Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Republicans in disarray!

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Monday Evening Open Thread: The CryptoBros Who Want to Own Dune

Monday Evening Open Thread: The CryptoBros Who Want to Own Dune

by | 112 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

My personal suspicion is that the end goal is some variation on ‘NFTs’, which may or may not involve ‘money laundering’ but quite possibly premises some variation on ‘affinity fraud’.

Verge, understandably, is kinder towards the Spice Collective:

Last year, a collective of cryptocurrency fans pooled millions of dollars to buy a copy of the story bible for director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s legendary never-made adaptation of the novel Dune. After winning a November auction, the group voted last week on a direction for the project and got promptly roasted online for allegedly not understanding what they’d bought. Their plans included an animated series inspired by Jodorowsky’s Dune, and as any good collector likely knows, buying a commemorative copy of a script or storyboard doesn’t give you the right to shoot your own version.

The actual situation seems more ambiguous than some critics are suggesting. The Dune story bible’s owners, known as Spice DAO (short for “decentralized autonomous organization”), appear perfectly aware they don’t own Dune itself. Instead, they’re committing to an original series “inspired by” the book. The whole scheme might help illustrate why art can’t be reduced to a neat series of copyright licenses — rather than simply showing that “crypto bros aren’t sure how rights work.”

That said, a lot of them probably aren’t…

Spice DAO outlined its future plans in an inaugural governance proposal that was approved by 95 percent of token-holding voters. In addition to electing a four-person core management team, it commits the DAO to a set of four goals between January and March of 2022: “gain physical custody of Jodorowsky’s Dune book by arranging shipping and storage,” scan every page of the book, hire a social media agency, and “present a film treatment and budget by Roble Ridge Productions for the original animated limited series inspired by the book for a community vote.” (The series was previously announced in December.) On Twitter, Spice DAO noted that it planned to “sell it to a streaming service” in the long term…

Spice DAO obviously wouldn’t need to own a copy of the Dune bible to make a Dune-like series that wasn’t explicitly derived from Jodorowsky’s work. But I haven’t seen public statements indicating that the central parties involved believe otherwise. From the outside, the auction purchase looks plausibly like a publicity and funding strategy, not a botched attempt to buy a copyright. After all, anybody can write a script indirectly inspired by Jodorowsky’s Dune — if you want yours to get noticed, hooking up with a group of fans to purchase a rare collector’s item isn’t a bad gambit.

It’s unfortunately hard to tell how many people backing Spice DAO are on the same page about what they’re funding. Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day newsletter, for instance, outlines some significant confusion around voting, copyright, and what “adapting” the script should mean…

So, I guess, if you’re a big fan of Dune and/or cryptocurrency, this is an exciting opportunity to advance new visions of an sf masterwork. And if you’re not, well, there’s plenty opportunity for multiple amusing-from-the-outside train wrecks?

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  5. 5.

    Old Man Shadow

    “Hahaha… of course I understand copyright laws. I’m not going to make Dune. I just want to make a story about a planet that is entirely sand, a group of natives that everyone hates and thinks are savages, a chosen one, and a galactic empire…”

    Disney Lawyer looks up from his iron throne a thousand miles away.

    “I sense… a great disturbance in the Force…”

  6. 6.

    germy

    Knew a guy who went into one of the major branches of the military and he told me their unofficial motto was “killing people I don’t know for people I don’t like” https://t.co/GsaRk8e0Bo

    — Dennis B. Hooper (@dennisbhooper) January 17, 2022

    “When someone says they’d kill for free college”

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy: Well! Looks like Usingimaginarycurrencytolaunder bloodmoney dot com might be going belly up sooner than expected! I hope Matt Damon got paid well.

  14. 14.

    raven

    @germy:
    “We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

  15. 15.

    Kalakal

    @CROAKER: I’ve got a copy of 21st Century Foss, maybe I’ve got the rights to Dune.

    Sounds like a combination of marketing and ignorance to me

    ETA And a copy of Hardware – double claim!

  16. 16.

    Cermet

    Unlikely the principle bought this not knowing it doesn’t give them any rights – that said, I agree many of the voters were more then likely mislead; that is a very good thing considering how they got their monies in the first place. The leader of this effort might have, as an after thought, decided that publicity was also worthwhile but the price they paid seems like such a waste of resources. But then, we are talking about it across many media platforms.

  23. 23.

    counterfactual

    Given that Jodorowsky completely missed the thesis of Dune, I’m not sure Dune fans would like it. Paul is *not* a messianic hero, he’s a pawn of the forces he unleashes.

    The pre-production art work is pretty, though.

  24. 24.

    Mike E

    @Chief Oshkosh: I honestly had to push through the first episode, suspend disbelief as it were, since my last job was working at a performance venue and it seemed a bit haphazard and capricious at the start… I’m glad I did, now that I’m about halfway through the season.

  26. 26.

    J R in WV

    OK, Lessee now…

    They can’t use the word / title “Dune” nor the word “spice”, nor any of the names or words used in the novel “Dune” … hmm.  No “Sandworms” nor “Navigators” nor “Bene Gesserit” (sorry if ‘m mispelling some of these integral terms, I haven’t read Dune for some decades now…) No Duke Atrides, nor Emperor…

    What exactly do these lame suckers think in their fevered imaginations imagine they bought besides a never made movie book? Need vaccinations against stupid, hmm??

  27. 27.

    SpaceUnit

    Also, what are the chances that this wasn’t even a blind auction and that they just opened the bidding with all the money in their pockets?

  28. 28.

    Ken

    @SpaceUnit: I’m provisionally crediting the guy who came up with the scheme with some intelligence, or at least low cunning. But the people who gave him their money? Yeah, bag of hammers, box of rocks, whatever metaphor you prefer.

  29. 29.

    burnspbesq

    In fairness, copyright law is some weird shit—and I say that as someone who formerly specialized in international tax, so I know from weird. It’s easy to get lost in the metaphysics of the thing.

    Which, I suppose, makes it a perfect tool for scam artists.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    Betty White was so nice, even Google has a tribute to her on her birthday. Google her name to see it.

  31. 31.

    SpaceUnit

    @Ken:

    Plus, if your intentions were to put out some bootleg rip-off version of the Dune concept why would you need to shell out a fortune for a collectors edition copy of the novel?  You could get a copy at Goodwill for $1.50 and have the exact same legal rights to the actual story (none).

    What am I missing?

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    I am still at the point where I see a story about “crypto this” and “NFT that,” and I think, Nope, still makes no sense.

  34. 34.

    Chetan Murthy

    @SpaceUnit: One of the things about this space — this entire space — is that the promoters are trying to convince normal people (you, me, my mom) that it’s real.  So spending big bucks in splashy transactions is …. advertising.  I know, I know, I know: “what maroons”.  But that’s how they think.

  35. 35.

    Kirk Spencer

    @J R in WV:

    Actually they can get away with spice as a term for a drug and emperor. Depending on some details Navigators might be possible.

  36. 36.

    RSA

    I seem to recall that there’s significant overlap between libertarians and CryptoBros, and I remember from long-ago arguments with the former that many don’t believe in the concept of intellectual property. They tend to argue along the same lines as software pirates–“It’s not theft if I’m taking a copy and you retain the original.”

    I would be not at all surprised if they had a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright laws.

  40. 40.

    SpaceUnit

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Ripping off this particular version of the story will only ensure that they get sued by the actual Dune copyright holders AND by Jodorowsky.

    It’s gonna make that book purchase look like a bargain by comparison.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    We are collectively getting stupider at a rate I never could have imagined.

    which is odd because me personally?  I’m smart as hell and getting smarter by the day ???

  46. 46.

    Mike Adamson

    They could develop a series “inspired” by the book without buying the book. They should call it the griftchain.

  48. 48.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Suzanne:

    How do these people manage to walk down the street without tripping over their own dicks?

    Uh, they’re not that long?
    SATSQ

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    @Jeffro:

    I don’t know that I’m any smarter than the average bear, but it’s exhausting trying to figure out other people. I don’t want to do it anymore.

  50. 50.

    CaseyL

    This is bonkers.  Yes, ripping off a wildly popular bit of pop culture can work:  50 Shades of Gray being Exhibit 1.  But E. L. James went to some trouble to file off the VIN number and come up with a story sufficiently different from Twilight to pass muster.

    It doesn’t sound like these clowns intend to put that much work into it.  And they’re starting with what is itself a derivative work? Just nuts.

    Lazy, dishonest, and nuts.

  51. 51.

    SpaceUnit

    @CaseyL:

    Yeah, and I doubt the producers of The Last Starfighter payed out a nickel to George Lucas.

    But by very publicly paying a couple million for a specific concept of Dune, these bozos are leaving a glow-in-the-dark infringement trail a mile long for whatever cheap garbage they puke up.

  52. 52.

    Feathers

    As someone who was an aspiring screenwriter for a while, and thus learned a great deal about adaptation rights, if their intent was to do a sideways adaptation of Dune, they just totally screwed themselves. Basically if I wanted to do an adaptation of Dune without buying the rights, I’d have to be able to say “Dune, what’s Dune? I think I maybe skimmed it while stoned in high school, but I totally forgot everything about it. My movie about a messianic White Savior hiding out on a desert planet who rides around on a magic giant spider while high on the water from an underground lake during an inter galactic war which killed his whole family has nothing to do with Dune. Why would you even think to suggest that?”

    A big part of this reasoning comes from an 80s-90s lawsuit over vocals in an advertisement. The client wanted Bette Midler, IIRC, but she turned them down. This was during her run of movie stardom and mega chart music hits. So they hired a Bette Midler sound-a-like. Most people probably would have thought it was Bette Midler. So she sued. And won really big money. The ruling was basically, you can hire a Bette Midler sound alike, but you can’t hire someone to pretend to be Bette Midler if she turned down the job. If Bette Midler turns you down, either hire a different celebrity, or a vocalist who can’t be mistaken for Bette Midler.

    These guys basically bought a copy very expensive, very famous copy of Dune, which means they will never legally be able to make a film anything like Dune. My suspicion is that this was one of those “make the idea so stupid that anyone smart enough to figure out what we’re up to will run far away” deals. You need the marks to be really dumb, if only to make them unsympathetic to a jury if you end up in court.

  55. 55.

    James E Powell

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ve wondered about Dickinson but was shy of it because I take her & her work so seriously that I might not be into a fictional representation. On your word, I will check it out.

  56. 56.

    Yutsano

    First of all, it doesn’t even sound like they know what they bought. They didn’t buy the book itself. From what I understand they bought the story bible for the Jodorowsky movie, which is a completely different animal. What a story bible tells you is how a character is supposed to behave, how the various parts in the story fit together so different units can work on different parts of the film and still make everything cohere* in the end. It’s not the actual story itself. I highly doubt the dudebros who bought this are capable of finding an animation studio, writing the concepts so said studio knows the idea, adapting the bible for animation, getting the funding for the initial production step etc. It’s entirely possible that what they bought is so worthless it’s comic.

    * I haven’t seen the Jodorowsky adaptation so I have no idea if it actually gels as a film.

  59. 59.

    dmsilev

    @Yutsano: Nobody has seen Jodorowsky’s Dune. It never got made. From Wikipedia,

    In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights from APJ, with Alejandro Jodorowsky set to direct.[95] In 1975, Jodorowsky planned to film the story as a 10-hour feature, set to star his own son Brontis Jodorowsky in the lead role of Paul Atreides, Salvador Dalí as Shaddam IV, Padishah Emperor, Amanda Lear as Princess Irulan, Orson Welles as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Gloria Swanson as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, David Carradine as Duke Leto Atreides, Geraldine Chaplin as Lady Jessica, Alain Delon as Duncan Idaho, Hervé Villechaize as Gurney Halleck, Udo Kier as Piter De Vries, and Mick Jagger as Feyd-Rautha. It was at first proposed to score the film with original music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Henry Cow, and Magma; later on, the soundtrack was to be provided by Pink Floyd.[96] Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger.[95] Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film’s space ships and hardware.[95] Giger began designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius’s storyboards. Dan O’Bannon was to head the special effects department.[95]

    Dalí was cast as the Emperor.[95] Dalí later demanded to be paid $100,000 per hour; Jodorowsky agreed, but tailored Dalí’s part to be filmed in one hour, drafting plans for other scenes of the emperor to use a mechanical mannequin as substitute for Dalí.[95] According to Giger, Dalí was “later invited to leave the film because of his pro-Franco statements”.[97] Just as the storyboards, designs, and script were finished, the financial backing dried up. Frank Herbert traveled to Europe in 1976 to find that $2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in pre-production, and that Jodorowsky’s script would result in a 14-hour movie (“It was the size of a phone book”, Herbert later recalled). Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship. Jodorowsky said in 1985 that he found the Dune story mythical and had intended to recreate it rather than adapt the novel; though he had an “enthusiastic admiration” for Herbert, Jodorowsky said he had done everything possible to distance the author and his input from the project.[95] Although Jodorowsky was embittered by the experience, he said the Dune project changed his life, and some of the ideas were used in his and Moebius’s The Incal.[98] O’Bannon entered a psychiatric hospital after the production failed, then worked on 13 scripts, the last of which became Alien.[95] A 2013 documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, was made about Jodorowsky’s failed attempt at an adaptation.

    (emphasis added)

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: I don’t know enough about the principals to be able to interpret that.

    KyivIndependent:

    U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace has announced that his country will provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons to boost the Eastern European nation’s security against escalating Russian threats.

    “In light of the increasingly threatening behavior from Russia, and in addition to our current support, the UK is providing a new security assistance package to increase Ukraine’s defensive capabilities,” Wallace announced in his speech to the House of Commons on Jan. 17.

    “We have taken the decision to supply Ukraine with light, anti-armor, defensive weapon systems. A small number of UK personnel will also provide early-stage training for a short period of time, within the framework of Operation ORBITAL, before then returning to the United Kingdom.”

    The new security assistance package complements the training and capabilities Ukraine has recieved so far from Britain, the U.S., and other European allies, according to Wallace.

    […]

    Here’s hoping VVP backs down, but …

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    catclub

    This seems like something worth thinking about. How seriously do others take the airlines claims?

     

    Executives from the nation’s largest airlines asked the Biden administration for “immediate intervention” in the planned rollout of 5G technology near major airports on Wednesday, warning of dire transportation and economic consequences.

    The representatives of 10 carriers asked the administration in a letter obtained by CNN to further delay the rollout near airports where Federal Aviation Administration flight restrictions take effect once the technology kicks in. The aviation world is concerned 5G signals will interfere with aviation technology including the radar altimeter onboard planes.

  62. 62.

    cckids

    @Ken: But the people who gave him their money? Yeah, bag of hammers, box of rocks, whatever metaphor you prefer.

    My small-town NE parents used the descriptor “Dumber than a bucket of hair”. Certainly applies here.

  68. 68.

    Steeplejack

    Aren’t all of these grandiose plans contingent on getting (some level of) permission from the actual Dune copyright holders? A minor detail, I know, but inquiring minds, etc.

  71. 71.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Frank Figliuzzi @FrankFigliuzzi1 17m

    Ask not for whom the clock ticks; the clock ticks for you: Representative Matt Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend granted immunity in sex trafficking probe – CBS News

    “This may be a willing participant who has a smart lawyer who sought an immunity deal from the government,” said former prosecutor and CBS News legal analyst Rikki Kleiman. “The government does not give immunity blindly, they know what they’re getting in exchange.”

    as ever, I’ll believe it when I see him cuffs, but this seems significant to this non-lawyer

  72. 72.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Yarrow:

    People with money do dumb things.

    They used to say a fool and his money are soon parted but these days, we shovel even more money their way so they can show the world how foolish they are.

  75. 75.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @J R in WV: What exactly do these lame suckers think in their fevered imaginations imagine they bought besides a never made movie book? Need vaccinations against stupid, hmm??

    Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune has utterly nothing to do with Herbert’s Dune. What they bought was a right to a script with scenes of child sex, necrophilia and thousands of extras taking a shit at the same time.

    Let Quin explain it here;

    https://youtu.be/pQ1cdEFi97g

  80. 80.

    Hob

    To me, what might be even stupider than the purported “we’ll pay so excessively for a copy of this book that it’ll show everyone how serious we are and then we’ll totally get funding to make a movie inspired by Dune, and we’ll sort out the rights somehow” plan is a line in the related Buzzfeed article about what this dude thinks the message of Dune is. Surprise: it’s totally the same idea as cryptocurrency and blockchain– because it’s about changing the world through decentralized action!

    I mean, totally aside from cryptocurrency being bullshit that’s only likely to change the world in negative ways, it’s pretty hilarious to call Dune a success story about “decentralized action” given that it involves a messianic cult revolution led by a single person who is the only person able to perceive the future due to thousands of years of genetic manipulation by a powerful secret society. And even calling it a success story at all is a dead giveaway that they haven’t read the sequel.

  81. 81.

    Leto

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was watching one of the talking head shows last week and they were discussing this, specifically that Gaetz’s buddy, Joel Greenberg, was providing information bugt isn’t considered a reliable witness (already proven liar). But with his ex-girlfriend’s involvement in providing testimony it’s helping the eventual case against him. But like you said, will believe it when Butthead is in cuffs.

  82. 82.

    Ken B

    So does anyone know who the Bible was purchased from?

    Because I can’t help but think it would be one hell of a scam to collect a big pile of money from a lot of gullible fools to buy something that I already owned but couldn’t monetize, and then spend ALL of it on the winning bid…

  83. 83.

    Kent

    @catclub: I don’t know.  But I live right across the river from PDX airport in Portland and my phone and iPad both show they are connected via 5G.  So apparently it is already rolled out around this airport and I don’t see any planes crashing.

  85. 85.

    trollhattan

    Another day, another boring shift with the CH whoaah.

    Water buffalo escapes California home, gets involved in low-speed chase with CHP officers

    The California Highway Patrol was involved in a different type of chase on Monday afternoon, a very low-speed pursuit of a wayward water buffalo that managed to squeeze through a fence and was wandering rather aimlessly around North Zediker and Ashlan avenues in Fresno. “I was on my way back from the store, and he was standing there in the road, and I didn’t want anybody to get hit,” said Dan Villanueva, who lives up the road from the 20-acre lot that is home to the water buffalo. After calling in and reporting the water buffalo, Villanueva and a CHP officer managed to steer the fully-grown bovid into a fenced-in area running along an adjacent canal and alerted its owner.https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article257425007.html#storylink=cpy

    Your top choice for water buffalo news.​​​

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken B: I bought the copyright to the Bible and now I can ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD using IP law! See you in court, sucker!

  87. 87.

    Another Scott

    @catclub: That’s an old story.  Things are being delayed.

    TheVerge:

    With AT&T and Verizon set to bring their 5G expansion live on January 19th, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has chosen 50 airports (PDF) that will have buffer zones to help prevent flight disruptions (via Reuters and Wall Street Journal). Safety regulators picked airports based on location, traffic volume, and the likelihood of low visibility — all factors that may increase cancelations, delays, and diversions as both carriers roll out 5G C-band service.

    As pointed out by the Wall Street Journal, notably busy airports like Chicago O’Hare, Orlando International, Los Angeles International, and Dallas / Fort Worth International are included on the list, along with airports in locations that are often impacted by foggy conditions, such as Seattle / Tacoma International and San Francisco International.

    The FAA notes that AT&T and Verizon have agreed to turn off their 5G transmitters at these specific buffer zones for six months, which should “minimize potential 5G interference with sensitive aircraft instruments used in low-visibility landings.” Some airports — including major hubs like Hartsfield / Jackson International and Denver International — didn’t make the list, either because they aren’t in locations where 5G C-Band deployment will take place, or they can’t permit low-visibility landings.

    […]

    tl;dr – Basically, the FAA needs to be sure that the 5G signals are tightly-enough confined to their intended radio bands to not bleed into frequency ranges used by aircraft altimeters.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    danielx

    @Leto:

    But like you said, will believe it when Butthead is in cuffs.

    You know, I had never noticed but the resemblance is remarkable.

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    @Kent: IIUC this is a new variation of 5G just now being rolled out and not related to the 5G already in use.*

    *Not a certified nerd. Please refer to certified nerds who can also form complete sentences for more information.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @trollhattan: Kinda-sorta.  It’s related to “C-Band” which is very close to what aircraft use for some types of instruments in inclement weather.

    AndroidPolice has more about the additional delays/larger-buffer-zones that some airlines want.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Poe Larity

    All this messiah talk, if the Dems had been thinking, they would have gone Boys from Brazil and we’d have JFK Jr. clones running for Senator in every southern state.

  93. 93.

    Gin & Tonic

    Do mice eat their dead? I frequently set a mousetrap in a shed on the property – they like to live in there, and I don’t like it, so I use the old-fashioned snap-shut traps that generally kill the suckers instantly. Yesterday I went to the shed after having neglected that task for a couple of days, and found the trap holding what was probably about the top one-third of a mouse. The rest, except for some scattered fur, wasn’t around. The shed is tight enough that larger animals like cats or raccoons can’t get in. So what happened?

  94. 94.

    Kent

    @Ken B:

    So does anyone know who the Bible was purchased from?

    Because I can’t help but think it would be one hell of a scam to collect a big pile of money from a lot of gullible fools to buy something that I already owned but couldn’t monetize, and then spend ALL of it on the winning bid…

    Pretty sure the Bible is out of copyright by now.  At least in the original Hebrew and Greek.

    But modern translations can and are copyrighted.  So you can reproduce the 1611 King James Version all you want.  But, for example, the 1978 New International Version (NIV) is copyrighted by Biblica which has licensed Zondervan to publish NIV versions in the United States.

  97. 97.

    Hob

    @Gin & Tonic: Hey now. I have my certificate right here and I can totally form a complete sentence; it may be an overly long sentence (with digressions—often involving a random assortment of punctuation), and not well organized, but it will have every grammatical unit present and it will end with a clear full stop, dammit.

  98. 98.

    Another Scott

    Poking around some old favorite sites I haven’t visited in a while tonight, I saw this – AlFranken.com – How to reform the filibuster (from December, with Norm Ornstein):

    […]

    A little background on why the filibuster was distorted from its original purpose: in 1975, the rule, Rule XXII, was changed in a way that appeared to make it easier to invoke cloture. Before the change, 2/3rds of senators present and voting were needed; the rules change reduced the number to 3/5ths—but crucially, made it 3/5ths of the entire Senate. Removing the present and voting standard created an opening for a very different dynamic, one which took decades to eventuate but which has transformed the Senate.

    […]

    When Barack Obama became president, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saw an opening to transform the rule to stymie Obama and the Democrats, calling for filibusters on nearly every action, even those that had unanimous or near unanimous support. The idea was to kill many of Obama’s priorities, but just as much to delay action and obstruct by using precious floor time to overcome the filibuster effort. Once a senator says, “I will filibuster,” by denying unanimous consent to move forward, it takes two days for a cloture motion to ripen, then a series of votes, and if the required 60 is reached, it can be followed by 30 hours of post-cloture debate before action—and on legislation, multiply by two because of the need to get cloture first on the motion to proceed, then again on the bill. The “debate,” such as it was, did not have to be germane or refer to the issue at hand. In one debate, Ted Cruz read Green Eggs and Ham.

    For Franken, the absurdity of this became clear early in his Senate service, when he told a Republican colleague to have a nice weekend and would see him on Monday. The senator, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, said “No you won’t. It’s a cloture vote. I don’t have to be here. You do.” As the use of the rule as a weapon of mass obstruction mushroomed under McConnell, it became clear that there was no longer any incentive for the minority to compromise, when with no effort it could stymie the majority in its tracks, causing major political damage. Compromises, when they occur, are now either on issues that are well below the radar, or when the minority sees strategic advantage for the next election—something we saw with the BIB.

    After his encounter with Bunning, Franken called Ornstein to find a way to end the absurdity, and the result was this: flip the numbers from 60 required to end debate to 41 required to continue it, moving the burden from the majority to the minority. Require 41 to be on the floor at all times, and to debate the issue at hand, germanely. The minority could still prevail—the majority would have to stop all other business to go around the clock, and might decide after some time to cut its losses and move on to other issues, if the minority made its determination clear. But it would require a major effort by the minority to accomplish its ends. And for both sides, bipartisan compromise might be the best way to ease any mutual burdens.

    Joe Manchin, a vocal opponent of ending or weakening the filibuster, has spoken favorably about this change. It answers every objection and hesitation about change made by him, Kyrsten Sinema, and other Democrats in the Senate. It fits within the traditions and norms of the Senate. If it were enacted, the Senate might again become a deliberative body, but one that can act when the times demand it. And the times certainly demand it now.

    Others have talked about this, but I thought it was interesting to see the specifics spelled out and how it fits with what S&M say they require.

    We’ll see!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    Leto

    @danielx: I didn’t originate the term/comparison. That happened a few years ago with a photo of Gym Jordan and Gaetz standing side-by-side, with it captioned, “Beavis and Butthead”. But yeah, the resemblance is uncanny.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    Senator Mitt Romney
    @SenatorRomney
    · Jan 16
    Democrats are attempting a federal takeover of our elections, which were deliberately left up to the states to keep autocracy from taking hold in America. I’m working w/ a bipartisan group of colleagues on election reforms because any change to our voting laws must be bipartisan.

    This is not true. The electoral count act has nothing to do with changing “our voting laws” unless he talking about regulating a single vote that Congress takes, because Republicans couldn’t manage that one vote without trying a coup.
    We have to regulate Republicans in Congress. If we don’t tighten up the laws and set strict parameters for how they may behave when certifying an election they launch insurrections, but that has nothing to do with the individual citizen voting process, or civil rights protections for voters.
    Mitt Romney lied a lot in his 2012 campaign and apparently he’s back at it.

  102. 102.

    Ken B

    Sorry, I meant the book these clowns bought, which I understand was one of Jodorowski’s story bibles for the movie he was never able to film.

    Do we know who had the copy that was sold at auction for hundreds of times its asking price?

    Because it seems like a brilliant scam to collect a huge pile of money from a bunch of suckers and then spend ALL of it to buy something you own but is worth much less than you collect from the suckers from yourself…

  104. 104.

    JMG

    I am lucky enough to have enough money to invest and fortunately for me selected a conservative (in financial terms) advisor. He’d have an aneurysm if I brought up crypto, let alone NFTs, and he’d be right. The latter are just fool’s gold. The former will be wiped out by the world’s governments in due course. Privately coined money has a long and unhappy history. When the armed men come calling, the techbros will be unhappy. Please note the armed men will arrive no matter who’s in control of whatever country they’re in’s government.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    This is not just an article, this is a truly good essay. Rarely have I read anything this well written from any politician. Do read it. It puts all the usual boilerplate, happy talk and empty clichés to shame.

    I am genuinely impressed. I rarely am.https://t.co/nhpFgATWiZ
    — toomas hendrik ilves (@IlvesToomas) January 17, 2022

    Seconded.

  107. 107.

    opiejeanne

    @Kent: I’m sitting in the Seattle airport right now and I can see the 5G connection on my phone. Plane leaves at 8:25,so about 45 minutes.

  109. 109.

    debbie

    People show you who they are.

    From Frontline’s Putin’s Way:

    NARRATOR: In 1990, the old Soviet system was collapsing, but what exactly would replace it wasn’t clear. The uncertainty had a whole nation on edge. Among them was a young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. He’d returned to his home town of St. Petersburg from his posting in Dresden, East Germany, and he was looking for work.

    He would eventually eventually find it at St. Petersburg’s city hall. His former law professor, Anatoly Sobchak, had just been elected mayor. Sobchak’s widow, Lyudmila Narusova, remembers her husband’s response when his former student insisted on telling him that he’d been working for the KGB.

    …

    NARRATOR: Putin would soon be deputy mayor of the city, and crucially, chair of the committee on foreign economic relations.

    …

    NARRATOR: Even as his star rose, there was an early example of his ambition. He commissioned a documentary about himself. It was called Power, made by Igor Shadkhan.

  110. 110.

    Pharniel

    @Ken B: ​
     

    The cryptobros of the DAO published how big their warchest was. The owner just use straw bidders to take them right up to their exact warchest, selling for 100x the expected sale price.

    The real grift seems to be that the person who actually purchased the book for the DAO gets his money back + fees and, crucially, his taxes. Because he bought his Etherium back when it was $12 a pop. So he’s going to be paid back the $3.2 million + fees + the huge tax bill. In essence he’s getting a free ~$400k.

    Then the admins just decided to give themselves $250-500k each for….?

    The discord server is full of True Believers and the plan seems Dumb, but it appears that’s like the typos in Nigerian 411 scams – they want to dissuade anyone who takes one look and realizes that the DAO is a grift, because now they can just say it’s fearmongering FUDders who “don’t understand crypto” and not “people accurately describing the situation”

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