Routine Revelations

The antitrust ruling against Google describes how Google benefits from being a monopoly, but Om Malik convincingly describes how Google’s monopoly is it’s undoing. Thinking back to the Microsoft antitrust case in the 90s, I can’t help but wonder whether going through that helped Microsoft in the long run as it seems to be in a better position today than expected. An article in The Atlantic points out that how the U.S. handles antitrust is too reactive and therefore doesn’t prevent harm that is described in the ruling, instead there ought to be greater scrutiny and blockage of mergers and acquisitions.

Finding that a company is a monopoly matters less than determining a proper remedy, which is not the same as punishment. The purpose of the remedy in antitrust law should be restoration of competition in the market in which a company is deemed to monopolize.

The judge has found Google to be a monopoly in a very specific market, and so the remedies that ought to be decided on should be intended to restore competition in that market. My interpretation of the ruling is that Google is a monopolist of the market of selling text ads as part of web search results and it gained that monopoly by paying Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine of their products.

In my opinion the remedy in the context of the market above is specific and what Ben Thompson suggests, prohibit Google from entering contracts to make Google Search the default search engine for other products and dissolve existing contracts. I do not think breaking up Google would have any affect of restoring competition in the text ad in web search results market. Note that such a remedy would not prevent a company like Apple to continue to use Google as the default they just wouldn’t get paid by Google to do so, and I wonder whether not allowing Google to be selected as the default for a period of time would be more harmful to Apple or Mozilla than Google. In fact, Apple and Mozilla stands to lose a lot money from such a remedy.

Some will suggest that Android should be split of as a separate company, but does Android have a significant amount of share of the smartphone market for that to matter? I don’t think so, and consequently the more meaningful remedy is tied to Apple. If Apple is not paid by Google to be the default search engine on Apple products, would Apple choose Bing or DuckDuckGo?

We learned from the Microsoft Antitrust case in the 90s that final resolution of antitrust law takes a long time and markets will change during that time. What is more likely to happen is that by the time the case moves through the appeals process to the Supreme Court users may be using AI-based tools in place of Google search.

Daniel Miessler suggests replacing the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” with “Intelligence Tasks.” The explanation he provides for what are Intelligence Tasks does a good job of describing how this new technology is more than automation. I recommend reading and saving this article.

Officially the All-Star game is considered to be the half-way mark of a MLB season, but the real mid-season milestone that matters is the trade deadline. The actions taken by a team by the trade deadline indicate whether the team management thinks it can make the playoffs, if they do then they will try to make trades that help the team win in the current season, otherwise they start work on the next season. Jed Hoyer’s comments that he was focusing on 2025 was indication that Cub’s management doesn’t expect to make the playoffs this year.

Last season the Chicago Cubs were surprising buyers at the deadline, having gone on a winning streak that convinced Jed Hoyer the team had the shot at a wildcard spot, but that didn’t happen and David Ross the scapegoat. Now this season, after signing Craig Counsell to the highest salary of any MLB manager the Cubs are last in the NL Central with a 51-58 record and they are seven games out of the last wild card spot. In short, the Cubs are likely not making the playoffs this year. Are they going to fire Counsell?

Even though the playoff positioning is different between last year and this year, a fair assessment is that the team is really no better than the year before, nor the year before that or any other year up to 2016. What we have is the same problems of unreliable hitting and pitching from the bullpen. The fact that the 2024 team’s starting pitching has been so good is as much an indicator of how much MLB has changed since 2016 than anything. It used to be that teams with strong starting pitching were winners, but the game now does not rely so much on starting pitching to win games.

The sole purpose of starting pitching in the game today is to not lose the game in the first five innings by not giving up more than three runs, the bullpen is expected to now win every game by not giving up any runs. If that weren’t bad enough, hitting is a completely lost art in baseball, with hitters needing only a .244 batting average to be considered good. The game has come down to this, pitching keeping the opponents from hitting home runs until your own batters hit two or more home runs.

The Chicago Cubs line up has been made up of the similar type of unreliable hitters for nearly a decade now, which is a clear indicator to me that the front office’s idea of what is a major league hitter is out of sync with reality. As long as Hoyer is running the Cubs they will not be any different, and so it’s on ownership to recognize the insanity of continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.

If I were the owner of the Chicago Cubs, now that the trade deadline has past, I would fire Hoyer immediately to signal that it’s time for a change. Take the time to review and interview people over the remainder of the season to find the right replacement to have your new front office in place before the off season begins in earnest.

I am convinced that a problem, may be even “the” problem, is that there is too much religion in America, and people do not recognize this problem because they have a too narrow definition of religion. Religion is anything, usually a group of people or an institution, to which one identifies themselves with and is loyal to because they derive meaning from that group. For example, complete this sentence, “I am….”.

If you are like me you will find yourself making many “I am …” statements that not only include faith-based groups like “I am Christian” or “I am Muslim” but also, “I am a father,” and “I am a woman”, and also “I am a Green Bay Packer fan,” and “I am a NASCAR fan”. For too many today, their answers are also “I am a Republican” or “I am a liberal” or “I am a conservative.”

So many groups to which we bind our selves to and that which demand our loyalty. I think all of these religions, yes even the faith-based ones, tend to be practices of idolatry. My understanding of religion explains how Donald Trump has managed to change what it means to be an evangelical Christian to a person who supports Donald Trump rather than a person who believes in the divinity of Christ.

Jesus is not the founder of the religion known by 90% of the world as Christianity, that religion was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine. Jesus founded a movement, a way from religion that demands our loyalty toward our true selves as kin of of the divine, the divine that simply is “I am”.

A Weinermobile rolls over on a U.S. freeway, oh the humanity!

Starting a virtual walk of the John Muir Trail.

Today I completed walking the 535 mile distance of the Camino de Santiago, tracked in the Walk The Distance app.

I am of the opinion that the U.S. Presidential election cycle is too long and tool expensive. Time is needed for a good democratic process, but still what we have is too long. We are now testing whether a short election cycle can work. Personally, I think it will because it is easier to build and sustain energy for a few months rather than a year or more.

Over the years I have heard it said that the Democrat and Republican political parties are essentially the same. To the extent they are both political parties, this is true, but I think the real consequential factor in the United States since 2016 is how different the parties have become. How it came to be that Biden dropped out of the 2024 Presidential race as the Democrat candidate will not and cannot happen in the Republican party because nobody in that party has the willingness, strength of character, or courage to challenge its king. The 2024 Federal and State elections are truly about two different parties. Democrats will challenge their leaders, and I believe would impeach and convict their President if found guilty, Republicans will not challenge their President nor impeach him let alone convict him, as we have seen them do when the House impeached Trump twice. Recent Supreme Court decisions have made it imperative members of Congress put their oath to preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution above party.

According to Ben Thompson, EU regulation requires Microsoft to provide kernel space access to security software providers and the same regulation does not apply to Apple. If true, the irony is that the effort to block technology consolidation contributed to the problem, so claiming such consolidation is a root cause would be wrong.

What I know is that Jesus taught love expressed as forgiveness as non-violent resistance against the idea that the only way to peace is through violence. Practicing hope, faith, and love is our tools. I have found the best way to feel hope is to practice gratitude. The question is not why there is evil in the world, the real question is why there is any good! Whether you chose to follow Jesus or Mr. Rogers, look for the good that is all around you, and do not be afraid.

I agree with all of Dave’s points here about the Democrat candidacy for President. As much as I dislike straight party voting, I think in this election, no matter who are the actual people running, our votes are for either a Democrat or Republican governing.

We need to be focusing more on the Senate than the President. The Senate’s power to convict an impeached President is now the only constitutional check against the President. We cannot trust Republicans to impeach one of their own no matter what they do, this is how far over the cliff Republicans have gone.

Finally, I think there needs to be much more talk about how Trump politicized a national emergency (COVID). The moment Trump started prioritizing federal assistance to states with governors who bend the knee to him is the moment he showed how he thinks and feels about people.

Finished reading: Render Unto Caesar by John Dominic Crossan 📚

Most of Crossan’s writing puts the teaching of Jesus within our human evolutionary challenge. Human ego desires to be in control and believes there can only be one, and this norm of civilization sees the only way toward peace is violence. (The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for human ego.)

Jesus teaches that there is another way, one of nonviolent resistance practiced by love of opponent (enemy) and neighbor, expressed by forgiveness. I am convinced that left to our own ego driven evolution, humanity with destroy itself. Only the Way taught by Jesus will save us from what appears to be inevitable.

Finished reading: Naming the Powers by Walter Wink 📚

The way political parties vet their candidates for President is through primary elections. Democrats making claims that Biden’s advisors have been shielding him really ought to be pointing fingers at the DNC. Had Biden been forced to face competition in state primary elections then Democrats would have had the option to determine for themselves whether they want Biden to be their candidate. The real source for the demise of democracy in the United States is the political parties, as Washington warned us about.

Seems to me that the SCOTUS ruling yesterday means that any order the President gives to the military is lawful. In other words, it sure looks to me like SCOTUS has made it perfectly legal for the President to overthrow the government because the military cannot discern what is lawful and not lawful. If the Senate is about to convict the President on articles of impeachment, the President can just order the Military to take over/arrest Congress and how are they going to be able to say that is not a lawful order? Bear in mind, the military is the actual ultimate authority of the United States. No police force and no citizen militia can stand against it, the only possible intervention would be another military. No person given the power of absolute immunity should be commander and chief of the military.

Maybe I was dreaming. I could have sworn I was taught in school that the U.S. Constitution institutes checks and balances between the three branches of government. It is hard to understand after today’s SCOTUS ruling how that remains. I mean, does a future President even have to abide by a Supreme Court decision?

I wonder. Does, the SCOTUS decision today on the Presidential Immunity case put a thumb on the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for which Congress can impeach a President? I can imagine a future Congress saying, sorry, we can’t impeach the President because he was a carrying out an official act.