Bad Night for Al Franken

Doug Jones has won the Alabama Senatorial race and Roy Moore will ride off into the sunset to trouble the Republican Party no more.  Al Franken had intentionally offered that vague non-resignation with the expectation that he could revoke it when Moore won the race.  Or maybe he would make his resignation contingent on Moore's not being seated in the Senate.  Whatever the case, Franken's last, best hope for remaining in the Senate just went down the drain.  What will the Senate Ethics Committee do now?

Sergeant Schultz-ism

Only days after Prime Minister Theresa May rebuked President Trump for retweeting videos of Muslims committing violent acts, a plot by British Muslims to assassinate her is foiled.  That's not uncomfortable timing.  Just days ago, she accused Britain First - the source of the tweets - of seeking to "divide communities in their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions."  Interesting.  Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman of north London and Mohammed Aqib Imran from Birmingham appear entirely willing to confirm the "hateful narrative."  To admit the truth that Islamic migrants are a serious danger is to also admit to a catastrophic failure in foresight and governance.  Much of Europe has adopted the philosophy of Sergeant Schultz of Hogan's Heroes: "I see nothing!  I hear nothing!  I know nothing!"  Willful ignorance despite an ever-growing list of Muslim terror plots and slaughtered Brits.

Lady Bird

Lady Bird is the story of a girl's senior year at a Catholic high school in 2002 and 2003.  Though her name is actually Christine, she introduces herself as Lady Bird.  This is a coming-of-age story that mostly focuses on the relationship with Lady Bird and her mother.

Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) is in full rebellion mode for most of the movie and usually playing the alpha male in her love life.  She courts the men who interest her and they are mostly indifferent lumps who don't protest at being her boyfriend.  Of course, perhaps she is finding men like her father who is also something of a lump.  At one point, Lady Bird's mother (Laurie Metcalf) starts explaining how her father is depressed and he is sitting silently in the room as this discussion takes place.  Even her brother Miguel - obviously adopted though that is never openly stated - works as a checker at a local grocery store despite having a mathematics degree from Berkley!  She lives in a world of passive or underachieving men.  She abandons her old clique - notably best friend Julie - and joins the 'popular' group.  She eventually regrets the move.  She also regrets surrendering her virginity to one of the lumps mere moments after the act.  She lies, cheats, and steals.  At her Catholic school, she laments that a pro-life speaker's mother didn't have the abortion and thus spare them from that school assembly.  Lady Bird offers nothing but contempt for her hometown, Sacramento.  Her fondest wish is to go to school on the East Coast.  By the end of the movie, she is attending college in NYC and realizes that she misses Sacramento.

 

This is obviously autobiographical for writer/director Greta Gerwig, who was born in Sacramento in 1983, attended a Catholic School, whose mother was a nurse, and attended college in New York.  Clearly some poetic license was included to spice up the story or maybe she squeezed several years worth of antics into a single year. 

 

Lady Bird herself is not a likeable character.  There is a combination of self-loathing and constant rebellion that makes it difficult to like her.  This speaks well of Ronan's ability to bring the character to life.  Her mother (Laurie Metcalf) is a far more sympathetic character.  Julie (Beanie Feldstein) is the only other character to be realized, a shy but talented girl that Lady Bird abandons for the popular kids only to reconsider later.

 

There are some SJW moments like Lady Bird's pro-abortion stance.  She sees a poster of Reagan at the house of her boyfriend's grandmother and he offers an embarrassed shrug.  Soon thereafter, we discover he is gay and is terrified of telling his Catholic, Republican family.  Another character is reading Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the United States, a book that looks only at the warts of American history and laments that socialists and communists were suppressed.

 

Skip this one.

To the Ethics Committee!

"As with all credible allegations of sexual harassment or assault, I believe the Ethics Committee should review the matter."

Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader

 

In that case, let's elect Judge Roy Moore and send him directly to the Ethics Committee!  That will teach him!

Socialism Works!

 

iowahawkblog

Political Tidal Wave?

With yesterday's victories in New Jersey and Virginia, there are claims that the political tide has shifted and now Democrats will start retaking power.  That was surely the case when Republican Bob McDonald won the gubernatorial race in 2009 in the wake of President Obama's 2008 victory.  Same thing, different parties.  Right?  Not entirely.

Donald Trump lost Virginia in the 2016 election, receiving 44% of the votes.  Ed Gillespie did slightly better than Trump, gaining 45% of the votes.  Virginia voted Democratic last year and it voted Democratic this year.  It went from one Democratic governor to another, which should not be taken as a sign of big political shift.

Let's consider when Bob McDonnell beat Creigh Deeds in 2009.  Barack Obama had won Virginia in 2008 by a 52 to 46 margin over John McCain.  The governor was Tim Kaine, Hillary's future VP nominee.  Despite having voted by 6 points for the Democrat in 2008, the state elected the Republican by an 18 point margin, 59 to 41.  That is a massive shift.  Gillespie actually picked up slightly more support than Trump had (45 Gillepsie vs 44 Trump) while Deeds lost a huge swath of Obama voters (41 Deeds vs 52 Obama).  Yesterday's election was a status quo, not an earthquake like 2009.

Donald Trump lost New Jersey, receiving 41% of the votes.  Kim Guadagno won 42% of the votes in her failed run for governor.  Therefore, she too did slightly better than Trump himself.  However, this election switched the governor from Republican to Democrat, which makes it more significant than Virginia.  Hillary won New Jersey 55 to 41.  Phil Murphy won New Jersey 56 to 42.  Hardly a sea change.

 

Again, let's go back to 2009 race.  Obama trounced McCain, 57 to 42.  The following year, Republican Chris Christie beat the incumbent, Democrat Jon Corzine, 49 to 45.  Corzine lost 12 points from Obama's support.  That's a tidal wave.

 

In 2009, the Virginia and New Jersey races were dire warnings to the Democrats that they mostly ignored.  In 2017, these represent little to no change from 2016.

 

These numbers are actually cause for concern regarding Democrat chances next year.  If results just match the presidential election - as these two do - then the Republicans are going to get a much bigger majority in the Senate and hold the House.  Therefore, it is important for the Democrats to frame this status quo election as a momentum shift while the victory is fresh in the votes' minds.

Catalonian Independence

As a fan of federalism and local control, the idea of Catalonian independence sounds great.  The region has a its own language, Catalan, which I tried unsuccessfully to learn while in Barcelona.  All the signs are in both Spanish and Catalan.  With Spain having surrendered a large chunk of its sovereignty to the European Union, why can't Catalonia ditch the middleman in this arrangement and have its own representatives at the EU?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

This is foundational to the United States and who are we to oppose others making the same decision?  If a people declare the intention to dissolve the bonds, then those wishing the bonds to continue need to make the case.  A majority vote to leave - whether held legally or not - does not happen in the response to good government.  Of course, if Spain allows Catalonia to go, the Basque country is next.  Freedom and centralized authority do not mix.

 

If Catalonia secures independence, I recommend an immediate withdrawal from the EU.  Don't trade Madrid for Brussels.

Russian Collusion Story Flips on its Head

It is now revealed that the Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid Fusion GPS for the Trump Dossier, the largely discredited 'intelligence' that sparked the story that the Trump Campaign colluded with Russia.  Of particular note, the British spy, Chris Steele, was paying Russians to assemble his dossier.  This brings up an obvious question: If the Russians were trying to get Trump elected, why produce a dossier that would hurt his chances?

 

During the campaign, the dossier made the rounds but none of the stories could be verified so no one jumped on the story.  After all, the polls showed that Hillary was a shoe-in and an unverifiable dossier was likely to hurt the media outlet that published it while not changing the election.  However, when Trump actually won, the Democrats knew they were in dire straits.  If Hillary had won, the surveillance and unmasking of Trump Campaign operatives would never have been revealed.  Now it was inevitable that these shenanigans would be made public and a cover story was needed posthaste!  Well, there was this Trump Dossier.  Bingo!

 

James Comey briefed Trump on the dossier and, amazingly, that briefing was immediately leaked to the media.   The dossier was now newsworthy, regardless of its validity.  Huh, that's convenient.  Comey's later actions in leaking memos of his meetings with President Trump for the specific purpose of getting an Independent Counsel named make this briefing and associated leak much more suspicious.

 

It sure looks like the deep state has gone to great efforts to derail Trump's presidency before his administration could expose this trail of questionable and probably criminal behavior.  Now the 2010 Uranium One deal that saw $145 million dollars 'donated' to the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton getting $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow look a lot more like collusion with Russia than the fiction to be found in the Trump Dossier.  That the US sold 20% of its uranium to Russia during the Obama Administration does not reflect well on President Obama either.  Many of the people in charge of investigating the Trump-Russia collusion are the very people who turned a blind eye when the Clintons were enriched by Russians.  There is a reason that it is called the swamp.

Pride in Victimhood

Heather Lind has accused George H W Bush of sexual assault in 2014.  There is a picture of the event included in the story.  So, a then 30 year-old Lind was 'assaulted' by the then 90 year-old wheel-chair bound Bush whose wife, Barbara, was in attendance?   And not just once!  No, he 'touched' her, told a dirty joke, and 'touched' her again.  All of this while being photographed!  Looking at the photo, I could see that he might have his hand on her backside.  Did Bush Sr. cop a feel or is he a frail old man who couldn't tell if he was touching her back or her butt?  Even accepting her story as true, she paints herself as a victim who was helpless against a wheelchair-bound nonagenarian.  Anna Strong would have handled it better.

The Florida Project

Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) is a 6 year-old living in Orlando, FL.  She lives with her mother (Bria Vinaite) at a lavender-painted hotel managed by Bobby (Willem Dafoe).  It is summer so Moonee and her little band of friends must find ways to entertain themselves.  To say that they are a gang of delinquents would be an understatement.  The movie opens with them spitting on a parked car at a neighboring motel.  The spitting continued until the car owner emerged from her motel room and confronted them, at which point they madly dash away.  Sadly, Moonee is just duplicating her mother who is a scammer, a prostitute, a thief, and foul-mouthed as well.  The movie is one long tragedy of child rearing occasionally interrupted by a humorous bit with Willem Dafoe.

 

Willem Dafoe is the only bright spot of this movie.  Had the trials and tribulations of a manager of a low-end motel in Orlando been the focus with Moonee and her mother as just one of them, this might have been a less odious movie.  Not only is the movie one long tragic case of a mother ruining her child, it fails to tell many of the stories it started.  What is the deal with Bobby and his son?  We see the son a couple of times and there is clearly a hinted at story that vanishes as soon as it is mentioned.  At another point, Bobby vanishes into Room 101 and the camera noticeably doesn't follow.  Is this his room at the motel?

 

Mostly hard to watch.  Best avoided.

Slipstream (1989)

The earth has suffered dramatic change which has wiped out the most of humanity and much of civilization.  Small pockets survive on the windswept surface.  Travel between these settlements is mainly done by light aircraft that surf the slipstream from place to place.
 

Matt Owens (Bill Paxton) is a drifter who travels the slipstream in his tiny plane, selling whatever he can to make a living.  He meets Will Tasker (Mark Hamill) at a small airport and offers to sell him some military hardware.  Tasker is a police officer and seizes a hand grenade from Matt's stash.  Matt storms off but soon learns that Tasker's prisoner is worth a fortune in bounty.  Fool that he is, Matt snatches the prisoner from Tasker and Bellitski (Kitty Aldridge) and takes to the air.  The chase begins.

 

The prisoner, Byron (Bob Peck), is an android that murdered his 'master' for reasons that are never explained.  As he travels with Matt, he proves to be a talented healer and a font of skills and knowledge.  Matt soon views Byron as a friend rather than a paycheck.

 

There is a travelogue quality to the movie as the characters stop in different enclaves of the remnants of humanity.  There is the airport at the beginning that has a truck stop feel to it.  Next, there is the smugglers' hideout where Matt keeps his meager stash of worldly possessions.  Montclaire (Robbie Coltrane) is the leader of the place.  Further along, they come to the cave-dwelling wind worshippers who are led by Avatar (Ben Kingsley).  Finally, there is an enclave of the old civilization, people living in a museum of the way the world was and hiding from what it has become.  Cornelius (F. Murray Abraham) is the leader here.

 

Though there is much to like, the movie never finds itself and leaves too many questions unanswered.  With Byron quickly becoming the protagonist, it likewise becomes important to explain why he killed his master.  Tasker becomes the villain of the movie but is never a villain.  With the possible exception of striking Cornelius, all his actions are justified in the pursuit of a murderer.  It is peculiar that he was chasing an android and was not armed with a weapon that could kill an android.  Really, Byron was only a prisoner if he consented to being a prisoner.

 

The acting is mediocre.  Mark Hamill is the best of the primary characters, playing a hard-bitten lawman.  The slicked back and bleached hair gave him an Aryan look, which made Luke Skywalker much more menacing.  Kitty Aldridge spent the film acting tough and failing.  She was not suited for the role and most of her tough talk comes off as hollow.  Bill Paxton is a bumpkin.  He constantly toots his horn despite an unending stream of failures and embarrassments.  The cluelessness goes on much too long.  Bob Peck transforms from apathy to joy to angel of vengeance in the story.  In the individual instances, he's fine but, as mentioned, his overall story arc is never satisfactorily detailed.  Why should I be happy that the murderer goes free?

 

An interesting premise that fell far below its potential.  Mediocre.

Blade Runner 2049

Officer K (Ryan Gosling) flies to some remote farm where he finds Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), a replicant.  Though K is willing to arrest Sapper and take him in, Sapper decides to resist.  The brawl is vicious and K is unusually tough.  After he has dealt with Sapper, K notices a flower next to a dead tree.  His scanners show a crate buried.  He calls for a dig team and then reports back to HQ.  It turns out that K is a replicant and must pass a personality test to demonstrate he is still working inside parameters.

 

The Tyrell Corporation collapsed shortly after the events of the original movie and was purchased by Niander Wallace.  Wallace has discovered that Tyrell made a replicant that could sexually reproduce!  Her name was Rachel.  The movie is a competition between Wallace's top lieutenant, Luv, and Officer K to find the offspring of Rick Deckard and Rachel.

 

Harrison Ford doesn't appear for an hour and a half, so Gosling has to carry this film.  Not being a Gosling fan, I'd say he fell short.  It was interesting that the main character is a replicant and his primary love interest is a hologram.  This was kind of interesting and one finds Joi (Ana de Armas) to be enjoyable.  However, this turns on its head when K runs into a 3D add for the Joi home companion; she was just a well-designed program, nothing more, and yet he had invested himself in her.  Sad revelation.  However, he's a replicant and has no soul.  Really sucks the meaning out of the relationship.

 

Though I had been very excited for the release of the original Blade Runner (1982), I was indifferent when I finally saw it.  Deckard was actually bad at his job and the pacing was glacial.  Officer K is better at the job than Deckard but the pacing has not improved.

 

Wait for this to come to Netflix or cable.

Russian Collusion? I'll Show You Some Russian Collusion

The Russian collusion story has dragged on for months with nothing really to it.  The latest story is that Russia bought adds on Facebook and maybe swung the election.  Um, Russian ad purchases amounted to $100,000 or so.  Hillary's campaign and associated groups spent $1.4 billion.  Either the Russian got the greatest return on investment ever or this is a nonstory.  Besides, how much did the Obama administration spend in an effort to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel?  Turnabout is fair play.  As interesting as this is, another Russian collusion story is brewing.

 

Back in 2009, Russia was using bribes and kickbacks to influence a nuclear trucking company in the US.  The FBI, under the direction of Robert Mueller (yes, the same Mueller who is investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 election), had evidence of Russian meddling.  Moreover, parties interested in selling Canada's Uranium One to Russia's Rosatom had given generous donations to the Clinton Foundation.  Moreover, Bill Clinton was given double his normal speaking fee - a tidy $500,000 - to give a speech in Russia.  Huh.  What an amazing coincidence.  Uranium One owned 20% of US uranium mines, a clear national security asset.  As such, the sale had to get the approval of the State Department that was headed by... Hillary Clinton.  In her defense, Hillary says that she was not involved in the approval process.  Gee, a suspicious person would think that maybe all the money flowing into the Clinton Foundation from parties interested in the Uranium One sale was obviously a payoff.

 

Mueller is hopelessly conflicted.  The man who let the last administration sell nuclear assets to Russia is now investigating how Russia torpedoed presidential run of the very person who may have greased the skids for that sale?  Not to mention the target of the investigation happened to fire his friend, James Comey.  And James Comey admitted that he leaked memos to a friend with the expectation that the exposure of those memos would force the naming of a special counsel, none other than his buddy Robert Mueller.

 

The deep state will ignore the crimes and misdeeds of establishment elites but seek to destroy outsiders on the flimsiest grounds.  If Trump were guilty of every Russian collusion story leveled at him, it would be small potatoes in comparison to the sale of 20% of US uranium holdings to none other than Russia.

Happy Death Day

Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up in a dorm room to be greeted by Carter (Israel Broussard).  Ashamed that she got drunk enough to find herself with this guy, she quickly dresses and heads back to her sorority house.  Along the way, she meets a lot of people who dislike her.  That night, on her way to a party, she is murdered!

 

Tree wakes up in a dorm room to be greeted by Carter.  Ashamed and somewhat confused, she heads back to the sorority house and suffers deja vu the entire time.  That night, on her way to a party, she takes a different route.  While making out with a handsome frat boy, she is murdered!

 

Tree wakes up screaming!

 

The movie is Groundhog Day meets Scream.  Like Groundhog Day, the initial Tree is very easy to dislike.  As she tries to solve her murder - the murderer wears a mask - she realizes that people have reason to dislike her and she becomes a better person thanks to this discovery.  Where Bill Murray was never unlikeable in Groundhog Day - at least to the audience - Jessica Rothe was surprisingly easy to dislike.  As such, her transformation was more pronounced.

 

Though it is a horror film, the repeated resurrection takes all the horror out of it.  There are a couple of jump scares but it is more often funny than scary.  Fun movie.  Thumbs up.

 

Red Dwarf X

Red Dwarf is a British sci-fi comedy that premiered in 1988.  The Red Dwarf is a mining ship that suffered a catastrophic radiation leak that killed the entire crew with the exception of Dave Lister (Craig Charles), vending machine technician, 3rd class, who was in stasis as a punishment for brining a cat onboard.  As the ship was irradiated, it took 3 million years before it was safe to let Dave out of stasis.  In order that he wouldn't be lonely, his bunkmate, Arnold Judas Rimmer (Chris Barrie), was 'revived' as a hologram.  It should be noted that Rimmer was responsible for the radiation leak.  Dave's cat, cleverly named Frankenstien, survived the radiation and spawned a race of cat people who had lived on Red Dwarf but now only Cat (great name, that) remains.  Lastly, there is Kryten, an android recovered from a wreck in the premier of series 2.  No greater band of misfits has ever been assembled to explore space.

 

The 6 episodes of series X are comic gold.  Lister explores his father-son relationship, which is unusual since he is his own father.  The crew find themselves on Earth in 23 AD and meet Jesus!  Oh, the antics!  In a grand finale, the team must face a bloodthirsty band of humanity-hating simulants while armed with 2 forks and a pencil sharpener.

 

Despite a near 30 year run, there are only 73 episodes.  Every sci-fi trope is explored to its peak of hilarity.  Highly recommended.

 

The Establishment Protests

George W Bush has once again spoken his mind on the state of affairs.  Amazing that he was able to hold his tongue for 8 years while Barack Obama hammered him on everything from the state of US foreign policy to the state of the economy.  No more!  He needs to speak.  According to Bush, the forces of bigotry have been emboldened of late and he fears that the US is slipping toward white supremacy.  No names are mentioned but it's pretty clear who he is blaming.  Just the other day, John McCain criticized spurious nationalism.  Yes, the establishment is furious.

 

The source of all this nationalism and white supremacy nonsense is that Trump has instructed ICE, the Border Patrol, et al. to enforce the laws that Congress had passed and his predecessors had signed.  No new laws have been passed.  After decades of neglect, those laws appear draconian.  Amazingly, enforcing immigrations laws has long been a winning issue that neither party was interested in pursuing.  Bush sought to pass an amnesty - Path to Citizenship - and was shot down.  Bush's brother, JEB, described illegal immigration as an 'act of love.'  McCain is a big amnesty proponent except when he is running for re-election every 6 years.  Obama didn't even bother with Congress and enacted a limited amnesty via executive order: DACA.  The establishment doesn't like the voters and is importing new voters.

 

Bush is part of the establishment, a true believer in big government, which he termed 'compassionate' conservatism.  Moreover, he has personal reasons to dislike Trump, the man who easily squashed his brother's presidential run.  These are not the wise musings of a dispassionate statesman.  This is a member of the establishment trying to damage an outsider lest that outsider derail the deep state.

 

The rebellion against the establishment is a global phenomenon.  Brexit?  Catalonia?  The rise of the right in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary?  Trump is just the American version of this rebellion.  Remember, the establishment with all their Ivy League degrees managed to estrange the electorate to such a degree that the electorate voted for Trump!  Bush and his fellow scolds need to take a long look in the mirror to discover how we came to this point.

Ignorant by Design

According to this survey, Americans are clueless about the 1st Amendment and the three branches of the government.  Virtually the first things you learn about the federal government in even the most basic civics class and near 40% are unaware.  This is intentional.  The education system is run by government, for government.  Government, especially one that craves money and power, will benefit if the citizens don't know when government is overstepping.  Government is spending more money on education than ever and yet the level of ignorance is jaw-dropping.  That is not an accident.

 

Abolish public education and watch ignorance evaporate.  When parents are given back their tax dollars and get to pick from among competing schools, schools will rapidly improve.  Imagine a Yelp for schools in which hundreds of parents or older students offer reviews.  Mobile phones haven't seen astonishing improvement because of an overarching government agency and schools won't either.  Let's use the iPhone/Android competition model to improve our schools rather than the one-size-fits-all government model that has achieved decades of mediocrity.

9/11 + 16 Years

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, the United States went to war with Imperialist Japan and Nazi Germany.  The Japanese utilized suicide bombers on planes, though they targeted American warships, not buildings.  We defeated them in 4 years.  The Nazis were vastly better at slaughtering Jews than the Islamic terrorists have thus far proven to be.  We defeated them in 4 years.  How is it that random bands of terrorists have proven more tenacious than two great powers from the 20th Century?

 

It is not the terrorists who are more formidable but the United States that is dramatically less formidable.  Japan had trended toward militarism, totalitarianism, and expansionism in the early 20th Century.  It had many similarities with the fascism of Italy and Germany, thus the natural alliance as the Axis Powers.  When the US defeated Japan, militarism was forcibly purged and a new constitution was imposed upon them.  The toxic ideas that had created Imperial Japan were ripped out by the victors.  This same process happened in Germany.  Nazis were rounded up and tried for war crimes.  The ideology that had justified the Holocaust was, to the best of our ability, eradicated.  The ideologies of the victorious powers were imprinted upon the losing powers.  Sadly, half of Europe suffered Communism as a result but no one was allowed to keep fascism in any of its forms.

 

Today, the ideology in question is Islam.  Islam is a fascist belief system.  Does it believe in totalitarianism?  Of course, the goal has been a global caliphate since the days of Mohammed.  Demand for violent action?  Yes, that global caliphate isn't going to form itself.  Are gender roles defined and enforced?  Can you say honor killing?  Yeah, we've got that.  Does it seek to purge decadence?  Clearly.  Believers frequently kill their own family members who have become decadent.  Hatred for Jews?  Absolutely.  However, unlike Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Japanese Imperialism, Islam is a religion.

 

The 1st Amendment guarantees Freedom of Religion.  So long as Islam is given a pass as a religion, the ideology will just continue to produce more terrorists.  Does that mean we must bomb all Islamic countries?  No.  But we should have a version of Radio Free Europe to try to change the beliefs.  How many of these suicidal terrorists are doing it for the glory of Islam and the promise of 72 virgins in paradise?  That belief has to be countered.

NFL Suicide

Yet again, players are sitting and kneeling for the National Anthem.  After Colin Kaepernick demonstrated the wonders it does for a player's career and the ratings hit is caused, the NFL has decided to let it ride.  Sure, it's a penalty to celebrate too much after scoring a touchdown but kneeling during the National Anthem is free speech.  These geniuses whose paychecks depend on ratings are succeeding in depressing the ratings.  Combine this we-hate-America 'virtue' signaling with the ever progressing concussion story and you have a recipe for killing the sport.  I used to love football but now it feels like yet another opportunity for someone to tell me I'm a bad person for supporting a violent sport or that America is bad because... I don't even remember what Kaepernick's beef was at this point.   Yeah, I'm white and privileged while he is a multi-millionaire who is black and oppressed.  Who was head of state when Kaepernick started his protest?  Barack Obama, a black man.  Who was Attorney General when Kaepernick knelt for oppressed blacks?  Loretta Lynch, a black woman.  That was the national government and the National Anthem is about the nation, not the Ferguson PD or the Baltimore PD.  Do you see the distinction, Colin?

 

The NFL is letting these highly-paid players smear the reputation of the NFL.  Suicide by virtue signaling.  The only game I may watch this season will be the Super Bowl.

Republicans See Movies Too

Jennifer Lawrence recently intimated that the current spate of hurricanes may be mother nature's wrath at America's election from last year.  Silly but she is entitled to her opinion.  However, she is in entertainment.  Love him or hate him, 62 million potential movie ticket buyers voted for him.  Why antagonize them?  Do you think you are going to change their minds?  In J Law's defense, the interviewer asked the question.

A vast number of entertainers have joined this latest anti-Republican bandwagon.  Sure, they say that Trump is particularly bad but that is what they said about George W. Bush.  The current Republican is always the worst ever, with the possible exception of Nixon.  Although you will often hear that 'even Nixon didn't go this far' or the like.  Worse than Nixon!  While they constantly denigrate half the country, the entertainment industry is concerned at the reduced ticket sales, the lower ratings, the diminishing music profits, etc.

 

You can't attack half your audience and not expect some reaction.  Republicans see movies, watch TV, and listen to music too.  As a business decision, I am baffled.  Shut up about politics.

Comrade Detective

This Amazon series tells the tale of a pair of Romanian detectives investigating a murder.  The murderer wears a Ronald Reagan mask.  It is presented as a remastered and dubbed version of a 1980s TV show from the other side of the Iron Curtain.  It plays as communist propaganda, often hilariously so.  In one episode, the detectives tangle with an insane cult: Christianity.  In another, women run wild through the streets trying to get Jordache jeans.  A capitalist tries to explain Adam Smith's invisible hand and sounds like Gordon "Greed is good" Gecko from Wall Street.  Pepsi, VHS tapes, pop music, and more litter the series.  The sympathetic American character says she loves America despite the fact that everyone has AIDS, the violence, the starvation, the poverty, etc.  Oh, and she is really going to miss the wonderful food in Romania and the super sexy men.  It is the sort of ham-fisted propaganda one would expect from the Communists, which is why it is funny.

 

The makers were inspired by 80s movies where Soviets and Communists were frequent foes and decided to make a show from the other side of the Cold War.  What is sad is that, silly as it is, the faux makers have an abiding love for Romania and Communism.  Modern American filmmakers don't show anything like this love of country.  That's sad.  Modern movies are far more likely to focus on America's warts and scars than celebrate its beauty and achievements.  As an experiment, I typed 'pro-American Hollywood movies' to see what returned and picked the first result.  The Majestic - a movie where the House Un-American Activities Committee is the bad guy - made the cut as pro-American.  Okay.  The Kingdom, a movie that draws a moral equivalence between Islamic terrorists and the FBI Agents who hunt them down, made the list.  Shooter, a movie about corrupt government officials framing a patriot for a political assassination, made the list.  Black Hawk Down, a movie about a disastrous military engagement in Somalia, made the list!  By that standard, Midway - a movie about America defeating the Japanese navy during World War II - could be on a pro-Japanese movie list.  Ha!  The pool is SO bad that these qualify as pro-American.

 

It is tragic that the anti-Americanism and pro-Communist propaganda that is played for laughs in Comrade Detective is played seriously in Trumbo.

DACA

 [The president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed

U.S. Constitution, Article 2 Section 3

The Dream Act, which was first proposed in 2001, was legislation that would allow those who are brought into the United States as minors to be granted a conditional amnesty.  Though technically illegal immigrants, they had no say in the matter and have spent the majority of their lives as Americans.  The Act has been debated repeatedly but never passed.  That last point is significant.  There was no law passed for the president to faithfully execute.  When President Obama pushed for the Dream Act, Congress declined to pass it.  Therefore, immigration law treats 'Dreamers' no differently than any other illegal immigrant.  The president takes an oath to faithfully execute the laws that have been passed, not laws he wished had been passed.  However, limited resources often mean that a president must chose where to put emphasis.  DACA was more than that.  President Obama implemented an executive amnesty that not only told prosecutors to ignore Dreamers but also granted legal status via work permits.  The president was not only being unfaithful to the laws that Congress had passed, he was enforcing laws that they did not pass.  Yet another impeachable offense by President Obama.  Of course, impeachment is pointless in our era and the Republicans were too spineless to use the power of the purse.

 

DACA is unconstitutional and should be revoked.  This is something Congress must legislate.  President Trump has provided Congress with 6 months in which to pass the Dream Act.  Let's see if they pass it this time.  If not, let the deportations begin.  Enforce the laws or change the laws but don't ignore the laws.  That is the path to anarchy and collapse.

Comforter in Chief

President Trump has made a second trip to Texas in order to address criticisms leveled in the wake of his first visit.  Much of the media reported that he didn't show enough empathy.  Why is that the job of a president?  In 1871, Chicago suffered the its great fire.  President Grant was not involved in the aftermath.  In 1874, Chicago had another fire.  President Grant still didn't get involved.  When Galveston was flatted by a hurricane in 1900, it was up to the state and local government to deal with the 6,000 to 12,000 dead.  President McKinley may have offered condolences but that's about it.  When San Francisco was flatten by an earthquake in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt didn't jump on the first train to California.  For most of American history, local disasters were a local problem.  It wasn't that these presidents were unfeeling monsters, it was not part of their job to deal with such problems.  Trump may or may not agree with me on that subject but he has learned from the treatment President Bush got in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Bush's failure to be on the ground in the immediate aftermath was used as a cudgel against him for the remainder of his presidency and some suggest it led to the loss of the House of Representatives in 2006.  Though there is no Constitutional requirement for the federal government to be involved in such disasters - indeed, one can easily argue that they are barred from doing so - the PR disaster of not getting involved feeds into the centralizing of power in Washington, DC.

 

Much as I want government to shrink to its Constitutional limits, it would be nigh impossible to reverse calls for national involvement in local disasters.  State governments used to be able to handle far more devastating disasters with little or no federal help but now the federal government must be involved if Timmy stubs his toe on the way to school.  On this, there is probably no going back.

Two-Faced Speaker

Having said all of that, there are people who are in limbo. These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home. And so I really do believe there that there needs to be a legislative solution.

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House

Yet again, the speaker is showing his true colors.  When President Obama put forth the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as legislation in 2012, the Congress - notably the House - shot it down.  Despite lacking any legislation, Obama directed the executive agencies to enforce immigration law as if DACA had passed.  Now that President Trump is proposing to enforce the laws as the Congress has written them and past presidents have signed them, Ryan has an about face.  Oh, he was only too happy to let Obama ignore the law while he could claim the moral high ground.  He was just fooling the rubes in flyover country.  It looks more and more like the two parties have been engaged in Kabuki theater, giving the impression that they oppose one another when they have really been working in concert.

 

Never trust a politician.

The Tick (2017)

The Tick has returned to the small screen and it is generally good.  It is different than the last effort but still has a skewed view from the standard super hero fare.  Arthur (Griffin Newman) is given a lot more backstory and comes to the super hero game reluctantly.  Rather than some mild mannered accountant who shows up in a moth suit one day, here we have a psychologically damaged accountant who became obsessed with The Terror in the wake of a childhood tragedy.  No sooner has he stumbled upon a big clue regarding the supposedly-dead villain's whereabouts than the Tick (Peter Serafinowicz) appears and attaches himself, almost tick-like, to the hapless Arthur.  Tick assured Arthur that destiny is calling and he needs to answer that phone call.  Classic Tick banter.

 

Where the Tick has usually been pure comedy, this mixes some drama with the pure goofiness.  Though I like Serafinowicz in general, I would currently say he isn't right for the role.  Patrick Warburton was so perfect with his glib deliveries of epic blather that it would be nigh-impossible to meet that bar.  This is going to be a different Tick.  This is quite interesting since Ben Edlund - the creator of Tick - has been behind every version of the character thus far.

 

Only half of the season has been released and it ended with Arthur being abducted.  Thus, the current storyline won't reach conclusion until sometime next year.  Dang!  I look forward to it.

Katrina Redux

Like New Orleans in the run up to Katrina, the city of Houston was not evacuated.  This should be blamed on the mayor but it will almost certainly find its way to being Trump's fault in much the way that Bush was to blame for problems related to Katrina.  Also look for Trump's ascribed indifference to the fact that the city is more than 40% Hispanic.  If some newsreader on MSNBC hasn't already made that claim, it is coming.  This is the new Katrina and even if Trump does all he can and does it perfectly, he will have been wrong at every step and a cruel villain as well.  Go up the chain of authority until a Republican is found and there is where the blame lies.  Perhaps Governor Abbot will shoulder some of the blame but the Democratic Mayor, Sylvester Turner, will be blameless.

Republican Suicide

After years of promises to repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, and get the fiscal house in order, the Republicans are reneging on all of it.  With Democrats having no levers to prevent Republicans from doing just about anything they want, there are no excuses for not enacting at least some of their long-stated agenda.  Whether they like Trump or not (they don't), they can still make common cause with him on those items where they agree.  Nope.  Years of false promises - lies - have been exposed for all the voters to see.  The Republicans no more want to reduce government than do the Democrats.  It is just too much fun spending other people's money and tell them how to live their lives.  Power has corrupted.

Rigged Election!

"Court Admits DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schulz Rigged Primaries Against Sanders"

Michael Sainato, Observer

This is both funny and sad.  Some upset Bernie supporters filed a class action suit against the DNC and Wasserman Schulz in 2016.  Though the judge finds that the plaintiffs are right on every count, he dismissed the case because it isn't the place of the courts to tell the DNC how to run their primaries.  Awesome.  Even as unpopular as Donald Trump is, this going to be hard for the DNC to overcome.  How do they run a primary in 2020 and have the voters trust the results?  Bernie won 43% of the vote in the 2016 primary and it is now a fact that the DNC put a thumb on the scale to favor Hillary.  What do those 43% (13.2 million voters) do in 2020?  There is talk of the Republicans splitting thanks to Trump's following vs. the Never Trump wing.  The Democrats have a similar problem that isn't getting the same media attention.  The Green Party may see a big boost come 2020 with disaffected Democrats switching parties.

 

Also, this really hurts the rigged election claims by the Democrats.  If it was okay for you to cheat against Bernie, why isn't it okay for Trump to cheat against you?  Who cheated first?

The Brand New Doomed Afghan Strategy

President Trump has outlined a plan for further extending America's longest war without providing a means for us to win without Afghan support.  The US didn't care a whit what the random Japanese thought about the war and did not make a plan that depended upon them supporting US troops.  The US did not work with the German government to defeat the Nazis.  In both of those cases - which took considerably less than 15 years - we flattened the enemies cities, invaded their territory with no local support, and imposed a new system of government on them while purging the proponents of the ideology that brought about the war.  Nazism was outlawed and Nazis were hunted like the criminals they are.  Imperialist policies were squeezed from the fabric of Japan to the point that their military has been purely defensive in nature since WWII.

 

What is the equivalent of Nazism in Afghanistan?  Islam.  Islam calls upon its followers to subdue or kill infidels.  Unlike Nazism, Islam is a religion and thus purging it is disallowed by American attitudes toward religious freedom, even a religion that calls upon its adherents to slay all Jews.  Dying while killing infidels is a guaranteed path to paradise.  If one is unwilling to practice forced conversion - which is what Muslims have done to conquered lands over the centuries - then the next best option is to install a dictator who will oppress the people.  A Hosni Mubarak or a Muammar Gaddafi are far preferable to the Mullahs of Iran or the anarchy of Afghanistan.

 

Trump's plan, though an improvement on Obama's, is no more likely to succeed.  If you don't fight the ideas that inspire the terrorists, you aren't fighting to win.  Even Turkey, the best example of a Westernized Islamic country, has suffered backsliding and is likely to de-Westernize in the coming years.  Islam is not compatible with Western values and never will be.  All these politicians who proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace and the terrorists and their ilk have been misinterpreting it for 14 centuries are delusional.  I'm willing to bet that Osama bin Laden the lifelong Muslim had a stronger understanding of Islam than George W. Bush the Methodist.

 

Winning requires tactics that no one will implement.  Therefore, we will not win.  We can only contain and suppress.

Fear Skynet? Meh

Elon Musk is worried about Artificial Intelligence (AI).  He holds that it is far more dangerous than nuclear-armed North Korea.  However, he also posits that we are living in a computer simulation.  If we are nothing but a computer simulation - just so many AI versions of people in a super advanced computer - then an AI takeover has already happened, hasn't it?  Elon needs to reconcile his beliefs.

Much like the panic the preceded Y2K, the AI concerns are overblown.  A great deal of effort is spent in making computers secure from hacking, an unending process that always seeks to patch exploits that are found in each new line of code.  Those who are worried about the coming takeover by Skynet forget that Norton, Vipre, Sophos, Kaspersky, McAfee, and countless others make a living by preventing the sort of destructive intrusion that the feared all-powerful AI needs to do in order to become all-powerful.

Failing McConnell

President Trump has unleashed his ire on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and McConnell has responded by explaining how the president doesn't understand the legislative process.  Mitch is full of crap.  With virtually the same batch of senators, he managed to get a repeal of Obamacare onto President Obama's desk in January of 2016.  In that instance, the President was hostile to the legislative process and yet McConnell and Ryan overcame.  This time, with a president who is cheerleading the effort, they fell short.  The only problem that Trump brings to the process is that he will sign the legislation.  In 2016, the Republicans could send the legislation with supreme confidence that it wouldn't be signed but they would be able to go back to their districts and say "See, I passed it and the President vetoed it."  It was the best of both worlds, a way to convince the rubes back home that Republicans were opposed to Obamacare while still retaining all the money and power that the Affordable Care Act provided.  This time around, they couldn't even repeal just the mandates.

 

McConnell is offering empty excuses that are clearly false.  You passed it last year when Obama was there but can't pass it now that the Republicans have an even stronger hold on government?  Nah.  You don't want to pass it.  You want to keep all that power in Washington, where you are top dog in the Senate.  You don't really believe in limited government or, at the very least, too many of your Republican colleagues in the Senate don't believe in it.

Calm Brought Us Here. Time for a New Approach

Keith Ellison, the deputy chair of the DNC, thinks that Kim Jong-un is acting more responsibly than President Trump.  The man providing frequent provocations by launching missiles toward Japan or the United States is responsible while the man telling him to knock it off or there will be serious consequences is irresponsible.  Ellison wants a president who brings calm.  The last president brought plenty of calm and we have a nuclear power with steadily improving missile technology.  North Korea is a basket case of a country that survives by extorting benefits in exchange for stopping its nuclear program.  It is amazing how few recall that President Clinton pursued the Agreed Framework that was supposed to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.  How did that work?  Failed.  President George W. Bush included them in the Axis of Evil but mostly left them to stew while he sought to nation build in the Middle East.  President Obama spoke loudly and carried no stick at all.

"North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power." John Kerry, Secretary of State

What does that even mean?

We've had nothing but calm presidents and the situation has grown worse.  Twenty years ago, the Hermit Kingdom had no nukes.  Today, it has some that may be small enough to mount on an ICBM.  Kicking the can down the road has been a disaster.  It should be noted that President Obama had the equivalent of the Agreed Framework with Iran so we can expect this same situation to arise with the Iranians in 10 to 20 years.

 

An attack on the United States by North Korea will end the regime.  Kim may be a nut but he is aware of this.  His father and grandfather knew this too.  However, they have gamed a restart of the Korean War to extort their neighbors.  Sure, if the war were to restart, North Korea would end but isn't it cheaper to just pay them to calm down?  Trump appears to be not so keen on playing this game and is calling the bluff.  That's brinksmanship but it doesn't make Kim the more responsible person.

Mutiny of the Deep State

Here is a story about how federal employees are defying President Trump and his appointees.  The story is generally sympathetic to the mutineers.  Working in government is not a right.  Long tenure does not mean that you get to set policy.  Love him or hate him, President Trump is the chief executive.  He's the boss, the top dog, the big cheese, the orange overlord.  When the Obama Department of Justice declined to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation after they had loitered with clubs at a polling station during the 2008 election, J. Christian Adams resigned and became a critic outside of government.  He disagreed with the decision of President Obama and his appointees but didn't become some mole in the administration who would leak classified data.  Too often, that is what is happening now.

 

The deep state, the regulatory state, the bureaucracy, or whatever else one might call it is profoundly unconstitutional.  The Constitution says "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."  The EPA is not the Congress and yet the Federal Register returns 14,640 documents regarding EPA rules.  These rules are binding on the citizenry but they were not legislated by elected representatives; they were written by career bureaucrats who remain in their jobs for decades, regardless of which party is in office.  There are so many of these bureaucracies that Congress doesn't have the time for anything but cursory oversight.  Worse, the Congress has passed laws that limit the executive's authority (that's also unconstitutional) in managing these almost independent fiefdoms of regulatory power.  ANY rule or regulation that can result in a penalty must be legislated by the Congress.  By outsourcing legislative power under the euphemism 'regulation,' the government has experienced massive growth.

 

Sticking with the EPA, here are a few of the arms within the agency:

 

1. Office of Policy: The OP creates the regulations and is the effective legislative branch of the EPA.

2. Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance:  The OECA enforces the regulations, basically what an executive branch does.

3. Office of Administrative Law Judges: The OALJ adjudicates the regulations and is the judicial branch.

 

Look how convenient that is: legislative, executive, and judicial all in one agency.  Who needs separation of powers?  The separation of powers exists to prevent the consolidation of power into one entity but too many of these regulatory agencies are self-contained realms whose various parts are unlikely to provide a fair hearing to those it chooses to harass.

 

The swamp likes this cozy arrangement and is alarmed by Trump's threat to drain it, thus the mutiny.

Sane Immigration Reform

Last year, I proposed some ideas for immigration reform.  It looks like Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue may have perused my considered opinion and offered a more merit-based system of immigration.  The big problem with a merit-based system is that those immigrants will consume less government than the current unmerited immigrants.  Sure, that may sound like the preferred situation but that is like a business turning away customers.  Government provides services.  The more customers it has, the better.  Self-sufficiency is the bane of government.  Vast bureaucracies require 'customers.'  If everyone was self-sufficient, the government might have to scale back the nanny state.  Oh, hell no!  Thus we get the Tsarnaev brothers who receive welfare and college tuition from the taxpayer while planning the Boston Marathon bombing.

 

If an immigrant can't support himself, he needs to be deported back to his country of origin.  Don't import liabilities.  Duh.  Because this is patently obvious, I am virtually certain it will never get through Congress.

Confederate

The makers of Game of Thrones have floated the idea of a new HBO series that considers what America would be like had the South won the Civil War.  Doubtless, the success of Man in the High Castle - which proposes an alternate history in which Germany and Japan divided the United States between them after winning WWII.  Let's look at the numbers.

The 1860 Census found that the United States had 31.4 million people.  Of those, approximately 9 million lived in the South and 22 million in the North.  That's a pretty impressive advantage for the North but there's more.  Of the 9 million people in the South, more than 40% were black.  In South Carolina, the population was 57% black, virtually all of whom were slaves.  The North had 72% of the railroads, 92% of iron & steel production, 75% of the wealth, 68% of the exports, and 85% of the factories.  The math is quite hostile to a Confederate victory.  The only reason the South lasted as long as it did was because they had a better officer corps at the start of the war.

 

The South was fighting a defensive war, which is often a recipe for defeat.  Twice, Lee sallied into the North; some of his army refused to follow.  They had joined to fight against Northern aggression, not commit Southern aggression.  However, suppose that Lee took Washington, DC and even captured Lincoln and most of the government.  Suppose that the North accedes to the South's separation.  There still remains an Underground Railroad.  More John Browns will attempt to spark slave revolts.  After the Colonies won the Revolutionary War in 1783, England tried to undo it in the War of 1812.  The same would happen with the North and South and unless the South dramatically departed from the King Cotton economy, the North would be even more formidable in a rematch.

 

I may watch the premiere but my suspension of disbelief is going to be stretched to the breaking point very quickly.

The Duelists (1977)

It is 1800 in Strasbourg, France.  Lt. Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) of the 3rd Hussars is dispatched to place Lt. Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel) of the 7th Hussars under arrest for grievously wounding the mayor's nephew in a duel.  Feraud takes offense at d'Hubert's handling of his arrest and challenges him to a duel.  Feraud will not take no for an answer and a duel if fought but it ends inconclusively.  Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, the two meet repeatedly but Feraud is never satisfied with the result.

 

The first feature film by Ridley Scott, it is based on a short story by Joseph Conrad which itself is based on a true event.  The movie includes 6 duels over a 16 year period whereas the historical figures fought 30 duels over 19 years.

 

Harvey Keitel is very good as the unhinged hyper-aggressive duelist.  He exploits the rules of honor to satisfy his desires.  He was entirely willing to repeatedly provoke d'Hubert until his duel challenge was accepted, hardly the actions of an honorable soldier.  Keith Carradine is passable but just didn't seem French.  His creaky voice that is perfect for a Western singer or an American cowboy seems entirely out of place for a French Hussar.

 

It is an excellent movie and, unlike some of Scott's more recent movies, doesn't rely on the characters' abysmal stupidity to advance the plot.  Also noteworthy is that this is the first of his many historical epics but cleaves closest to actual history.  Robin Hood (2010), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and Gladiator (2000) all made substantial revisions of history.

Sorcerer (1977)

This movie had the misfortune of opening a month after Star Wars.  No theater owner wanted to stop showing Star Wars for this jungle adventure.

The movie opens in Vera Cruz, Mexico where a man in a hotel room has just poured himself a drink when Nilo (Francisco Rabal) walks in and shoots him.  The assassin slips away.  Next, we see several men in Israel who leave a bomb in their wake.  No sooner have they rendezvoused back at their apartment than the military arrives.  Two bombers are killed, one is arrested, and only Kassem (Amidou) escapes.  In France, Victor Manzon (Bruno Cremer) is summoned to the bank where he is threatened with criminal prosecution for fraud on account of having offered worthless collateral.  Given 24 hours to arrange payment, his plans go sideways and he flees the country.  In New Jersey, Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider) is involved in a heist against a well-connected mobster.  The only survivor in a car accident immediately after the heist, he flees the country.  As it happens, all four of these men find themselves in the same backwater Latin American village.  Three of the fugitives work under assumed identities for an American oil company, the big employer in the region.  The plot moves into high gear when an oil well explodes and is now a free-standing flame thrower that needs to be 'blown' out with explosives.  The only explosives available are highly unstable.  Four men are needed to risk life and limb to deliver them to the well, just over 200 miles away through dense jungle.

 

The movie builds very slowly.  The introduction of each character is interesting but might have been better provided in a flashback so that there isn't a long gap between a character's introduction and his next appearance.  The middle part that covers their unenviable lives in the squalor of a jungle village is slow and generally boring.  The two trucks driving through the jungle and overcoming tremendous obstacles is intense and the best part.  More of this and it might have been a better competitor for Star Wars.

 

The very best portion of the movie is when the two trucks come to a giant tree that is blocking the road.  Kassem, the Palestinian bomber, uses one of the boxes of explosives and rigs a timer with a bag of sand and a rock.  The blast is magnificent.  This alone makes the movie worth seeing.

 

The name of the movie comes from one of the two trucks.  Apparently, it was common to give names to vehicles and the two trucks are named Sorcerer and Lazaro.  The movie is based on the 1950 French novel, "The Wages of Fear" by Georges Arnaud.

Dunkirk

Dunkirk is four stories that are loosely tied together, all providing a glimpse of the evacuation that allowed the British to save its army and ignominious defeat.

First, there is Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young soldier who is wandering the streets of Dunkirk with a handful of other soldiers when they are suddenly fired upon.  He is the only one who escapes and finds himself with thousands of soldiers milling on the beach, waiting for evacuation.  But Tommy is not prepared to wait his turn.  He has the misfortune of being aboard two separate ships that sink.  Tommy is not a laudable character but we get to see a lot of him.

Second, there is the officers in charge of the evacuation, namely Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branaugh) and Colonel Winnant (James D'Arcy).  Mostly, they stand on the end of the pier and explain the dire situation, serving as de facto narrators.  Though important for the narrative, they are static characters of little interest.

Third, there are the Spitfire pilots, Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden).  This storyline is the most exciting, providing the majority of the action as the two pilots must keep track of their fuel consumption, watch out for enemy fighters, and protect ships from German bombers.  Hardy shines as an unflappable fighter pilot.

Finally, there is the Moonstone, a private boat piloted by Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and crewed by his son Peter and young George Miller.  This is the best story of the bunch, showing a civilian craft taking part in the rescue of the British military.  During the trip to Dunkirk, they pickup a soldier (Cillian Murphy) from a sunken ship, rescue Collins from his ditched Spitfire, and fish a couple dozen more soldiers from a sunken destroyer.  Also, they recover Tommy.  Like Hardy's fighter pilot, Rylance is insouciant in the face of danger, a stark contrast to some of the soldiers he rescued.

 

The movie tries to strike a balance between the big picture and the individual characters.  In so doing, it felt like it missed both.  There are too many characters and this is the story of too many people.  The holding action that protected the beach for the evacuation is entirely absent.  It is a war movie with surprisingly little fighting.  All too often, the characters are just sitting ducks for German dive bombers or unseen snipers.

 

Not a bad film but clearly Nolan's weakest film.  Hardy and Rylance were great but I could have done without the rest of it.  This is material for a documentary, not an entertaining movie.  It is tough to adapt a catastrophic retreat to the big screen and Nolan did about as well as can be expected.  I am reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

 

It is hard to make a heroic film out of Dunkirk, especially when as much attention is paid to those fleeing as those rescuing.

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

La Double Vie de Veronique is a tale about two identical women living separate lives in Poland and France.  Weronika (Irene Jacob) is a singer in Poland.  In her hometown, she has a doting father and a boyfriend who is hopelessly in love with her.  She decides to visit her aunt in Krakow and, while there, auditions for a singing position at a modest opera house.  All are impressed with her voice.  Oddly, she mentions to her father that she doesn't feel alone, sensing that there is someone in the world with whom she is connected.  Not long after that, she spots a woman who could be her twin sister.  Before she can reach the woman, the twin boards a bus and vanishes.  During her first performance, she dies on stage.

Veronique (Irene Jacob) is making love when she begins to weep, sensing she has lost something.  She is a music teacher in Paris and, by coincidence, her students are playing the very piece that Weronika sang as she died.  After attending a performance by a puppeteer, Veronique finds herself both stalking, and being stalked by, the puppeteer.  Toward the end of the movie, the puppeteer sorts through some photos that Veronique took while she was in Poland.  One photo is of Weronika, whom the puppeteer mistakes for Veronique.  Veronique is reduced to tears upon seeing the picture.

The first half of the movie is in Polish and the second half is French.  Following along with the subtitles, I likely missed some subtleties in the film but still enjoyed it.  The movie is engaging but strange.  I kept thinking there would be a big reveal that they were twin sisters who were separated at birth, especially since both seemed to suffer the same heart ailment.  Nope.  Irene Jacob is the movie and she carries it magnificently.  First she is the joyous and naïve Weronika and then the cosmopolitan Veronique.  One of two films in which Jacob collaborated with Polish director Krzystztof Kieslowski.  Though an acclaimed director, this is thus far the only movie of his I have seen.  I may need to check out his Blue, White, Red trilogy.

Chuck Schumer Support

In the last week, Senator Chuck Schumer has defended Attorney General Sessions for having recused himself and declared John McCain to be a hero for preserving Obamacare.  This is a clear sign that a Republican has gone astray.  Much like scientists need to reassess their positions when the Pope agrees with them, Republicans need to readjust their actions so that Chuck Schumer denounces them.

Priebus, You're Fired

From the very start, it was clear that Trump selected Reince Preibus as his chief of staff as a sop to the Republican Party.  The idea was that Preibus - who hails from Wisconsin like Speaker Ryan - would be a liaison between the outsider Trump and the vast array of insiders.  With the latest legislative fumble and a continuing hostile relationship between insider and outsider, it is clear that choosing Preibus accomplished nothing.  In fact, it was probably counterproductive.  It is almost a certainty that Preibus counseled Trump to let Ryan and McConnell handle the legislative agenda.  Six months and squat.

 

Speaking of the do-nothing Congress, they have some gall to lecture Trump on the running of the executive when they are flailing in the legislature.  Again, where is that repeal bill that this same group of Senators and Representatives sent to Obama's desk in January 2016?  Current events show that they were counting on Obama to veto it so that they could convince the rubes back home that they were sincere when they promised to repeal Obamacare.  McCain and Murkowski voted for it then but against it now.  Too bad no one can fire them anytime soon.

Transgender Ban

Much ink is being spilled over President Trump's reversal of a year old policy implemented by an out-going President Obama.  Most amazing was when Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning dared to blast the president.  Wow, there is perhaps the worst person imaginable to speak on this subject, a transgender in the military who betrayed the country.  It would appear that many believe there is a right to join the military.  No, there isn't.

When I was a senior in high school, an army recruiter came to campus.  He asked me about my interests and explained what the Army could offer.  His eagerness to recruit me evaporated when I mentioned that I was asthmatic.  Disqualified.  No hard feelings on my part.  On the football team, I often had trouble keeping up with my teammates.

 

Asthma is only one of many things that can disqualify one for military service.  Being too tall or too short, too thin or too fat, bad eyes, bad hearing, no high school diploma, criminal conviction, and more can result in disqualification.  Of note, mental disorders can also be disqualifying.  How is it that a biological male who wants to be female is not suffering a mental issue?  If the military doesn't have to put up with my asthma, why should they put up with their gender dysphoria?

 

Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) was a ludicrous goofball character on MASH.  He cross-dressed in order to get booted from the military.  Now cross-dressing and having the military pay for sex reassignment therapy is entirely acceptable.  How far we have come.

 

Anything that detracts from the military mission should be rejected whenever possible.  Having transgendered soldiers serve openly may make the military more fair, but it doesn't make it more effective.  It is more important that it is effective than fair.

Never Gonna Let You Go

Calexit is again in the news as signatures are gathered.  The politics of Trump aside, California has an excellent case - purely on size - for becoming an independent country.   In 1870, the United States had a population of 38.8 million people who were represented in Congress by 241 Representatives and 72 Senators.  Today, California has a population of 39.3 million who are represented in Congress by 53 Representatives and 2 Senators.  The federal aristocracy put a cap on the number of people who could be in the ruling class and this gets worse every year.  A mere 535 people in Washington cannot possible represent the disparate interests of 320,000,000 citizens.  If the central government kept to its Constitutional role, perhaps it could but it has breached those bounds.  One cannot reconcile the sharply contrasting views of New York and Texas or California and Oklahoma.  Federalism or secession.

 

Though the state is dominated by Democrats, the Democratic Party cannot allow California to secede.  20% of all the Democratic Congressmen are from California.  Right now, the Republicans hold the House by a 240 to 194 margin.  Take out California and that becomes 226 to 155.  Without California, Trump won the popular vote by 1.4 million rather than losing it by 2.9 million.  The Democrats cannot afford to lose the state and will necessarily take action to prevent Calexit.  As such, the Republicans should grease the skids for Calexit and enjoy the ensuing civil war between California Secessionist Democrats vs. National Unionist Democrats.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

The story opens in 1975 when American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts shake hands after joining their capsules in space.  As the years go by, the International Space Station grows bigger and more hands are shaken.  Some centuries later, Alpha - the hodge-podge space station composed of a vast number of extraterrestrials - has grown so massive that it threatens earth with its gravity; it is pushed out of Earth's orbit to become an independent city soaring through space.  Four hundred years later on the planet Mul, the native bluish aliens with scintillating skin live idyllic lives on tropical beaches until alien craft come crashing down upon them.  One vessel proves so massive that it creates a shockwave that decimates the alien community, only a handful survive in a wrecked ship they were exploring.

 

Elsewhere in the universe, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) awakens to a vision of the blue aliens' destruction.  Before he ponders it, Laureline (Cara Delevingne) arrives.  They are en route to a mission.  They seek to recover a stolen item at a transdimensional bazaar.  Successful, they head to Alpha, which has grown even more massive.  The commander (Clive Owen) tells them that an unknown menace has taken over a part of Alpha and that all efforts to investigate have failed - no one returns.  The commander has called a meeting of the Alpha Council; Valerian and Laureline are to be his bodyguards.  During the meeting, the blue aliens attack, subdue everyone, and carry away the commander.  And then commences a series of rescues and captures before the climatic reveal.

 

Dane and Cara have no chemistry.  At one point, Laureline has an exchange with some random mercenary and there was vastly more chemistry with him than with her romantic lead.  Valerian is introduced as a legendary womanizer but has all the charm of an awkward teen on his first date.  His response to being rebuffed by Laureline is to ask for her hand in marriage.  Ugh.  He is also made out to be the most successful agent around but he comes off amateurish.  I've liked Dane DeHaan in other movies but he is horribly miscast in this role.  Tom Cruise from Top Gun, Bruce Campbell from Brisco County Jr., or Burt Reynolds from Smokey and the Bandit is how the character should have been played.  That playful, smartass cockiness combined with easy charm is beyond Dane DeHaan.  Entirely unsuited to the role.

 

Cara Delevingne is beautiful but not particularly attractive.  Her idea of flirting with Valerian is to insult him.  She is almost universally hostile or disapproving, a constant scold.  That may have worked for Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia but it doesn't work here.  Also, her character has been altered.  In the comic, Laureline is a redheaded peasant from 11th century France whereas she is here painted as a modern well-educated woman.  Why is Valerian so desperate to win over such an unappealing woman?  On the other hand, it is clear why she is rebuffing him.

 

Too much of the movie is a sidetrack adventure.  When the commander is taken, Valerian goes in pursuit but crashes and contact is lost.  In order to find him, Laureline must escape custody, confer with a trio of aliens who tell her to get a particular oracle-like jellyfish - which proves to be an adventure itself - which reveals Valerian's location.  No sooner does she rescue him than she is abducted by some aliens and he must now rescue her.  This requires that he find a shape-shifting alien (Rihanna) who will help him infiltrate the stronghold and save Laureline.  Sigh.  All the while, the main plot of the movie sits on the sidelines, forgotten.

 

The heart of the movie is the bluish aliens who survived on the wreck.  It has been thirty years since their planet was destroyed as collateral damage in a space battle between humans and some unnamed aliens.  In those thirty years, these pre-industrial beachcombers managed to cull the vast knowledge base of Alpha to become the most formidable force around.  Uh huh.  That's some pretty amazing technical progress.

 

The movie also has some political messages.  Humanity is to blame for the plight of the bluish aliens and any efforts to redress that would 'ruin the economy.'  The bluish aliens lived at one with nature until humans ruined it.  We have met the enemy and they are us.  Wonderful.

 

The action scenes are often very cool but drag on too long.  There was one epic space battle, the one around the planet Mul, that had no point because there are no characters.  What do I care if that fighter zipped between those two destroyers and fired its missile?  Do we know the pilot?  Do we know the characters on the ship that was hit by the missile?  There is no reason to show any of this because there is no emotional attachment for the audience.  Sure, it looks great but so what?

 

Mediocre and disappointing.  Like George Lucas with The Phantom Menace, Luc Besson allowed special effects to blind him from storytelling and acting.  The love story between Valerian and Laureline had that same blandness of Princess Amidala and Anikin Skywalker.  Half of this film should have been left on the cutting room floor and the rest should have had reshoots.  Skip this one.

Republican Suicide

The Obamacare Repeal has crashed and burned.  Again.  Despite controlling the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, the Republicans are too incompetent to accomplish what they have promised to accomplish for the last 7 years.  The Republicans took the House in 2010 on a promise to repeal Obamacare.  Oh, but we don't have the Senate.  Fine.  In 2014, the voters gave them the Senate on the promise to repeal Obamacare.  This is great and all but we don't have the Presidency.  So the voters gave the Republicans the Presidency, a man who promised to sign an Obamacare repeal as soon as it landed on his desk.  These same congressmen managed to get a bill on President Obama's desk in January of 2016 which Obama vetoed.  Where is that bill?  Dust it off, send it to Trump.  No, we can't do that because he'll sign it!

 

Politicians never want to give up power once it has been seized.  The Democrats crashed and burned in the wake of passing Obamacare, losing more than a thousand seats at all level of government across the country.  The Republicans haven't had it this good since the 1920s.  When Democrats have this kind of dominance, they legislate and seize more power!  The New Deal, the Great Society, Obamacare.  When Republicans have it, they form a circular firing squad.  They want to keep the power that the Democrats acquired.  After all, the other party suffered greatly to seize these added tax dollars and regulations, it would be a shame to retreat from this position.

 

The Republicans will richly deserve their electoral defeat in 2018.  It is a shame that the Democrats will benefit from it.  When you look at the wreckage the two parties have wrought, a viable third party has rarely been more needed.

Ann Coulter vs. David Dao

Earlier this year, Doctor David Dao was asked to give up his seat.  He refused.  When the police arrived to escort him from the plane, he continued to refuse until he was forcibly dragged from the plane.  United Airlines was blasted in the press and soon settled for an 'undisclosed amount.'

 

This weekend, Ann Coulter was asked to give up her seat.  Though angry, she gave up her seat but scorched Delta Airlines on Twitter.  Delta has responded to her tweets by explaining that her tweets are unseemly and they will refund the $30 difference in price between her booked seat and the seat where she was relocated.

 

Dao refused to cooperate and United has paid him a small fortune.  Coulter grudgingly cooperated and has been offered a pittance and told to stop badmouthing Delta.  Who played it better?  Is there a lesson to learn in the treatment of these passengers?  It sure looks like the airlines are incentivizing uncooperative behavior while also providing a disincentive to cooperate.  Not a good idea.

Now Everyone is Qualified

Thanks to Trump's election, everyone thinks they are qualified to get elected to high office.  Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is pondering a political career.  Oprah suddenly views herself as qualified for political office.  Kid Rock is floating the idea of running for Senate.  Caitlyn Jenner has even hinted at running for office.  When one considers the $20 trillion debt, the eternally collapsing infrastructure that somehow has no 'shovel-ready' jobs, the selective law enforcement, and myriad failures of government, it is clear that these highbrow educations aren't all they are cracked up to be.  As I noted in an earlier posting, we have a lot of Ivy Leaguers for Presidents and Senators.  We are closer to Buckley's less desirable composition:

I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand people on the faculty of Harvard University.

William F. Buckley

 

Of course, Buckley was a Yale man so perhaps he was exposing a bias.  Still, the results of the Washington elites speak for themselves.  If there was a 100% sweep, it would do the government good, especially if the new Senators and Representatives were people who would have been unthinkable before Trump.  It is time to usurp the new aristocracy that has presumed the right to rule and return to government of the people, by the people, for the people.

 

Good luck storming the castle!