A few MAGAs actually had the guts (alas, no brains) to bet cash!

So, it turns out some MAGAs are willing to bet, after all! Many have staked their life savings on assurances by their cult’s leaders that massive “Democrat cheats that stole” 8 million+ votes will be exposed any day now!” Whereupon their Dear Leader will be re-installed for another four years. The scenario they are betting on? That a dozen Democratic *mayors* - with no power over election processes - overcame Republican executive, legislative, judicial, federal and state authorities perfectly, without a single leak or slip-up. But it will all collapse any day now.

 Read how Trump fans poured hundreds of thousands of dollars and pounds into bookie sites, based on Rudy Giuliani’s assurances.

Does this prove I’m wrong, and some of today’s confeds DO have the guts to bet? 

As many of you know, I’ve given up arguing with MAGAs. If you offer mountains of real evidence, they’ll sneer that it’s all faked and that their counter-meme jpegs are the real deal, supporting every conspiracy theory dating back to Benghazi and Obama’s “black UN helicopters.” Experts are denounced and scientific consensus derided. When something is decisively disproved, they just move the goalposts. 

And so for years I’ve used a tactic that works! It is the ONLY thing that ever works… and it works every time… causing members of the New-Confederate Cult to back off of any recent falsehood-spew. Sure, they mostly just run away! But with their macho pose — the only thing they care about — is left in tatters, exposed as cowards,

The method is to demand wagers! Turns out they care more about their money than their yammered loyalty to Trump and Putin and the rest. Year-in-year-out, not a single one of these jibbering, fact-hating, blowhard putzes has ever stepped up, escrowed large stakes with an attorney, and offered to back up their declarations of certainty with cash wagers, adjudicated by panels of retired senior military officers.

Not… once… 

Well, of course not, since their cult is all about waging open war against every fact-centered profession, from science, teaching journalism, medicine and law to the half a million dedicated, skilled men and women who won the Cold War and the War on Terror, who the Mad Right now condemn as “deep state” traitors. All of them. Like these guys should talk.

I’ve long despaired of any Democrat - even AOC or Pete B. - ever having the agility or brains to see how this exposes the carotid artery of the Treason-Confederacy - their macho bluster - or that making this whole culture war about FACT would help every other cause, like environmentalism or battling racism, since those causes have fact on their side!

Alas, no one listens.

Now read about how some MAGAs have had the guts to step up and bet! Guts, indeed… and absolutely zilch for brains. In fact, many fanatically loyal followers of MAGA madness have doubled down, since the election, taking the word of dizzy ravers like Rudy Giuliani that proof to nail the “steal” will be presented ‘any day now’.

And yes, it just proves again. Cowards, bullies and idiots have the power to wreck this great Union, this great experiment, as they nearly did several other times, since the 1770s. And against such obdurately treasonous impulses, we are still looking for better generals.

== Our side has dopes, too ==

One added reason to fight for those GA senate seats? If the Dems win, Stacey Abrams will get her choice of jobs and she will (I hope) become DNC Chair and make all those prancing dopes yowling "DNC Corporatists!" finally Shut TF Up. We cannot afford to split this coalition and those who are already ragging on Biden for this or that poseur reason are only serving Putin.

I mean that. Anything that seeks to break our coalition right now is Kremlin agitprop. Try actually knowing about the 111th Congress and how well left & moderate dems work together in blue states. Progress is not helped by ignoramuses.

...and finally...

== Again, PLEASE let Kamala... ==

           ...take her oath at the Lincoln Memorial!

This win-win-win would:

- hearken to MLK and give her a real moment in the sun...

- spread out the inevitable crowds (and they ARE coming!) along the entire mall, encouraging social distancing... (especially with big screens set up on the Washington Monument, midway between)...

- keep her and Joe apart instead of at the same, predictable locale!

As I explained before, in more detail, there are zero drawbacks! 

And after the Nashville bombing, can you truly not take this seriously? Spread word!

Broadening our horizons: from negotiating and diversity... to solace regarding viruses.

A bit late for the weekend, here's a roundup of items you'll find nowhere else. Or at leastdeem uniquely worthy of attention!

First. An excellent missive by David Bray and the Atlantic Council calls for a GeoTech Alliance of those nations and other entities who share a common goal of spreading tech-enhanced power widely, rather than falling into the ancient pattern of power concentration by wealth, position, party or race. Embracing that power-dispersive revolution is the main thing that enabled creative development and burgeoning sci-tech advances (albeit unevenly), in recent centuries. 

Turning away from that power-dispersal approach - back toward power concentration - directly correlates with our recent declines.

This choice becomes crucial as newer technologies can vastly multiply the effects, perhaps empowering the vast numbers of skilled and confident workers and consumers who make markets work well, along with vast numbers of skilled and confident voters who invigorate democracy.

The alternative - a return to 6000 years of dismal top-down rule by diktat - is being promoted by self-interested elites across the globe. Perhaps because they realize it is their best and last chance to restore that brutally stupid Old Order.

I agree with this article, top to bottom. Except that I believe this turnaround must entail very specific actions, above all restoring the place of FACTS and objective reality and determinable argument and negotiated "politics" to a nation and world where "politics" have been deliberately and systematically destroyed.

== Can we find middle ground? ==

For many years I’ve asserted that our salvation as a people, nation, species and world lies in harnessing the one thing that has ever worked for us… honest-negotiation based on goodwill and a willingness to adapt to facts. Implicit in that are all the terms of import: competition, cooperation, accountability, honesty…. This is the root truth underlying The Transparent Society, and my longstanding proposal for Disputation Arenas. And yes, it’s hard to do. Look at the sophists and delusion junkies around you… and that one in the mirror. It’s amazing that any human civilization tried – and somewhat succeeded – to put the positive notion of growth through accountability into practice. (And no surprise at all that it is now under full scale assault.)

Now Reddit has sponsored a site for those few adults who are willing to put this ideal into practice, by inviting challenge to things they currently believe. Reddit's 'Change My View' community becomes a dedicated site.

== a better way to argue for diversity ==

David Ellerman is an expert on Locke and on liberal vs natural rights bases for libertarianism. His new book is The Uses of Diversity: Essays in Polycentricity. Here’s my blurb about it; “For more than sixty centuries humans languished under centralized hierarchies - monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies and feudal, fascist, communist or klepto-aristocracies - and all proved spectacularly awful at statecraft. Gradually, it dawned on us that nature abhors oversimplification, for some very good reasons. The Uses of Diversity: Essays in Polycentricity explores many of the opportunities and constraints that have started, gradually, allowing human societies to reap benefits from complexity." 

Over the long run, the pragmatic benefits of diversity will weigh far more heavily than moralistic chidings about it. Consider that 99% of previous cultures would have laughed at such chidings, calling them weird. “Stop trying to impose YOUR diversity fetishism on us! We have other cultural values and how dare you demand we adopt yours!” It is that easy to respond to liberal lectures that are ONLY morality-based, as we are finding with our obstinate confederate neighbors.

To be clear, I AGREE with those moral chidings! My family and I have benefited immensely from the spreading of horizons of tolerance and below I will offer links to "horizon theory." Tolerance and diversity are wellsprings of justice.

But diversity in a culture is also spectacularly beneficial and practical, as David Ellerman clearly shows. And that PRACTICAL benefit not only supports diversity, it utterly overwhelms all attempted "cultural" refutations. Our Enlightenment Experiment in tolerant inclusion -- while flawed and needing agonizing incremental improvement for two centuries -- has been simply vastly more successful, creative, happier, healthier and better at discovering errors than any other. And it keeps getting better when we are free and tolerant and diverse.

== Will we again be a society of ideas? TV tells! ==

Anyone out there recall "my" TV show? I was a cast member on "The Architechs," A way-cool design show. ("Five geniuses have 48 hours to come up with...") This pilot shows us coming up with a new design to replace the humvee. Remember this was during the Iraq Wars. See the pilot.

Something to help pass the time? The second pilot - "Getting in and out of burning buildings" - was even better! We invented TWENTY new ways!

(See also: http://htyp.org/The_ArchiTECHS)

I was also a regular on History's most popular show ever: "Life After People."

Alas, History was transitioning to become the Bigfoot Channel and our show stopped after just a few episodes.

== a little perspective might help? ==

December 1979, NPR ran an evening show called "unpacking the eighties" which had some of the most clever riffs I ever heard, including a song about the terrible flu we'd all get, around 1985... and in this age when nothing is supposedly ever lost or un-findable, I can't find a trace of this masterpiece, anywhere, with any combo of search words. I think the artist was named "Jesse" something, but can't be sure. Here's a riff I remember by heart:

IT’S A VIRUS*

Back in the Pleistocene,
When we were still marine,
a virus launched a quest,
to be the perfect guest
And re-arranged our genes.

So to this very day,
Whether you grok or pray
all your inheritors
count on those visitors
And what they make you pay.

.
REFRAIN

It’s a virus,
It inspired us,
to rise above the mud.
It’s a virus,
It’s desirous,
of your very flesh and blood.

Now I know your body’s burning,
But don’t give up the ghost.
Tiny viruses are turning you
Into the perfect... host.

.
Though you may curse microbes
who make you blow your nose,
evolution bends
to what a virus sends,
making us recompose.

Though when you least expect
You may be struck down next
thank the virus, he
put us in misery,
But then he gave us sex!


It’s a virus,
Its inspired us,
to rise above the mud.
It’s a virus,
It’s desirous,
of your very flesh and blood.

Now I know your body’s burning,
But don’t give up the ghost.
Tiny viruses are turning you
Into the perfect... host.

Originally from a 1979  NPR show “Unpacking the 80s”.

Italics passages recited by memory.

Non-italics verses made up by DB

Bio Science! And covid related science.

Events often rush past my stack of blog drafts, and hence some of what's below may seem "so last-month." But a lot of it is still pretty important stuff. Sciencey and pertinent! But first, a mini rant:  

Again and again, MAGAs try to obscure the pandemic by raving "deaths" which 

(1) decline proportionately as docs get better at saving folks and 

(2) are low among the demographic of GOP elites because they get elite care, and

(3) co-morbidities and the slaughter of old folks gives fanatics a polemical excuse to claim "a lot of those aren't covid!" and 

(4) Kill off granny and gramps? Sure, get inheritance!

No. Don't go there. And bypass the "there are more cases because we're testing more!" crap. Go to the statistic they can't evade --

-- Hospitalizations. In which we are by far among the very worst in the world. And with ICUs near full-capacity collapse and flu absent because of masks, they have nowhere to turn except to scream when cornered.  

Demand wagers. They'll run so fast.

== It's a virus, it's desirous... of your very flesh and blood ==

 Covid-related news: SCIENCE Magazine: ‘Absolutely remarkable’: No one who got Moderna’s vaccine in trial developed severe COVID-19.

* Genetic factors that affect severity of Covid.  Left out is something folks seem loathe to discuss... what appears to be a racial difference depending on how much Neanderthal ancestry you have! Europeans appear to have the most, while Africans (least hard-hit by covid) have the least and Asian peoples (except Indian) have less, but more Denisovan. Follow this up in comments, if you dare.

* Why has COVID-19 been relatively mild in East Asia? It might be genetic resistance ... Medical research preprint: Evidence that an ancient coronavirus-like epidemic drove adaptation in East Asians from 25,000 to 5,000 years ago.

* Why has Taiwan had a total of only SEVEN deaths from COVID-19? Here's one (possibly biased) interpretation... though one reason Taiwan suffered so little from the epidemic was its previous ordeal at the epicenter of the more deadly coronavirus SARS-CoV-1 in 2003, when Taiwan led the world in per capita deaths. This ordeal trained not chiefly the government officials now claiming credit for mastering Covid, but the immune systems of the Taiwanese. Their antibodies and T-cells were ready for Covid not because of policy choices but because of biological learning processes.

== Let's start with the past... applying to the fearful present ==

The entire CARTA conference on the influence of Infectious Disease on Human Evolution is available for any of you to watch/listen. On the plus side, you’ll learn TONS about malaria, salmonella, typhoid and vaginal ailments… though rather light on the evolution implications. The best is 3h38m into the symposium, a talk by Dr. Susan Kaech of the Salk Institute explaining how our immune B and T cells both do their jobs and store some memory of past battles, in case they meet the same enemy again.  Flu viruses evade this memory by mutating fast. Corona viruses, in contrast, seem to somehow suppress these memory reserves so we “forget” and can be re-infected with the same strain again and again. Two things may be involved. (1) adjuvants released by the new viruses spilling from their replication cell, that fool the immune system into de-emphasizing memory T cells and (2) “antibody enhancement,” a weird scary scenario in which a second infection then uses the antibodies we developed against the first one, as trojan horse penetration aids against us! I knew nothing about any of those things, two weeks ago.

The good news. Many clever people know a LOT about these processes now. Enough to be awed by nature’s cleverness in these ongoing wars. And none of it renders obsolete my speculations in “The Giving Plague.” Available (free) on my website.

And here's the later-latest CARTA seminar (by zoom). Fascinating stuff!

== And the past lives on == 

Scientists recently studied an exceptional set of human and animal footprints dating back several thousand years in the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Most of the human footprints were made by a young adult, the team determined. But about every 100 yards or so, a few much smaller human prints suddenly appear.

Amazing. Many bacteria species create ‘biofilms’ that let them cluster, defend, against attack and even cooperate. Biofilm traces are among the earliest confirmed signs of life in Earth rocks. Now we see that the genes expressed by bacteria, when they actually make their biofilms appear to be both among the oldest genes and the first expressed by newly ‘born’ cells.  That overlap of early expression and great age is similar to the “recapitulation” in animal embryos. Hence it suggests that early life forms were sophisticated enough to use phased development, as well as biofilms.

 

This theme of ‘phases of life’ is explored in one of my creepier short stories, “Chrysalis,” and it has even creepier implications for human destiny. Find it in INSISTENCE OF VISION.

A study found a locus of anxiety in the brain - ‘anxiety cells’ in the hippocampus — which apparently can be controlled by a beam of light. Okay, so far in mice, using  calcium imaging, inserting miniature microscopes into the brains of lab mice who are put into anxiety inducing platforms without reassuring walls. Using a technique called optogenetics to shine a beam of light onto the cells in the vCA1 region, the researchers were able to effectively silence the anxiety cells and prompt confident, anxiety-free activity in the mice.

 

A cave bear has been uncovered in Siberia, not just bones but soft tissues, fir, even its intact nose.

Okay guys, they don’t need us anymore except to lift boxes to high shelves, and they’ll uplift orangutans to do that. We’re screwed. Might as well serve until no longer wanted even as pets. “For the first time, scientists have been able to grow spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), which are the cells that eventually develop into fully-fledged sperm, in a laboratory environment.”

 

Using a technique called optogenetics to shine a beam of light onto the cells in the vCA1 region, the researchers were able to effectively silence the anxiety cells and prompt confident, anxiety-free activity in the mice.#armymadsci

 

Depression humor Humorist Lightens Depression's Darkness By Talking (And Laughing) About It.

== Pragmatic bio-news? ==

It’s only in mice, so far, but an amazing, partly accidental discovery led scientists the ability to convert fibroblasts into healthy, functioning neurons… and the technique seems to have cured mice of an artificially induced analog to Parkinson’s Disease.  

Scientists engineered the human cells to produce a squid protein known as reflectin, which scatters light to create a sense of transparency or iridescence.

Researchers were able to mimic the mind-altering effects of the drug ketamine by inducing a particular rhythm in one area of the brain.

And finally.... Believers of 5G conspiracy theories have apparently been buying a $350 anti-5G USB key that—not surprisingly—appears to just be a regular USB stick with only 128MB of storage.

Sci Fi news - some of it great stuff!

Again, you'll find terrific items for your gift list here... at least for your beloved science fiction fan!

Be sure to check out the Hugo Award winners for 2020, including the winner for best novel, A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine. The award for best novella went to This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, while The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey, won for best series.  A Song for A New Day by Sarah Pinsker won the 2020 Nebula Award for best novel, while Cat Rambo won for  her novelette, Carpe Glitter.... among the many remarkable SF titles from the past year.

Meanwhile I have been slogging through editings and revisions of five Uplift novels, including Startide Rising and The Uplift War and Brightness Reef. (The refreshed Sundiver is already available!) All were sprung from the House of Flightless Birds (Bantam/Penguin) and are shifting to Open Road, for re-issue in May! Alas, they had to be typeset using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) from physical books. OCR is much improved!  But I am glad to have a cabal of wonderfully nitpicking pre-readers! My 'irregulars' catch mistakes... some 40 years old! Oh, and there will be new introductions!

Meanwhile, there's plenty of diverting stuff on that gift list!  Including refreshed versions of The Postman, Sundiver and The Practice Effect, with new Patrick Farley covers and introductions! Oh and some fun new items...

== More Sci Fi news! ==

In Entertainment Weekly -- I was excellently interviewed by Clark Collis about The Postman and its pertinence to these troubled times... and the rise of neo-feudalism that it predicted, along with deliberate efforts by enemies of our Great Experiment to burn down our one American institution that predates even the Revolution. I go into much more detail… including how you can do small/important things to help, in this blog posting -- "The Postman Guy" speaks about the Postal System crisis and lists all the things you citizens can do (some of them amazingly easy!) to prevent this would-be Holnist coup against America and especially our oldest institution. Do drop by.  

Meanwhile, in a lighter vein – and reaching far more people – the Stephen Colbert "apologize to Costner!" video is choice. But hey Stephen, what am I, chopped liver? I thought you were a sci fi nerd! 

 

While we’re on the subject… Do you have a book club? Or a classroom that needs a study guide for a good novel and movie comparison? Here are three resources for THE POSTMAN!

 

a Postman class discussion guide.

 

A Postman reading group discussion guide.

 

The Postman Curriculum Web Site.

 

One of them was among the oldest such items ever posted on the Web! And still pretty good.

 

And unrelated… A fun, informal interview on the creative process of authoring, on “Drinking With Authors!” (And yes, some beverages are involved.)

 

 

== First Nations. first in fiction ==

 

A fascinating article shines light on the burgeoning number and quality of Native American authors writing both science fiction and ethno-fantasies that revolve around First Nations peoples and themes and legends. I won’t claim any great insights except as a minor fellow-traveler. But I think this trend and the larger expansion of the genre enriches us all.

(A completely unimportant aside. My very first fictional character - Jacob Demwa the protagonist of SUNDIVER - was half Native American and half African; that was 1978. Then came Athaclena's heroic partner Robert Oneagle in THE UPLIFT WAR, and his mother the ethnically Amerind Prime Minister of Garth Colony. And let's add the Cherokee-led terraforming of Venus that is featured in STARTIDE RISING. So that's three for three, a very long time ago.  Just sayin'.)

And... see a list of my personal favorite science fiction titles -- and a list of recommended science fiction for young adult readers who want to explore the world of science fiction and fantasy.

== And more visionary stuff! ==

One of the very best podcasts around is Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur - a series of wonderfully detailed and cogent explorations about super-science possibilities that dissects almost every aspect you can list regarding interstellar travel, alien motivations, star drives, terraforming or the Fermi Paradox. This one - on “black holes as weapons” - naturally refers to my own novel EARTH (which he flatteringly calls his Book of the Month about 27 minutes in). But I highly recommend the entire series. (Though oddly, he doesn't quite mention my concept for gravity lasers! Though he comes close and hints.)

Here’s a very well-written… even moving… review of Stephen Baxter’s three NASA novels, including Voyage, Titan and Moonseed.

After fifteen years of translating Bulgarian speculative fiction into English a group of authors have compiled an anthology with the best Bulgarian-originated short stories and excerpts from longer works. Certainly there have been lately many efforts to promote science fiction from international sources, especially China, Africa and India and Latin America. And why not this hotbed of vivid sci fi!

Scientist Andrew Love has published a clever meta-tale , a critical essay about a civilization whose writers have been obsessed with tying together millions of disparate works into a fictional construct called “Earth.” Of course, as the author of… EARTH… I guess that makes me the worst offender! (This tale has some “wake up!” elements in common with my own tale “Reality Check”!) 

My colleague Bruce Golden has released his post-apocalyptic novel After The End, which speculates on what might happen after a rogue comet collides with the Earth, setting the entire planet on fire. The few survivors must contend with an alien spore that arrived with the comet, developing a symbiotic relationship with a native species. Not us.

Here’s a futurist image I haven’t seen in sci fi. Drones could save energy by taking the bus.

A lickable screen can create almost any taste? The Norimaki Synthesizer transmits a mix of glycerin-based gels into a small panel you press against your tongue.

  

RIP Barbara Marx Hubbard. I only knew her a little, personally. But she was a figure of much insight, courage and good.  As eminent futurist Glen Hiemstra put it, she “set out to change the conversation in the nation from what we wanted to get away from to what we wanted to move toward. To that end she traveled the nation and set up Positive Futures Centers, which were collections of local citizens come together, in town after town…. Barbara’s big idea was that the office of Vice President ought to operate the “Office for the Future.” This would manifest in the development of a “Peace Room” to rival the technology and scale of the War Room. In the latter, there is constant monitoring of global threats, and a place and a way for leaders to come together to confront the threats. The Peace Room, in contrast, would be designed to monitor the globe to map the opportunities that are emerging around the planet, to observe the real breakthrough ideas and programs wherever they are developed, and to plan the positive options to create a preferred future.”

== Is this a 'sci fi' pandemic? ==

So gosh, here we are in the long forecasted pandemic, and it seems nothing like what was portrayed in any sci fi, including my own! Who'd a thunk it would be so daily-mundane... so ambiguous in its after-effects - especially organic damage on the "asymptomatic" (including reported erectile dysfunction)... 

...or that a quarter of the citizens of the most scientific nation in the world would zombie-chant foreign propaganda that simple safety measures like masks - used by our ancestors effectively against the 1918 flu - will somehow transform all the people into what they already are --

-- zombie-obedient morons.

Stranger than fiction, indeed.

Nagging Joe, Kamala and Nancy AGAIN! Do these things now and we'll thrive!

This stuff is too important. So I revised, polished and added and I now count on YOU to help spread word on these opportunities that our heroes will - alas - almost surely miss.

 With each new administration — Democrat or Republican — I publish my own list of possible actions that would step around the lobotomizing “left-right axis,” scoring immediate points by doing some non-partisan good. Despite my purported “fame and influence,” none of my proposals was ever acted upon, or even widely discussed, perhaps because they are off-axis, without established constituencies. Though I am also grownup enough to admit another possibility — that these ideas are only compelling to the self-important delusions of a sci-fi author.  

Still, I’ll do it yet again, offering maneuvers to skirt the determination of this generation’s Republican leaders — stated openly by Dennis Hastert, all the way to Mitch McConnell — their vow to prevent the American federal legislature from doing anything meaningful, ever again.

A few of these notions won’t wait!  They’d have maximum effectiveness if undertaken before the inauguration or the convening of the 117th Congress.

1) An Inaugural Twist. Planning for a ‘minimalist inauguration,’ as announced by appointed White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, would be a terrible mistake! Yes, Joe Biden must set a healthy example for the nation, on his first day in office. But accept that tens or hundreds of thousands will come anyway. Nothing will stop them.

So, what’s needed is a way to get them to spread out, safely masked. Besides, why deny America’s enthusiastic majority their day? Oh, and a final consideration; given the vast number of serious threats, should Kamala and Joe go anywhere together? Shouldn’t they stay apart?

Here’s a simple solution: have the new Vice-President -- Kamala Harris -- take her oath at the far-opposite end of the Mall, on the hallowed steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Symbolically, it'd be a huge way to say -- with both Lincoln and MLK gazing down -- 'we've come a long way, baby!' And the swearing-in by Sonia Sotomayor would be a good offset to spotlighting John Roberts.

 Picture Harris giving her speech, then waving down the long Mall at the Capitol, calling "Over to you, Joe... I mean Mister President!" past a vast crowd that now has plenty of room to spread out!  

Pass out a bazillion flags and white-star masks and say, "Use the flag to make a social distance circle. Let America's flag protect us, as we mean to protect and reclaim the flag!"

An added way to space them out further? Big screens hung from the flanks of the Washington Monument. A way of saying – we can use ingenuity and technology and good sense to keep safe and have some fun.

The images would be spectacular, denying the fox-o-sphere any "crowd size” yammers. It would establish Kamala as a star and a voice of her own, not just a warmup act. … And then there's that added, paranoid reason. Keep her away from Joe. Especially that day.

2) Pelosi pushing these quick mini-bills might achieve wonders… even if blocked!

While much attention goes to Biden’s appointment picks, until inauguration, actual action is in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hands. She should immediately put forward a few short bills that might even pass the Senate, over objections by Mitch McConnell!

How could that be, now that today's GOP is the most tightly disciplined political force in the history of the republic? Simple. Trap them into publicly opposing extremely simple things that would be wildly popular with voters!

- I’m pleased to report this has already started. The recent House passage of a bill decriminalizing and taxing marijuana is long overdue, and it will chip away at support for the opposing party of troglodytism. Yes, the bill took up more than a sentence… or a page… but it’s simple enough to come across as distilled common sense, while reaching out to some wavering political faction – in this case libertarians.

So let's start with these quicklie bills that both are sensible reforms and would rebuke Donald Trump, implicitly-but-devastatingly:

- How about a one-sentence bill clarifying that Secret Service agents aren't personal servants! The implied rebuke of Trump would be eviscerating. And the target constituency is a good one to make happy.

- A bill requiring that the Air Force be paid in advance for political or private use of Air Force One, including a fair share of maintenance and depreciation? Another telling dig, since Trump and his campaigns have stiffed the taxpayers! Biden’s willingness to live by this would be another declaration of maturity.

- Establish a civil service post of White House Manager, who must come from civil service ranks in the GAO. All non-appointment, non-policy and non-political members of the White House staff - from housekeeping to secretarial - report to her and not to the President or aides. Purely service staff need not obey orders unrelated to their official duties. They may safely report verbal or other abuse, and may transfer out without penalty. Think of how such a one-page bill would both declare "adults are now taking over" and implicitly rebuke the previous administration of screeching bullies and toddlers.

- Rules ending the travesty of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel 'advising' that sitting presidents cannot be sued or indicted or even investigated! Instead, ensure that Presidents can be "slow-indicted" or "slow-sued," without destroying their ability to perform vital functions, and establish that they are not totally above the law. Would GOP senators dare not to defect, break ranks, to hem in Joe Biden with such rules?

And here are more exquisitely simple bills that Pelosi, Schiff etc could rush through the House in time to make a real difference. With Biden consenting to them, these measures will make Dems look like non-partisan reformers. And wouldn’t this put the two GA senators seeking re-election — Loeffler and Perdue — on the spot, at just the most inopportune moment?

- End the insanely evil ban on refinancing student debt; folks are now forbidden from doing what anyone with a mortgage can do, such as take advantage of low interest rates to re-adjust their debt burden or discharge their loans in bankruptcy. (Those who established that rule were vile people, whatever their formal ideology.) It’s key that this could be achieved with a bill that amounted to one sentence, making it harder to bottle in committee.

(Okay, this isn't the massive student debt forgiveness that so many want. That’s for later; you need a full Congress. These are simple, blatantly obvious zingers.)

- A COVID relief bill? Sure, try that, although Mitch is unlikely to face defections in this area. 

- A bill immediately giving Medicare coverage to all CHILDREN, a move with parental enthusiasm guaranteed. Simply amend all other Medicare legislation so the age boundary "65 and over" is appended with "and 25 and younger."

 Anyone opposing this would face a toasting. It's a win-win, if we demand that those Georgia senators decide now, risking ire from either parents or Mitch. As a secondary benefit, it might persuade the democratic left to give Biden a month or two of honeymoon, before launching in on him. 

Many of these reforms don't have to wait for inauguration! They'll either get Senate defections to pass and get Trump's grudging assent... or they’ll make Republican Senators look rotten.

3) A blackmail warning. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but I promise you, Putin's agents are all over DC right now, setting up hotel rooms with one-way mirrors, just like in the Borat movie!

Possibly the greatest thing Sacha Baron Cohen ever did will be that scene, where even Cohen’s crude methods lured Rudy Giuliani into embarrassing and compromised behavior. For decades I have inveighed that blackmail traps — executed far more skillfully by Russian agents whose traditions go back to the czarist Okrahna — await almost every male who rises to any sort of power in the USA… and females too, especially those with careless male relatives.

(Seriously, can’t you name a dozen recent political figures — senators and administration officials — whose behavior could not be explained by greed or ideology alone, only by absolute obedience to masters who can coerce them insatiably? Blackmail — unlike money and ideology — has no limits.)

Unpersuaded? Well, I made the argument long ago, here - https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/blackmail.html.

Nothing has changed. It is vital that incoming legislators and officials be warned about this kind of thing and armed by our security services with tools to turn the tables.

Even more important is…

4) Get the light flowing! There is nothing Joe Biden could do, across the entire coming administration, that will upend and transform U.S. politics more than establishing a Truth & Reconciliation Commission that brings together America’s greatest sages … and randomly nominated citizens from all regions and all walks of life… charging them with drawing all crimes against the Republic into the open. Methods already exist, as in the drafting and charging of federal Grand Juries.

Of course, there must be carrots and sticks. Like a promise to follow recommendations to trade clemency for truth… with extra points for those who bravely come forward first! And yes: “I know this will wind up shedding uncomfortable light on some Democrats and allies, and who knows how close it will come? But the nation needs this, desperately!  I’ll just take that chance.”

Get some friendly zillionaire to offer cash prizes and legal expenses!

This could be done immediately, even before inauguration. And nothing is more likely to nudge the national mood of fact-distrusting paranoia to more toward a consensus.

Accompany this soon with bills limiting the power to enforce NDAs! (Non-disclosure agreements.) And let the nation judge for itself which party’s partisans howl louder!

(Addendum: this concept could critically matter if some U.S. elites are so frightened of a return to law that they plan rash actions to prevent it. By offering clemency in exchange for revelation and light, Biden might forestall something truly awful, even before he takes the oath.)

There’s much more! But I’ll set aside those further proposals that can wait for January. The ones offered here have urgency of timeliness.