Blackcap Blog

Published at 18:54 on 9 May 2018

The Large-Leaved Avens (Geum macrophyllum) is mistaken as some sort of buttercup (Ranunculus sp.) by many. It’s an understandable mistake, as buttercups tend to have the same five yellow petals (albeit far glossier) as this avens does. The foliage of this plant also somewhat resembles the foliage of many buttercup species. Completing the deception, the Large-Leaved Avens typically grows in the same sort of moist, wooded areas that is favored by both a native and an invasive buttercup.

Of those two buttercups, the one that starts blooming at the same time as this avens has much smaller flowers. The other buttercup starts blooming later, and although its flowers are larger, it has a spreading habit that this avens lacks, and moreover is not typically as tall as the Large-Leaved Avens, either.

Despite appearances, this plant is not even closely related to the buttercups. The latter are in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae); the Large-Leaved Avens belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae). This plant and our woodland buttercups have evolved to have a similar form because they grow in similar environments, and are thus subject to similar pressures of natural selection, a process is known as convergent evolution.

By late summer, this avens’ fruits will have ripened into burs that stick to clothing and fur.

Published at 16:25 on 9 May 2018

Some observations:

1. It totally underscores how much the NRA is a right-wing moonbat outfit (and how little it is a civil rights outfit) that they would elect such a figure to their highest leadership post. If they took the Constitution whose Second Amendment they pretend to revere seriously, they would consider a figure like North, who subverted the rule of law at the highest levels of government, to be radioactive. They would be ashamed to so much have him as even a lowly routine member of their organization.
2. By doing the above, the NRA has reinforced in the minds of a public increasingly skeptical of it how the right to keep and bear arms really isn’t a right worthy of being considered like the other rights in the Bill of Rights. It dovetails perfectly with the message that it’s just something the moonbat Right is a fan of, nothing more. The NRA has thereby made it easier for the Second Amendment to be successfully ignored* in the future. As someone who supports the right to keep and bear arms, and does consider it to be an important civil right, I personally find this distressing.
3. That the Right would so elevate a figure whose claim to fame is illegally arming the Islamic Republic of Iran at the same time they are saying that Iran cannot be trusted is more than a little ironic. Sort of shows how hollow the reasoning is behind tearing up the Iran nuclear deal. They’re mostly just a brainless cheering squad for anything their Dear Leader does.

* Repeal is very unlikely, but ignoring is quite likely. All it would take is a Supreme Court ruling that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the Constitution. There’s even some very convenient “well-regulated militia” language in the amendment to help them do that. Make such a ruling and the Second Amendment might as well not exist anymore. It’s that simple to neutralize.

Published at 12:33 on 8 May 2018

Really, this should come as no surprise.

Published at 11:11 on 8 May 2018

The Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) bushes are in bloom. The warm days we are having are really making things go fast. I took this picture just a week ago when it seemed the blossoms were just opening, and already they seem more than half-done.

Elderberry flowers tend to get ignored by many, or at least not much talked about. That’s always been a mystery to me, as they are quite ornamental. The flowers occur in pyramidal (not flat) clusters and ripen into shiny red fruit.

This is our native elderberry. It has a reputation for being poisonous, which is mostly true. The exception is that the ripe fruits can be eaten provided they are cooked thoroughly first. I have yet to try them, so cannot offer my opinion as to how good (or otherwise) they taste. Birds relish the fruit and in so doing disperse the seeds of this shrub.

Those who travel to the east slopes of the Cascades (or to select areas of the east slopes of the Olympics) might be familiar with the related Blue Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana or Sambucus cerulea), a shrub or small tree that bears choice fruit. The Blue Elderberry’s flowers resemble those of the Red Elderberry, but occur in large flat (never pyramidal) clusters. As its name implies, the ripe fruit is covered with a bluish waxy bloom.

The Blue Elderberry is a close relative of the European Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra); and like that elderberry its fruits are edible and its flowers can be used to make syrups or tea.

Published at 09:45 on 7 May 2018

Since many centrists act like I’m some sort of starry-eyed idealist when I claim that Bernie could have won, I figure it’s time to prove them wrong by describing what I believe things would be like if Bernie would have won.

I am going to be utterly realistic here and describe a scenario operating under US politics as it actually is, not under how this anarchist might wish it would be. I am not going to assume any great increase in class consciousness; I am going to assume that the nonideological pragmatists which a Sanders campaign would appeal to would remain for the most part nonideological pragmatists.

First, the campaign would have been ugly. Trump would have tried to paint Sanders as a Stalinist-style communist, bringing up things like his trips to the USSR and 1980’s Nicaragua as evidence. However, and to the mystification of most Establishment pundits, this would have mattered far less than Trump (and the pundits) believe it would. Sanders would have proven amazingly resilient to the attacks, much as Trump proved resilient to the attacks against him based on his tawdry past actions.

Second, Sanders would have been really able to draw blood in his attacks against Trump, correctly painting Trump as a phony populist who was in fact a rich coastal elitist who inherited his wealth and who had a long track record of contemptuously screwing “the little people” over. This would have been the magic bullet that pushed Sanders to victory in November.

Third, in many ways the Sanders campaign and then the Sanders Administration would have been a left-wing mirror to the Trump campaign and the Trump Administration in the eyes of the Establishment. You have your Never Trump crowd on the right; well, there would be a Never Sanders crowd on the left. There would be prominent Democrat analogues to anti-Trump Republicans like Rick Wilson and Ana Navarro in the pundit world.

Fourth, the capitalist class would have been merciless to Sanders. There was some talk about a Trump victory prompting an immediate Wall Street crash; that didn’t happen. The unelected right-wingers that run Wall Street would however have been much more likely to destabilize a new Sanders Administration with such a tactic. The problems that are now only partway unfolded due to Trump’s annoying the capitalists with a trade war would be far more unfolded at this point in a Sanders Administration.

Republicans and the right wing of the Democratic Party would be blaming Sanders and Sanders alone for causing the Wall Street crash. Because there would not be any magical increase in class consciousness as a result of the Sanders victory, such blaming would carry real traction. The Sanders Administration would be in the toilet in terms of popularity in the opinion polls.

Fifth, Sanders would have inherited the same unfortunate part of the business cycle as Trump has. This recovery is already long in the tooth, and we are due for a downturn no matter who occupies the White House. When a downturn kicks in, the current administration always gets blamed for it, no matter how much or how little (typically the latter) it has to do with the downturn. This isn’t fair, it’s just the way things are (and long have been).

Add up the third, fourth, and fifth points and it’s obvious that a Sanders presidency would be a presidency under siege, much like the Trump presidency is. Many of the things on Sanders’ wish list would have gotten bogged down in Congress and gotten nowhere. There would much talk of a coming “red wave” in November—and it probably would come.

Sanders is, unlike Trump, not a corrupt or emotionally immature individual, so an early end to his term would be unlikely, but he would be a one-term president, to be followed by a GOP president winning in 2020 largely due to criticizing Sanders on the economy and blaming him for the recession. It would be a latter-day Carter Administration.

Still, and this is the important part, a latter-day Carter Administration would be a far better outcome than the Trump Administration we actually got, and whichever Republican succeeded Sanders would not be a fascistic populist like Trump. In the wake of the Trump loss, the GOP would have changed its primary process to make it less amenable to being hijacked by an outsider like Trump, most likely by instituting something similar to the Democratic Party’s system of superdelegates.

It is in no way necessary to believe that Sanders would have been perfect and would have ushered in a lasting new era of New Deal (or even more fancifully, democratic socialist) politics to believe that his presidency would still have been a vastly better outcome, and that he was the better candidate than Hillary.

Published at 09:07 on 6 May 2018

They’re still pushing candidates from the right wing of the Democratic Party, still using the lame pretext that they care about “electability.”

Towards the end of the segment linked above, they bring up how the Democrats did that to Hillary, and it didn’t turn out so well for them (or for the nation).

That’s quite true, but it goes beyond that. The right wing of the Democratic Party was all about Hillary in 2008, too. I remember running into obvious paid online trolls (they mysteriously vanished after Obama won the primary) peddling the now-old line about Hillary being the only realistic, electable candidate, and about how Obama had one of the most liberal records in the Senate and was therefore unelectable.

The problem is that the Democratic party elite and the Establishment pundits who rationalize them are living in a reality-distortion bubble.

First, they are disconnected from what common voters actually think. Pundits, politicians in high office, and top party officials are virtually always rich elitists. They have little or no idea of the struggles most common people must go through.

Second, it goes beyond class. They assume that since they are strongly ideological people themselves (centrism is an ideology as much as any other), everyone else must be, too. Not so; most people pay little attention to ideology most of the time. A huge chunk of the masses may be best described as “nonideological pragmatists,” who value individual candidates and their messages much more than any set of overarching political principles.

Give those masses someone who can appeal to them with a set of ideas, be they left-wing ideas or right-wing ones, and that candidate can appeal to those nonideological pragmatists. It’s how Trump and Reagan won and it’s how Obama won. It’s also how Sanders has won statewide office in Vermont (which has a Republican governor, how ideologically socialist is that?), time after time after time.

At this political moment, the facts on the ground tilt the playing field in the favor of the leftists: we’ve had over three decades of a centrist-dominated Democratic Party, whose policies like NAFTA and TPP have helped widen inequality and create growing despair. And there’s no shortage of voters who realize that the Democratic Party establishment and its centrist politics have played a key role in screwing them over (as have the GOP’s policies of capitalism über alles). This is, of course, yet another part of the picture of why Trump won: he was able to successfully market himself as an outsider.

Get it straight: it’s not the party’s left that is most hurting the Democrats’ electability, it’s the party’s right. (And yes, Bernie could have won.)

Published at 06:17 on 5 May 2018

What this means—assuming it’s accurate, and it probably is—is that the end for Trump will most likely come fast, as some sort of tipping point causes his support on the GOP side of the aisle to largely and suddenly melt away. It’s an unstable equilibrium for Trump: even many in his own party hate him, but are afraid to say so.

In effect, their fear is self-justifying; a given Republican congressman is afraid of Trump because they all basically are, and if just one or a few defect, the defectors will be punished. However, once something prompts a critical mass to stop being afraid, suddenly the whole reason for the fear in the first place will evaporate․

Unstable equilibria tend to suddenly collapse; it’s in their nature. In a social system (as opposed to a physical one), the collapse tends to be particularly hard to foresee in advance; the status quo keeps lasting until one day it is insecure and the next it is gone.

Published at 16:05 on 4 May 2018

Seems the adult toddler has managed to hire an attorney who has almost as much propensity to run his mouth off half-cocked as his client does. This could be interesting while it lasts (but Trump’s attorneys don’t tend to last long).

Published at 23:34 on 3 May 2018

I’m late writing this post; I should have written it a week or two ago. Our native dogwoods (Cornus nuttallii) are just about finished with their spring bloom, so be sure and enjoy it while it lasts.

It might surprise many to learn that the flowers of this tree are tiny, greenish, and inconspicuous. “But they are obviously large and white!” one may be tempted to object. What appears at first glance to be a single flower with four to six large petals is in fact a cluster of tiny, greenish flowers surrounded by white bracts (modified leaves).

For much of the year, the Pacific Dogwood is an easy-to-overlook understory tree in our forests, but when in bloom they can be spectacular. This species is similar to the eastern Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), but in all respects (leaves, flowers, overall size) is larger. The flowers ripen into tightly-packed clusters of red to orange berries by autumn.

The main blooming season is in April, sometimes with a secondary lesser blooming in August or September. As if the flowers and colorful fruit weren’t enough, this tree ends the growing season with beautiful display of pink to red foliage.

All the above characteristics might have one thinking this would be a popular and prized ornamental, but the Pacific Dogwood does not transplant well and tends to be fussy about growing conditions. If you are lucky enough to have one on your lot, leave it alone and treasure it!

There are now fewer Pacific Dogwoods than there used to be, due to dogwood anthracnose, an introduced fungal parasite, having reduced this tree’s numbers. The same disease attacks the more commonly cultivated Flowering Dogwood, and to a lesser degree the also-cultivated Kousa Dogwood (Cornus kousa). The latter two species bloom later in the spring than our Pacific Dogwood.

Published at 08:36 on 2 May 2018

Really, that’s what his latest idiocy about slavery proves: that his judgement is so poor that he is capable of making such a statement. Either that, or he’s such a shameless publicity hound that he just spouts things without caring about their truth value.

West has just demonstrated that his opinions about anything should be dismissed as largely irrelevant.