Free Fire

Boston, 1978.  Stevo and Bernie are driving an RV, heading toward a gun buy.  Bernie asks about Stevo's black eye and Stevo says the guy who gave it to him is dead should they ever meet again.  Meanwhile, Chris (Cillian Murphy) flirts with Justine (Brie Larson) while Frank (Michael Smiley) curses about Stevo and Bernie being late.  When Stevo and Bernie arrive, Ord (Armie Hammer) emerges from the darkness and searches all present for wires.  Satisfied, he leads them into an abandoned warehouse to meet Vernon the Gun Dealer (Sharlto Copley) and his 'associate,' Martin (Babou Ceesay).  There are minor hiccups but the deal looks to go smoothly until Harry and Gordon bring in the rest of the guns.  Harry is the one who gave Stevo the black eye!  The confrontation soon escalates to gunfire.

 

The setup is just an excuse to launch the gunfight.  Everyone gets shot, usually multiple times.  There is so much shooting that one wonders how much ammunition all of these characters had in their pockets.  It is also surprising how badly these people shoot.  Most characters are wounded badly enough that they can only drag themselves along the floor but not so badly that they bleed to death.  It amounts to a bunch of incompetent gunmen who are too stupid to runaway and too unskilled to win the fight.  Added to this, everyone is a bad guy.  Some are charming bad guys or funny bad guys but they are all bad guys and deserve their fates.

 

Sharlto Copley was the most entertaining character with lots of great lines.  He shows pride is his blue suit only to have it ruined bit by bit.  He's a bumpkin of an arms dealer and one wonders if this is perhaps his first gun deal.  Armie Hammer is clearly the most competent person and spends a great deal of time shaking his head at the incompetence of those around him.  His easy-going manner and snarky wit make him a fun character.

 

Mediocre.

Colossal

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a once-successful writer who has fallen on hard times.  Her long-suffering boyfriend (Dan Stevens) breaks up with her.  Homeless and unemployed, she moves to the small town where she grew up, where she happens to own the old house?  Hmm.  Does she own it?  It is never really explained - or I missed the explanation.  On her second day, she meets Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), a former school mate.  Oscar instantly becomes Gloria's best friend, offering her a job at his bar, providing furniture for her empty house, and inviting her into his circle of friends.  And then the giant Godzilla-like monster appeared in Seoul.  After a bit of experimentation, Gloria discovers that she is the monster!

The movie is not really a comedy.  Sure, it has some comedic bits but it is nowhere near as funny as the trailer led me to believe it was going to be.  This is a movie about drunkards, jealousy, and revenge.  Much as I like Jason Sudeikis, he is entirely too amiable for this role.  Maybe his long stint at SNL has colored my view of him.  Also, for the first half of the movie, he seemed like a comedic sidekick character.

 

The movie has its moments but fell far below expectations.  Oddly, I was reminded of Striptease.  The ad campaign for that 1996 Demi Moore movie also gave the impression it was a comedy, which it was not.  Dump the puerile antics of Burt Reynolds and it becomes a Lifetime movie of the week about a single mother trying to keep her daughter.  Colossal is about an abusive would-be boyfriend trying to blackmail his would-be girlfriend into not leaving him.  It's hard to make that into comic material, even if you include a giant monster in Korea.

 

The best parts of this movie are in the trailer.  Just watch that.

Ghost in the Shell

In the near future, cybernetic enhancements are commonplace.  In the case of Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson), her entire body is high-end robotics, only her brain is housed in this mechanical body.  Her soul - or ghost - is housed in a shell.  She believes that she is the first of her kind, the case of a brain being implanted in an entirely artificial body.  Thanks to her unique status, she is a member of an elite team called Section 9.  Her current case involves a hacker known as the puppet master, a person who inserts false memories or even takes over the minds of others to do his bidding.  Interestingly, his targets are all associated with the Hanka Corporation, the very company that built her.

 

Ghost in the Shell is not quite a remake but it uses a lot of the classic scenes.  There is the iconic dive off a high rise in a stealth suit.  Yes, the skin-tight, skin-colored suit had to be included though it nixed the nipples, which was a good call.  We see the garbage truck driver being used as a pawn by the puppet master followed by a foot chase that ends in a fist fight in ankle deep water.  There is the scuba diving scene.  There is the spider tank that blasts away at the agile major while she tries to rescue the embodied puppet master.  Even her efforts to pull off the tank hatch at the expense of ripping her arms out of their sockets is duplicated.  The original was visually vibrant, often spending a lot of time on scenes of rain, the city, or people watching.  However, there were no gigantic holograms interwoven among the skyscrapers, which was mostly distracting.

Though the movie borrows heavily from the 1995 Anime, it dramatically changes the story.  In the original, some specialized hacking software becomes sentient and decides to build a body for itself, escape its masters, and look for a mate.  The major's origins are of little importance beyond the philosophical questions that her mostly mechanical existence raise.  She does wax philosophic a time or two.  In the end, she and the sentient software blend into a single new being, which sets her up to be the greatest hacker in existence in later movies.  In the 2017 version, the puppet master is a previous attempt to house a brain in a mechanical body, one that fell short of expectations and then escaped.  Moreover, in her life before her robot body, she was a friend of the puppet master, thus his efforts to win her to his cause rather than kill her.  Now her origins become evidence of vast criminality and human testing.  Similar to the 1995 version, the puppet master offers a joint life but she declines.

 

The Ghost in the Shell universe is very big on brain hacking.  Virtually every episode will have some poor victim brain hacked into going on a shooting spree and having to be put down.  Very quickly, one wonders why these people are getting cybernetic enhancements if they are just setting themselves up to be hacked?  The firewalls and virus programs of the future suck!

 

I'm not sure if my familiarity of Ghost in the Shell enhanced or detracted from my enjoyment of the film.  The casting was mostly adequate.  I have no problem with Scarlett Johansson as the major, who had huge blue eyes in the Anime.  I didn't like Aramaki, the head of Section 9.  The actor was too physically imposing, very different from the source.  Batou (Pilou Asbaek) was good though I didn't like how he got his bottle-cap eyes.  It's nice to be consistent with the series but it might have been best to upgrade his eyes; Wolverine never wore the yellow tights and the fans are mostly okay with that.  What works in comics and Anime often comes off silly on film.  All in all, it's not great but it is okay.  Fans of the series should see it.

 

Credible Threat of Force

Diplomacy is toothless without the credible threat of force.  In the Korean Peninsula, the North Koreans have used a credible threat of force to milk concessions out of its neighbors and the United States for decades.  The provocations are plentiful: nuclear detonations, missiles fired into the Sea of Japan, capture of the USS Pueblo, shelling of South Korean islands, sinking South Korean ship, and so on.  Each of these were acts of war but no one really wanted to restart the Korean War.  It has long been easier to just pay the 'ransom' and kick that can down the road.

Trump has decided to try another tactic.  First, he has countered with a credible threat of force.  In the wake of his Syrian attack, his credibility on red lines is much stronger than his predecessor.  Moreover, Trump is using Taiwan as a means of pressuring China to in turn pressure North Korea.  Without Chinese support, North Korea would be in dire straits.  Secretary of State Tillerson has noted that nothing is off the table, including making Japan and South Korea nuclear powers.  The stakes have been raised.

 

By leaving the war card on the table, Trump has a better bargaining position than his multiple predecessors.  Yes, it is brinksmanship but the appeasement strategy has only made North Korea more dangerous.  Is the North Korean regime rational?  War is suicide.  However, Trump is unlikely to initiate a war but might jump at a provocation, like he did with the gas attack in Syria.

 

Amazingly, I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek: A Taste of Armageddon.  In the episode, the warring people of two planets had done away with most of the destructive and uncivilized aspects of war, making it fairly tolerable.  The only issue was that some citizens had to report to disintegration booths if they were selected as a casualty.  Kirk destroyed the computer that simulated the war and now real bombs would have to drop.  Real consequences are on the table and real negotiations may occur.

 

If Trump's efforts here follow the pattern of all previous presidents, North Korea will get some sort of pay off while offering empty and unenforceable promises to stop nuclear development and the can will be kicked further down the road.  However, that could be preferable to a regional war that may see a nuclear attack by a desperate North Korean regime.  Of course, use of a nuke assures the total annihilation of the North Korean regime.

Airline Hell?

Ever since the man was dragged off the plane, there has been an uptick in stories about how bad the airlines are.  What does this mean?  I see two likely scenarios:

One: Airlines have become terrible recently.  Not that airlines have been great, but for some reason they have descended to a less tolerable level of customer service.  The news media has recognized this and is giving exactly the amount of coverage that it merits.

Two: The dragging story was a ratings winner and the media are currently in a feeding frenzy for more stories that reflect badly on the airlines.  Thus, though the level of service is no different from what it has been, the added attention is highlighting what wasn't considered newsworthy before the dragging.

 

My vote is for scenario 2.  More than a million people fly each day and it is a virtual certainty that a few of those people had a bad or even disastrous experience.  Right now, those 1 in a million stories are getting front page treatment and painting the airlines as villains.  The airlines are cruel capitalists who don't care about their customers and the proof is that they do not achieve a 100% satisfaction rating.

 

The dragged passenger has settled with United, as all knew he would.  This should be a lesson:  Never go willingly, make them drag you and there is a payday in your near future.

Shutdown Showdown

There is yet another threat of a government shutdown and the Republicans are quaking in their boots.  They have spent years promising to cave on every last principle they supposedly hold rather than let nonessential portions of the government close up shop.  This constant spinelessness is why the tactic is repeated, year after year.  The Democrats can stand on their principle - no funding for the border wall - and be hailed as heroes.  Is it any wonder that this broken record is put on the turntable so regularly?  Every shutdown in the last 20 plus years has benefited the Democrats, either as propaganda or electoral advantage.

 

Trump suggested that he might be okay with delaying the funding for the wall until the budget fight rather than this continuing resolution.  Such only encourages the Democrats to press on with the threat of a shutdown.  Amazing how the shutdown will be triggered by the Democrats but blamed on the Republicans and Trump.  It is great when the media is on your side.  Trump would be best served to let the government shutdown.  Most of the people who are sent home are members of the 'resistance' to his presidency anyway.  Besides, the best time to be unpopular is when it isn't an election year.  Pin the shutdown on the Democrats intransigence over a comparatively tiny sum of money and this shutdown tactic might get shelved.  If Trump let's it slide now, the shutdown will just be rescheduled for September.

The Art of the Deal

In 1987, Donald Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, was published.  Thirty years later, I decided it was time to read it.  Mostly, it is Trump expounding on his various high profile deals.  There are chapters on the Grand Hotel, Trump Tower, Atlantic City casinos, his involvement in the USFL, and the story of Wollman Ice Rink in Central Park.  It is surprisingly readable and offers excellent insight into Trump's way of thinking.

In chapter 2, Trump outlines The Elements of the Deal:

Think Big: "If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big."  He offers the view that most people think small and thus leave a lot of room for big thinkers to dominate.  No one would accuse Trump of not thinking big.

Protect the Downside and the Upside Will Take Care of Itself: "If you plan for the worst - if you can live with the worst - the good will always take care of itself."  Make sure the worst that can happen will be doable, then anything above that is all good.

Maximize Your Options: "I always keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no mater how promising they seem at first."  He proposes having a variety of pathways to success.  Many of the deals he details would still have been profitable even if he had to just sell the land or rights to someone else.

Know Your Market: "Some people have a sense of the market and some people don't."  Trump proposes this is an instinct and some just happen to have it.  He's not a fan of number crunchers and focus groups.  He holds critics in low regards as they would likely be failures trying to produce the thing they review (e.g. film critics would likely make lousy films).

Use Your Leverage: "The worse thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it.  That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead."  It is always good to have something that the person on the other side of the table wants, or needs.  If you don't have that, spin a story that makes it seem you do.  Salesmanship and imagination are key.

 

Enhance Your Location: "Just as you can create leverage, you can enhance a location, through promotion and psychology."  Trump loves the superlative (I find superlatives to be synonymous with hyperbole with the possible exception of gold medal winning athletes and the like and generally avoid using them.  Trump does not share my views on that) and is constantly saying how this person is the best, that deal was the worst, or this is the greatest.  Such liberal use of extremes has an impact.

 

Get the Word Out: "You can have the most wonderful product in the world, but if people don't know about it, it's not going to be worth much."  Here Trump notes that the press is always eager for a good story and sensational ones are better.  He notes that even a critical story that could be personally hurtful can nonetheless be good for business.  He argues to be straight with the press but always frame things in the best possible light, which sounds like a contradiction.  Never be defensive.

 

Fight Back: "But when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard."  In this, Trump is very different from typical Republicans.  Where George W. Bush ignored every attack or criticism against him, Trump lets none escape his ire, even when it makes the situation worse to do so.  This is probably one of the greatest selling points for Trump since he entered politics.  The Republican base is used to candidates who shrug indifferently when attacked whereas Trump breaks out the dueling pistols.  Fighting is a novelty among Republicans.

 

Deliver the Goods: "You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotions and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole.  But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."  This very point is what killed the rest of the Republican field in the primaries.  Republicans made big promises over the last 8 years and never delivered the goods.  The people caught on and decided to try something different.  Of course, Trump promised tax cuts and Obamacare repeal and hasn't yet delivered the goods.  Hmm.

 

Contain the Costs: "I believe in spending what you have to.  But I also believe in not spending more than you should."  Trump offers a story in which he reduced the number of door hinges by 1 per door.  Considering how many doors were in the building, it saved $20 thousand.

 

Have Fun: "If you ask me exactly what the deals I'm about to describe all add up to in the end, I'm not sure I have a very good answer.  Except that I've had a very good time making them."

Each of these elements regularly appear in the rest of the book.  I found it particularly humorous how every plot of land he had was the best plot of land imaginable.  When in competition with another developer, he offered vast praise for his plan and crapped all over his competitor's plan.  So many aspects of last year's campaigns were explained in the book.  Trump's hyperbole and habit of demeaning his opponents shows up repeatedly in the book.  The end results speak volumes.

It is an easy read and often very entertaining.  Trump's repeatedly overcoming the bureaucracy of New York City made me laugh.  Definitely worth reading to gain insight on President Trump's way of doing things.  Every member of Congress should read this book, whether an ally or an opponent of the president.

 

Welfare Scientists

Scientists are marching on Earth Day to, among other things, protest "proposed U.S. government budget cuts under President Donald Trump."  The US government is $20 trillion in debt; cuts need to be made.  Scientists are also troubled by "attacks on science."  Modern 'science' frequently deserves to be challenged.  The Replication Crisis entirely justifies the falling status of science in the public mind.  The pressure to publish or perish has led to a lot of junk getting published.

 

Generally speaking, government should get out of funding science.  If citizens are unwilling to fund research voluntarily, why should the government coerce them to do so through their tax dollars?  Let them do crowdfunding.  Perhaps scientists could sell shares in the eventual profits to be earned from the research.  When scientists want money from government, I always think on a particular scene from Ghostbusters:

 

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've WORKED in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Dr. Raymond Stantz

 

You're scientists.  It is beneath you to be marching for handouts.

Gaia Day

In 1798, Thomas Malthus proposed that population growth would eventually outpace agricultural production and result in famine.  At the time he proposed this, the population of the world was around 1 billion people.  Today, the population is in excess of 7 billion.

 

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb in which he warned that mass starvation was just around the corner on account of overpopulation.  At the time, the world population was around 3.5 billion.  In 1990, he wrote a sequel called The Population Explosion in which he called for controls on population.  At the time, the world population was just over 5 billion.  In 1994, he offered an ideal population of the earth, targeting between 1.5 and 2 billion people.  Of course, the population was nearly 6 billion by then.

 

On this day in 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated.  Mother Earth was in trouble because of the pollution of mankind.  Prophecies of doom were provided.  Some of the most extreme can be found here.  Mass starvation and an ice age caused by polluting smoke stacks were inevitable by the 1980s.  The soil would become incapable of growing anything, the sky would darken to where only half as much sunlight could filter through, and humanity might be at risk of extinction.  These apocalyptic predictions are laughable today but somehow don't reflect negatively on the equally apocalyptic modern claims.

 

When Apocalypticism is espoused by religious cranks like Harold Camping or ancient Central American calendars, the claims are viewed with appropriate skepticism.  When 'scientists' make such claims, skepticism is suddenly painted as denial.  Despite having predictions of doom proved wrong time and again, the Earth Day Religion is still treated with more respect than its apocalyptic cousins.

Paris Shooting

A 'gunman' killed a Parisian policeman before he himself was killed.  Despite having read three stories on the subject, I could not discover the name of the gunman.  Why is that?  Ever notice how every time a guy named Muhammad kills a bunch of people while screaming Allahu Akbar, that should not be taken to reflect ill on Islam but when a guy is dragged off a United Airlines flight, it is clearly because Trump is president.  Really?  This is the 6th 'terrorist' attack in Paris in the last 3 years.  If Le Pen wins in the upcoming election, this will certainly be a factor.

French Election

And just remember, there's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.

Madeleine Albright, Campaigning for Hillary Clinton

 

I saw this link on Instapundit and suddenly realized that I have not read of the feminist support for Marine Le Pen, the first woman who might win the French presidency.  Why is that?  Is it only important to break the old boys' network when the woman in question is leftwing?  Isn't it interesting how it is sexist to speak against a leftwing woman but hanging Sarah Palin in effigy didn't trigger a firestorm about a war on women?

 

Marine Le Pen is the National Front (FN) candidate.  The National Front is described as right-wing populist and nationalist.  Among the horrible things that the FN proposes is law and order, especially as regards immigration.  Anti-immigration strongly defines the party and that aspect has only grown stronger in the face of Islamization.  Though in favor of lower taxes, less government intervention, and a diminished bureaucracy, the FN - at least as Le Pen has espoused - is entirely content with the state running healthcare, education, transportation, banking, and energy.  Hardly free market capitalism.  Moreover, FN views protectionist policies favorably.  Oh, the horror!  Such right-wing villainy!  FN would like to do a Frexit, getting France out of the EU and dumping the Euro.  FN is much more isolationist and opposed both Iraq Wars as well as recent French interventions in Africa.  Amazingly, FN is generally pro-Russia and views Vladimir Putin favorably.  The biggest black mark against the party is party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father.  He has unfavorable ratings that make Trump and Hillary look beloved by comparison.

 

France has been in decline for decades.  Once a great power, it now plays second fiddle to Germany in the European Union.  As half-baked and inconsistent as the FN platform is, it is the only party that offers policies that might reverse the cultural suicide that France is currently pursuing.  The French have a fertility rate that is below replacement rate while culturally incompatible immigrants have a fertility rate that will overwhelm the nation.  Where Charles Martel turned back the invading Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732, the modern French are mostly surrendering without a fight, believing their multicultural proclamations will protect them when they are no longer the majority culture.  How are the Copts fairing in Egypt?  Hmm, that's about the best some future French Christians can expect.

 

Germany is committing cultural suicide to atone for Hitler.  I have no idea why France is doing the same.

Your Name.

One morning, Taki awoke to discover he was a high school girl named Mitsuha who lived in a small town in the boondocks of Japan.  That same day, Mitsuha awoke to discover she was a boy named Taki who lived in Tokyo.  However, the following day, each has only a dream-like memory of the switch that quickly fades though the antics and errors do not.  The two swap on a regular basis and soon develop a means of communicating with each other to stay apprised on recent events.  Each first asks "What is your name?"  Mysteriously, a comet binds them together but offering more than that is a spoiler.

Here is a standard anime movie that is done quite well.  The art work is top notch, the characters are fun, and the teenage awkwardness is classic anime fare.  Writer/Director Makoto Shinkai is being compared with the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.  Miyazaki has far more fantastical stories and settings, whereas Your Name fits nicely into the real world in a Freaky Friday sort of way.

Clearly, the box office success and wide release show that this is a cross-over film for those who are not generally fans of Anime.  Thumbs up!

 

Rewarding Bad Behavior?

We are still in the early days of every incident having video available and are shocked by events that will eventually not be newsworthy.  Sunday's United Airlines kerfuffle is one such incident.  When asked to leave the plain, he refused.  When security came to escort him from the plane, he still refused.  When they sought to use minimal force, he resisted.  At each step, he could have submitted to leave the plane.  This path of escalation has happened before.  Last year, there was a middle school girl who refused her teacher's instruction to go to the principal's office.  Her refusal and resistance eventually escalated to a police officer manhandling her, which was filmed.  This is an easy game to play and it will continue to be played so long as it has the current impact.  Anyone can do it.  Get pulled over for a defective blinker and then refuse to hand over license and registration.  Then refuse to get out of the car.  Eventually, you will find yourself handcuffed in the back of a police car on the way to jail.  Easy.  Infallible.  And if only that last bit of being dragged out of the car, thrown to the street, and cuffed is on film, you are golden.  The headline writes itself:

 

Police brutality over faulty tail light!

Here's the important part.  Those who game this early will get the most benefits.  I have no doubt that United will pay a very large settlement to the man who refused to get off the plane.  Compared to the $800 offer to get bumped, he is going to make out like a bandit.  If he had gone quietly, that is all he would have gotten.  Making a scene, and the news, is going to be very profitable.

 

One passenger supposedly offered to be bumped for $1600.  Was that amount beyond the discretion of the boarding agents?  Probably.  That discretion is likely to increase to avoid a future incident like this.

 

Overbooking flights inevitably leads to bumping passengers from time to time.  If Joe has paid for a seat, there is a good case for breech of contract if he is then booted (doubtless there is fine print on the ticket about bumping).  Though United is far from blameless, the intransigent passenger is more in the wrong.  If I tell someone to get off my plane, I expect to be obeyed.  They may sue me later but private property is private property.

Apples, Oranges, and Reuters

Here is an article from Reuters that gives the clear impression that the Democrat resurgence is about to begin in Georgia's 6th District.  With Tom Price having been confirmed to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, his seat will have a special election to fill it.  The article is best described as very optimistic for Democrat chances.  Here we have a "grassroots anti-Trump fervor" and there we have a candidate raising "a jaw-dropping" amount of money.  A veteran activist explains that she has "never seen Democrats around here so enraged" and attributes it to Trump.  Then we have a rundown of the exciting demographics that are likely to benefit Democrats.  Gee, it sounds like it's in the bag, a sure thing.  Fourteen paragraphs into the story, it is mentioned that Tom Price (R) won the 6th district by 62-38.  Yeah, that sounds like a really competitive district.  But what is more important is that Trump only won the district by 1.5% margin.  So in a congressional race, Reuters decided to base Democrat chances on the margin in the presidential election.  Apples and oranges.

 

Of course, what is Reuters recent record on predicting election results?

 

Reuters/Ipsos Polling results

November 3rd

1. Hillary leads in Ohio by 3, lost by 8.5
2. Hillary leads in Pennsylvania by 6, lost by 1
3. Hillary leads in Michigan by 4, lost by less than 1

November 4th

1. Hillary leads in North Carolina by 2, lost by 3.5

November 7th

1. Hillary 90% likely to win presidency
2. Democrats 55% likely to recapture the Senate
3. Republicans 70% likely to hold the House

 

It is no wonder that so many were shocked by the eventual results.  With this record, I suspect that the 6th District in Georgia will be handily won by a Republican in the likely June 20 runoff.  Reuters will offer one of their standard 2 sentence stories to report it rather than this 1,100 word wishful analysis.  Reuters certainly will not confuse the results of a Republican win as an endorsement of Trump policies.

Filibuster Folly

On Thursday, Majority Leader McConnell invoked the 'nuclear option' - also called the Reid Rule - to rewrite senate rules to overcome the filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch.  When put to a vote, he won confirmation by 54-45.  The Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate.  This incident is supposedly evidence that Republicans are wrecking the traditions of the Senate.  Hmm.

 

In 1991, the Democrats held a majority of 55 to 45 seats in the Senate.  In that same year, Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48.  By current standards, Thomas was far outside the 'mainstream' of judicial thought.  How did he get confirmed?

For the entire history of the Senate, judicial nominations were not considered to be subject to the filibuster with the possible exception of Abe Fortas who had some ethics issues that sank his elevation from a Supreme Court Justice to Chief Justice.  However, in 2003, the Democrats decided to filibuster judicial nominees.  They used the filibuster to defeat about ten of George W. Bush's judicial nominees.  This was payback for when the Republican-controlled Senate had bottled several times that many Clinton nominees in committee, never even allowing them to come to a floor vote.  But then the Republicans were getting payback for the smear job against Thomas and the 'borking' of Robert Bork.

 

This growing tit for tat exercise first saw some rollback when the Democrats again took control of the Senate and got sick of Republicans using the filibuster against Obama's nominees.  Though the Republicans had flirted with the idea of a nuclear option when they controlled the Senate, the Democrats used it.  The rules were rewritten so that only Supreme Court nominees could be filibustered.  Now the Republicans have completed the process by removing that last case and returning the Advice & Consent function back to where it was prior to 2003.  Oh the humanity!

 

The filibuster should be returned to its pre-1970 status where a senator had to speak for hours on end to hold up legislation.  Why have a cloture vote to end debate when no one is debating?  It is amazing how much use the filibuster has seen in the wake of that rule.

Resetting the Table

The strike on Syria coincided with President Xi Jinping visiting President Trump in Florida.  It is highly unlikely that the timing was coincidental.  Launching a military strike while the leader of one of the great powers is visiting sends a message, especially with the rising tensions over China's client state, North Korea.  If Trump is willing to attack a Russian client state, what's to stop him from doing the same with China?  Syria is the Gordian Knot of conflicts, involving Russia, Turkey, Iran, ISIS, the Kurds, Jordan, Israel, and others.  The boldness (recklessness?) of such an attack is a 180 degree shift from recent US policy.  Trump has not moved pieces on the chessboard, he has thrown the chessboard on the floor.

Trump has a long history of showmanship and running casinos.  Is this some grand bluff that no one risks calling?  Throughout the campaign, Trump gave the impression that his foreign policy would not be much different than Obama's, maybe less ambitious.  The Syrian strike came as a complete surprise.  To the good, Trump has swept away the America-as-doormat view that took hold during the Obama years.  To the bad, Trump might actually wage a war along the lines of Libya, bypassing congress and risking an even wider war because of all the players on that field.

 

If the attack is not sustained, this may have been a brilliant reset, a shock to the global order that restores America's primacy in one fell swoop.  However, there is talk of deposing Assad again which sounds like the entanglement is only just beginning.  Syria is a far more dangerous conflict than Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya.

Not Another Middle East War

It looks like we might be at war with Syria.  Will this be a limited volley of cruise missiles to slap Assad's hand and maybe dissuade from future chemical weapons attacks or is this going to be Trump's Libya campaign?  Though Assad is clearly a villain, it is hard to see a good end to entering this mess.  The time to get involved was before Russia stationed planes on Syrian airfields and ships in Syrian harbors.  As US ground troops are highly unlikely, what army is going to take the field against Assad?  When Russia planes bomb the army with which we ally, will we assist by shooting them down?  Are we going to duplicate the technique that pushed Russia out of Afghanistan by arming the rebels with stinger missiles?  Afghanistan is doing so well that we have been entangled there for 16 years and counting?  This is fraught with peril.

 

Best case, this is just a way of saying, "Knock it off!"  If Assad can expect to have an airfield and several million dollars worth of aircraft destroyed in the wake of using chemical weapons to kill a handful of civilians, it may convince him that the price is too high.  Obama drew the red line and did nothing when it was crossed.  Trump drew no lines and acted immediately.  Which is a better strategy?  Clearly, the results of Obama's strategy were bad but his alternatives may have been worse.  Sometimes bad is the best choice on the table.

 

Now for some dark thoughts: could this be Trump's way of undermining the notion that he is a puppet of Putin?  An attack on a country with which Russia is overtly aiding in a military campaign is about the last thing one would expect from a Putin puppet.  Maybe this is Trump's pushback on Russian expansion and adventurism and Assad's chemical weapon attack just provided a pretext.  If Trump will launch cruise missiles at a country where Russian forces are stationed, how eager will Russia be to keep pressing Ukraine or continue its propaganda campaign to annex part of Lithuania?  In that case, this would be extremely bold, verging on reckless.  Perhaps in the wake of his legislative agenda grinding to a halt, Trump has decided to make his bones in foreign policy.

 

Rand Paul makes a good point when he says the United States was not attacked.  Though Trump claims this is a vital national security interest, he has not yet made the case.  He needs to make that case and put it before Congress.  No more Libya-like wars.  Of course, Republicans are spineless, so I am not optimistic they will hold Trump to the War Powers Act any better than they held Obama.

Hillary Blameless for Loss?

Hillary is now explaining her loss and it has little to nothing to do with her candidacy but is mostly because of things beyond her control.

1. Russian Hacking: The Russians "meddled with our election."  Specifics were not offered, instead simply hinting at the ongoing story that has failed to find any link.

2. Misogyny: Americans hate women.  "That has to be admitted," she says.  It isn't her they hate, but women in general.  Does that mean that McCain lost in 2008 and Mondale in 1984 because misogynists couldn't handle a woman as vice president?  Also, didn't she win the popular vote?  Is misogyny limited to certain swing states?

3. FBI Director Comey: Darn that Comey for reopening the case less than 2 weeks before the election.  Her private server and detailed work emails had already been covered.  That more emails were found on Anthony Weiner's laptop was a poor excuse to reopen the case.

4. WikiLeaks: How dare Julian Assange publish John Podesta's emails!  Sure, they were all true and exposed the double dealing and coordination with the media but the voters had no right to know that, especially since it reflected so poorly on Hillary and her campaign.

Missing in her list of reasons why she lost is any introspection beyond "things I could have done better."  Might that be a reference to her 'deplorables' comment?  While Trump was constantly on the campaign trail and filling stadiums, Hillary was taking weekends off to rest and barely filling high school gyms.  Hillary lacked either Trump's or her husband's charisma.  Points 3 and 4 are self-inflicted and yet she pretends they were outside her control.  To those not in denial, it is clear that Hillary was the problem, not her listed external factors.  She was a terrible candidate who only looked acceptable because Donald Trump was the other candidate.

Follow Your Logic, Chuck

I heard this clip on the radio while driving home today.  Senator Schumer blasts President Trump for doing 'virtually nothing' on trade relations with China and therefore looking like a '98-Pound Weakling.'  On the surface, that seems like a scathing criticism of the president, an effort to hold Trump accountable for his campaign promises.  However, there is another message that Senator Schumer has unwittingly given:

1. China is cleaning our clock, a claim that Schumer accepts.

2. Trump has done 'virtually nothing.'

3. Schumer believes that presidents can modify US Trade policy.

4. If Trump has done nothing, existing policies are unchanged.

5. The existing policies are those of President Obama.

6. Therefore, Senator Schumer is calling President Obama a 98-Pound Weakling.

 

Amazingly, I agree with Chuck Schumer!  Next, Senator Schumer will blame President Trump for the $20 trillion debt.

The Change in Messaging is Key

Illegal border crossings have hit their lowest point in 17 years!  Doubtless, like the economy, this is an Obama success for which Trump is taking credit.

The ground hasn't even been broken for Trump's Wall, the government is still operating on a 'budget' that was approved by Barack Obama, and yet the number of illegal crossings is down by two thirds!  This is all messaging.  Where Bush tried to get an amnesty bill through Congress, Obama simply bypassed Congress and offered Dreamer status to whomever could get into the United States.  The message could hardly be clearer: come in and we won't try to kick you out.

Trump has offered a different message: crossing the border illegally is illegal and the laws will now be enforced.  The risks and rewards have suddenly changed and migrants are taking that into account.  Paying a coyote a small fortune to get across the border is a lot more likely to end in deportation than last year.  With America closed off as an overflow safety valve, maybe Mexico will finally be forced to get its act together.

 

This is a tremendous success for Trump and so far it is just messaging.  When a Trump budget with border enforcement as a priority arrives, the numbers will fall even further.  Immigration is great but illegal immigration is illegal.

The Interventionist

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has blasted the Trump Administration for not hard charging into Syria in the wake of the latest chemical weapons attacks.  According to McCain, Russia, Iran, ISIS, and Syrian Dictator Assad all need to pay a price for war crimes that rival those of Pol Pot or Nazi Germany.  He is particularly annoyed that Secretary Tillerson voiced a policy that sounds like disengagement, leaving Syria and the Syrians to fend for themselves.

 

First, Trump has exactly one appointee in the Pentagon, Secretary of State Mattis.  As far as the military is concerned, Trump has hardly even begun to take the reins.  In the wake of 9/11, it took a month before Bush acted militarily but McCain is seething that Trump isn't sending weapons to the Syrian rebels tonight.

 

Second, the window for acting in Syria has come and gone.  At this point, it is a disaster.  The competing interests are so numerous that any action will create more problems.  Do we side with the Kurds or the Turks?  The Turks have been US allies for decades and the Kurds were our best allies during the Iraq War but the two absolutely hate each other and are butting heads in Syria.  Who do we pick?  With the Russians already participating on the side of Assad, how can the Syrian rebels hope to unseat him without significant American support?  Air support will lead to an air war with Russia.  At best, this is like the Korean War where we dare not cross the Yalu River lest we expand the war.  Tackling ISIS on the Iraqi side of the border is relatively safe but will be inconclusive, just like the Korean War, and have little impact on the Assad Regime.

 

Third, what is the US national interest here?  US fracking has been so successful that Middle East oil holds far less importance in American foreign policy.  Where a sudden decrease in the oil output of the Middle East could once crash our economy, it would now serve to enrich us by making more fracking economically viable.  Humanitarian military actions (e.g. Somalia, Libya) have not gone well for us and are best avoided.

 

Whatever we do militarily, the outcome will be bad.  Better to engage the various players diplomatically and economically rather than risk military.  Russia and Iran are harmed by America's rising oil independence.  The more oil we drill, the further their economies sink.  Approving the XL Pipeline may be one of the best moves in bringing OPEC countries to heel.

 

Looking back, it may be that we dodged a bullet when McCain lost to Obama.  Yes, Obama was a catastrophe - we are enjoying his Syrian successes today - but McCain has rattled the saber at every conflict.  He would have been far more active against Russia than either Bush or Obama.  He made lots of noise when Russia pealed off part of Georgia, was feisty when Russia annexed the Crimea, and has called for more sanctions in the wake of the election hacking hoax.  Though I agree that the US should have done more, McCain sounds like he wants to restart the Cold War and then warm it up a bit.  You know, the good ole days when foreign policy was easy.

Life

A soil sample from Mars has been recovered and brought back to the International Space Station (ISS) where a noted biologist, Dr. Hugh Derry, will investigate.  A dormant cell is found which Derry awakens with some warmth and a glucose bath.  This new life form, named Calvin, grows quickly and has impressive qualities.  The cell walls are unusually thick and each cell possesses attributes of nerve cells and muscle cells.

The astronauts, all highly educated and trained, prove to be incredibly dense.  Worse, most of them have no idea of the protocols should the experiment go badly.  When Calvin escaped the incubator, the lab was sealed but some fool opened the door to try to save Dr. Derry, which leads to Calvin escaping the lab.  Wonderful.  Somehow in the fire suppressant system, Calvin worms its way into the communications array and disables it.  "Houston, we cannot tell you what is happening because we have no backup communications system."  Really?  When a Russian ship arrives to shove the infected space station into deep space, only one crewman actually knows that was the protocol.  Because he doesn't know, another crew disrupts and effectively sabotages the effort.  Maybe Commander Golovkina could have told everyone about the protocols after Calvin escaped.  Apparently, the only people who knew were Golovkina and Dr. North, who likewise failed to inform anyone until the Russians showed up.  Stupid beyond belief.  It turns out there are two escape pods on the space station, each capable of transporting 1 astronaut.  Really?  Crew of 6 and lifeboats for 2?  Is this the Titanic in space?  And why don't the lifeboats have communications?  All capsules have communications and should have served as one possible backup for the failed communications array.

 

The makers really needed to decide on the abilities of Calvin.  At one point, Calvin wanders around the exterior of ISS, generally unconcerned by the vacuum of space.  However, the crew later depressurize much of the space station with the expectation that it will force Calvin into dormancy.  Calvin feeds on the organic life forms on the ship and yet is somehow composed of something far tougher.  How does Calvin survive unscathed from a flame thrower or being in the nozzle of a rocket when it fires.  Even if it survives the 5,000+ degrees of heat from the rocket, how does it not get fired like a cannonball into space from a thrust that is changing the orbit of 500 ton space station?  How is it that the rocket nozzle somehow leads into the interior of the station?  That makes no sense.  Calvin seems to be all-knowing and all-seeing with an intuitive sense for modern technology.  Of note, in the weeks that Dr. Derry spent studying the growing Calvin, he apparently learned nothing.  No biopsies to test what chemicals might harm or help, no deeper analysis of cell structure or maybe genetic code.  Nope, he just played patty cake with it until it attacked him.  Genius!  You know, when the alien germ starts crawling out of the Petri dish, it's time to stop feeding it.

 

Dr. Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) proves to be the biggest fool on the space station, a man who played with fire until it burned him then sabotaged efforts to put the fire out.  "It doesn't hate us, it just wants to live."  Who picked this guy to study the alien?

 

Commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya) is fully aware of the protocols should Calvin get out of the lab.  Calvin is out of the lab.  Her first order of business should be to inform the rest of the crew that they are all already dead.  No, I think I'll go on a spacewalk to see why the communications array is down.

 

Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds) is the mechanic, the guy who maintains and fixes all the parts of the ISS.  He has the right attitude in most things except keeping the quarantine.  The moment Calvin gets hostile, Rory wants to kill it.  All his efforts to do so inexplicably fail because Calvin is fireproof.

 

Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki Sanada) is a technician like Rory but forgot to pack his Samurai sword.  His job is to let everyone know what system Calvin has broken and the state of the ISS orbit, usually decaying.

 

Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the medical officer.  He is something of a misanthrope, having spent more than a year in space because he hates what people do to each other on earth.  Okay, yet another crewman with psychological issues.  Like most of the crew, he is more concerned with saving his crewmates than containing the doom of humanity virus.

 

Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) is from the CDC and was involved in determining the protocols for containing the Mars specimens.  She knew what would happen if they lost containment but never bothered to tell anyone.  "Hey, Rory, if you open that door we will all be shoved into deep space.  You really want to open that door?"  Nah, she didn't need to say anything.  I'm sure it will be fine.

 

Not considered by the last of the astronauts was that Calvin started as a single cell and, since escaping, has traversed the ISS multiple times.  How many single cells may have been scattered in Calvin's wake and stuck to astronauts, waiting for a glucose bath?  No one can leave, which is something Dr. North should have known.

 

The movie is light on science and heavy on the fiction.  The look of the movie is great but the story is atrocious.  Skip this one.

Flynn Immunity Request

In July, 2003, Robert Novak noted that Joseph Wilson had been suggested for the job of confirming the Saddam Hussein yellow cake story in Niger by his wife, Valerie Plame.  The CIA requested an investigation to determine who had 'leaked' Plame's name to Novak.  The firestorm commenced with suggestions that the Bush Administration had leaked Plame's name for revenge against Joe Wilson's debunking the yellow cake story.  With that in mind, the targets of the ensuing investigation quickly became Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and VP Dick Cheney.  However, when all was revealed, the leaker proved to be Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, which the investigation knew almost from the beginning.  Therefore, almost right out the gate, Special Counsel Fitzgerald knew that Novak's leak came from Richard Armitage.  Armitage was charged with no crimes.  Ergo, the very act that was the impetus for the investigation was found not to be criminal.  $2.6 million spent on investigating something that was not a crime and resulted in no prosecutions?  Unthinkable.  Therefore, Scooter Libby, who demonstrably did not leak Plame's name, was charged with 5 crimes and convicted of 4 in association with the investigation.  Thus, Dick told Bob about Valerie and Scooter was blamed.

 

Libby was charged with perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice.  Why?  He wasn't involved in releasing Plame's name and had no reason to lie.  Fitzgerald announced that Libby had prevented the grand jury from determining if the leak had been a federal crime.  Huh?  The testimony of Libby was going to determine whether Armitage's leaking was a crime?  Libby was done in because his testimony did not match that of Judith Miller, who had taken notes of her conversations with Libby.  Fitzgerald viewed discrepancies as Libby lying and obstructing.  As he did not leak the name, Libby got a raw deal.  Unless Flynn is a dedicated diarist, his memory is going to be inconsistent.  Such could be judged criminal.

 

Seeing the fate of Libby, Mike Flynn may just be taking rational precautions.  Immunity is a tool to bypass the little fish and catch the big fish.  If Flynn can expose a bigger fish, why not give him immunity to do so?  Maybe he expose Trump's dealings with Russia, if there are any.  Maybe he can shed light on who is leaking to the media, such as who leaked Flynn's name.  Either of these would be blockbusters.  Of course, the former is unlikely or immunity would already have been offered; neither party likes President Trump.

Beauty and the Beast

The movie opens in Baroque France with a selfish prince (Dan Stevens) hosting a dance in which he is the only man on a dance floor crowded with two dozen or so young lovelies.  It is then that an old crone bursts in and demands lodging, offering a rose as payment.  The prince scoffs.  She requests again and he tosses the rose aside.  The crone transforms into a beautiful enchantress who curses the prince to ugliness until he should find someone who will love him.  Oh, and all your servants get to share in your curse because... they should have prevented you from being such a brat!  Even you, Chip!  Uh huh.  On top of that, the enchantress has a lasting appearance which I do not recall in the original.  She shows up repeatedly - in disguise - and is present when the curse is broken.

The live-action version attempts to expand the story, usually for the worse.  We learn that Belle's mother died of the plague in Paris.  Also Beast's father is responsible for making his son a selfish scion in his own image after Beast's mother died.  Thus, Beast is kind of blameless for his situation.  Oh, and Beast joins the motherless Disney character club with Belle.  LeFou, Gaston's sidekick, is gay and, to press the point, he dances with another clearly gay man at a ball where both have a sly smile.  Also, it is strange to see how racially integrated 18th century France was.  Yes, it is fantasy but then why try to emulate the style and technology of a real historical period?  If a live-action Mulan comes to pass, I doubt such ahistorical casting will be made to satisfy the diversity police.

 

The characters mostly failed to make the leap to live action.  The Beast felt a lot less intimidating than he should.  He's all roar and no bite.  When it comes to a fight, he always finds himself at death's door but for Belle's intervention.  Really, how did he survive this long?  A doddering father in the mold of Geppetto works much better in a cartoon than live action.  Maurice (Kevin Kline) comes across as a bumpkin and a fool.  Gaston (Luke Evans) is truly cartoonish, wanting to marry the prettiest girl, speaking to himself in mirrors, and just over the top narcissism.  That's good shorthand characterization in an animated feature but poor form in live action.

Belle (Emma Watson) starts out perfect and remains perfect.  She has read every book in town (and is apparently the town's only literate woman), invents a washing machine, knows what tool or part her clock-maker father needs before he does, dismisses Gaston's amorous advances with relative ease, and boldly risks the roads alone to find her missing father.  There is no character arc for her beyond the love story.  Even there, she is mostly won over by the library.  So much is made of Beast needing to break the curse and Belle wanting to save the servants who are doomed to become inanimate objects that any chemistry and love between Beauty and Beast is incidental.

Fun to watch but generally overrated.  By explaining the background, trying too hard to expand the story, and failing to account for a different presentation, it has failed to capture the heart of the original.