bit of a trouble with calm, rational decision-making.  If you have 10 minutes, you’ll get a kick out of this.  Very funny — and even slightly informative.  Jonathan Pie is “the British John Oliver.”

Of course, the “American John Oliver” is also British.  His very funny Brexit take is here.

The referendum is tomorrow.

Two things you’ve almost surely seen, but just in case:

1. From The Onion, U.N. Warns Trump May Be 7 Months Away From Acquiring Nuclear Weapons.

NEW YORK—According to an alarming new global risk report published Tuesday by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be just seven months away from acquiring nuclear weapons. “A year ago, the threat didn’t seem great enough to warrant serious concern, but at this moment, a nuclear-capable Trump is now a very real and very imminent possibility,” said UNODA high representative Kim Won-soo, adding that the agency’s current projections showed Trump potentially procuring nuclear weapons, as well as advanced ballistic missile technology, as early as January of next year. . . .

2.  Bernie’s post-primaries address to his supporters. Whether or not he is your candidate, it is a wonderfully cogent outline of what most of us, including Hillary, believe needs improving.  And an inspiring call to like-minded citizens to run for office themselves. Well done. Watch.

[Borealis Shareholders:  WheelTug’s primary competitor, EGTS (the Honeywell/Safran joint venture), has bowed out. WheelTug, by contrast, moves forward. If you happen to be in London next month, visit WheelTug at the Farnborough Airshow.]

TRUMP

I’ve purchased “Trump won’t be the nominee” contracts for 14 cents at PredictIt.  (If he’s not the nominee, I get $1.) I just don’t see the Republican Party allowing this to happen. I don’t think Trump even wants them to allow it to happen — it’s hard work being President!  He’d rather be the victim who could easily have won, could quickly have wiped out ISIS, could have repatriated millions of 50-cent-an-hour jobs from Mexico and China . . . if only he hadn’t been robbed of his chance.

If there’s even just a 30% chance he finds a pretext to drop out or they nix him (changing the rules to allow a “vote of conscience” on the first ballot? throwing out first-ballot delegates from states that failed to hold a closed primary? some other maneuver?), then my little bet, at 14 cents on the dollar, instead of its 30-cent fair value, is a bargain.

Yes, I guess he’ll probably be the nominee. I’ll probably lose my little bet.  But how can they nominate this guy?

Read this live-tweet report of a recent Trump rally in Greensboro.

It.

Is.

Horrifying.

And read Garrison Keillor:

The Punk Who Would Be President

It is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of wayward youth of a bygone era, and it’s astonishing to imagine it under the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries. The class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council. This is the C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks for in a president. There’s no philosophy here, just an attitude.

He is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved on, but not Donald. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and the duck’s ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says that the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our neighborhood. His followers don’t necessarily believe that — what they love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers, teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who think they’re better than you — you have the power to scare the pants off them, and that’s what this candidate does better than anybody else.

After the worst mass shooting in American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the tragedy showed that he had been “right” in calling for America to get “tough.”

Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.

We had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after graduation, some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let their hair down. But if your dad was rich and if he was born before you were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president.

The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that success will steady him and he will accept wise counsel and come into the gravitational field of reality but it isn’t happening. The Orlando tweets show it: The man does not have a heart. How, in a few weeks, should Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell teach him basic humanity? The bigot and braggart they see today is the same man that New Yorkers have been observing for 40 years. A man obsessed with marble walls and gold-plated doorknobs, who has the sensibility of a giant sea tortoise.

His response to the Orlando tragedy is one more clue that this election is different from any other. If Mitt Romney or John McCain had been elected president, you might be disappointed but you wouldn’t fear for the fate of the Republic. This time, the Republican Party is nominating a man who resides in the dark depths. He is a thug and he doesn’t bother to hide it. The only greatness he knows about is himself.

So the country is put to a historic test. If the man is not defeated, then we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation that elects this man president is not a civilized society. The gentleman is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.

Garrison Keillor hosts “A Prairie Home Companion.” This column was provided by the Washington Post News Service.

Wednesday, I posted the President’s speech.  In case you missed it (I posted it late), do read or watch. So important.

Yesterday, my gay Muslim friend Parvez Sharma posted his reaction to the horror in Orlando. In tiny part:

. . . It is a season of Islamophobia in America, where Donald Trump whips up xenophobia with a Tweet. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s attacking a religion that’s already at war with itself. Muslims like me have fought hard not to become casualties. We have always had our Omar Mateens. In the U.S., they manifest as lone crazed gunmen. But in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, they are on the royal payroll. . . .

Parvez is the documentary film maker I’ve told you about.

Our nation’s most famous documentary film maker, of course, is Ken Burns: The Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, The Roosevelts, Jackie Robinson, and so many more.

He delivered Stanford’s commencement address last Sunday.

So worth a read or a watch:

 . . . You know, it is terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save, to blame it for all the ills known to humankind, and, my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic mistakes. But you would be hard pressed to find – in all of human history – a greater force for good. From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights; from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts; from the transcontinental railroad and our national parks to child labor laws, Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act; from the GI Bill and the interstate highway system to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act, the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives. But if you tune in to politics, if you listen to the rhetoric of this election cycle, you are made painfully aware that everything is going to hell in a hand basket and the chief culprit is our evil government. . . .

. . . For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesn’t seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn’t seem to matter; who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment; who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims; a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan; an infantile, bullying man who, depending on his mood, is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties and long-standing relationships. I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared and – they feel – powerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief that – as often happens on TV – a wand can be waved and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions. They can’t. It is a political Ponzi scheme. And asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.

. . . As a student of history, I recognize this type. He emerges everywhere and in all eras. We see nurtured in his campaign an incipient proto-fascism, a nativist anti-immigrant Know Nothing-ism, a disrespect for the judiciary, the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies, African-Americans again asked to go to the back of the line, voter suppression gleefully promoted, jingoistic saber-rattling, a total lack of historical awareness, a political paranoia that, predictably, points fingers, always making the other wrong. These are all virulent strains that have at times infected us in the past. But they now loom in front of us again — all happening at once. We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires. The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust, so much a part of American life, is eroding fast, spurred along and amplified by an amoral internet that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.

We no longer have the luxury of neutrality or “balance,” or even of bemused disdain. Many of our media institutions have largely failed to expose this charlatan, torn between a nagging responsibility to good journalism and the big ratings a media circus always delivers. In fact, they have given him the abundant airtime he so desperately craves, so much so that it has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior. Hey, he’s rich; he must be doing something right. He is not. Edward R. Murrow would have exposed this naked emperor months ago. He is an insult to our history. Do not be deceived by his momentary “good behavior.” It is only a spoiled, misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert.

And do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points. It does not. We must “disenthrall ourselves,” as Abraham Lincoln said, from the culture of violence and guns. And then “we shall save our country.”

This is not a liberal or conservative issue, a red state–blue state divide. This is an American issue. Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents, members of the party of Abraham Lincoln, have declined to support him. And I implore those “Vichy Republicans” who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider. We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling, unfiltered Tourette’s of his tribalism.

The next few months of your “commencement,” that is to say, your future, will be critical to the survival of our republic. “The occasion is piled high with difficulty.” Let us pledge here today that we will not let this happen to the exquisite, yet deeply flawed, land we all love and cherish — and hope to leave intact to our posterity. Let us “nobly save,” not “meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” . . .

Have a great weekend.

Perfect.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Lt. Governor Spencer Cox addresed a vigil held Monday night to honor the victims and survivors of the mass shooting in Orlando.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for being here tonight on this very solemn and somber occasion. I begin with an admission and an apology. First, I recognize fully that I am a balding, youngish, middle-aged straight, white, male, Republican, politician… with all of the expectations and privileges that come with those labels. I am probably not who you expected to hear from today.

I’m here because, yesterday morning, 49 Americans were brutally murdered. And it made me sad. And it made me angry. And it made me confused. I’m here because those 49 people were gay. I’m here because it shouldn’t matter. But I’m here because it does. I am not here to tell you that I know exactly what you are going through. I am not here to tell you that I feel your pain. I don’t pretend to know the depths of what you are feeling right now. But I do know what it feels like to be scared. And I do know what it feels like to be sad. And I do know what it feels like to be rejected. And, more importantly, I know what it feels like to be loved.

I grew up in a small town and went to a small rural high school. There were some kids in my class that were different. Sometimes I wasn’t kind to them. I didn’t know it at the time, but I know now that they were gay. I will forever regret not treating them with the kindness, dignity and respect — the love — that they deserved. For that, I sincerely and humbly apologize.

Over the intervening years, my heart has changed. It has changed because of you. It has changed because I have gotten to know many of you. You have been patient with me. You helped me learn the right letters of the alphabet in the right order even though you keep adding new ones. You have been kind to me. Jim Dabakis even told me I dressed nice once, even though I know he was lying. You have treated me with the kindness, dignity, and respect — the love — that I very often did NOT deserve. And it has made me love you.

But now we are here. We are here because 49 beautiful, amazing people are gone. These are not just statistics. These were individuals. These are human beings. They each have a story. They each had dreams, goals, talents, friends, family. They are you and they are me. And one night they went out to relax, to laugh, to connect, to forget, to remember. And in a few minutes of chaos and terror, they were gone.

I believe that we can all agree we have come a long way as a society when it comes to our acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ community (did I get that right?). However, there has been something about this tragedy that has very much troubled me. I believe that there is a question, two questions actually, that each of us needs to ask ourselves in our heart of hearts. And I am speaking now to the straight community. How did you feel when you heard that 49 people had been gunned down by a self-proclaimed terrorist? That’s the easy question. Here is the hard one: Did that feeling change when you found out the shooting was at a gay bar at 2 a.m. in the morning? If that feeling changed, then we are doing something wrong.

So now we find ourselves at a crossroads. A crossroads of hate and terror. How do we respond? How do you respond? Do we lash out with anger, hate and mistrust. Or do we, as Lincoln begged, appeal to the “better angels of our nature?”

Usually when tragedy occurs, we see our nation come together. I was saddened, yesterday to see far too many retreating to their over-worn policy corners and demagoguery. Let me be clear, there are no simple policy answers to this tragedy. Beware of anyone who tells you that they have the easy solution. It doesn’t exist. And I can assure you this — that calling people idiots, communists, fascists or bigots on Facebook is not going to change any hearts or minds. Today we need fewer Republicans and fewer Democrats. Today we need more Americans.

But just because an easy solution doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The greatest generations in the history of the world were never innately great. They became great because of how they responded in the face of evil. Their humanity is measured by their response to hate and terror.

I truly believe that this is the defining issue of our generation. Can we be brave? Can we be strong? Can we be kind and, perhaps, even happy, in the face of atrocious acts of hate and terrorism? Do we find a way to unite? Or do these atrocities further corrode and divide our torn nation? Can we, the citizens of the great state of Utah, lead the nation with love in the face of adversity? Can WE become a greatest generation?

I promise we can. But I also promise it will never happen if we leave it to the politicians. Ultimately, there is only one way for us to come together. It must happen at a personal level. We must learn to truly love one another.

The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.”

Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.”

Now, you know a little something about hate. And you know a little something about persecution. But you also know something about loving, blessing and doing good. What our country needs more than ever is less politics and more kindness. If nothing else, as we can see here tonight, this tragedy has the potential to bring us closer than ever before.

And so may we leave today, with a resolve to be a little kinder. May we try to listen more and talk less. May we forgive someone that has wronged us. And perhaps, most importantly, try to love someone that is different than us. For my straight friends, might I suggest starting with someone who is gay.

I leave you with the words of Lyndon B. Johnson. They were spoken at another very sad time in our history, the death of President John F. Kennedy. He said this:

“Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime — in depression and in war — they have awaited our defeat. Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could not see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again. For this is what America is all about.”

On behalf of the 3 million people of the state of Utah, We Are Orlando. We love you. And I love you.

—

Remarks delivered Monday, June 13, 2016, on the grounds of the Salt Lake City and County Building.

[ESTIMATED TAX DUE TODAY:  Don’t forget to mail in your second quarterly 2016 estimated income tax today if you’ve had appreciable income on which tax has not been withheld.]

Read this.  It explains why the President avoids the term “radical Islam.”

If you think Trump and so many Republicans are right in criticizing him for this, it’s really important that you read it. Better still, just watch the last half.

No kidding.

A friend turned 21 this month and flew from New York to Disney World to celebrate.

Finally old enough to drink, Pulse was on his short list for Saturday night.

He and his friends decided to do something else.

One of his college classmates did go to the bar that night and was murdered.

So senseless.  So sad.  So tragic.

The murderer was suicidal and, basically, insane — as are any willing followers of ISIS.  Either they literally think they’ll be rewarded with 72 virgins (not raisins or Virginians) and eternal paradise — which is nuts* — or they so hate their lives, their failure, their inability to find meaning or happiness, that they explode.

Or both.

Fortunately, it is a near infinitesimal percentage of people who do.  But when each can wreak so much carnage, and the carnage is intentional — unlike the 100 Americans routinely killed on highways each day — it consumes us.

As it should.

Trump blames the President for not using torture and killing the families of terrorists — and other unspecified means — to defeat ISIS.  The President won’t even use the words Trump and others want him to.

But if you feel that way about the words, or know others who do, I commend to you these four minutes. Fareed Zakaria makes clear how dangerous that path would be.  Watch, and let me know what you think.  Ask your friends to, as well.

But for now, what else is there to say?

So senseless.  So sad.  So tragic.

*Virgins, raisins, Virginians: all equally nuts.  The story of Scientology — taken literally?  Nuts.  The possibility that God literally parted the Red Sea for the Jews, all of a sudden, as in the movie?  Nuts.  That Jesus literally walked on water or that every Mormon gets his own planet? Nuts. As the brilliant unschooled Ugandan woman says near the end of The Book of Mormon — embracing her new faith yet rolling her eyes that these white missionaries, now disillusioned, could ever have believed the story literally — eeet eeeez a MEH-ta-phor!

As a party officer, I remain neutral until there’s only one candidate in the race. I didn’t vote in the primary, haven’t given to or attended events for either candidate, and will not commit my super duper delegate vote to either candidate until the Convention (and probably not even then if there are still two candidates).

But as it now appears likely Hillary will be the nominee . . . and as Bernie is so right that “on their worst days” either he or Hillary is 100 times better than any of the Republicans . . . especially if it’s Trump, but any of the others as well . . . I do want to say that President Obama and Elizabeth Warren are so right when they say that Hillary will make a terrific, terrific President.  I’ve known her for 30 years. She is brilliant. She is honest. She is in it for all the right reasons. She has fought all her adult life to make a better world, especially for those who need a fairer shake.

And if she is not perfect . . . if after decades of being unfairly pummeled she can be defensive . . . well, show me the person who is perfect.

I started to add, “certainly not Donald Trump,” but that would give understatement a bad name.

Which is why I think it won’t be Trump.

On some level he clearly doesn’t want to be President, and none of the Republican party leaders wants him to be President, so I think there’s a real chance he either drops out or, in Cleveland, they toss out the first-ballot delegates from states that didn’t entirely follow the Republican Party rules, thus denying him a first-ballot majority . . . at which point, well, who knows who it would be, but not Trump.

Or maybe it will be Trump, but in that case it won’t be Trump in the White House, because, with our help, Hillary or Bernie will defeat him.

By the way, here‘s where you can pre-order 30 Years of Doonesbury On Trump. I can hardly wait.

Have a great weekend.

It’s the story of a sitting Republican Congresswoman, her former Army-Ranger-top-federal-prosecutor-husband, and their son.

Love is love.

Read it here.

Of special note: the reaction of his 86-year-old abuelo (grandfather).

Is this a great country, or what?

[YOU ARE NOT SEEING DOUBLE; THIS POST ACCIDENTALLY WENT OUT AT THE SAME TIME AS WEDNESDAY’S. A SHINY OBJECT DISTRACTED ME FROM ENTERING THE CORRECT POSTING DATE.]

Responding to my recent post on gun safety, Bill Briggs writes: “Well regulated?  I don’t understand how those words of the Second Amendment are so universally overlooked by everyone in regard to the purchase and use of firearms. One of the definitions of ‘regulate’ is . . . ‘reg·u·late … 1. To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.’ There is nothing ‘well regulated’ about people buying up weapons without any legal restrictions, registration, or permit. And the amendment does not seem to put any limits on the extent of regulation.”

☞ So if more than 90% of us want universal background checks, including 74% of NRA members — and pretty close to that want other common sense safety measures — maybe the NRA should allow Congress to pass them?