Tesla

I had my first ride in a Tesla today.  First impression was that the interior was surprisingly spartan. Since the door windows don't have a frame, they automatically retract when the door is opened and then slide back into the body of the car for a clean seal.  Impressive.  There was a steering wheel and a large screen.  The top was non-opening sunroof.  The dash was almost a table, with no visible vents for AC.  The acceleration was alarming, like being shot out of a cannon.  Luckily, I had been warned to put my head against the headrest before the acceleration.  Then self-driving mode was demonstrated.  The Tesla managed stoplights, lane changes, and navigation with no input beyond the initial programming of our destination.  It was quite scrupulous about using its signal lights.  Impressive.  Throughout the ride, the screen showed the highway with the Tesla - in blue - in the middle and gray icons of all the other vehicles. Humorously, we encountered a Cybertruck which showed up as just a regular truck icon rather than a specialty one.  Upon arrival, the car pulled into an available spot.  The return journey was done without self-driving until we reached the parking lot.  Here, it was just a matter of selecting a parking space on the display.  The car then maneuvered so that it could back into the space.

Wow, this was quite amazing.  Who needs a salesman when you can just take a ride in one.  No wonder this is the most valuable car company.

Trial by Fire (2026)

Keira Frost (Andrea Pavlovic) walks through the woods amidst armed men.  Her wrists are bound.  She is forced to her knees and a gun is placed against her head.

Keira remembers her abusive stepfather.  She remembers running away from home, becoming a petty thief with Stevie (Michala Brasseur), and sitting at a briefing run by Ryan Drake (Derek Moran).  Drake did not have a high opinion of her, or so he intimated.  The mission was to recover some nuclear material at an abandoned Cold War site, but it went badly.  Keira was captured and suffered waterboarding.  And now she was to be shot.

The action is mediocre.  As most of the action is from Frost's point of view, it should have been shown only view the headset cams that she was watching from the van, but that would have really limited the screentime of the other actors.  As with the last outing, Drake and his team don't come off as professionals.

This half-hour short is an origin story for Frost.  She appeared in Rogue Elements (2024), so this is a prequel.  It is strange that we have an origin story for a support character before there is one for Drake himself.  As for her background, it was too run-of-the-mill.  Oh, she had a hard family life, dabbled in criminality, joined the Army where she was a problem soldier, and now she was on an elite black ops team.  Okay.  Typical girl.  Not the background I expected for her.  The conversations between her and Drake are bland and cliche.

There is a twist that makes the episode worthwhile.  Just okay.

Bird on a Wire (1990)

Marianne Graves (Goldie Hawn) is a successful New York lawyer on a business trip to Detroit.  While there, she stops at a gas station/garage and recognizes the gas attendant.  It's Rick Jarmin (Mel Gibson), her fiancé who went missing in Mexico fifteen years ago!  He denies it, claiming to be from Tennessee.  No sooner does she leave - not entirely convinced - than he called the FBI and demanded to be relocated.  Yes, he is in witness protection.  His regular contact unavailable, he is routed to Joe Weyburn (Stephen Tobolowsky), who agrees to move him in a couple of days.  That night, Marianne returned to the garage to take another look.  To her surprise, armed men attack the garage.  She recklessly drives at them and manages to get Rick in the car and race away.

The men were Eugene Sorenson (David Carradine) and Albert Diggs (Bill Duke), former DEA agents.  Sorenson is fresh out of prison, put there by Jarmin's testimony, and is eager for revenge.  Diggs has been on the lam for the last 15 years and would like to kill the only man who could put him in jail.

Rick knew that someone at the FBI had revealed his location.  Worse, the police were now looking to arrest him and Marianne for the shootout at the garage.  They were on the run!  Lou Baird (Jeff Corey) was the only man Rick trusted to sort things out.

The movie is one long chase with romantic comedy between the leads along the way.  The chase takes many forms.  There are car chases, motorcycle chases, a helicopter chase, and finally a showdown at a zoo.  During their cross-country escape, Rick visits several of his previous protection locations, which shows that he has had an interesting career path: carpenter, hairdresser, car mechanic, veterinary clinic pilot, and zoo employee.  Each came with a different name and even a change in personality.

Goldie Hawn was in amazing shape for her age.  There are multiple semi-nude shots or lose skirts that got caught in a breeze to demonstrate that.  The script was not great in explaining her continued presence on this adventure.  Does she view Rick as the one that got away?  Yeah, but she does seem rather annoyed with him for much of the movie.  Does running make sense because the police are after her?  Not really.  It's like the script forgot she was a successful lawyer; I suppose criminal law wasn't her thing.

Mel Gibson is Mel Gibson.  There is a little bit of variety with the change in accent based on what former life he is visiting, but otherwise it is a standard Mel Gibson character.

The villains are introduced grandly and then become cardboard cutouts who prove mostly incompetent.  Sure, it's a comedy - sort of - but the villains can't hit an easy target with superior weaponry and even fully automatic fire.  The finale was a comedy of errors by Rick and Marianne.  They both lost weapons before they could even use them, each either beaten or shot, and yet they survived.  Yeah, these are some really pathetic villains.

Just okay.

Recognizing a Dictator

During the 2016 election, Helen Andrews gave a lecture on How to Spot a Dictator.  The idea was to determine whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton bore the markers of a potential dictator.  Oddly enough, she listed Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the most dictatorial president the United States has yet produced.  FDR implemented two dictatorial strategies.

First, he established a cult of personality.  He was a master of public communication, had a gift for oratory, and convinced people to elect him again and again despite an ongoing Great Depression.  His fireside chats reassured the citizens even as the state of the economy and world didn't much improve.  He was an expert of spin.  In this regard, she said Trump was clearly along this path.  Trump is a salesman who wrote (dictated?) The Art of the Deal.  His entire schtick is to persuade voters to do what was unprecedented; elect a man with neither governmental nor military experience.  Amazingly, he carried that off in the primaries.  Yes, clearly a cult of personality figure.

Second, FDR established clientelism.  Prior to the Great Depression, the government was not in the habit of distributing money to the citizens, either through job programs or handouts.  To tackle the massive unemployment and poverty, FDR championed funds for relief to the states and later Social Security for the elderly.  There was also the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public works program.  Prior to the depression, the government-maintained pensions for veterans and career civil servants.  Afterwards, everyone who lived long enough would get a check from the government.  Once established, it ballooned: Medicare, WIC, SNAP, Drug Benefits, Obamacare, etc.  Now, if you vote wrong, your entitlements might be eliminated by the other party.  Yes, this is a common refrain in many election seasons and created a permanent threat by the government against the voters.  Andrews puts Clinton into this mode.

So, which is worse?  Do you go with the personality or the "gift" giver.  Which is less dangerous to your future?  Check out the video.

Outlawing Communism Again

In 1954, the Congress passed the Communist Control Act and President Eisenhower signed it.  The Communist Party explicitly stated its intention of overthrowing the United States government and instituting a new one.  This contradicts the oath upon taking office:

I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The communist wants to overthrow the Constitution and is therefore committing perjury by taking the oath.

On the other hand, the US has the 1st Amendment that allows communists to believe communist ideas, Nazis to believe Nazi ideas, and so forth.  However, that is not permission to practice such beliefs.  You may think the South was right about slavery, but you will still get tossed in jail if you practice slavery.

Today, there is an effort by members of the House of Representatives to create a new Communist Control Act, this one aimed at the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).  As noted in a previous post, the DSA shares the ideals of the Communist Party.  The party platform calls for the effective repeal of the US Constitution and the dissolution of the United States.  There is no 'true faith or allegiance' to the Constitution.  It is either DSA or Constitution, but not both.

The law is questionable.  If the people vote for socialism or communism, does that qualify as sedition?  If the people want communism, shouldn't they get it?  Communism does not believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It is not keen on individual rights, free speech, or the 2nd Amendment.  Communism is anathema to the United States as it has existed so far.  It is a sad state of affairs that so many Americans are unaware of how awful socialism and communism are, which is the only reason that it has risen in esteem in recent years.

Though such a law clearly doesn't work in the long run (e.g., the Communist Control Act of 1954 isn't being used to stop DSA), it may provide a speed bump to delay socialism/communism while wiser people educate the populace against such terrible ideologies.

Tucker Off the Rails

Tucker Carlson had a recent interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former British MP and noteworthy pundit.  Where Tucker had his famously -infamously - friendly interview with Vladimir Putin in 2024, his conversation with Rees-Mogg was positively contentious bordering on hostile.  Fine, that makes for a more interesting interview, but Tucker comes across as a Putin apologist and maybe even a Hitler apologist.  Good grief!  The centerpoint of the discussion was that Rees-Mogg has argued that the UK should build up its military under the old truism that 'if you want peace, prepare for war.'  Tucker attacked this notion repeatedly.  Among his attacks was to say that England ruined itself by fighting in World War I and World War II, both of which he argued were entirely voluntary.  Indeed, the UK joined WWI because Germany attacked Belgium.

"Who cares?" Tucker argued.

"We had a treaty," Jacob replied.

Then there was World War II.  The UK went to war with Germany because Germany invaded... Poland!  Heck, Germany was merely reclaiming territory that had been 'stolen' in the Treaty of Versailles.  15% of Poland had been Germany/Prussia.

"Why not leave the Germans to it?"

"We had a treaty."

Tucker argued that the wars left the UK much worse than it was.  He pointed out that the UK now had a population that was 19% foreign-born.  If you can't even stop boats from landing on your shore, what makes you think you can face nuclear-armed Russia?  Really, if Putin so wished it, he could win tomorrow by nuking Ukraine or rolling out hypersonic missiles.  The UK stands no chance against Russia, which has a much bigger military.

The point that Tucker refused to understand was that strength deters aggression where weakness encourages it.  The UK was clearly unprepared in both 1914 and 1939.  Aggressors took that weakness as an invitation to attack.  By contrast, the US was strong post-WWII and remained so throughout the Cold War.  As such, the Soviets did not see weakness and no war resulted.

Repeatedly, Tucker spoke highly of Russia while dissing the UK and disapproving of US involvement in both Iran and Ukraine.  Heck, he condemned Hiroshima as unjustified.  'You can never kill innocents.'  Wow, there is a rule that, if followed, would lead to a loss every time.  Sheer stupidity.

Jacob Rees-Mogg had the patience of Job during this debate.  Somehow, he interjected some lighthearted moments despite Tucker's unrelenting series of attacks.  At the conclusion, Tucker thanked Jacob for putting up with his nasty questions.  Rees-Mogg brushed it off as a friendly discussion, showing he is unruffled by such.  Indeed, he came off rather well while Tucker sounded like a crackpot who sympathized with tyrants.

There was a time when I thought highly of Tucker, but it seems that his former employers - both CNN and later Fox - reined in his extremes.  Now free of editorial control, he has gone off the rails. 

Lanterns

In 2016, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) is the Green Lantern, but has been assigned a trainee, John Stewart (Aaron Pierce).  Hal is clearly not keen on this, and the training is mostly non-existent.  However, Hal does offer the ring to Aaron and then puts the trainee in a do or die situation, literally.  After surviving the challenge and on his way to rejoin Hal, Hal suddenly materialized.  Only he looked different.  As it happened, this is a backup Hal, a projection from the ring that was made in 2006.  This version of Hal is much friendlier and a bit concerned that he might be dead.  In the brief chat, Hal 2006 thinks that Hal 2016 isn't doing a good job of training.  Hal 2006 also said to tell Hal 2016 about Rushville.  Upon regaining the ring, Hal 2016 flies to Nebraska and tells John to meet him there.  Rushville, Nebraska, is where Hal received the ring and his predecessor died.  This cannot be coincidence.  There are strange things happening in the town, but Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) is not keen on having Hal and John poking around.  It turns out that exploding aliens have an interest in Rushville, so Hal is determined to find out why.

The series is told in a non-linear fashion.  Though the story initially unfolds in 2016, it hops forward to 2026 and back as far as 1973.  Mostly, the story is split in two, with half the episodes concerning an event in 2016 and the other half taking place in 2026, plentiful flashbacks throughout.  John was chosen by the Guardians in infancy to be the next Green Lantern, whereas Hal received the ring by happenstance when the previous Lantern died unexpectedly.  But somehow it is Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) who is the current Green Lantern (Superman, Peacemaker) when the series jumps to 2026.

Where Ryan Reynolds would manifest his costume whenever he started using the ring, Chandler has an actual suit in the closet that he only wears a couple of times.  Usually, he's in jeans and a leather jacket. Hal is extremely reckless, to the point of infuriating the viewer. It is astonishing how often his ring is running low on power.  Even when he doesn't have his ring, he acts as if he is impervious.  Is he suicidal?  It often seemed like it.  Nonetheless, though he was often a jerk, he does possess charm that makes him likeable overall.

John has a big chip on his shoulder.  Because he has been groomed for life to be the next lantern, it is understandable that Hal is not particularly friendly.  That the writers chose to make his racial background a major factor in his life was irritating.  You would think he grew up in the 50's and 60's rather than the 90's and aughts.  John proves to be a stand-up guy who has more integrity than most give him credit.

The show doesn't feel like a superhero show.  It feels more like a noirish detective show that happens to have sci-fi elements.  This is True Detective meets X-Files with a superhero included.  It is a peculiar fusion that was made more difficult because no one got along with anyone else.  Every relationship is contentious.

Good popcorn fun.