Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

“General” Harris

45 Comments

We’ve been hearing these kinds of stories for a while now. I don’t think it mentions it here, but I saw another story that reported when she was California AG, she would demand that her staff greet her every morning with “Good morning, General!” I have no trouble believing it, both because it matches other stories about her ego, and stories about her intelligence.

One of my pet peeves is people (including media types) addressing a Surgeon General or Attorney General, as “General So-and-So.” “General” is the adjective, not the noun. Morons.

[Update a few minutes later]

How is it that this woman is “Acting President”?

It has been credibly reported that they threatened him with the 25th Amendment if he didn’t drop out of the race. So if that’s true, and they don’t believe that he’s not competent, but removed him anyway, then that would have been a coup. If they do believe he’s not competent, then they have a Constitutional duty to remove him. Either way, this is not “saving our democracy.”

Make up your minds. He can’t be Schroedinger’s President.

45 thoughts on ““General” Harris”

      2. Historically, that should be Mizzen Admiral. But then we’d have to have Fore Admiral and Main Admiral. Of course, Commodore had commode in it, so there’s a theme, at least.

        1. It’s too bad the USN doesn’t make more use of Commodores. The last one I know of was Grace Hopper (inventor of COBOL).

          On ST:TOS there was the famous Commodore Decker. One of the best dramatic characters portrayed by William Windom, of My World and Welcome To It fame, another favorite of mine from 1969-70.

          Was the Captain Willard Decker character in the 1st movie supposed to be his son?

    2. Assuming you’re asking seriously, then he’s a general. He’s of “general officer” rank, “Major” is the distinguisher.

      An attorney general on the other hand, is an attorney, where “general” is an adjective to describe his reach, i.e. all of the work for that area.

      Yeah, it’s not particularly clear. It might be clearer if it were spelled “attorney-general”. Which it might have started out as.

      There’s a lot of history behind titles. Why are the highest American officers called e.g. the “Secretary of State”? Because the “secretary” used to be the lord’s “keeper of secrets”, i.e. was a really important person. The title was cheapened when every manager got one.

  3. Looked up the etymology. AG is an attorney, but Major General is a general. Norman French is to blame.

    1. Wasn’t there a Surgeon General in recent history who insisted on wearing the Captain Kangaroo uniform that went with the office?

      2. Does that make him a Captain or a Kangaroo?

        Going by the sleeve stripes it looks to me like the SG rank is the same as a Vice Admiral. So is that a Vice or an Admiral?

      3. I always thought Koop’s uniform comical, until I learned that the U.S. Public Health Service is actually a uniformed service with military rank structure. It was not only appropriate, but required. I don’t know whether the state attorneys’ office in any state in the Union is similarly constituted.

        What galls me more is the current fad of title retention for life in the American ruling class. Continuing to refer to a former office holder as “the Honorable [this or that]” is just un-American. When they’re out, they’re out. When the House flipped the last time, and Nanny Pelosi lost her gig as Speaker of the House, radio host Chris Plante speculated that the corrupt media would begin referring to her as “Speaker Emeritus.” It didn’t take very long at all for the entire news media to adopt that title.

        I think it’s okay for the media to refer to someone as, say, “former [official title]” or “ex [official title].” But referring to former office holders by their office title is absolutely not okay. It’s even an ethical violation, subject to actual penalties, for someone in office to use his or her, say, a title in a signature block, or in a speaker introduction for any activity outside of official government work.

        Continuing to refer to an ex-office holder by the office title smacks as setting up a royalty, in my opinion.

        2. “U.S. Public Health Service is actually a uniformed service with military rank structure.”

          Really? Are they under UCMJ? If not, then this is featherbedding.

          1. I have a vague memory from a social setting about being told by a medical school professor who did in the US Public Health Service and was annoyed by the requirement on certain days to show up for work in uniform. This may have been in the Surgeon General Koop days.

            Students in campus ROTC have had such a requirement although I don’t know if it is currently so. There was a day of the week when they would come to class in uniform.

            I think that is a great idea for service personnel enrolled at the U to show up to class in uniform on a regular basis, at least for me, of whom I am reminded are preparing to fight for our country far from our shores.

          2. Sounds like the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps which is the uniformed part of the US Public Health Service, is under UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). For example, I ran across a Truman executive order that establishes them as a military service. Therein:

            2. Any member of the Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service who violates any provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice shall be subject to trial and punishment as prescribed therein. The authority conferred by the Uniform Code of Military Justice upon the Secretary of the Navy shall be vested in the Federal Security Administrator; the authority conferred by the Uniform Code of Military Justice on a Commander in Chief of a fleet of the Navy shall be vested in the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service; and the authority conferred by the Uniform Code of Military Justice on the Judge Advocate General of the Navy shall be vested in the General Counsel of the Federal Security Agency. The authority conferred upon such officers by this paragraph shall not be delegated.

            3. Commissioned officers of the Public Health Service now or hereafter detailed for duty with the armed forces shall be subject to the laws applicable to the service to which they are detailed as prescribed by law. In the initiation, prosecution, and completion of disciplinary action, including remission or mitigation of punishments for any offense which has been or may be committed by any commissioned officer of the Public Health Service while detailed for duty with the armed forces, the jurisdiction shall depend upon and be in accordance with the laws and regulations applicable to the armed force which has jurisdiction of the person of the offender at the various stages of such action: Provided, that any punishment imposed and executed in accordance with the provisions of this paragraph shall not exceed that to which the offender was liable at the time of the commission of the offense.

        3. Calling former office holders by their former title seems to be a Title of Nobility. That’s in violation Article 1, Section 9 clause of the Constitution:

          No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

          1. It’s just a courtesy. It means nothing, and they have no power. They can’t even insist on you using it. You don’t want to use, don’t. I don’t and won’t.

          3. There are positions where there is a life-long commitment, such as President. After they have served, they still have responsibilities under law (and presidents also receive protection) which makes the title a little more than just a courtesy. “President” is certainly not a title of nobility. It’s a job description.

          1. On the other hand, the RAF took off from there. Flying Officer, Flight Lt., Group Captain, Wing Commander… I’m sure there’s a really dopey alternate history novel in all this!

          2. I’m sure there’s a really dopey alternate history novel in all this!

            You mean when Col. Guano suspected that Group Captain Mandrake, shot Wing Commander Ripper in some kind of mutiny of pre-verts? (from the French meaning “before green”)…

  4. Make up your minds. He can’t be Schroedinger’s President.

    He absolutely can and is. This works to Kamala’s advantage. Anything that’s good that comes of of this administration is Harris’ doing, anything bad is Biden’s doing…

    BTW if you don’t think it will still be Schrödinger’s President if Harris gets elected. Think again.

    1. In keeping with a Quantum Mechanical explanation of present day politics and Schrödinger uncertainty / superposition….

      Political transparency is the equivalent of energy in particle physics.

      The transparency of this administration is not high enough to see the quarks running the White House from the inside.

      1. From my introductory level understanding of modern particle physics, you know the quarks are there from a higher-energy version of the Rutherford scattering experiment that revealed the nucleus of the atom.

        It is just that you never see an isolated quark. If you hit a particle comprised of quarks hard enough to knock one loose, the matter equivalence of the energy of that blow creates a new quark that “covers” for it.

        There must be a White House analogy in there, somewhere.

    2. Correct.

      It is interesting to see what Kamala releases statements on and what Biden releases statements on. Kamala released a statement on the Hezbollah playground attack while Biden didn’t. Biden released a statement on gutting SCOTUS. Does this mean they think SCOTUS reform is unpopular while they need to shore up the Hamas vote?

      Neither wrote their own statements but they don’t even bother to to write in the voice of the person they are speaking for. In Biden’s case it goes far beyond normal speechcraft to make him look like a puppet.

  5. People, “Save our democracy” doesn’t have anything to do with actual democracy. It is a term-of-art.

      1. I am still trying to figure the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony, and I don’t want to particularly watch a YouTube video to see for myself.

        In the opening ceremony show for the Olympics in London, it was a kind of super elaborate “half-time show” where they brought out into the Olympic Stadium various acts to “salute” the things they thought were high-points of British Culture.

        They did not celebrate Prime Minister Clement Attlee signing over to Stalin licensing rights to the Rolls Royce Nene jet engine that powered the MiG-15 jet used in the Korean War. But they did a salute to the National Health Service (NHS) by having a bunch of guys wheeling around hospital beds, and even though there are horror stories of denied health care under this version of socialized medicine, the NHS is immensely popular in UK.

        Another sketch was where a bunch of the iconic London taxicabs were driven around in figure-8s and other patterns, they stopped to let out a member of the Spice Girls from each cab, a male dancer hoisted each of them to the roof of each cab where they danced and sang Spice Girls hit songs, whatever songs those may have been.

        Then they had a sketch where they used a stunt double to pretend Queen Elizabeth was parachuting from a helicopter to meet James Bond. This was all kitsch, but I guess it was family friendly fun.

        So what was the context of the “tableau” in Paris? Was this a float in a parade, or was this a set-piece act in a half-time show-like thing? Was this meant to celebrate Paris a center of the art world combined with French solidarity with the LGBTQ community? Glenn “The Instapundit” Reynolds’ critique of this was not the sacrilege of an apparent parody of the Last Supper but rather from an art perspective, it was such total schlock, or it was more Wiemar Germany than anything else, completely unrepresentative of France, or at least until now.

        Can anyone tell me if I am understanding this right?

        1. I didn’t catch the opening ceremony, but I did watch some Olympic Badminton live at 5am this morning. (Yes, fell asleep on the couch again last night watching Gutfeld).

          Speaking of badminton, Paul you are really missing out if you are not a member of the UW Badminton Club. Open to faculty.

          3. I had a short career as the captain of a beach volleyball team.

            This was a team-building exercise for the theoretical robotics community at a conference in the late 1990s held in Slovenia, one of the former Yugoslav republics.

            The conference organizers already formed their team and weren’t taking any more players, so I formed a team so I could play be recruiting their grad students. The theory is that this generation of grad students will become the next generation of journal reviewers with whom I wanted a good relationship.

            I thought I had a clever name for the team–I called us the Istrian National Team because the conference was held on territory that was a Cold War flashpoint (as in Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech mentioning Trieste on the Adriatic). I also recruited two professors from Italy who were not in the “in” group, and Istria has both Italian and Slavic roots.

            There was only one woman wearing a bikini who was the ref chronically blowing the whistle on me for rules violations of over eager attempts at “saves.” I guess I wanted badly to win to show the conference organizers with the exclusive club they had going, but I guess their grad students knew their place and we came in second.

      2. Women’s Olympic Boxing
        Has issues. I have a suggestion. If they are going with modified rules: Those who test XX get to put ribbed steel or depleted uranium plates with back pads in their gloves when boxing against XYs.

        I’ve always enjoyed the ‘ping’ sound of aluminum bats in Women’s Softball.

Comments are closed.