El Salvador: Detained migrants are responsibility of US
So it appears the Trump administration was flat-out lying when they claimed they had no power to return people from the El Salvadorian concentration camp they sent them to. If the House wasn’t run by toadies and bootlickers there would be impeachment hearings today.
Generative Ghosts: Anticipating Benefits and Risks of AI Afterlives
I wonder whether we’re at the point where a will or end-of-life directive should contain instructions about whether one wishes to persist as a digital double. I wonder whether such wishes would be legally binding on heirs.
RFK Jr. promoted a food company he says will make Americans healthy. Their meals are ultraprocessed
The Secretary of HHS ignorant? What a complete surprise.
“Warm Morning”
Olympus TG-6 @ 4.5mm, f/2.8, 1/640s, ISO 100. On the trail at Mount Pisgah.
Is Earth inside a huge void? ‘Sound of the Big Bang’ hints at possible solution to Hubble tension
Obviously the extraterrestrials have quarantined us due to the prevalence of idiocy on Earth.
Prime “Day” is now 4 days long. Half of my RSS feed has been hijacked by “best Prime Day deal” affiliate links.
I’m so happy I walked away from a decades-long Amazon relationship this year.
Heavily armed immigration agents descend on L.A.’s MacArthur Park
Yeah, because who walks through a PARK without automatic weapons? I’m glad I don’t live in LA any more.
Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize
War criminals gotta stick together, I guess.
Finished: These Restless Heads, by Branch Cabell 📚. Not a part of the Biography of Manuel (and therefore using the other variant of his name), this is a collection of Cabell’s essays on life and writing, together with one short story (or is it a parable of an aging poet?). I enjoyed it as I enjoy all of his writings, which pack in more style and vocabulary than any modern writer I know of.
“Hiding”
Olympus TG-6 @ 18mm, f/4.9, 1/100s, ISO 500. On the trail at Mount Pisgah.
Trump announces new tariffs of up to 40% on a growing number of countries
I don’t know which is worse, the coming (just in time for Christmas!) era of inflation, or the use of Trump’s semi-illiterate, rambling, random capitalization style on what are now official documents of the United States. I guess DOGE got rid of all the copy editors.
“Sunburst”
Olympus TG-6 @ 9.0mm, f/4.5, 1/500s, ISO 100. Shot at Wild Iris Ridge.
Finished: Mutiny on the Bounty Trilogy
Finished: Mutiny on the Bounty Trilogy, by Charles Nordoff and James Norman Hall 📚. My copy of these 1930’s novels is a more recent reprint bound as a single (700-page) volume, though you can also buy the novels separately.
Mutiny on the Bounty itself is the strongest of the three, which is probably why it’s the only one most people know. It tells of the voyage of the Bounty, the mutiny, and the fate of a few of the sailors who were arrested on Tahiti after Captain Bligh returned to England. It has the court-martial records as a major source, and so is pretty well fleshed out (though the authors clearly filled in gaps and romanticized some things).
Men Against the Sea tells of the long voyage the Bligh and some of the non-mutinous sailors took in a tiny boat to Java, whence they eventually made it back to England. This 3600-mile voyage is right up with Shackleton’s better-known one in terms of adventure, but the major source is Bligh’s own sketchy log and so there were a lot of blanks to fill in.
Pitcairn’s Island is the story of the remaining mutineers, their isolated settlement, their downfall into violence and murder, and their eventual rediscovery. All we really have for source material here are the conflicting and likely self-serving recollections of the last surviving mutineer, so the authors have had to pretty much fantasize about what actually happened.
If you like sea yarns, though, the whole trilogy is worth reading; I never once thought of putting the book down unfinished.
US deports eight men to South Sudan after legal battle
It’s getting harder to justify paying taxes that support this thuggish regime.
“Shy Prince”
Olympus E-M10 IV with M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro lens @ f/8, 1/40s, ISO 1250. Prince’s Pine flowers along the Middle Fork Trail.
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detention Center Poses Serious Risks to Immigrants Beyond Just Alligators
Your tax dollars at work, paying for concentration camps. This is completely disgusting.
“Suggestive”
Olympus E-M10 IV with M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro lens @ f/8, 1/250s, ISO 6400. Pinedrop along the Middle Fork Trail.
Finished: Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole 📚 - “A novel of the next world war,” in this case a non-nuclear limited engagement between the US and China. Written a decade ago, but some of it anticipates the rise of drone and electronic warfare. I doubt things could actually remain non-nuclear if China really did take Hawaii, but a good summer read anyhow.
Finished: The Last Defender of Camelot, by Roger Zelazny 📚 - A collection of Zelazny’s short fiction. Standouts include the original (shorter) version of “Damnation Alley” and “For a Breath I Tarry.” Enjoyable, as is all Zelazny.