A Republican National Committee lawyer is the first judicial nominee of President Donald Trump’s second term to be given a “not qualified” rating by the American Bar Association.

A majority of the ABA’s standing committee on the federal judiciary, which vets judicial nominees, gave the rating to RNC senior counsel Kathleen “Katie” Lane, who’s nominated for a seat on the US District Court for the District of Montana.

Lane’s rating was due solely to her lack of experience, and not other factors including temperament or integrity, according to an April 7 letter from the standing committee.

Predictably, this triggered Above the Law to launch a partisan attack on Trump’s judicial nominees:

A quick trip down memory lane reminds us that the ABA handed out plenty of “not qualified” stickers during Trump 1.0. They scraped the bottom of the barrel and found ghost hunters, anti-gay bloggers, straight-up associates, and one candidate (ultimately confirmed because we live in the dumbest timeline) that is an “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice including procedural rules” (an assessment Judge VanDyke’s time on the Ninth Circuit has proven the ABA prescient).

ATL continues:

Naturally, the White House response to all this was not “maybe we should nominate someone who has, you know, tried a case,” but rather to attack the messenger. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the ABA as “useless and partisan” and insisted that Trump’s nominees undergo a “rigorous vetting process.” Which is a bold claim for an administration currently batting cleanup with candidates who have never picked a jury.

My track record as a vocal critic of Trump 2.0 is well established. Yet, just because the Trump administration is wrong about almost everything does not mean is it wrong about everything. See the proverbial stopped clock.

In this case, I’m not claiming Lane is qualified or that she ought to be informed.

But I’ve long agreed with the proposition that the ABA is “useless and partisan.”

As far back as 2005, ABA member and then co-chair of the Professional Liability Litigation Committee of the ABA's Section of Litigation Joseph Smith argued that the American Bar Association’s rating of then SCOTUS nominee John Roberts

... should be viewed no differently from an opinion expressed by any other special-interest group. Yet that is not how ABA ratings are received by the public or used by politicians. The ABA knows this and takes advantage of it. That’s why when the ABA releases its rating on Judge Roberts, it will do so without acknowledging political motives.

Smith went on to point out that over the previous 15 years the ABA had “become even more stridently left-wing, yielding an organization that advances a vision more akin to Howard Dean’s than James Madison’s or even Bill Clinton’s.”

Smith therefore didn’t trust the ABA to give Roberts a fair shake and pointed to history that he claimed bore him out:

If history is any indication, however, the ABA will struggle with the Roberts rating for a simple reason: He is conservative. For that sin, the nominee may earn a split vote or worse. That disservice was infamously done to Robert Bork in 1987, when President Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court. Mr. Bork earned four “not qualified” votes from the ABA’s 15-member committee—an egregious insult.

In 1991, the ABA again let politics cloud its judgment when rating Clarence Thomas after the first President Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court. Two of the ABA's committee members branded him "not qualified" -- again an outrage, given his record. Some within the ABA acknowledge that the Bork and Thomas ratings were shamefully partisan.

Granted, the ABA committee that vets judicial nominees overcame its biases in the Roberts case:

President George W. Bush nominated Judge John Roberts of the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to the vacancy left on the Supreme Court when Justice Sandra Day O’Conner announced her resignation. After Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s death in September, President Bush nominated Judge Roberts for the chief justice position. The ABA thus rated Judge Roberts for both positions on the Court. Each time, he received the unanimous rating of “well qualified.”

Yet, Smith’s concerns were well founded. After all, the Bork and Thomas episodes were not just isolated cases. In 2001, Northwestern law professor James Lindgren had documented a consistent pattern of ABA bias:

I’ve just completed a statistical study of the ABA’s ratings of appointees to the U.S. Courts of Appeals during the Clinton and first Bush administrations and can report that the facts don’t support the ABA’s claim of objectivity. The ABA may once have been objective, but it’s not anymore.

I analyzed the credentials of the 108 nominees who were ultimately appointed to the federal appeals courts during the Clinton and Bush-1 administrations. The results? The ABA applied measurably different and harsher standards during President George H. W. Bush’s administration than it applied during President Bill Clinton’s tenure. In short, the Bush appointees got lower ABA ratings than the Clinton appointees.

And, no, it wasn’t because Clinton nominated better judges:

A Clinton nominee with few of the six credentials I measured had a much better chance of getting the highest ABA rating than a Bush nominee with most of these credentials. For example: A nominee with an elite law school education, law review, a federal clerkship, and experience in both government and private practice would have only a 32% chance of getting the highest ABA rating if he were a Bush appointee, but a 77% chance if he were a Clinton appointee. A Clinton nominee with none or just one of these five credentials would still have at least a 45% chance of getting the highest rating.

It was bias, pure and simple.

While Roberts so obviously qualified (and, arguably, mainstream just barely right-of-center), we saw a resurgence of that bias in 2006 in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to sit on the DC Circuit:

The A.B.A. committee that evaluates judicial nominees said that the nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, a White House aide, was qualified to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But the committee had given him a significantly higher rating on the two previous occasions he was nominated for the post.

As Ted Frank observed:

Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit has been held up for years, has received two "well-qualified" evaluations from the ABA. However, in recent weeks, the Democrats have singled Kavanaugh out as someone they want to make a stand on, even getting a second Judiciary Committee hearing on him. And the ABA has now followed suit, downgrading Kavanaugh from "well qualified" to "qualified"—apparently, the additional experience of being Staff Secretary for the Bush administration as he awaits a Senate vote makes him less qualified. The committee president, Stephen Tober, went on to leak to the New York Times various anonymous bad-mouthing of Kavanaugh in a smear inconsistent even with the "qualified" rating.

And the beat went on.

From The National Review in 2012, for example:

The ABA’s glaring ideological bias has been noted by prominent commentators on the right and the left. Adam Liptak of the New York Times characterized the ABA as “a private trade association, not an arm of the government,” that “takes public and generally liberal positions on all sorts of divisive issues.” These include liberal positions on everything from same-sex marriage, gun control,and religious liberties, to even matters of national security.

But the ABA’s bias extends beyond liberal policy positions, and into the rating of a president’s judicial nominees. The Wall Street Journal just addressed this issue yesterday:

“A 2009 study by the Midwest Political Science Association found that with all else equal, ‘nominations submitted by a Democratic president were significantly more likely to receive higher A.B.A. ratings than nominations submitted by a Republican president.’” …

The 2009 study found that “the most liberal nominees had a 62.3% chance of receiving a ‘well-qualified’ rating from the ABA, as opposed to only a 35.5% likelihood for the most conservative nominees.” It also found that “nominees in the Clinton Administration were 14% more likely to get the ABA’s highest rating than the nominees of Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.”

The author went on to make a point highly pertinent to the debate over Lane’s nomination:

To wit, Goodwin Liu, the liberal darling from the University of California, Berkley, (a failed Obama nominee to the Ninth Circuit and now a justice on the California Supreme Court) received the ABA’s highest rating despite not meeting the group’s own written standards for qualification for the bench. As Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ed Whelan has noted, the ABA specifies that a nominee should “ordinarily have at least twelve years experience in the practice of law,” and be a veteran of the courtroom. Mr. Liu had neither, but still got the “well-qualified” nod from the ABA.

No such love was extended to the more conservative Frank Easterbrook, who earned a “qualified/not qualified” rating from the ABA despite having served as Deputy Solicitor General and argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court.

The author went on to note that:

This bias is not just a function of a liberal review committee, but is embedded into the ABA’s criterion for judicial qualifications. The authors of the 2009 study have one possible explanation for why the ratings system could be flawed:

“We believe the disparity may be due to the ABA’s rating criteria of “judicial temperament,” defined by the ABA as including open-mindedness, commitment to equal justice and freedom from bias. We agree that potential federal judges need to be open-minded, of the highest integrity, and unbiased in their approach to each case and litigant. However, if these words are more broadly interpreted to suggest, for instance, that nominees must hold certain views on public policy issues such as affirmative action or equal rights, then ideological biases may permeate the ABA’s evaluation process.”

Instructively, the ABA still uses those criteria in assessing judges.

Okay, you might say, what about more recent periods? Maybe the ABA cleaned up its act.

Nope.

Of the 22 judicial nominees rated “not qualified” by the ABA since 1989, 4 were nominated by Clinton. The other 18 were nominated by Bush 43 (8) or Trump (10). Given Lindgren’s findings about the Clinton nominees, you can’t blithely assume the differential is driven solely by qualifications.

After all, the ABA is not exactly a neutral arbiter:

Despite claiming to be nonpartisan, the ABA has supported and lobbied for a broad left-of-center agenda on issues including criminal justice policy, immigration, abortion, LGBT issues, and gun control. In recent years, the ABA has adopted lobbying priorities including legal status for nearly all illegal immigrants living in the United States, the repeal of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws, taxpayer-funded abortions for low-income Americans, and the implementation of affirmative action programs. …

The ABA frequently files amicus briefs in politically contentious cases, in addition to directly advocating for left-of-center policy through its House of Delegates.

Accordingly, I’ve argued for over two decades that neither the President nor the Senate should give the ABA’s rating of judges any greater weight than, say, that of the People for the American Way. Indeed, one should give PFAW credit for at least being honestly liberal, while the ABA lies about its politics.

There’s a lot of ingredients here, but you end up with a very complex and delicious sauce.

I typically start by making the waffle batter and letting it rest in the refrigerator while I prepare the shakshuka base. Then I make the waffles, which I transfer to a warming over while finishing the shakshuka by adding adding the eggs and feta.

As usual, this recipe is proportioned for two good eaters.

Shakshuka

• 2 lamb merguez sausages, casings removed and chopped into bite-size pieces

• 1 large shallot or medium onion, diced

• 6 green onions sliced thinly, whites and green separated

• ½ red or orange bell pepper (the last time I made this I had an Anaheim pepper on hand, which worked great), diced

• 3 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (I like the paste that comes in tubes rather than cans)

• ½ tablespoon Better than Bouillon sofrito

• 1 teaspoon harissa seasoning (I like Morton & Bassett)

• ½ teaspoon ground cumin

• ½ teaspoon ground coriander

• ½ teaspoon ground fennel seeds

• 1 14.5 ounce can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes (I like Cento)

• Optional: unsweetened coconut milk (this is very untraditional but I had about a third of can left over from making curry the night before, so I threw it in and it worked out great)

• 1 teaspoon Better Than Bouillon premium vegetable base

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

• olive oil

• 3 ounces feta cheese

• 2 large eggs

In a large skillet, such as my trusty All-Clad D3 stainless steel pan, which is 8 years old and still going strong, heat a tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. When it begins to shimmer, add the sausage. Cook until browned on all sides and no longer pink in the center, which should take 6-8 minutes. Remove the sausage to rest on a paper towel-lined plate.

Return the skiller to the heat, turning it down to medium. Add the onion and pepper. Add a pinch of salt. Sauté until they soften and start to turn translucent, which should take about 8 minutes. At about the 4-minute mark, add the white parts of the scallions.

Turn the heat down to medium-low. Add the tomato paste, garlic, and spices. Sauté for one minute, stirring constantly. Do not let the garlic burn.

Add tomatoes with their juices. Use a potato masher or wooden spoon to roughly break up the tomatoes. Rinse the can out with water, adding about half a can's worth of water to the pan. Add coconut milk (if using)

Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and add the sausage.

Cover the pan and allow it to gently simmer while you prepare the waffles.

When the waffles are ready remove the cover from the pan and raise the heat to medium. If the sauce has gotten too dry, add water to taste. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Using the back of a large spoon make two small hollows in the sauce. Crack the eggs into the hollows. Scatter the feta over the top and cover. I like the egg whites to set but the yolks to stay runny, which takes 3-5 minutes.

Serve on top of the waffles.

Waffles

• 1 cup waffle mix; the brand I use requires adding:

  • 1 egg

  • ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk

  • 1-½ tablespoons vegetable oil (for this purpose, I use olive oil)

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

• 2-½ ounces finely grated Parmesan or Pecorino (use the real stuff)

• 1-½ ounces finely grated gruyere or fontina

• 1-½ tablespoons fresh chives, minced

• 1 teaspoon dried Italian parsley

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the ingredients and which gently just enough to break up and large lumps.

While the shakshuka simmers, prepare the waffles. I use my Breville panini press with the waffle plate accessory. Heat both plates to 450°. Once the grill is preheated, add 1/2 cup of batter mix to each square. Close and cook for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.

Top the waffles with the shakshuka sauce and 1 egg per person. Garnish with the tops of the green onions and more feta cheese to taste.

Wine Pairing

If you want to go white, something like Sauvignon Blanc would work well. A Prosecco would not be amiss.

But I wanted red. Given the high acidity and spice level of the dish, I should have been looking for a young, low-tannin, fruit-forward, straightforward wine. Gamay or Barbera would work well. A lighter Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre blend would be lovely.

Ultimately, however, I went with a 2023 Pessimist by Daou. It’s a blend of 68.7% Petite Sirah, 17.9% Syrah, 11.4% Zinfandel, and 2.0% Lagrein. It’s fuller bodied and higher in alcohol than some of the options I suggested, and the 2023 is more tannic than most vintages, but it’s a wine I’ve had often with spicier fare and it has always worked well. It neither gets washed out by the spice nor dominates the meal. It makes a nice complement. Anticipating that I would go this direction is one reason why I cut back on the harissa and didn’t add hot sauce, so that the spice level ended up being moderate. In any case, it made a very mice match. There’s a ton of lucious blackberry and plum fruit, which played well with the complex flavors of the shakshuka.

Zoe’s Tale

When I first read about Zoe’s Tale (AMAZON LINK) on Scalzi’s blog, I was skeptical. ZT is a retelling of the events of The Lost Colony. Been there, done that, right? If Orson Scott Card couldn’t pull it off (I hated Ender’s Shadow and all the rest of the Bean series, although YMMV), retelling the same events using a different POV character has got to be a very tough job. As for the different POVer, it’s a teenage girl. With the half century mark looming ever closer, teenage POVers no longer hold much interest for your truly. But especially not teenage girls.

So ZT started out with two strikes. Needless to say, as you’ll have seen this coming, I was hooked by the end of the first chapter and spent most of the rest of the work day—one of the secret advantages of being an academic—ripping through it. ZT solves two plot issues I’d had with TLC by filling in some key back story. More important, however, ZT stands alone. You could pick it up without having read TLC—or any of the other Old Man’s War series—and enjoy it very much. Neat trick. A third ball home run.

As for POVer Zoe, in many ways, she’s the most enjoyable of Scalzi’s POV characters to date. Zoe’s smart, sarcastic, witty, and vulnerable, in turn. She’s older and wiser than her years, but given what Scalzi put her through that’s okay. She reminded me a bit of my then 20-something nieces, both of whom are a joy to know and hang out with, which tells me that Scalzi’s done a really fine job of characterization.

One criticism. Scalzi’s come up with a very imaginative alien race in the Obin, but he’s now taken away the one thing that made them really unique. I understand why he had to do it as a plot device, but the resulting problem problem is that none of the alien races seem all that alien. General Gau, for example, seems no more alien than, say, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Of course, the same complaint could be made of virtually every science fiction novel in history. At the end of the day, they’re all just actors wearing Star Trek makeup.

That quibble aside, this is exceptionally good stuff.

An OMW story set 20-odd years later than TLC and ZT that explores the relationship between an adult Zoe and the Obin (and the Conclave and the CU) could be very interesting. A human friend of General Gau’s with inante political chops and an entire race of highly capable warriors at her beck and call would be a redoubtable political force. Imagine a cross between Joan d’Arc, Alexander the Great, and maybe Margaret Thatcher.

Another Shout Out

My review of ZT on my olg blog elicited a nice shout out from Scalzi:

Just in case you missed it over there in the Whateverettes, Steve Bainbridge has a nice ZT review as well. Bainbridge along with Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh was one of the first promoters of my fiction, so I’m always pleased when/if the latest book passes his sniff test.

The God Engines

The God Engines (AMAZON LINK) was a major departure for Scalzi. It’s a fantasy noir—albeit with hints of an untold science fiction backstory—that gets darker as it progresses.

Much modern fantasy basically sucks. It consists either of endless vampire supernatural romance erotica or bloated series of door stoppers whose authors likely will drop dead before they finish. Sure, there are exceptions, like Brandon sanderson, but even his output is pretty uneven.

In The God Engines, Scalzi carved out something very refreshing: A concise, exciting, and highly original story. As Robert Thompson explained:

In “The God Engines”, John Scalzi introduces readers to a dark and chilling world where gods not only exist, but can also be tortured, enslaved, or even killed. A world where science has been replaced by faith, where Defiled gods are used as “engines” to power spaceships, where followers may be blessed with Talents—”a thing gods give followers to channel their grace, so the followers may use that grace to their own ends”—and where faith is a tangible power. A world of rooks, Bishop’s Men, and commentaries. A world that is highly imaginative, mostly original (parts of the novella reminded me of James Clemens’ Godslayer Chronicles), immersive despite having only 136 pages to bring the concept to life, and utterly captivating.

In this grim, yet fascinating world, readers will meet a small and well-drawn cast of characters—Captain Ean Tephe of the ship Righteous, Priest Andso, Commander Neal Forn, rook Shalle, the Defiled of the Righteous—who play a pivotal role in the events recorded in “The God Engines”. Events that are straightforward for the most part, but culminate in an explosive and mind-blowing finish full of dark twists and shocking revelations.

And then there was Paul Stott’s take on it:

The God Engines is unlike anything he’s done before, shockingly different, both new and completely unexpected. It’s the book Scalzi needed to write in order to mature as a writer and to take his considerable talents to the next level. It’s the book that shows he’s more than just a writer of humorous space operas; he’s also one of the best science fiction writers currently working.

A vastly rich tale set in a theocratic universe, The God Engines is a modern sci-fi classic, an intriguing examination of faith and worship and godhood. Intelligent and provocative, the narrative reminds me of a classic Twilight Zone episode, well-written, multi-leveled and rich with ideas. The God Engines is the best thing yet from John Scalzi and worthy of award consideration.

As you might expect from my opening comments, I disagree somewhat with Stott’s take that The God Engines is science fiction. It’s a hybrid of fantasy and science fiction, with the latter elements peeking through from time to time from a largely concealed backstory. It establishes Scalzi as someone capable of writing successfully in both genres.

In sum, highly recommended.

Judge Sn Goes Golfing

Judge Sn Goes Golfing (AMAZON LINK) is really a short story, although his publisher Subterranean Press called it a “chapbook,” whatever that is.

In the old days, it might have been a lead single issue short for Analog or Asimov, but Scalzi and Subterranean decided to make it available as a limited edition softcover. The story took a minor character from Scalzi’s novel The Android’s Dream (AMAZON LINK), put him on a golf course, salted the text with a slew of Carlin’s seven words, and churned out a witty and entertaining story. It reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse’s The Golf Omnibus (AMAZON LINK), which is high praise indeed. Like Wodehouse’s stories, you don’t need to be a golfer to enjoy Scalzi’s comedic stylings.

Questions for a Soldier

Questions for a Soldier (AMAZON LINK) is another short story masquerading as a book.

Questions is situated in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe. One of the now retired CDF veterans answers questions about his service. It’ll appeal mainly to fans of those books, since it fills in a bit more of their back story. Having said that, however, Scalzi’s ruminations on imperialism and soldiers are worth the $0.99 price of admission even for those who haven’t read the series.

An Election

An Election (AMAZON LINK) is still another short story masquerading a a book. It’s an interesting, quirky story about an election campaign in a city where humans and aliens cohabit more or less peacefully. There’s a fair bit of Scalzi’s trademark style of humor, about which folks seem to be sharply divided. I get it and like it, but YMMV. Anyway, at $0.99, what do you have to lose?

The Human Division

The Human Division (AMAZON LINK) was a serial novel published in 13 parts that were then combined into a single book with some additional content. Buy the book.

The Wall Street Journal (no less) gave it a strong review:

John Scalzi’s “The Human Division” (Tor, 431 pages, $25.99), the fifth novel in a sequence that began with “Old Man’s War” (2005), is in a long tradition too, back to Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” (1959), Joe Haldeman’s “Forever War” (1974) and Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” (1985). Humans have colonized other worlds and created a specialized military caste for protection from potentially hostile aliens. Ever since Heinlein, however, there has been uneasiness about the too-quick identification of “alien” as “enemy.”

Mr. Scalzi’s current volume follows up on that uneasiness. The “division” part of “The Human Division,” is between Earth and its colonies. Both sides need each other, but their interests are opposed. Alien races, meanwhile, alarmed at expansion of the Colonial Union, have formed a “Conclave” to block it. But will they distinguish Earth, which supplies recruits for the Colonial Defense Forces in exchange for protection, from the CU?

Unusually, “The Human Division” consists of 13 linked short stories. Showing a complex situation from different angles, they roughly alternate between the main plot and side plots. It’s slightly confusing at first, but Mr. Scalzi is one of the slickest writers that sci-fi has ever produced. His clever narration keeps you turning the pages, as the Conclave confronts wildcat colonies, the CU deals with “Earth Rule” insurgents and agents provocateurs unsettle all sides.

Recommended.

Redshirts and Scalzi versus Ringo

In 2013, Scalzi picked up a well-deserved Hugo Award for Best Novel for Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (AMAZON LINK). It’s an amusing, if sometimes convoluted, take on the problem memorably framed by Galaxy Quest’s Guy Fleegman:

I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m just “Crewman Number Six.” I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I’ve gotta get outta here.

In Redshirts, Scalzi explored the lives of those red-shirted crewmen whose sole function seems to be waiting to be killed off on away missions, and quite successfully so, as Steven Silver observed:

Scalzi has taken the trope of the redshirt, the previously unseen character in an episode of Star Trek whose sole purpose is to die and has more fun with it than any author since Douglas Adams asked his audience to empathize with a doomed whale in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Dahl and his mates rapidly realize that while things aboard the [starship] Intrepid can appear normal, there are times when things go haywire, with the officers acting irrationally and overly heroic, and danger coming from all sides in some inane ways. They are guided in their investigations by Jenkins, a strange figure who skulks within the walls of the ship, reminiscent of Laszlo from the film Real Genius.

In fact, part of the fun is the variety of homages Scalzi includes to television and film, pointing out their cliches and inanities which are introduced not for any logical reason, but to provide a cliffhanger, much like Gwen DeMarco deploring that “This episode was badly written!” However, while others have pointed out the ridiculousness of the genre, Scalzi’s novel is not redundant, bringing its own loving parody to the unrealistic situations the crew finds themselves in and they struggle for life, knowing that some force, which Jenkins calls “The Narrative” has specifically targeted them.

The key to the novel’s success is that Scalzi isn’t attacking a genre that he doesn’t care about. He understands science fiction, in its written and cinematic form. He has worked on a television show and has some idea about what goes on behind the scenes and how decisions are made. He knows the history of the genre, not just the Star Trek’s and Isaac Asimovs, but the lesser known works. All of that gives Redshirts a heart that is missing from many parodies and satires where the authors sees the easy targets, but doesn’t actually understand their appeal. The situations and humor in Redshirts is the nudge-and-a-wink from a fellow conspirator, not the condescension of an outsider.

Not only does Redshirts work as a novel, but Scalzi is able to make the characters come alive. ...

Unfortunately, SF writer John Ringo churlishly tried to rain on Scalzi’s parade:

There’s nothing wrong with Scalzi’s writing. This is a reasonably good novel (from what I’ve heard) with no real SF or literary merit beyond being a reasonably good novel. But he’s been speaking truth to power about the degradation of women in SF along with other idiocracy and so he’s beloved by all the hasbeen liberal neurotics who control the Hugo voting and balloting. Look to many more in the future as long as he toes the Party line. Huzzah.

Coming from Ringo, this is laughable. Based on recommendations from usually trustworthy sources who share my affection for military SF, I gave Ringo a try a few years before Redshirts, but ended up tossing his books in the recycle bin. You see, Ringo is an awful writer in practically every sense of the word.

One meaning of awful is “very bad.” And Ringo is a very bad writer. He is a poor technician with minimal skills. His plots are tissue paper thin, his characterizations are wooden and shallow, his dialogue stilted, and the books (at least the several I read before giving up) are highly formulaic and predictable.

Another, and even more apt in the present case, definition of awful is “unpleasant.” I had the misfortune of first encountering Ringo in what has been aptly referred to as his OH JOHN RINGO NO series. His everyday books are pretty hard core violence porn even by military SF standards. But the Paladin of Shadows series1 adds sadistic sex porn to the mix. They’re replete with sadistic sex, bondage, underage sex.

I don’t share Scalzi’s politics. I learned conservative politics at the feet (well, from the books) of Russell Kirk, who once wrote that:

The moral imagination aspires to the apprehending of right order in the soul and right order in the commonwealth. ... It is the moral imagination which informs us concerning the dignity of human nature, which instructs us that we are more than naked apes. As Burke suggested in 1790, letters and learning are hollow if deprived of the moral imagination. And, as Burke suggested, the spirit of religion long sustained this moral imagination, along with a whole system of manners. Such imagination lacking, to quote another passage from Burke, we are cast forth “from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.”

Sadly, Ringo’s world is one of “madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow” populated by “naked [and constantly rutting] apes.” It is utterly loathsome. And I’m betting Russell Kirk—not to mention Jim Kirk—would have thought so too.

Share StephenBainbridge.com

I got a nice shout out from Lauren Pringle of The Chancery Daily in her latest newsletter:

As anyone actively involved in corporate law and governance knows, Stephen Bainbridge is something of a "Stephen-on-the-spot" about spotting relevant interesting issues as they arise in our sphere. While TCD generally runs a weekly or bi-weekly feature on Supreme Court arguments, our omission of such a feature in our March-due cadence came back to bite us, metaphorically speaking, when Professor Bainbridge highlighted one recent interesting oral argument in one of his awesome two-part series. We play a little catch up below, to add to what the professor has already noted about the interesting aspects of this pending matter.

She's referring to these posts:

Bainbridge on Corporations

Witmer v. Armistice Capital, LLC: Part 1

We normally think of insider trading law as a matter of federal securities law rather than state corporate law. And, today, that’s largely true…

Read more

a month ago · Stephen Bainbridge

Bainbridge on Corporations

Witmer v. Armistice Capital, LLC: Part 2

In my prior post on Delaware Vice Chancellor’s opinion in Witmer v. Armistice Capital, LLC, I offered a comprehensive review of the facts and issues in the case, as well as a detailed discussion of Zurn’s analysis of the controlling shareholder issue…

Read more

25 days ago · Stephen Bainbridge

The “Most Ill-Considered” Corporate Law Legislation Keith Bishop has Ever Encountered

As regular readers know, Keith Bishop is my go-to-guy for all things California and Nevada corporate law. In his latest Substack post, Keith goes to town on a bill proposed by California Assembly Member Chris Rogers and Senator Mike McGuire.

Calcorporatelaw.com

California Bill Would Revoke All Powers, Privileges, and Capacities Previously Granted To "Corporations"

In a startingly move last month, California Assembly Member Chris Rogers and Senator Mike McGuire introduced a bill, AB 1984, that would revoke in their entirety “all powers, privileges, and capacities previously granted to corporations under the laws of the State of California…

Read more

14 days ago · 1 like · Keith Paul Bishop

AB 1985 would revoke all powers, privileges, and capacities previously granted to California corporations — a category defined broadly to include LLCs, limited partnerships, LLPs, and nonprofits. It then purports to restore only those powers specifically enumerated in the Corporations Code, creating what Bishop calls “a complete and incoherent circle.”

The convoluted drafting has a clear purpose: stripping California business entities of their First Amendment rights to engage in “election activity” or “ballot issue activity,” presumably in response to Citizens United.

The bill includes a provision declaring that if any part of it is found unconstitutional, no prior corporate powers law shall be revived. The legislature expressly prefers that corporations hold no powers at all rather than have the ability to engage in electoral activity.

Bishop argues this creates an existential risk to California’s economy.

Go read the whole thing.

I am Reminded Of

The nonsensical AB 1985 reminds me of the only slightly less absurd Montana “Transparent Election Initiative,” about which I blogged back in August of last year:

In those posts, I discussed the dubious constitutionality of the initiative and the strong public policy arguments against it.

The Business of Cancer

Francine McKenna is posting a serious of guest columns on the economics of curing cancer. The latest is on the race to develop a blood test that will screen for 50+ types of cancer. Fascinating stuff:

The Dig

The business of cancer: The “gold rush” of liquid biopsies

This is the third guest column in our series on the business of cancer from Taayoo Murray, an award-winning writer based in New York City. She regularly covers health topics, primarily inequity in healthcare and issues in aging. Her work has been published in Mayo Clinic Press, Yahoo, Essence, Cancer Today, New York Amsterdam News and many others. Taayo…

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18 days ago · 4 likes · Taayoo Murray

Sullivan and Goldberg

Interesting podcast discussion between Andrew Sullivan and Jonah Goldberg:

The Weekly Dish

Jonah Goldberg On Conservatism, Blogging, Dogs

Jonah is a journalist, author, and podcaster. He spent two decades at National Review before joining The Dispatch, where he writes the G-File and hosts the Remnant podcast. He’s also a columnist for the LA Times, a commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of…

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14 days ago · Andrew Sullivan

Scalzi Banned

For reasons I am unable to understand New Braunfels, TX has banned John Scalzi’s book Lock In (AMAZON LINK) from its school libraries. It’s not a particularly woke book. Indeed, to the contrary, one Amazon reviewer complains that “The protagonist is extremely privileged - which really lessens the perceived impact of what is a terrible disease.”

John notes:

1. On a personal level, I don’t expect this ban to move the needle much, positively or negatively, for sales of Lock In, which has been out for a dozen years now;

2. Please refrain from exclaiming “Having your book banned just means you’ll sell more!” or something similar in the comments. One, it’s absolutely not true for the vast majority of books that get banned; the usual result is a net loss for authors and publishers. Two, this is sort of comment that, however well-intentioned to be supportive, minimizes the seriousness of book banning as an intentional policy.

But if you want to oppose book banning and simultaneously support both John and myself, buy a copy through the Amazon link above. He’ll get a royalty and I’ll get an Amazon Associates commission. You’ll get what Publisher’s Weekly called “A smart, thoughtful near-future thriller.”

Win-win.

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The Why

Longtime readers of my old TypePad blog1 may recall that before COVID I was taking a series of online courses about Catholic Theology from the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. I enjoyed those courses, but the technology they used back then was fairly primitive. It was mostly text-based. So I eventually pursued my interests in religious studies on my own.

Recently, however, my wife Helen expressed an interest in taking some courses on Catholic doctrine. So we checked ut the Notre Dame “STEP” courses. The technology seemed (and proved to be) much improved, using Zoom and much better interactive course websites. So for our first course we decided to start with something basic.

We chose “Foundations of Catholic Belief.” You couldn’t get much more basic than that. We’re in week 3 and it has been a very rewarding course. I strongly recommend it for online Catholic education.

This Week’s Assignments

We have an initial scriptural passage on which to meditate, a selection of readings from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and three 20-minute video lectures (transcripts available). We then have two written assignments and an online Zoom discussion.2

This week, our topic is Christology.

This Week’s Discussion Response

The discussion prompt for this week asked us to consider several questions:

• Why was it worth the time and effort t[the Church spent] to develop such precise language about who Jesus is? How does this language enable a person to understand who Jesus Christ is, that he is not just a good person, or a good teacher?

When I kneel down and pray, who am I talking to? Christology gives me the answer. I am not talking to the ghost of a very holy man nor to a divine spirit who only seemed human, but to a real person who is simultaneously fully God and fully human.

That means my prayers aren’t going to an abstract cosmic force. Instead, they’re going to someone who has actually experienced hunger, grief, loneliness, temptation, and physical suffering. God knows what my life feels like from the inside.

In last Sunday’s Gospel (John 11:1-45), we are told that when Jesus saw Mary and Martha weeping about Lazarus’ death, “he became perturbed and deeply troubled.” So much so that he also wept.

In his sermon from last week, Bishop Robert Barron said that Jesus wept because he lost his friend Lazarus and because of his sympathy for those who were also grieving. But Barron says that Jesus was also weeping out of empathy for everyone who suffers when God acts in ways we don’t understand. The creator of the universe so identifies with our frustrations and sorrows and loss that he weeps with us.

Jesus can weep because he is fully human and so understands in his bones why we sorrow even though, like Martha and Mary, we believe in him and in the resurrection to come.

As such, when we go through pain—loss, illness, failure, loneliness—Christology tells us that God has already been there. Not as an observer watching from outside, but as someone who literally sweated blood in Gethsemane, felt abandoned on the Cross, and wept at a friend's tomb. Our suffering isn't foreign to God. He carried it himself. But that's only true if Christ is genuinely one Person who is genuinely human.

of course, the story doesn’t end with Jesus weeping. Jesus goes beyond mere sorrow. He raises Lazarus from the dead. No mere human could do that. Only God possess the power of life and death to that extent.

So this week’s STEP lesson was really well timed, because we can’t understand the story of Lazarus without understanding Christology.

This Week’s Assignment

We were asked to respond to this statement:

When Nestorius said that Jesus’ human and divine natures acted separately (that the divine nature did divine things and the human nature did human things), how was this answered by the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon? Why was it important for the councils to correct this error and clarify understanding of the Incarnation?

The Council of Ephesus (431 AD) was called to evaluate the teachings of Nestorius, who was the Bishop of Constantinople. Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, taught that Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature. So phrased, his teachings were orthodox. The trouble arose, however, because he described these two natures in a way that made it sound like Jesus was really two separate beings loosely stuck together, a divine Word of God sort of partnered with a human man named Jesus. He called this a union of dignity and authority rather than a deep, real, personal unity.

Nestorius also refused to call Mary the “Mother of God” (Theotokos), preferring “Mother of Christ” instead. His reasoning was that a human woman—Mary—couldn’t have given birth to God himself, only to the human Jesus.

The Church said no at Ephesus. Nestorius’ understanding gives us two Christs, not one. And if you have two Christs, you’ve lost the real meaning of the Incarnation; i.e., that God himself truly became human. Nestorius’ teaching was declared to be inconsistent with the Nicene Creed and, accordingly, condemned.

In one of his lectures this week, Professor Joshua McManaway explained that persistent disputes arose over how to interpret what the Council of Ephesus had wrought:

In light of this widespread confusion, the Council of Chalcedon clearly and dogmatically stated that Jesus Christ is one person, the person of the Word of God who has existed for all eternity, and who, because of the Incarnation, has two natures, both divine and human. He is therefore both fully God and fully man and the integrity of each nature is not cancelled out by the Incarnation. It is not as though the divinity of Jesus was diminished by His being human, nor was the reality of His human experience diminished by being divine. The two natures belong in their fullness to the person of the Word after the Incarnation.

The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) was key because getting Christology wrong has huge consequences. If Christ isn’t truly one person—fully God and fully human at the same time—then his death and resurrection don’t have the salvific import orthodox Christianity claims. You’d essentially have a very holy man doing impressive things with divine backing, rather than God himself taking on flesh to rescue humanity from the inside.

A Side Note on the Trilemma

Thinking about Christology and Trinitarian doctrine always calls to my mind C.S.Lewis’ famous trilemma: “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.” You thus cannot say “Christ was a human who was a great moral teacher,” for if he is not divine, he was either a liar or insane, neither of which are characteristics of great moral thinkers.

Conversely, if Christ also were not fully human, he could not have suffered and died for our sins. It is precisely because Jesus was human that his death atoned the sins of all humanity. “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God?” Hebrews 9:13-14.

Which loops us back to Christ’s divinity. After all, if Christ were not divine, Christianity would be saying that suffering of a human provided atonement for sin. Why then would not our own suffering do so?

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So here’s an updated version of my basic lasagna meal. You’ll need a 13 x 9 inch pan, because you do want leftovers (right?). (I like the All-Clad Pro-Release nonstick pan; AMAZON LINK.)

And, yes, I used some store-bought shortcuts. Don’t mock me.

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Ingredients

• 48 ounces Rao’s marinara sauce (AMAZON LINK)1

• 12 pieces no-boil lasagna noodles2

• 4 ounces pancetta, diced

• 1 pound bulk Italian sausage3

• 24 ounces whole milk ricotta

• 3 cups shredded low-moisture mozzarella

• 1 cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan

• 2 eggs

• 1⁄3 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• ½ teaspoon black pepper

• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Lightly grease a 13×9-inch baking dish with 1 tablespoon olive oil or with a cooking oil spray.

In a large skillet4 over medium heat, cook the pancetta until the fat renders and the meet begins to crisp (about 5 minutes). Blot off some of the fat with a paper towel.

Add the sausage, breaking it up with a wooden spoon or, better yet, a potato masher. Cook until the meat is browned (about 8 minutes). Add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook 1 minute. Drain or blot away excess fat, leaving about 1 tablespoon in the pan.

Pour the marinara sauce into the skillet with the meat. Stir well to combine and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, combine the cottage cheese, 2 eggs, half of the Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, the basil, black pepper, and a big pinch of kosher salt. Stir until smooth and well combined.

Soak the noodles in warm water for 5 to 10 minutes.

Spread about 1 cup of meat sauce on the bottom of the prepared baking dish (this prevents sticking and starts softening the noodles). Lay no-boil noodles in a single layer, slightly overlapping if needed.

Spread one-third of the cheese mixture over the noodles, then one-third of the remaining meat sauce, then one-third of the shredded mozzarella. Repeat this sequence (noodles → ricotta → sauce → mozzarella) two more times, using up all the filling. Top the final layer with the remaining grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan.

Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil (spray the chsse side of the foil with cooking oil spray and tent it slightly so the foil doesn’t stick to the cheese).

Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes.

Uncover and brown: Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes, until the top is bubbly and golden brown in spots.

You want it to hit an internal temperature of 160°-165°. use an instant read meat thermometer to make sure. ( I like the ThermoWorks Thermapen; AMAZON LINK.)

Remove from the oven and let the lasagna rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting.

Tips

Sauce coverage is key with no-boil noodles. You need to make sure every noodle is well covered with sauce so it steams and softens properly during baking.

If you can get your hands on it, guanciale works even better than pancetta.

If you make it ahead, which I recommend, and refrigerate it for more than about an hour, add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time.

The post-baking rest is essential. It keeps you from ending up with soupy lasagna and helps the layers set.

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4

I’m a fan of All-Clad. I used the 12-inch D3 3-Ply stainless steel sauté pan here. (AMAZON LINK)

The Sagan Diary

In February 2007, I bought signed and numbered (191/400) copy of John Scalzi’s The Sagan Diary (AMAZON LINK). Along with a good cigar and a glass or three of port, it made a great after-dinner treat. The Sagan Diary differs radically from Scalzi’s other published works. Unlike the earlier Old Man’s War novels, in whose universe The Diary is located, this is not a military sci-fi action tale. Unlike the very funny and entertaining stand-alone novel, The Android’s Dream (AMAZON LINK), The Diary doesn’t start with a chapter-long fart joke.

Instead, it is an introspective rumination on life, love, and words. Indeed, the first half might fairly be called a great writer’s (prose) song about his love for words. The second half is a moving prose Valentine, in which Scalzi’s Sagan ruminates on the experience of loving another.

The Diary showed an emotional depth at which Scalzi’s prior work only hinted. It proved that this was—as he still is—a writer in whom one ought to invest for the long haul, as it suggested that he has only scratched the surface of his potential.

In addition, it gave us an alternative viewpoint on some of the best scenes in the earlier novels and also filled in some gaps that had gone unexplored.

I also got a nice shout out from Scalzi for an earlier review:

Steven Bainbridge1 has nice things to say about “The Sagan Diary” …. I am pleased with the former review because it’s really the first one I’ve seen of “Sagan,” and Professor Bainbridge has been an avid reader of the previous work, so I’m happy to see “Sagan” works for him ….

The Last Colony

Shortly after my copy of The Diary arrived, I received an ARC of The Last Colony (AMAZON LINK). I sat down with at lunch after teaching that day’s class, telling myself I’d just read a few pages, and lost the rest of the work day. (More than once, a new John Scalzi book has done terrible things to my productivity.)

It brought to an immensely satisfying conclusion—albeit only temporarily as it turns out—the trilogy that began with Old Man’s War.

Scalzi returns to John Perry as the POV character, but this time in a story that’s more political mystery than military sci fi.

Perry and his wife, former Colonial Defense Force (CDF) Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, are now retired from the CDF and his consciousness has been transferred from the supersoldier body he had as a CDF soldier into a more or less human norm one.

Perry is a farmer and village ombudsman for a human colony on a new-ish human colony planet named Huckleberry. But the Colonial Union (CU) prevails on Perry and Sagan to lead a new colony, Roanoke, which will be colonized by representatives of all the major human planets.

It gradually becomes apparent that the CDF has an undisclosed political plan, which plunges Perry and Sagan back into the world(s) of interstellar politics and war. Perry and Sagan’s efforts to figure out the CU’s secret plans is the main storyline.

Perry’s solution to his political problems has considerable elegance, as does Scalzi’s plotting and writing. (No hack writer he.) The pace is quick, and the plot is taut. There aren’t a lot of subplots and most of them end up being essential. (There’s one subplot involving spears whose purpose I never quite figured out and about which I won’t say more for risk of offering spoilers. But if you’ve read it, maybe you can explain to me whether that story line is anything more than local color.)

Do you have to have read the first two books in the series for TLC to make sense? No:

John Scalzi has styled this novel to stand well on it’s own. The book starts with great humor that brings the reader into the story easily and comfortably. You never get the feeling that your starting from the back of the series. John gives you two pages of intro in John Perry’s universe and then blasts off.

Having said that, however, you’d be missing a real treat. If you haven’t already read the first two novels, grab them too and then set aside a couple of days to immerse yourself.

Back to The New Comprehensible

In the previous post, I noted that an SF reviewer once dubbed Scalzi the leader of The New Comprehensible movement.

Around that time, Scalzi was writing passionately about the need for science fiction to become less insular:

... if you look at the significant SF books of the last several years, there aren’t very many you <em>could</em> give to the uninitiated reader; they all pretty much implicitly or explicitly assume you’ve been keeping up with the genre, because the writers themselves have. The SF literary community is like a boarding school; we’re all up to our armpits in each other’s business, literary and otherwise (and then there’s the sodomy. But let’s not go there).

... Fantasy literature has numerous open doors for the casual reader. How many does SF literature have? More importantly, how many is SF perceived to have? Any honest follower of the genre has to admit the answers are “few” and “even fewer than that,” respectively. The most accessible SF we have today is stuff that was written decades ago by people who are now dead.

I agreed with Scalzi back then and I still do. Most modern SF is either PC crap or MAGA military SF excrement. This is why I’ve got a collection of Astounding/Analog magazines that ends in 1986.

Thanks to numerous horrifying lunchroom experiences growing up, SF geeks like me are probably perfectly happy to be let alone with their genre and to let the mundanes read whatever appalling romantasy and/or Da Vinci Code clone they're slobbering over this week.2 But not Scalzi. Instead, he's been writing immensely accessible novels all along.

Making this point back in the day got me another nice shout out from Scalzi:

Professor Bainbridge devours his advance reader’s copy of The Last Colony, and is happy with the meal, and also picks up on something I’m 100% in agreement with:

Despite its SF trappings, for example, TLC reminds me more of Allen Drury’s novels of political suspense, with a little Robert Ludlum-style wheels within wheels conspiracy theory story thrown in too, than it does most SF. Indeed, to continue the analogy to political thrillers, there’s even a subplot that’s a variant on the good old sleeping killer story. All of which means that, if Tor can manage the marketing trick, the OMW to TLC trilogy ought to reach readers who ordinarily would never be caught dead in the sci fi section of their bookstore.

It’s the New Comprehensible! In full effect! Seriously, however, I’m delighted Professor Bainbridge liked this series all the way through.

TLC Spoilers Ahead

Paul di Filippo gave TLC a middling review (grade B). Here's what di Filippo liked:

Our protagonist is still the same lovable, embraceable, reluctant tough guy he was. Family life agrees with him and Jane. The relationship between the spouses and with their daughter are rich and real. Likewise, Scalzi's depiction of how the world works—group interactions among bickering colonists, government bureaucratic nonsense, etc.—is still sharp and accurate. His handling of action scenes—when they occur—is still vibrant. And his dialogue is always witty and forceful.

Here's what di Filippo didn't like:

This book is a mashup of two separate books, and they don't really play off each other very well.

The first book is an intended remake of Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky (1955) [AMAZON LINK]. This could have been a very good thing. Cast away without hope of return, settlers make a fresh life amid strange circumstances and dangers. But guess what? When the interstellar realpolitik comes onstage, this whole scenario is just thrown away. And I mean totally discarded. The intelligent natives of Roanoke, supposedly a major threat to the colony, simply vanish without explanation. And the colony is reunited with the rest of humanity, so the pressure to succeed on their own is off. It gives a sense of “Why bother?” about the whole enterprise. Why bother caring?

Next, the substance of the parallel narrative of the mashup, the Conclave and its demands, is a totally Keith Laumer/ Christopher Anvil kind of alien threat. While this worked perfectly in Scalzi's The Android's Dream (2006), here it's merely a straw man for Perry and company to dismantle. Moreover, much of the action of the engagements is told necessarily at a second-hand remove, since Perry is stuck on Roanoke. Gone is the immediacy of a combatant on the field of action.

I liked TLC a lot better than di Filippo did, although I agree with di Filippo about the plot line involving the “intelligent natives of Roanoke” subplot (see also my comment above about the spears scene whose purpose I still haven’t quite figured out).

When I first read TLC, however, I had a problem suspending disbelief with respect to one plot device, so I wrote Scalzi as follows:

I’m prepared to suspend disbelief on cloning and genetic engineering (easy), skipdrive (harder), consciousness transfers (harder still), and so on. But I have a very hard time suspending disbelief with respect to the basic plot device; namely, that the CU could successfully keep the Conclave and all the rest secret.

Somebody famous once said: “Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

Even the Soviets couldn’t eliminate samizdat. You posit a universe in which there is space travel and trade. Once somebody on Phoenix knows about the Conclave, they’ll eventually tell their domestic partner, who will tell their hairdresser, who will tell his client who’s leaving on the next liner to Earth.

So how’s that supposed to work?

To which John kindly responded as follows, subsequently granting me permission to quote him:

I don’t think they *are* keeping it secret among the people who travel and trade through the stars, and indeed in the book I use the “Three men can keep a secret...” rule to the CU’s advantage to “leak” the whereabouts of the colony. Remember also that in both TGB and TLC there’s discussion on how long the CU can keep status of the Conclave officially off the books—i.e., there’s the expectation that sooner or later the CU is going to have to come clean on the Conclave. And finally, remember that the CU does intend to officially tell the colonies of The Conclave... after they’ve destroyed it by vaporizing its fleet and undermining its leadership.

What the CU is doing is keeping an “official” secret—i.e., using information management to keep the Conclave’s official status ambiguous until the CU is ready to deal with information in a way favorable to it. In managing information the CU has several advantages. First, it maintains a monopoly on the timely transmission of official information—the colonies are light years from each other so all data are sent through the CU fleet (and we know from the book the CU is not above looking at the data). Second, it also maintains a monopoly on trade and the space-going military, so it has a very strong lever against colonial governments and official news sources.

Third and, I think, importantly, the CDF is *not* comprised of colonists—the colonists don’t see the horrors of war when their boys and girls come back home, nor are there any homecoming soldiers to tell them what’s really happening on the front. Fourth, the vast <br />majority of colonists do not actually travel—it’s established that most colonists don’t actually leave their home worlds. None of them join the military, and the size of the merchant fleet is small relative to the colonist populations; the number of colonists working in the CU federal government is also likewise very small relative to the overall population. All of that works to slow down (but not stop) the transmission of rumor and to decrease the verifiability of information as it filters through colonial populations.

All of these elements are useful in the CU developing an official story and having it better compete with more truthful rumors. Moreover, the levers of official information management are more *efficient* in the CU universe than in ours, since by dint of <br />distances and the organization the CU brings to bear, which is simply not possible in our world of porous national and informational borders.

Do I think there samizdat in the CU? I would assume there is, although I don’t spend any time on it because it’s not core to the plot. But I do think the CU would keep a tight rein on official news by the carrot of appealing to the need for secrecy on one hand and the stick of real economic sanctions on the other. Indeed, to go back to the story about the “leak” of the colony’s whereabouts, you’ll remember the CU informing the various colonial news organs that officially the Roanoke Colony was still lost and that unofficially that going to print with the information that it had been found would have impressively negative consequences.

In other words, there’s the reality of the situation, and then there’s the “official” reality. If I remember correctly, with the Conclave, the eventual official line is that there’s some allied alien races pitting themselves against the CU, but it’s not called “The Conclave” and the scope of the alliance is left ambiguous. There’s just enough truth in that to make the official line plausible and leave the rumors of the Conclave still believable as mere rumors.

I was persuaded. Certainly, was impressed.

Conclusion

I’m not going to try to review every book in Scalzi’s ouvere. As you may have surmised, I’m mining my old TypePad-based blog in writing these posts and that blog eventually became much more focused than it was back when I first started writing about my reading adventures. But I am enjoying this trip down memory lane, so I will keep revisiting some of my favorites.

Most modern science fiction leaves me unimpressed. The tropes are tired. Much of it is gloomy dystopian crap. Much of it is either pompous, politically correct posturing or, at the other extreme, MAGA politics with spaceships. There’s a lot of bad writing. Much of the bad writing is bad because it’s pretentious preening masquerading as high literature. Finding good stuff has gotten too hard because there’s so much self-published crap on Amazon it’s difficult to find the few gems. Editors and publishers did important gatekeeping work, but now there are no gatekeepers.

This has been true for a long time.

I’ve got a complete collection of Astounding/Analog science fiction magazines that starts in 1958 and ends in 1986. So I date my giving up on new science fiction to the mid-1980s.

To be sure, everything I just said is a generalization. There have been some exceptions. I recently reviewed the “final” Laundry Files novel by Charles Stross, for example, who is one of my two favorite modern science fiction writers.

The other member of that select group is John Scalzi.

Scalzi is a remarkably prolific author who has won multiple awards, including the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and a Hugo Award for Redshirts. He has been anointed as the leader of The New Comprehensible movement.1

But it was not always so.

Old Man’s War

I still remember the first time I encountered Scalzi’s work. His publisher sent me an advance reader copy (ARC) of his first published novel, Old Man’s War (AMAZON LINK).2

It arrived at work on a workday. I started reading it at lunch and had to force myself to break away two hours later in order to get some work done. I was absolutely blown away; it literally was one of those “you can’t put it down” books. After gone for years without being excited by new science fiction, it was a source of great pleasure and excitement.

Old Man’s War is in the military science fiction genre, but it rose far above the usual crapola of that genre (see, e.g., David Drake). Indeed, I rank it right up there with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (AMAZON LINK) and Haldeman’s The Forever War (AMAZON LINK) as one of the greatest military science fiction novels.

As the novel opens, John Perry has celebrated turning 75 in two deeply meaningful ways: paying his respects at his wife’s grave and then signing up for military service.

In the OMWverse, humanity has achieved its dream of reaching the stars, but the reality is sobering. Worlds capable of supporting human life are scarce and dangerous alien civilizations are everywhere. Space is a warzone and humanity must fight both to defend its home planet and to secure new places to live.

The conflict has ground on for years in far-flung corners of the galaxy—brutal, unrelenting, and without mercy. On Earth, the average person remains largely in the dark about it. The Colonial Defense Force (CDF) holds most of humanity’s military power and deliberately withholds the full picture. What is publicly known, however, is that older citizens can volunteer to serve. The CDF isn’t recruiting the young—it wants people who carry decades of wisdom and lived experience. Those who sign up leave Earth permanently, serve in the most dangerous theaters of war, and, if they survive, earn a piece of land on one of humanity’s new colony worlds. John Perry takes that deal, even with only a vague sense of what he’s getting into.

In tone, I suppose, Old Man’s War is closer to The Forever War than Starship Troopers. Scalzi’s tone suggests that he recognizes the necessity of fighting for the survival of the species (or whatever), while still deploring the stupidities of war. As Scalzi put it on his blog, in commenting on an Amazon reviewer (the then-ubiquitous Harriet Klausner) who claimed it was an anti-war novel:

I don’t know that I subscribe wholly to the book being anti-war. I would say that it is anti-stupid, in that at least of a couple of people acting stupidly in the performance of war reap the consequences of their actions. This also happens to be my general opinion of war: Use only when absolutely necessary; try not to use stupidly or wantonly; be prepared for the consequences.

Like Haldeman, moreover, Scalzi makes you care about the characters in a way that Heinlein didn’t bother with. Most of the major characters are eventually killed in action; each death pangs just a bit. All in all, if military sci-fi is even remotely your thing, and you haven’t read it yet, you need to buy this book.

Spreading the Word

There are authors one admires. Then there are authors one loves. And then there are those rare authors about whom one is compelled to be an evangelist. You just want to grab somebody by the collar, shove the book into their hands, and watch them get sucked in.

After reading Old Man’s War, Scalzi went to the top of that list.

As has been noted elsewhere, I was an early blogosphere Scalzi proselytizer:

The book was released in January of 2005, and bloggers had begun writing about it before it had even hit the shelves. Reynolds posted about the book first on November 22, 2004; Bainbridge posted about it on January 12, 2005, and Volokh on February 24, 2005. Scalzi said he believed the large number of online sales was a direct result of blogger-generated publicity.

Although Glen Reynolds of InstaPundit fame had reviewed it before I did, I was proud that my friend and former UCLAW colleague Eugene Volokh credited me along with Glen for getting him interested in it:

Just finished John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, which was very good. I bought it in hardcover; cheapskate that I am, I rarely do this except with authors whose work I know well, but I made an exception because of Instapundit’s and Professor Bainbridge’s recommendations. They steered me well; really good science fiction, fresh and well-crafted.

Oddly, the weakest parts of the book are the first few chapters, which weren’t quite as tightly written as the rest of the book. If you find yourself disappointed at first, stick with it; I think you won’t be disappointed.

Candidly, I disagreed back then (and still do) with Eugene about those first few chapters. I was hooked from page one.

Ghost Brigades

I received an ARC of Ghost Brigades (AMAZON LINK) in January 2006.3 I started it late in the evening on the day it arrived and barely managed to tear myself away at midnight to go to bed. I polished it off the next day over a long lunch.

I liked it even better than Old Man’s War.

The Ghost Brigades takes place in the same universe as did Old Man’s War, but unlike so much modern series science fiction and fantasy it can be read as a stand-alone.

The Ghost Brigades serve as the Colonial Defense Forces’ (CDF) elite special operations units—soldiers cloned and genetically engineered from the genetic material of deceased individuals. They are optimized for the CDF’s most demanding missions. Physically superior and unburdened by ordinary human moral qualms and hesitation, they represent humanity’s sharpest military edge. The tip of the spear.

That spear is about to be tested severely. Three alien species, each of which had previously tangled with the CDF, have formed a coalition aimed at stopping human expansion into space. Central to their strategy is a rogue CDF scientist, Charles Boutin, who has handed humanity’s most sensitive secrets to the enemy. To counter this threat, the CDF needs to understand what drove Boutin to betray his own kind.

Their best hope is Jared Dirac. Dirac was cloned and genetically engineered using Boutin’s own DNA. Dirac’s mind was designed to unlock and access Boutin’s stored digital memories. Unfortunately, the procedure seemingly failed. So, rarther than waste high quality material, Dirac is assigned to the Ghost Brigades, where he proves to be an exemplary soldier. Gradually, however, fragments of Boutin’s memories begin to emerge, giving Dirac unsettling insight into the motivations behind the betrayal.

Dirac eventually finds himself on a desperate search for the man whose DNA he carries—a hunt that forces him to wrestle with profound questions about his own identity and the choices he must make. The clock is ticking: the alien alliance is mobilizing for an assault, and their ambitions extend well beyond simply defeating humanity on the battlefield.

In Ghost Brigades, Scalzi answers some key questions about his universe that bugged me after Old Man’s War; most notably, why does the CDF need both regular soldiers and the Special Forces? His explanation is pretty much consistent with my best guess and makes total sense. {No spoilers} In addition, however, Scalzi begins to explore some of the deep philosophical questions raised in Old Man’s War: Do clones have souls? What’s the difference between consciousness and the soul? To what extent can society ethically use clones for its own purpose; put another way, are clones proper subjects of the Kantian imperative?

Despite his failure to properly use the Oxford comma, presumably a consequence of his misspent years in journalism, Scalzi is a brilliant writer. His prose sparkles with life and action. His plots are fast-paced, plausible within the parameters of the universe he’s created, and rarely predictable. What especially impresses me, however, is Scalzi’s insights into human nature. So many science fiction and fantasy writers these days seem to lack insight into human nature. As a result, their novels are really travelogues populated by cardboard cut-outs. In contrast, Scalzi spends very little time on scenery, but instead focuses on developing a plausible society peopled by fully realized characters. It’s great stuff.

I Got A Scalzi Shout Out

In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (AMAZON LINK), one of P.G. Wodehouse’s wonderful Jeeves and Wooster novels, the narrator Bertie Wooster opines:

I mean, while one lives for one’s Art, so to speak, and cares little for the public’s praise or blame and all that sort of thing, one can always do with something to paste into one’s scrapbook, can one not?

Words to live by.

So, I was surprised, honored, and pleased to get a shout out from Scalzi in the acknowledgements section to Ghost Brigades (AMAZON LINK), which was Old Man’s War’s sequel:

One of the reasons that the Ghost Brigades exists is that the first book in the series, Old Man’s War, was fortunate enough to have been praised online by folks whose taste in books is trusted by their readers. I thank all of them and add special thanks to Glenn Reynolds, Cory Doctorow, Stephen Green, Stephen Bainbridge and Eugene Volokh.

Conclusion

Future parts (I’m not sure how many at this point) will move us forward to Scalzi’s most recent entry in the OMWverse.

My apologies for the camera shake and a couple of outright swerves.

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Periodically, during the news segment, Jeremy Clarkson would announce that “I went on the internet and found this ….” Absurdity followed. Consider this new segment to be an homage rather than a copyright violation.

Food

I'm going to make this for a dinner party in a couple of weeks. You can get the recipes here:

Wolfgang Puck’s Chicken Potpie

Spicy Tuna Tartare in Sesame Miso Cones

To make life a little easier, I’m going to try tracking down store-bought savory cones.

War Crimes

My friend of 5 decades Anthony Arend is one of the world’s leading experts on the international law governing the use of force. So when he speaks, we must listen.

Who Should Own Houses

Matthew Yglesias offers a contrarian perspective:

Slow Boring

Maybe *all* rental housing should be owned by large institutional investors

I keep threatening to write an article arguing that only large corporate landlords should be allowed to own single-family homes…

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a month ago · 329 likes · 382 comments · Matthew Yglesias

AI

Dave Hoffman has a post about publishers—specifically law reviews, but I think it scales up to the industry generally—contracting to constrain the use of generative AI.

Contracts' Empire

Contracting Around Generative Legal Writing

In a recent post, I looked at how AI vendors use contracts to disclaim responsibility for their products. Today I want to flip the lens and look at how some of the consumers of legal text—law reviews—are using contract-like instruments to police the…

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a month ago · 1 like · Dave Hoffman

Francine McKenna called it: “Really interesting!”

Books

Cass Sunstein discusses one of my favorite science fiction novels, using it as a jumping off point for assorted philosophical musings:

Cass’s Substack

A Canticle for Leibowitz

1 This essay is going to be speculative (and maybe a bit risky). Cass’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…

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a month ago · 29 likes · 1 comment

Dissing Yale Law School

Is Vulgar Rhetoric Appropriate in Judicial Opinions?

The New Digest

Judicial Rhetoric, Artful and Clumsy

A controversy instantly broke out about the following passage from a dissent by Judge VanDyke of the 9th Circuit, after the full court denied en banc rehearing of a case concerning transgender access to a traditional Korean spa for women only…

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a month ago · 30 likes · 11 comments · Adrian Vermeule

Bainbridge on Corporations

Divesting University Endowments for Social/Political Reasons: Part 1

Back in the day (2000-2010) there was a website called Tech Central Station a.k.a. TCS Daily, which “was an online magazine with commentary and analysis on current news from a free-market perspective…

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a month ago · Stephen Bainbridge

Bainbridge on Corporations

Divesting University Endowments for Social/Political Reasons: Part 2

In a previous post, I took up a the first of a pair of recent papers by Max Schanzenbach (Northwestern) and Robert Sitkoff (Harvard). That post discussed Divesting University Endowments, which deals with the legal issues surrounding “endowment divestment for nonfinancial reasons…

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a month ago · Stephen Bainbridge

In those posts, I drew on some work I did back circa 2004-05 criticizing the Presbyterian Church’s—the PC(USA)—adoption of “a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel.”2

One of the issues I grappled with back then departed from the corporate law/governance issues raised by divestment; namely, whether divestment campaigns targeting Israel—such as the PC(USA)’s—are anti-semitic.

To be clear at the outset, I believe that not all criticism of Israeli policy is anti-semitic.

My own view is that the IHRA’s definition, which has been adopted by our State Department, is correct:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

…

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to: …

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

When the PC(USA)’s General Assembly voted to divest the denomination’s funds from corporations doing business with Israel, many folks in the blogosphere jumped to condemn the action as anti-Semitic (e.g., Instapundit).

Initially, it struck me that people were being too quick to play the anti-Semitism card. Playing that card whenever Israel comes into criticism is a problem for two reasons. First, it tends to silence legitimate criticism of Israel, which is no more perfect and no more immune from constructive criticism than any other polity. Second, over time, playing the anti-Semitism card every time somebody criticizes Israel tends devalue the moral authority of that card. (Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf?)

In a 2004 Opinion Journal column, however, Jay Lefkowitz invoked a standard that strikes me as consistent with the IHRA standard:

A more nuanced standard, … that properly recognizes that legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly appropriate, was articulated last year by Natan Sharansky. A member of the Israeli cabinet who for years had been a prisoner of conscience in the Soviet gulag, Mr. Sharansky defined one current expression of anti-Semitism by three features: the application of double standards to Israel, the demonization of Israel and the delegitimization of Israel.

Fair enough. Applying that standard, Lefkowitz went on to make a persuasive case that the Presbyterian divestment was anti-Semitic:

The recent action by the Presbyterian Church sadly satisfies Mr. Sharansky’s test. The church has singled out Israel, alone among all the nations of the world, for divestment. It has demonized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and it has delegitimized Israel’s right to self-defense.

The church is not calling for divestment of its $7 billion portfolio from China, despite China’s denial of the most basic political and religious rights and its particularly harsh treatment of followers of Falun Gong. It is not condemning Russia, even though Russia’s policies in Chechnya are by any human-rights standard atrocious. It is not even calling for economic sanctions against Syria or Iran, whose human-rights records for their own people are egregious and whose Jewish citizens are denied the basic civil rights and liberties afforded to all Israelis, including its Arab citizens, some of whom even serve in the Knesset.

Exactly right.

As a matter of personal interest, I was pleased that Lefkowitz also noted:

In contrast to the action taken by the Presbyterian Church this month, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that one-sided criticism of Israel can at times be so grotesque that there is no name to describe it other than anti-Semitism. And in a document ironically signed the same week as the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Catholic Church equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

When I left the Presbyterian Church in the late 1990s and converted to Catholicism it was largely because of the sort of knee-jerk political correctness that the PC(USA) was substituting for faith in God. To be sure, we Catholics have the church’s social teaching, but at least in my parish we talk about salvation a lot more than the latest progressive talking points.

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Another ink-stained wretch who falls into that same category, albeit one of far greater renown, is the great master of horror H.P. Lovecraft. As John Miller observed, in a review that’s over 20 years old but still well worth reading in full, Lovecraft’s take on the world was a profoundly sick one:

He was a thoroughgoing materialist—a socialist in his politics and an atheist in his beliefs. “Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large,” he wrote upon successfully resubmitting the original Cthulhu story. “One must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all.”

That's nihilism, of course, and we're free to reject it. But there's nothing creepier or more terrifying than the possibility that our lives are exercises in meaninglessness. “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,” says Gloucester in King Lear. “They kill us for their sport.” From Lovecraft's perspective, this gives us far too much credit. In his grim milieu, we don't even rate as insect pests, but we still manage to get ourselves squished.

Hardly the sort of world view likely to appeal to a good Catholic conservative lad like myself, of course. Although Lovecraft never made it onto the old Index Librorum Prohibitorum, so it’s not an illicit love.

But I dote on horror stories and, perhaps because his personal world view was so yucky (to use a technical term of literary criticism), nobody did it better than Lovecraft. To return to Miller’s take:

“The Call of Cthulhu” is also strangely engrossing, and contains many elements that will be familiar to fans of “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown: The main character is an Ivy League professor determined to investigate ancient mysteries and their lingering effects on the present day. Readers who become accustomed to Lovecraft’s writing style may find that it possesses a florid eloquence.

They will also appreciate his skill at producing a sense of mounting dread. Lovecraft knew what to place onstage as well as what to leave inside the haunted imaginations of his readers. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,” he once wrote, “and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” If Lovecraft had been a film director, he might have come up with a movie much like “The Blair Witch Project,” only scarier.

Indeed.

Knowing what to leave off-stage was a secret shared by another favorite of mine, J.R.R. Tolkien. One of the many things that distinguishes The Lord of the Rings from run-of-the-mill hack fantasy is Tolkien’s awareness that the really bad stuff (Sauron, in particular) is scarier if kept off stage. Each individual reader will tailor his/her mental image of Sauron to maximize its effectiveness, something no writer could match.

Likewise, Gandalf seems so powerful precisely because we almost never see him do any real magic. His powers just sort of loom in the background.

Too many modern writers have completely lost touch with this basic skill, which is one of many reasons so much modern horror or fantasy sucks.

Anyway, Lovecraft’s best work is available in a lovely Library of America edition. (AMAZON LINK) Try it. You might like it.

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And it turns out there’s evidence to support my complaints:

• A meta-analysis of 12 studies from 10 countries reported that the risk of acute myocardial infarction increased by 4% in the week after the spring clock change.

• It’s reported that stroke rates are 8% higher in the first two days following both time changes.

• A Swedish study found that the risk of having a heart attack increases in the first three weekdays after switching to DST in the spring.

• Tiredness induced by the clock change is thought to be the main cause for the increase in traffic accidents on the Monday following the start of DST.

• On Mondays after the start of DST there were more workplace injuries, and the injuries were of greater severity compared to other Mondays.

• An Australian study found that male suicide rates increased the days after the spring and fall DST shift.

• According to an analysis by Stanford scientists, changing clocks twice a year disrupts circadian rhythms, leading to higher rates of stroke and obesity.

• The American Academy of Sleep Medicine's position statement concluded that DST causes misalignment between the biological clock and the environmental clock, and that there is evidence the body clock does not fully adjust to DST even after several months.

To sum up, a Johns Hopkins publication stated that:

“The scientific evidence points to acute increases in adverse health consequences from changing the clocks, including in heart attack and stroke,” says sleep expert Adam Spira, PhD, MA, a professor in Mental Health.

The change is also associated with a heightened risk of mood disturbances and hospital admissions, as well as elevated production of inflammatory markers in response to stress. The potential for car crashes also spikes just after the spring forward, Spira says; a 2020 study found that the switch raises the risk of fatal traffic accidents by 6%.

…

The evidence of health and accident risks following the change is so great that the AASM has said it favors abolishing DST entirely in favor of permanent standard time.

As do I.

But lord, can he write. In a genre dominated by hacks he was—and remains­­--one of the few intelligent and fresh voices around.

So, I quickly came to mostly agree with what Christian fantasy writer Theodore Beale had to say about Stross:

Let’s see, I’m not at all in sync with his religion, his politics or his personal aesthetic, so why am I recommending his site? Only because he is, in my opinion, the most interesting and important writer in science fiction today.1 The Accelerando collection simply blew me away, combining insightful, intelligent views on economics, technology and politics with a light but razor-sharp style in a thoroughly entertaining manner. The Atrocity Archive, on the other hand, is the perfect blend of Dilbert, James Bond and the Cthulhu Mythos.

A first taste of Stross is like your first time with Tolkien or Gibson. Fantastic stuff!

Exactly. The first Stross novel I read, The Family Trade (AMAZON LINK) was a darned good story, which repackaged the tired old world-walking plot in a new and interesting way. Stross combined a homage to earlier takes on the basic formula (especially Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles) with new twists and directions. In doing so, he achieved something very rare: a well-written and thoughtful book that’s written with a page-turner, up-all-night liveliness.

Candidly, I was not as fond of the sequels to The Family Trade, but by then I had discovered Stross’ Laundry Files series, which very quickly became one of my very favorite long-running series.

Digression

I’ve been a science fiction/fantasy fan as long as I can remember. I still remember the thrill I had the first time I read The Lord of the Rings.

In the introduction to an American edition of LOTR, Tolkien said that one criticism with which he agreed was that “the book is too short.”

Exactly right.

Ever since, I’ve been a fan of multi-volume series in which the author is free to develop characters and plotlines over a long arc.

When I was younger, I used to worry that some of my favorite authors would pass on before they finished a beloved series. These days, with one grouchy Santa Fe-based exception, I am much more likely to worry that I will pass om before the series is finished. (Are there lending libraries in heaven?)

So I am grateful Stross decided to wind up the Laundry Files with The Regicide Report (AMAZON LINK).2

The Files

The Laundry Files consists of 14 novels and assorted novellas. So, before getting to the latest and final(?) entry, let’s look back at some of my favorite earlier novels.

The Atrocity Archive

Beale summarized The Atrocity Archive very well. It’s a melding of three genres—science fiction, horror, and spy thrillers—that is a homage to people like Len Deighton and Lovecraft, with a little touch of Dilbert at Work thrown in, but out of which emerged something new and original. Sheer, freaking genius. (AMAZON LINK)

The Jennifer Morgue

The Jennifer Morgue was a fun, fast read. Imagine a hybrid of Ian Fleming’s Thunderball and Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth whipped up by a computer geek who has spent a bit too much time playing RPGs at renaissance festivals. The plot's a bit silly, even given the context, and the geek technobabble's a bit too thick for my taste, but the novel pulls you along at an incredible rate even so. Plus, the concluding tongue-in-cheek quasi-academic essay on spy fiction was almost worth the price of admission on its own. (AMAZON LINK)

The Fuller Memorandum

In The Fuller Memorandum, our hero Bob Howard came to believe in God. Or, more, precisely, Gods. Specifically, the old gods. The hungry and bad-tempered gods who yearn to pull humanity into their slavering maws. As Bob says in the introduction, he’s come to believe in “God,” he’s waiting for God with a shotgun, and he’s saving the last shell for himself. (AMAZON LINK)

Ernest Lilley gave it a very positive review at The SF Site:,

Though the story is told in first person retrospective, under the guise of Bob having been directed to catch up on report filing from his missions, things get so dicey for him that it’s easy to forget that this is a dead giveaway that he’s bound to survive. Actually, there are points in the book where it’s not at all clear that he will, even if he does wind up writing that report. Stross is that clever.

Indeed, he is that clever.

The premise of the series is that what we consider magic is the result of forces conjured up by certain forms of computation, which makes magic a branch of what is normally highly theoretical mathematics, but which turns out to have practical, if not pleasant, applications. The Laundry gets most of its staff by co-opting them as an alternative to killing them off for accidentally discovering the power of mathematics to open doorways to other universes, ones where very hungry beasties wait wondering from where their next bite of soul (preferably human) food is going to come. Mo came in through that door in the first book, The Atrocity Archives, when a group of terrorists tried to use her to channel a demon to do their bidding. Bob saved her in true Bond fashion, even going so far as to disable a nuclear weapon in the bargain. In the second book, The Jennifer Morgue, things get really Bondian, when Bob and Mo find themselves fighting bad guys and a compulsion to act out the Bond plot formula. You think you know what’s bound to happen, and then you realize you don’t even know who’s who. Really, it’s brilliant.

Speaking of who’s who, Stross pays tribute to a different master spy author with each book. For his first, it was Len Deighton, the second, Ian Fleming, and now Anthony Price, whose historian turned agent is a good fit for Stross’ co-opted hacker character. The series also serves as a starting point for anyone who hasn’t read the authors whose idiom it employs, which is a fine thing as well.

Bob had come into the firm via a different door than academics like Mo. A hacker trying to do something clever, he came close to inadvertently leveling the city he lived in, which brought him to the firm’s attention. The result is that Bob’s neither an academic, nor was he born and bred a civil servant. He’s a bit of a loose cannon, like all our favorite secret agents, and is lucky, unlucky, and clever in equal measures. It’s a combination that ensures that he’ll live in interesting times, to our benefit if not his.

Highly recommended.

The Apocalypse Codex

Bob Howard’s role at the Laundry is evolving from field agent/ a computational demonologist towards management. While working with “External Assets,” Bob learns that the organization also quietly relies on freelance operatives to handle delicate missions that could otherwise cause serious embarrassment for Crown and country. (AMAZON LINK)

When Ray Schiller, an American televangelist with a disturbingly real gift for miracle healing becomes suspiciously close relationship with the UK’s Prime Minister, External Assets sends Persephone Hazard to infiltrate the Golden Promise Ministry and uncover his interest in British politics. In theory, Bob’s assignment is simple. He has to keep Persephone from triggering an international crisis. The trouble is that Bob finds her brilliant and striking, but worryingly wildly unpredictable.

It turns out, however, that—perhaps predictably at this point—that what is really looming is a supernatural—indeed, apocalyptic—crisis.

As I read it, I couldn’t help wondering whether Persephone would be the Laundry File’s first equivalent of the expendable Bond girl and, if so, what might that mean for Bob’s marriage? (But no spoilers.) And with a televangelist as the antagonist, I was also wondering just how many anti-religious tirades would Stross work into Bob’s narration compared with the average Laundry novel? (Ditto.) But, in the end, I enjoyed it a lot, which may say more about me than I’d like.

Another Digression: Possible Fan-fic

As I was reading The Apocalypse Codex, I also couldn’t help thinking about possible fan-fic Laundry Files mashups and crossovers. (Not that I would ever urge anyone to violate an author’s copyrights. This is just some First Amendment-protected theorizing.)

As I understood the early novels in the series, you had to have a computer to do magic. This is so because, as Bob Howard observed in a Laundry Files short story, “magic is a branch of applied mathematics.” You solve problems and theorems, invoke actions, and actions occur.

In subsequent volumes, however, we learned that ritual magic—i.e., working magic, raw, by force of will—works, albeit not reliably and at the risk of blowing the practitioner’s cerebral cortex. Practitioners can do the necessary computations in their heads, albeit risking death by Krantzberg syndrome or worse, because the human brain is a computational organ. As Dr. Renfield (nice foreshadowing there), explains: “We can carry out computational tasks, yes? We’re not very good at it, and at an individual neurological level there’s no mechanism that might invoke the core Turing theorems.”

But if there were such a mechanism? That’s where the crossovers come into play.

The Laundry Files x Dune

Sometime in the near future, the singularity occurs. Skynet goes active. The Machine War breaks out. Colossus and Guardian link nets. Humanity prevails, but the Butlerian Jihad knocks out all computational devices more sophisticated that a four function hand calculator.

The Jihad delays CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN long enough for the Mentat discipline to develop. But the apocalypse is still out there, so Leto II implements his Golden Path to produce a cadre of intuitive prescient Mentats capable of conducting computational demonology and the rest of the math/magic tools without risking death by Krantzberg Syndrome. Leto deems the personal and social costs of the Path essential because he knows that at the heart of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN are Marty and Daniel, who are Lovecraftian horrors beyond the ability of anyone other than the God Emperor to comprehend.

It always sounded better to me than the stuff Herbert and Anderson came up with.

How to work the Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach, et al. into the story is an exercise I’ll leave for the reader.

The Laundry Files x Chuck

First, we have to eliminate the entire 5th season of Chuck, which would make me very happy. I hated the fifth season and especially the series ending as much as I loved the first four seasons.

In the crossover, Black Chamber tech agent Stephen Bartkowski and Laundry tech Hartley Winterbottom are developing the Intersect as a way for agents to conduct the necessary computations to work magic in their heads without risking death by Krantzberg Syndrome. Harvey goes undercover with the KGB to take advantage of the Thirteenth Directorate’s research. An accident with an early version of the Intesect turns Harvey into Alexei Volkoff. Once Alexei recovers his memory and goes back to being Hartley, he and Chuck develop the Intersect 3.0, which finally makes it possible to conduct computational demonology in one’s head. Through a mishap, Morgan is the first person to download the new Intersect, which leads to various humorous subplots.

Along the way, they discover that Decker is heading up the Black Chamber, which is seeking to prevent the final development of the Intersect because they worship the Elder Gods. Casey and Gertrude take out Decker, clearing the way for his team to go operational with the new Intersect.

Carmichael Industries, Volkhoff Industries, and the Laundry unite forces to face CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.

The Regicide Report: The Final Episode (For Now)

In the later novels, there were two major developments. First, the existence of the Laundry and magic became public knowledge. Second, in order to stave off a world-ending apocalyptic disaster, members of the Laundry ally with an old enemy to stage a coup that installs an avatar of Nyarlathotep as Prime Minister. As usual when one chooses the lesser of two evils, things do not go well. Under the New Management, the British government becomes a theocracy ruled by a Lovecraftian Elder God. (AMAZON LINK)

In universe, the events of The Regicide Report is taking place circa 2015-16. Elizabeth II is still the Queen and, as the focus of belief by hundreds of millions of subjects has become a source of tremendous magical power that a sufficiently adept practitioner could use to great effect.

Multiple plots unfurl throughout the course of the book. A rump of Laundry senior management is scheming, although the target is only explicitly acknowledged in the latter third of the book. The Prime Minister’s chief priestess and her polygamous family are scheming. The Prime Minister is scheming.

Bob Howard is back—the book is supposedly Bob’s after-action report, which is not a spoiler as it comes up in the first chapter, but foreshadows the ending at least insofar as Bob’s survival is concerned—as is his wife Mo and a small host of characters from earlier novels. Bob and Mo seem to be mostly along for the ride, not aligned with any of the schemers, but simply trying to save the Queen and keep the world from ending.

The schemes all come together in what at first seems to be a climactic battle playing out in Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. But then comes an even more climactic battle in another dimension.

The Regicide Report checks all the boxes we’ve come to expect. Complex spy thriller plot? Check. Lovecraftian horrors? Check. Humor? Check. Easter eggs aplenty? Check. Adroit references to real world books and films that only true science fiction and/or horror fans will spot? Check.

By the end Stross manages to tie up a lot of loose ends, although not all. I’m still left wondering what Blue Hades and the Deep Seven think about the New Management and Case Nightmare Red, to cite but one example.

I’ve got two main complaints. First, Stross seems to have let the Laundry universe’s rules of magic slide. Yes, there are still computers doing magical computations, but the human practitioners seem to be able to perform magic without crunching numbers. Of course, this is an inherent problem with magic in fiction. Other than Brandon Sanderson, few writers are able to develop magic systems that are coherent and consistent over a long series. It’s why Tolkien and Martin keep magic mostly off-stage. A related problem is that Bob has become an extremely powerful practitioner, but he seems oddly overmatched at points.

Second, the ending is pretty anticlimactic. This is probably inevitable. We know from virtually the first page that Bob survives to write an after-action report. In addition, the pre-Regicide Report Laundry Files series includes a quartet of novels in the New Management subseries.3 We know going in that those novels took place in universe after the events of The Regicide Report, so Stross was locked into a specific outcome. Still.

Obviously, this is not the place to start if you haven’t been following the Laundry Files. But it is a mostly satisfying conclusion to a series that has given me a lot of pleasure over the years. If you haven’t explored the Laundry Files, I highly recommend going back and starting with The Atrocity Archives and following the series through to this fun conclusion.

“The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

My thoughts immediately went to an essay by the great conservative intellectual Russell Kirk, Political Errors at the End of the 20th Century, in which he blasted President George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy:

What are we to say of Mr. Bush's present endeavor to bring to pass a gentler, kinder New World Order? …

After carpet-bombing the Cradle of Civilization as no country ever had been bombed before, Mr. Bush sent in hundreds of thousands of soldiers to overrun the Iraqi bunkers -- that were garrisoned by dead men, asphyxiated. …

Now indubitably Saddam Hussein is unrighteous; but so are nearly all the masters of the "emergent" African states (with the Ivory Coast as a rare exception), and so are the grim ideologues who rule China, and the hard men in the Kremlin, and a great many other public figures in various quarters of the world. Why, I fancy that there are some few unrighteous men, conceivably, in the domestic politics of the United States. Are we to saturation-bomb most of Africa and Asia into righteousness, freedom, and democracy? And, having accomplished that, however would we ensure persons yet more unrighteous might not rise up instead of the ogres we had swept away? …

Prudent statesmen long have known that armed conflict, for all involved, ought to be the last desperate resort, to be entered upon only when all means of diplomacy, conciliation, and compromise have been exhausted.

Sadly, prudence is not one of Trump’s virtues (assuming hehas any).

To paraphrase Kirk, I would ask Trump: Are we to bomb Iran into righteousness, freedom, and democracy? And, even if by some miracle that were to happen, how would we ensure persons yet more unrighteous might not rise up instead of the ogres we had swept away?

And at what cost to our own country?

Set aside the distrurbing fact that the WSJ notes we might run “out of interceptors to fend off Tehran’s retaliation.”

What about the long-run consequences?

Back to Kirk (remember he was writing in the 1990s):

In this century, great empires have collapsed: the Austrian, the German, the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Italian, and the Japanese. …

But there remains an American Empire, still growing -- though expanding through the acquisition of client states ….

Such a universal ascendancy always has been resented by the lesser breeds without the law. Soon there sets to work a widespread impulse to pull down the imperial power. But that imperial power, strong in weapons, finds it possible for a time to repress the disobedient. In the long run -- well, as Talleyrand put it, "You can do everything with bayonets -- except sit on them." In the long run, the task of repression is too painful a burden to bear; so the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has discovered in the past few years. Napoleon discovered that hard truth earlier and King George III and the King's Friends discovered it between the years 1775 and 1781. …

But devastating Iraq (and the rescued Kuwait) is an uncompromising way of opening an era of sweetness and light. Peoples so rescued from tyrants might cry, as did the boy whom Don Quixote de la Mancha had saved from beating by the muleteers but who was thrashed by them not long later, nevertheless -- "In the name of God, Don Jorge de la Casablanca, don't rescue me again!"

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This week I decided to have a Friday dinner that would stick a little closer to the spirit of the season; namely, mushroom risotto.

I have made traditional risotto with all the blasted stirring, but it’s a lot of work. So I made some shortcuts.

• 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms (a lot of supermarket mushrooms come from China but I source mine—and all my other dried mushroom needs, as well as some fresh—from a domestic supplier who sources them from the US and Europe: Oregon Mushrooms)

• 1/2 cup white wine (I keep 187 ml bottles of Sutter Home Pinot Grigio in my pantry; I wouldn’t drink it alone but it does fine in cooking)

• 1 teaspoon olive oil (I use California Olive Ranch Global Blend as my everyday oil)

• 2 tablespoons truffle butter, divided (I use Urbani White Truffle Butter)

• 1 medium shallot, diced finely

• 2 cloves garlic, sliced very thin3

• water as needed

• 2 tablespoons Better than Bouillon reduced sodium roasted chicken base4

• one package of Alessi Imported Risotto con Funghi Porcini

• 1/2 tablespoon dried Italian parsley

• 1/2 tablespoon freeze-dried chives

• lots of freshly grated Parmesan (use the real Italian stuff)

Reconstitute the porcini mushrooms by soaking them in 1 hot water for 20 minutes. Strain the mushrooms, reserving the liquid. Rinse the mushrooms and then roughly chop them. Set aside.

Strain the reserved liquid through a very fine strainer (a Matcha sifter works well) or an unbleached coffee filter to remove any grit (there will be some). Add enough water to bring the total volume up to 2 1/2 cups.

Set your your multicooker (I use a Zavor LUX LCD 6 quart model) to saute.

When the multicooker signals that it’s reached temperature, add the olive oil and half the truffle butter. When they melt add the shallots. Saute until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for about 45 seconds. Add the risotto mix and stir to combine. Add the reserved porcini mushrooms and the dried herbs. Stir to combine.

Add the white wine and allow to reduce to a glaze, stirring a few times.

Add the water and bring to a boil. Add the bouillon base. Stir once more. Put the lid on the multicooker with the valve set to “pressure.” Stop the saute function. Choose the risotto function (it’s under the Grains menu).

When the multicooker announces that it’s finished, unplug it and allow it to sit for 10 minutes. This allows what’s known as a “natural release.”

Remove the lid. If all has gone well the risotto should resemble porridge, neither runny nor stiff. If the risotto is too dry, as a few tablespoons of water (or cream). If it’s too runny, plug the multicooker back in and set it to saute. Cook until it’s the right texture.

Transfer the risotto to plates, top with some Parmesan cheese, putting more cheese in a small bowl on the table for your spouse or date to add if they want.

The extra porcinis and other additions provide a depth and complexity of flavor that effectively disguise the store-bought basis. It’ll taste (almost) like you slaved over it for the hours risotto from scratch requires.

A small side salad makes a nice addition. I combined arugula, spinach, sliced cherry tomatoes, shallot rings, and truffled goat cheese with a light vinaigrette.

Leftovers make a good midnight snack.

But now I must confess that, having striven to honor the spirit as well as the letter of the Lenten penitential observance, I then pushed the boat right out by serving a Sea Smoke Ten Pinot Noir.5 As a young wine (2023 vintage), it’s bigger and more intense than a typical Pinot Noir. It’ll age well (and probably needs to). Nevertheless, it’s already a delicious blend of flavor associations, including blueberries, blackcurrants, and herbs.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The conventional understanding of that provision was that it guaranteed birthright citizenship; i.e., if you were born in the US, you automatically became a US citizen regardless of whether your parents were citizens.1

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160, in which he stated that:

It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

If given effect, the order significantly reduced the scope of birthright citizenship; specifically it sought to eliminate citizenship for children of undocumented aliens living in the US and the purported practice of “birth tourism” whereby people lawfully enter the US and have babies (intentionally or otherwise) while here.

The Executive Order sparked considerable outrage and generated multiple lawsuits challenging it. One of those is now pending before the US Supreme Court, Trump v. Barbara. It’s scheduled for oral argument on April 1 of this year. (I’m trying to work up a quip about the argument being held on April Fool’s Day.)

I’m not a constitutional law nor an immigration law expert, so I haven’t commented on the case previously and probably would not have done so. But then I saw that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has filed an amicus brief in the case.2 The USCCB has filed amicus briefs in a substantial number of cases, on issues ranging from abortion to religious liberty (collected here).

As a lawyer and practicing Catholic, that development seemed noteworthy enough to justify digging into it.

The Brief’s Main Arguments

In addition to arguing that birthright citizenship is a sound constitutional doctrine, which I won’t discuss (see above), the amicus brief also argues that it is deeply rooted in Western legal tradition and Catholic social teaching.

Western Legal and Social Tradition

As to the former, the brief situates birthright citizenship within a long lineage of Western jurisprudence, particularly the doctrine of jus soli stemming from Roman law and which was articulated in English common law centuries ago (e.g., Calvin’s Case, 1608).

This history demonstrates that birthright citizenship is neither an innovation nor an aberration, but a deeply rooted principle of the Western legal tradition—one that the United States consciously embraced and constitutionalized in the wake of grave moral and legal failure.

It’s one of the best rhetorical moves in the brief, as it frames the Fourteenth Amendment not as creating a new rule, but as formalizing an inherited legal tradition. I assume it is intended to appeal to the originalists on the Court.

But this line of argument doesn’t strike me as a slam dunk. Critics who believe in a living Constitution likely would argue that opponents might contend that modern migration patterns differ significantly from those of 1608 or 1868, requiring an updated interpretations. They would also argue that simply being rooted in tradition does not automatically establish moral or constitutional correctness.

But I don’t buy the living Constitution approach. To me the biggest part of the problem with this line of argument was captured by a rather snide commentator on X:

As I understand the history, many Western legal systems have long based their citizenship rules on jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent). If so, the Western tradition has never been exclusively territorial.

Catholic Social Teaching: Relevance?

Before turning to the portion of the brief dealing with Catholic doctrine, let us pause to consider what relevance that line of argument has in a Supreme Court brief.

The brief claims (as a major section heading) that the “Executive Order is immoral.” It is true that there are six Catholic justices at the moment, but opinions differ widely on what role their religion should play in judicial decision making (that would be a good topic for a future post(s)).

In my view, this is a rhetorically aggressive move that is unlikely to persuade any justice not already in agreement. I haven’t done appellate advocacy since my moot court days back in law school, but I was taught that effective appellate advocacy—especially in an amicus posture—should frame arguments in terms of legal consequences and human impacts rather than direct moral condemnation of the opposing party's policy.

Indeed, the Bishops were well positioned to make an argument focused on practical human impacts. As they note, for example, the “Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (‘CLINIC’) is a national non-profit organization established in 1988 by the USCCB.” It has 415 immigration law programs across the country with 3,000 legal professionals who assist 500,000 immigrants a year. The impact on those the Church helps in that and other ways might have been a stronger point on which to focus.3

In addition, I find the brief rhetorically ambiguous and confusing. The brief’s thesis oscillates between two distinct claims: (a) the Executive Order is unconstitutional, and (b) it is immoral. Part I attempts the former, but largely grounds its arguments in moral teachings. Part II is almost entirely devoted to the latter, but never explains to the Court why the immorality of a policy bears on its constitutionality. Courts don’t strike down executive orders because they violate Church teaching.

For a Supreme Court brief, this is a meaningful gap. An amicus should either (a) argue that moral tradition informs constitutional interpretation (a textualist/originalist theory worth developing), or (b) openly acknowledge its role is purely persuasive on policy grounds. The brief tries to do both without committing to either. As a result, the brief fails to demonstrate why Catholic teaching should move a secular court's constitutional analysis.

Evaluation the Moral/Theological Argument

The brief makes three moral arguments grounded in Catholic teaching:

1. Human dignity: “The Church sees in men and women, in every person, the living image of God himself.”

   1. Hence, the Bishops’ brief argues, citizenship is not merely an administrative status, it is a recognition of ontological worth. The logic proceeds as follows:
      Human beings bear divine image → human dignity is inherent → political authority must respect that dignity → laws that deny recognition at birth risk denying dignity.

2. The integrity of the family: “Because the family is the foundational unit of society—the ‘original cell of social life’—Catholic teaching consistently rejects state actions that undermine family integrity.”

   1. Destabilizing children’s legal status destabilizes the family itself. In Catholic social teaching, the state’s authority is subordinate to the moral priority of the family.

3. Subsidiarity: “The principle of subsidiarity teaches that larger social institutions must not overwhelm or displace smaller, more immediate communities, particularly the family, which the Church recognizes as ‘the first and vital cell of society.’”

   1. This is the brief's most intellectually interesting contribution. The brief’s argument that birthright citizenship operationalizes subsidiarity—by embedding a child in community structures from birth and enabling participation in them—is creative and, I suspect, not commonly seen in constitutional litigation. It gives the brief a distinctive Catholic voice.

   2. Subsidiarity is a core Catholic doctrine. In paragraph 1883, the Catechism teaches that "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need.”

   3. Subsidiarity is closely linked to federalism; indeed, subsidiarity is arguably the moral underpinning of federalism. Hence, this argument may well have appeal to the members of the court who value federalism. (So why didn;t the brief make it?)

   4. On the other hand, a Westlaw search turned up only one case in which subsidiarity was discussed, U.S. v. Morrison,4 and the discussion was limited to Justice Breyer’s dissent.5 So it’s not an argument the Court is used to hearing.

As a practicing Catholic, of course, I give religious assent to all three principles. But God gave us minds to consider and evaluate, so let’s spend a minute or two on a conflict in Catholic teaching that the Bishop’s brief just sort of slides right by.

The Catholic Catechism teaches that nations do have a right to control their borders:

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption.

The Bishops acknowledge this but only in a single dependent clause: “the Church recognizes the legitimate authority of sovereign nations to regulate immigration and secure their borders. …” But the independent clause of that sentence immediately switches to another Church teaching: “this authority includes a corresponding duty to protect the God-given dignity of every human person.”

This is (arguably) and example of a classic Catholic theological move: “both/and.” This is a foundational theological principle, which embraces paradox by holding seemingly opposing truths in harmony. It avoids “either/or” fallacies to emphasize a holistic view—such as grace and nature, faith and reason, or scripture and tradition—reflecting a “fullness” of faith.6

Both the grammatical structure of the brief’s statement and the text of the argument suggest that human dignity comes first. And I find that very Biblical:

• “You shall not oppress a resident alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:9.

• “For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who has no favorites, accepts no bribes, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the resident alien, giving them food and clothing. So you too should love the resident alien, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:17-19.

• “You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt.” Leviticus 19:34.

Conclusion

I came away from the brief disappointed. Again, I will concede that constitutional law, immigration law, and appellate advocacy are not in my wheelhouse. Nevertheless, I think the brief would have been much stronger if it had made three different moves. First, it should have engaged the "subject to the jurisdiction" textualist debate directly, using natural law and Western tradition arguments to support the originalist case for broad birthright citizenship. Second, it should have developed the statelessness issue into a cognizable legal argument under international law. Third, it should have reserved the theological material for a narrower, more tightly integrated role. The current structure—moral argument bolted onto thin constitutional analysis—is unlikely to persuade anyone not already persuaded.

Having said that, however, the brief may have been intended for a broader audience than just the nine Justices and their law clerks.

Our nation has not exactly been treating “the alien who resides with [us] no differently than the natives born among you.” To the contrary, what we saw in Minneapolis and elsewhere smacks of oppression. As a call to action, the brief’s moral arguments deserve a wide audience.

… we need to treat electricity generation as a platform for broader growth and not just an item in the household consumption budget. …

Most Democrats would tell you that … they have a vision of the world in which we electrify home heat, get people using electric cars (and eventually trucks), and welcome a renaissance of American manufacturing. Setting data centers and A.I. entirely to the side for a moment, that’s a vision that inherently involves producing and consuming a lot more electricity. …

If you need a lot more electricity, then planning for new generation investments and new transmission is really important. And across most of the country the regulatory paradigm isn’t set up to do that.

It’s a typically interesting analysis of the regulatory and political issues, but I want to use it as a jumping off point to revisit a subject I tackled years ago on my old blog; namely, why not leverage our Navy’s expertise with small nuclear reactors.

I agree with something Andrew Sullivan (who has very kindly become a paid subscriber to my little journal1) said back in 2010 in commenting on President Obama’s State of the Union address:

There’s no way to tackle our carbon addiction without nuclear energy as part of the solution.

Commenting on that same speech Bradford Plumer wrote:

Guess Obama wasn't kidding when he gave all those shout-outs to nuclear power in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. According to Bloomberg, Obama's 2011 budget will request $54 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors—triple the previous amount. …

And the case against comes from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which argues that big nuclear projects have historically been very risky—prone to delays and cost overruns—and that the default rate on these loans can be quite high, sticking taxpayers with the bill. Instead, says UCS, it'd be better to direct that money toward cheaper, more reliable options for reducing emissions—efficiency or waste-heat capture or even wind power.

All of which got me to thinking.

Almost since its founding, the Army Corps of Engineers has had a major domestic, peace-time function in civilian civil works projects. So there is a precedent for having the military run such projects.

The Navy already operates dozens of small nuclear reactors in aircraft carriers and submarines, with an outstanding record of safety and reliability. They have an established training program that churns out nuclear-capable officers.

By analogy to the Army Corps of Engineering, we could create a Navy Corps of Nuclear Engineering. It would build and operate dozens of small nuclear power plants around the country. To address security concerns, the first plants would be built on military bases, where the garrison can provide security. Licensing costs would be cut because the government would own and operate the plants.

The proposal should not offend small government sensibilities. Nuclear power is rife with market failures (and government failures). Huge research and development costs associated with traditional large scale nuclear power plants may be beyond the ability of private firms to finance. In addition, we know that private firms tend to underproduce the sort of basic R&D necessary to develop new generations of power plants. But the Navy already spends money to develop new naval reactors, which presumably could be scaled up at reasonable costs. Since the Navy need not worry about earning market competitive rates of return on its investment in R&D, moreover, there’s no economic disincentive to conducting that sort of R&D in the Navy.

Private utilities are subject to state utility regulators who notoriously meddle, typically to “protect” consumers from rate increases, but usually with the outcome of making plants nonprofitable. A federal Naval Corps of Nuclear Engineering presumably would be outside the scope of state regulation.

Private utilities used cost-plus contracting when building nuclear power plants—with all its notorious problems—because there were serious problems of incomplete information when dealing with large scale, non-standardized plants. Smaller, standardized plants should be amenable to fixed price contracts.

Private parties have a hard time adequately insuring against very low probability but very high magnitude events. Since the taxpayer likely would ultimately be on the hook anyway, why not have the government own the plant and self-insure? And profit from selling electricity?

Another advantage of my proposal is that lots of military bases are brownfield sites that would require mega-investments in environmental cleanup before being converted to civilian use. So why not build a nuclear plant there?

Granted, if you go to a commercial nuclear plant, you will find it staffed with [wait for it] Navy veterans. I used to have a friend who was a nuclear engineer on an aircraft carrier whose plan was to do his 20 and get out so as to double dip with a high-paying job with a private sector. But the Army Corps of Engineers figures out ways to deal with staffing and retention. So why can’t the navy?

My proposal makes even more sense today. The U.S. military is already working on small, mobile 5 MW nuclear reactors to power expeditionary bases. The Army’s Janus Project “aims to deliver secure, resilient, and reliable energy to support national defense installations and critical missions.” Just this month, an Air Force C-17 airlifted a mini-reactor from California to Utah.

I’ll even donate a mockup of their insignia:

By the Way

You may recall my recent post on Pareto efficiency and AI disruptions:

I’ve got a new post over at BainbridgeOnCorporations.com, my corporate law and governance Substack that deals with the stock market’s ability to price AI disruptions:

Bainbridge on Corporations

The Stock Market and AI

Two WSJ articles caught my eye today. First, AI-Induced Tech Selloff Spoils the IPO Parade…

Read more

a month ago · 1 like · Stephen Bainbridge

Ingredients

• 12 ounces Peking duck meat, skin removed and chopped into bite-size pieces

• 1/3 cup Ramen Bae Veggie Mix

• 1/3 cup frozen peas

• 1/3 cup sliced garlic green beans (leftovers)

• 3 scallions sliced thin and divided

• 2 cloves garlic minced

• 2 eggs

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I like Kikkoman reduced sodium)

• 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce (I like Lee Kum Kee)

• 1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce (I used the leftover sauce from the restaurant)

• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha

• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

• 2-1/2 cups leftover sticky rice

Mise en place

Beat the eggs together with a teaspoon of water, a pinch of salt, a grind or two of black pepper, and a dash of Tabasco. (I usually do it in a coffee cup.)

In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Hoisin sauce, sesame oil, Sriracha, garlic powder, and onion powder.

Instructions

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a wok. Add the dehydrated ramen toppings and peas to boiling water. Cook two-and-a-half minutes. Add green beans. Strain and set aside.

Heat a teaspoon of peanut or other high smoke point oil in the wok over high heat. (I was using a nonstick wok, so I needed less than a regular wok would require.) Add white parts of scallions and garlic, stir frying for about 45 seconds. Add eggs, stirring rapidly. Remove to a small bowl while the eggs are still a little runny and set aside.

Drizzle a bit more oil into the pan and add duck. Stir fry for 2 minutes. At the one-and-a-half minute mark add 1/2 tablespoon of the sauce mixture. Remove to a bowl and set aside.

Drizzle a bit more oil into the pan and add rice. Stir fry for two minutes. Add remaining sauce and stir fry for another minute. Add eggs and vegetables. Stir fry one minute.

Garnish with green parts of the scallions and serve.

Wine

I’ll be making a lot of wine recommendations here, so you should know my biases

Red>white>dessert

Mature>Young

Big>Light

California>Italy>France>Everybody else

Cabernet Sauvignon>Zinfandel>Chardonnay>Sangiovese>Everything else

With the fried rice, you’re dealing with complex gamey, umami rich flavors. It’s not a meal for which to push the boat out, as the food would overpower an expensive mature red, while a big oaky white would not work either. I opted for a 2022 Daou Pessimist (the currently available vintage). It’s a blend of Petite Sirah, Sirah, and Zinfandel. It’s pretty high alcohol, but not so that it tastes hot on the palate. Lush forward fruit suggesting blackberry, plums, and blueberry. There’s a lingering suggestion of sour cherry on the finish. It worked really well with the fried rice. It’ll run you somewhere in the $20 neighborhood.

Tools

I know I’ll lose my foodie cred with some people for using a nonstick wok, but I love my All-Clad HA1 Chef’s Pan. It’s a cross between a skillet and a wok, which makes it an incredibly flexible tool. It heats fast and retains heat very well. Cleanup is a breeze.

I dote on Pyrex 6 ounce custard cups to hold mise en place items. They’re the right size for most things like onions, celery, garlic, etc….

I prefer Riedel’s O wine tumblers to stemmed glasses. They fit in the dishwasher. They’re easy to use. They store easily. Plus, they come in a variety of shapes to match specific varietals. With Pessimist I use the Syrah style.

Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but like all law professors I can pretend like the best of them. And as I read Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, I couldn’t help remembering Jackson’s home run spree. Because Gorsuch nailed it. And, along the way, he delivered a spanking of his colleagues for the ages.

First, he slams his colleagues for their inconsistencies.

I have to agree with both Lewis and Shapiro’s take:

Anyway, back to Gorsuch. He tasks the liberals for being inconsistent in their application of statutory interpretation.

Then he reprimands them for preferring unelected technocrats ensconced in “independent” administrative agencies of dubious constitutionality to the legislators empowered by the Constitution to make law (a point to which he elegantly returns at the end of the concurrence):

Then comes a lengthy reply to the three conservative dissenters:

Finally, he ends with a paean to government by elected legislators rather than unelected technocrats:

As someone who has long argued that Presidents of both parties rely too much on using executive orders to bypass the legislative process, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

But now we must turn to a most regrettable incident; namely, of course, President Trump’s asinine news conference: