Morning! We start with Ed’s remarks about numbers, since it is relevant to discussions about all sorts of things soon to come.

The number of days left before some other important things is just one of them: three more until the Debate, twenty-three to the Government Shut down now being discussed, and fifty-eight until the Election. Ed knows his numbers, since he is a former Wall Street analyst who successfully developed and utilized something called “pattern recognition” techniques during his career on the Street. He used the technique to make good money, so there is some validity to his technique. We don’t claim he is right, but his approach to numbers is part of our analytic thinking these days.

In early 2021, he noticed a rise in reports about sudden deaths among athletes and young people across the country. Curious, he applied his pattern identification methodology to collect data from industry sources in insurance, funeral homes, and government databases about the change in the way things were reported. We happened to be close to some of the “earlies,” so naturally we had an interest.

That is part of the messaging. One of the major traditional parties is- seriously- running a candidate from President on “vibes.” Seriously.

The Navy Stories we mentioned the other day are symptomatic of modern messaging. We mentioned the ones about the destroyer skipper relieved over a bad picture and the one regarding a Senior Chief and her illicit entertainment network the other day since they were real but unusual. But there is more to the latter story.

The Command Senior Chief had installed a Starlink dish attached to the mast, providing access to a satellite network used for military command and control exercise- that was used to get quality entertainment programming to the ship unknown to the commander.

In political lawfare, Judge Juan Merchan ruled yesterday that Trump will be sentenced in the “hush money” convictions on November 26, three weeks after election day. He wrote to “dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence to give an advantage to, or create a disadvantage for, any political party and/or any candidate for any office,” which of course is exactly the point of everything he has been doing. It is not known who told him to make the decision.

Merchan’s daughter is part of that story. The Harris campaign hired her nine days after she was elevated to the top of the ticket, according to a partisan ethics complaint filed Friday by Rep Elise Stefanik (R-NY). The suit claims the Harris campaign paid $468 to Loren Merchan’s political consulting firm. Small change, compared to the millions paid to family members and senior consultants by the Chinese, but evocative of the scale and pervasive nature of the way ordinary corruption used to work.

The warfare continues in the electoral process as well. North Carolina Court of Appeals just overturned a lower court stay and ordered RFK Jr’s name to be taken off the General Election ballot in the state. Mail-in ballots were supposed to be sent out today in NC but they will now have to be re-printed. Michigan’s Court of Appeals overturned a lower court judge and the Michigan Department of State and ordered Kennedy’s name removed from the ballot on Friday.

We are talking about matters as small as the impact of making voters think enough to write in the name of the person they actually want to vote for, so you can see the depth of the matters in play.

The motive is plain. Kennedy’s support to Trump cannot be permitted to be reflected in votes for the despised threat to Democracy, so even if the candidate wants his name removed, anything that could help evil must be squashed, right?

That leads us to analysis of what is being presented as “truth” these days. The moment of Truth nears, as voting is starting. The North Carolina and Michigan ballot dispute is just part of it. We checked on the web for things here in Arlington. We usually vote “Absentee in Person” with photo ID at the registrar’s office to avoid the hurly-burly of what used to be Election Day.

The Registrar says we can do it starting on the 20th, so we are containing our excitement until then. But we will take a little journey through pattern recognition to look beyond voting, voter registration rolls, crime statistics, jobs and the way all the other numbers are presented these days. Some pattern recognition is useful to help understand truthful (or truthful looking) information to get us to do what they want.

Whoever they are. But that is a different matter, isn’t it? More on that in the diminishing days of uncertainty to come!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com