Used Cars (1980)

Rudy "Trust Me" Russo (Kurt Russell) is a used car salesman with dreams of political office.  In order to secure his nomination, he must provide a cash donation; he's $10,000 short.  His boss, Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), offered to give him the money.  Rudy is so grateful that he offers a 50-50 split on all the graft once he's in office.  However, Luke's brother, Roy (Jack Warden), owns a used car dealership across the street and has eyes on securing a monopoly.  If something happened to Luke, he would inherit the lot.  Well, as long as Luke's daughter didn't show up.  Barbara Fuchs (Deborah Harmon) came looking for her father and found herself as the owner of a failing car dealership.  Could she and Rudy keep it solvent long enough to benefit from a new highway exit?

The movie is a series of zany gags and crazy humor.  In order to drum up business, Rudy contacted Freddie (David Lander) and Eddie (Michael McKean) to hijack the local TV signal and air a commercial for the dealership.  That Lenny and Squiggy appear was itself hilarious.  The commercial goes horribly wrong with the female model (Cheryl Rixon) somehow made topless; the lot was packed the following day.  Further such antics saw the pair hijack a presidential address!

Jack Warden makes for a terrific villain as Roy Fuchs.  There is no underhanded tactic that is beneath him, including an effort to put his niece in jail.  Kurt Russell inhabits his role as a sleazy car salesman, only too happy to do whatever it took to sell a car.  Despite his dishonesty, manipulativeness, and general lack of morals, he was somehow likable.  Gerrit Graham was a great wingman to Russell.  His faith in superstitions from rabbit's feet to saltshakers to fear of red cars made him a constant source of laughs.  By contrast, Deborah Harmon is left as the straight man in most of the gags.  To add yet another classic guest appearance, Al Lewis (best known as grandpa from The Munsters) played Judge Harrison.

At the time this was released, it was quite the raunchy comedy.  Today, it feels tame.  Nonetheless, it is a lot of fun.  Recommended.

9/11 + 25

It has been 25 years since planes crashed into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. In the wake of this attack, President Bush declared Islam to be a religion of peace. Nonetheless, we went to war with a couple of Islamic countries: Afghanistan and Iraq.  Moreover, a new department was created to keep the country safe: Homeland Security.  Where the hijackers had come into the country to execute their terrorist attack, such an agency would surely curb future intruders.  Clearly, those who would scream Allahu Akbar must get the hairy eyeball before entering.  As such, the number of Muslims in the United States has been careful monitored so as to rise from 2.5 million to 5.5 million.  Likewise, where there were approximately 1200 mosques in 2000, there are now only 2,800 or thereabouts.  Of course, New York City has been particularly active in preventing future incursions.  Where there were 120 mosques in 2000, there are now only 300.  Additionally, where NYC was in the process of electing a Jewish mayor - Michael Bloomberg - during the 2001 attack, it now has its first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

To look at where things stand, the Muslims are winning.  They have changed tactics - for the moment - and just begun to migrate into the West.  The situation is dire in England, but the West has chosen to just idly watch as the invasion progresses.  Eventually, the numbers will favor the Muslims and, like Lebanon, they will take over and oppress the infidels.

Good Intentions

In Good Intentions, Walter Williams, a noteworthy economics professor, discussed the unintended consequences of those good intentions.  He detailed his own youth, education, and job history compared to what was possible today (early 1980s).  Education had degraded since his time, seeing a dramatic rise in administrators at the cost of resources to the classroom.  Furthermore, efforts to give control of education to parents was foiled by teachers' unions and government.  Where he had a job as a teen for a $1/hour, a modern teen could not be hired for less than $3.35/hour.  That minimum wage, intended to protect the youth from an employer who would take advantage, limited the number of teens who could be hired.  Rather than get job experience - even for a pittance, the teen was instead unemployed.  Then there was the licensing scam.  Many governments required a license to participate in an industry.  He gave the example of driving a cab.  In Philadelphia, it cost $20,000 to get a license and thus be an independent cab driver.  By contrast, Washington D.C. only required $50.  Unsurprisingly, vastly more cabs were available in DC and there were more independent cabbies.  All too often, government efforts to assist the citizenry results in exactly the opposite.

Highly recommended.

Mr. Baseball (1992)

Jack Elliot (Tom Selleck) was a New York Yankee, an MVP from the World Series.  He viewed himself as untouchable.  Then a new player arrived and the Yankees traded Jack.  "Not Canada!" Jack insisted.  No, not Canada.  "Cleveland?"  Nope.  He was being traded to Japan.  Jack arrived in Japan to find himself assigned an interpreter, Yoji (Toshi Shioya), who often changed Jack's replies to completely change the meaning.  His coach, Uchiyama (Ken Takakura), was a serious and sober man who did not appreciate Jack's disrespectful antics.  Hiroko (Aya Takanashi) was his assigned agent and arranged for his mandatory endorsement deals and TV commercials in Japan.  She soon became his love interest.  Jack was not the only American on the team; Max 'Hammer' Dubois (Dennis Haysbert) had been in Japan for 5 years and offered pointers on assimilation, most of which Jack didn't take.

The movie doesn't know what it wants to be.  The comedy elements are purely situational and fish out of water variety humor.  There are no laugh out loud gags or jokes.  The romance between Jack and Hiroko is bland.  She's the only woman he knows in Japan who speaks English; she's the only fish in the pond.  Later revelations about her parents paint this in an even weirder light.  Because much of the dialogue is in Japanese, the other players - except Max - don't get much development.  It is unclear why this movie was even greenlit.

Of course, this was the year that ended Tom Selleck's movie career.  Also in 1992, he had a cameo in the critically panned Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, and stared in Folks!, a movie where Don Ameche played his senile father who moved in with him; it was a comedy.  All three were box office bombs.

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Lake America

 

He's done it again! So long to Lake Ontario and hello Lake America.

I would prefer a bit more creativity in Trump's naming.  Gulf of America vs. Gulf of Mexico made sense.  Lake America?  We weren't calling it Lake Canada.  Ontario is a province.  May Lake New York?  If he does manage to acquire Greenland, will it get renamed to Americaland?

To Vax or Not to Vax?

On X, someone noted that 127 children had died from the measles vaccine while only 2 have died from contracting measles.  Proof that the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease!  No, sorry, it does not prove any such thing.

The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963.  Prior to vaccination, the annual death toll was 300 to 400 per year.  The population was considerably lower then, but let's stick with that number and just compare.  With the vaccine, we can have 2 measles deaths and 127 vaccine deaths, but without the vaccine with can have 300 to 400 measles deaths and no vaccine deaths.  I'll let you choose.

As Thomas Sowell explained, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.  By only examining one side of the equation, it can appear that the status quo is obviously wrong.  However, once you look at both sides, the tradeoff is apparent and the cost/benefit can be answered.

AI Scouring the Web

Though I have been writing this blog for 15 years, it is not a popular or widely read blog.  However, there have been the occasional bursts of activity.   In October 2018, I had over 5,000 views!  Prior to that, I only saw a few hundred in a month.  It flattened out to the regular few hundred until June 2019 when I broke 3,000.  Cool.  It then dipped to the usual few hundred for the next several years.  In December 2023, I had over 4,000.  In May 2024, there were more than 6,000.  Wow!  That was the high-water mark until July 2025 when I broke 42,000.  What?  How is that possible?  It was so out of the blue.  In the last few months, the real craziness occurred.

The last 4 months have seen 273,000 views, which constitutes more than 60% of all the views I've had since starting this blog.  What could possible account for such skyrocketing views?  Artificial Intelligence.  Yes, the AI bots must be grabbing everything that can be found.  I suspect all bloggers have seen a huge increase in views.  How long will this last?  In a few months, will I look back on this as the slow times?

For the rare human reader, thanks for stopping by.