reading the unclassified report on Russian influence...

Just read through the Unclassified Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections. With a highlighter. Stopping to correct my tendency to hyperventilate when faced with something so terrifying that I'm afraid my country is doomed. 

And now -

Wondering how Mr. Trump could say that the report proves that the hacking made no difference in the election results when the salient sentence is as follows:

"We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election."

Lots to digest in this report, including how Mr. Trump dealt with the section on "Estimative language." Does he have the patience to understand that "Judgements are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact?" Does he understand that a judgement is based on sources and analysis, itself based on amount of/source of/consistency of data? 

I doubt it.

Back to hyperventilating.

Here's a link to the report itself.

voting as a curmudgeon; or, a little respect for the process, please

Have you seen this photobomb on Facebook? It shows Mitch McConnell in a voting carrel, and, behind him, some guy making a face and giving a thumbs-down. Everyone seems to think it's hilarious.

I don't. Not that I'm a fan of Mitch McConnell - I am not. I am, however, a fan of the process. I think this photo is mean-spirited, it violates McConnell's privacy --- and would be denounced as electioneering, if the "side" that's posting the photo liked McConnell. 

Also -

I just voted. Since NY decided to get rid of the old lever machines, I have been annoyed by the new process: you use a Flair pen to color in circles, then walk across the room to feed your ballot into a machine. Each little carrel is supposed to have a "privacy sleeve" in which to insert the ballot. Each year, I have to request it from an annoyed poll worker. And each time I try to feed in the ballot, I have problems. 

"More trouble than it's worth," said the poll worker today.  "So privacy is now optional?" I said. She shrugged, which was, actually, the right response. She didn't create the system.

Note: NY does not have early voting, mail-in voting, or online voting.

Yes, I am grumpy. Bleah.

winner's remorse; a/k/a folding up my freak flag

Chapter 1. Guilty.
Sometimes, one idea can haunt you. Michael Shermer's Jonestown: You can believe at all costs introduced me to "confirmation bias." Here I am, wanting to believe that I am impartial and rational, and that I can make decisions with some intellectual rigor. Shermer's piece skewered my assumptions.

• "This is when we look for and find evidence to support what we already believe and ignore or rationalize away evidence that does not. And because we are so tribal by nature, we employ confirmation bias with extra vigor when it comes to defending the groups we belong to... It is for this reason that we need to look for disconfirmatory evidence. to listen to the arguments of those with whom we disagree, [and] to ask for constructive criticism of our beliefs."
  

My own confirmation bias was tested sorely during the last two years of the presidential election process. It became too easy to judge from the most basic, tribal perspective: Us vs. them. The last 8 years have been a disaster, and we need something Utterly Different - truth. Not even the Republicans defended the last 8 years.

However, I found myself pulled between that truth, and other, older, personal, inviolable touchstones for any candidate who wanted my vote - biases I have developed over decades by reading and listening to the members of my lefty tribe. For example:

• I never will vote for anyone who favors capital punishment.
• I believe that the Democratic and Republican parties are, essentially, one bird with two right wings. (Thank you, Mr. Vidal.)
• I believe in redistribiution of wealth to prevent spectacles like auto industry executives taking separate private jets to Washington in order to beg for bail-out money. I believe in redistribution of wealth to ensure that workers do not lose their jobs or benefits while management earns enough money to finance a flight of the space shuttle.
  
• I believe in universal health care, period. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are impossible if you do not have access to health care. Period.

In other words, my own Tribe lost its sachem when Abbie Hoffman died. Presidential candidates for whom I would vote happily (i.e., Dennis Kucinich) are unelectable. Clearly, I either had to compromise or abstain from voting. So, I need to investigate other possibilities. But here's the problem: where? Where could I go for confirmatory OR disconfirmatory evidence about the candidates?

If you have radical left views, can you listen to moderate voices on the right? Really? They're still blaming Hillary Clinton for the death of Vince Foster. They never told each other to cut out the accusations that Obama is Muslim (or said, as Colin Powell finally did, so what?). They never stopped saying that Obama hangs around with bomb-throwing radicals. They still think we have brought democracy to that most tribal of nations, Iraq.

How do I know? I listened (as much as I could stand) to right-wing voices on radio and television. It got to the point where I was beginning to consider Pat Buchanan moderate.

I also tried very hard to maintain my respect for John McCain. But once he hired the people who had been used in 2000 to destroy him with rumours about his children, how could I?

I ended up supporting Barack Obama. He represents something very new: an unashamedly intellectual approach to problem-solving. (Maybe "new" is the wrong word. Maybe "retro" would be better. We once had politicians like Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits, who thought issues through without being tethered to party lines.)

Given the way the campaign went - the selection of Sarah "go ahead and interview me, just ignore the dying turkeys back there" Palin as a VP candidate, the "he's a Muslim/he's not a citizen/he's a Communist" rhetoric from the GOP, the implicit racism by one candidate's husband who dismissed Jesse Jackson's historic victories, the scary prospect of candidates who didn't believe in evolution - I'm glad that we will have an Obama presidency.

Of course, I violated all of my touchstones by voting for him. And you know something? I feel as if I violated my own tribal taboos in the process. Not even my husband can talk me back up from that feeling of failure. I voted against my own basic principles in the name of Change You Can Believe In.

Chapter 2: This is Change You Can Believe In?
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? WHAT?
I don't f-ing believe this. Make it stop.

Chapter 3: In which teabird realizes she swallowed the Kool-aid.
I'm not more disillusioned with the process than I was before. I'm not disillusioned about Obama. (Yet.) I am disillusioned with myself. I live in a state that would have elected Rin Tin Tin as the Democratic candidate, and yet I threw away my vote by not making a choice I could believe in. Is there such a thing as winner's remorse?