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!

What a Difference 4 Years Make

During the 2012 Presidential Campaign, Obama ripped into Romney's views on foreign policy.  Here's the clip.  Obama mocks Romney for identifying Russia as the number one geopolitical rival.  He also gives him grief for making a nuclear treaty with Russia.  To read the news since the 2016 election, it looks like Romney was a seer!  He then attacks Romney for wanting more troops in Iraq.  As it turned out, ISIS exploded on the scene in 2014 and there was virtually no US presence to oppose it and the Iraqi army collapsed.  Gee, Romney is an oracle!  Then he hammers Romney for dithering on Afghanistan, apparently not having a mirror on hand to examine his own record on that account. 

Asked two years later - in light of troubles in Ukraine and Syria - if Romney was right on Russia being our primary geopolitical foe, Obama dodged a direct response to the question and offered vague analysis instead.

Though I'm certainly no Romney fan, he demonstrably had the clearer view on foreign affairs in general and Russia in particular.  Even Democrats would have a hard time justifying Obama's 2012 statements in light of current events.  If Russia has had as much influence as many Democrats are now saying, those above clips will eventually be cited like Neville Chamberlain's 'peace for our time' proclamation.  According to some accounts, Obama sat on his hands while Russian operatives rigged the election for Trump.  Thus, the effort to delegitimize Trump's election must simultaneously paint Obama as hopelessly clueless and incompetent with regard to Russia.

The Tunnel, Series 1 (2013)

The Tunnel opens with the discovery of a body lying at the exact midpoint of the Channel Tunnel from France to England.  As such, both French and British police arrive.  As the victim is a French politician, the Brits are perfectly willing to let the French have the case but that changes when it is discovered that the bottom half is actually that of a Welsh prostitute.  As such, Detective Chief Inspector Karl Roebuck (Stephen Dillane) and French detective Elise Wassermann (Clemence Poesy) become partners in the investigation of the Truth Terrorist.  The killer maintains a webpage where he intends to offer 5 truths, each accompanied by 1 or more deaths.

 

The show does a very good job of keeping the viewer guessing.  Many early contenders for Truth Terrorist prove to be false leads.  These dead end side stories give some verisimilitude to the investigation.  This isn't Columbo.  It is sometimes unclear if there is only one person or perhaps a team of people behind the crimes.  Much time is spent developing the two main characters, neither of whom proves all that likeable.  Elise is virtually incapable of relating to people on an emotional level and often makes insensitive remarks.  Karl has 5 kids by 3 different women and his inability to keep his zipper up causes problems.  No paragons here.

 

The series does have some serious stumbles.  The biggest failing was when a character steps on an explosive trigger.  If she takes her foot off, the bomb will explode.  The bomb squad arrive and shrug; it's too complicated for them.  Sorry.  Really?  They suggest she run like hell and hope to get out of the blast radius.  Gee, thanks.  Of note, she is wearing platform shoes.  Why not have someone hold the shoe down as she slips her foot out and then pile some weight on it?  Easy.  So easy and obvious that I was practically yelling at the screen in frustration.  Then there is the kid who is under police protection because someone might be looking to kill him but nonetheless sneaks off.  In the end, the villain is just too perfect to have achieved what was achieved.

 

The series is a remake of a Danish-Swedish series called The Bridge.  There is also an American version, also called The Bridge, that takes place in El Paso and Juarez.  I have seen neither of these but may take a look to see how they compare.

More Illegal Spending

Senator Chuck Schumer has observed that money spent on Obamacare was not authorized by Congress.  As all appropriations must go through Congress, that would be illegal spending, embezzling tax dollars.  Sadly, this is hardly big news.  Back in 2008, the Congress declined to allocate funds to bailout the failing car companies.  Despite this lack of authorized funds, President George W. Bush spent billions of tax dollars to prop up the car makers.  Impeachable offense.  Of course, he had a month left in office so it was hardly worth the effort.  Having spent the previous year blasting President Bush's executive overreach, President Obama purchased a controlling share of the car companies while still lacking an appropriation from Congress.  Impeachable offense.  Congress let it slide.  How can we now be surprised - or even upset - that the Obama Administration continued the practice of spending without appropriation?  Without this unauthorized spending, Obamacare would have crumbled even sooner.

 

It should be noted that such spending is a crime.  Obviously, no one is going to be prosecuted because those who broke the law are members of the Washington Elite and above such laws, especially if they are Democrats.  It is a certainty that neither party will look the other way if Trump tries to spend on his pet project - the border wall - without an appropriation.  Three cheers for a return of the rule of law!

Doctor Who's Sex Change

Fifty-four years after the start of Doctor Who, the latest incarnation will be female.  The Doctor is an alien from the planet Gallifrey and somehow in those 5 decades it was never mentioned that Gallifreyans could change sex.  I lost interest in the modern version of the show sometime around the end of David Tennant and the beginning of Matt Smith.  It went from a young and frantic Doctor to younger and more frantic Doctor.  I tried getting back into the show when Peter Capaldi replaced Smith but was crushed by his introduction, notably the moment when his "companion" slapped him like he was a misbehaving child back when it was not child abuse to slap children.  Heck, the companion was more in charge than the bemused Doctor.

 

The planet Gallifrey had quite a few Time Lords and not all of them were men.  For nearly three years the Doctor was accompanied by Romana, a Time Lady.  Unlike the rest of the Time Lords, she did not die during the catastrophe.  She was stranded in E-Space, some alternate universe, where she presumably lives still.  If the BBC is so eager to have a female Time Lady, bring back Romana.  Nope, let's regenerated into a woman.  The outlandish comedy of Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death has ceased to be comedy and is now canon.  Joy.

 

For a former fan, this is depressing to see.  So many shows from my youth that have been rebooted have turned to crap.  Star Trek is self-hating drivel, Star Wars is on the social justice bandwagon, Ghostbusters was sold as feminist propaganda, Henry Cavill's Superman is a guilt-ridden white male, and now Doctor Who is transgender.  The Planet of the Apes franchise has been extremely well done and highly entertaining but, in the end, humanity is the villain.  Yeah, more of that self-hatred.

 

As for the Doctor, the BBC should have just gone all in and had the Doctor regenerate as a gay black Muslim woman confined to a wheelchair.  Just watch those ratings skyrocket with all that social justice.

Phony Temperature Data

Yet again, an inquiry into the data that 'proves' global warming has shown falsified data.  This is an old story that really blew up when the East Anglia emails exposed the "trick" that allowed them to "Hide the decline" in temperatures.  You see, a flatline on global temperatures is a big problem for the Chicken Little crowd.  Panic, fear, and impending doom make for great sales pitches when requesting government funding.  Real science doesn't need to massage the data.  Real science appreciates critics because it forces the science to be more reliable, it doesn't try to silence them.

 

The Climate Crisis fear mongers act less like dispassionate scientists following the data where it leads and more like religious zealots who denounce skeptics as heretics.  This alone reveals the lack of honest science where climate change is involved.

Fiscal Health and Voting

The Mercatus Center's latest research paper shows the fiscal health of the states.  The health is based on five factors: Cash solvency, Budget solvency, long-run solvency, service-level solvency, and trust fund solvency.  By ranking each state on each of these factors, the study determined how well the states were doing in comparison to each other.  Though not part of the study, Investor's Business Daily (IBD) noted that low-tax Republican states rated high while high-tax Democrat states rated low.  Here is a basic breakdown:

Top 5 States: Florida, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming lead the rankings.  Though Florida was not number 1 in any single factor, its high marks in each earned it the top spot.  Of note, Trump won all 5 of these states.

Above Average States: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana, Alabama, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Indiana, Alaska, and Virginia are doing fairly well.  Trump won 11 of these state and Hillary won 2.

Average States: South Carolina, Arkansas, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Washington, Hawaii, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Delaware sit in the middle.  Hillary won 7 of these states to Trump's 6.

Below Average: Kansas, Arizona, Mississippi, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, West Virginia, California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania all need improvement to stave off an Illinois-type disaster.  Trump and Hillary split these with 7 each.

Bottom 5 States: Maryland, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey were at the bottom.  Chris Christie was a Republican hero when he first burst onto the scene with his tough talk about getting the fiscal house in order.  The state is now 37th in cash solvency, 49th in budget solvency, 50th in long-run solvency, 24th in service level solvency, and 39th in trust fund solvency.  The reason Illinois is the one going bankrupt first is because New Jersey still has some cash available to pay bills for a bit longer; Illinois is 48th in cash solvency.  Hillary won 4 of these states to Trump's 1.

IBD has a chart that shows the top 10 states are run by Republicans (sole exception being a Democrat governor in Montana) while 6 of the bottom 10 are Democrat and 2 of the Republican states have Democrat governors.  Want fiscal health?  Vote Republican.

Stupid, but Not Treason

Donald Trump Jr. is the latest target of the ever elusive Russian collusion story.  In June of last year, he received an email from a British publicist who was going to hook him up with a Russian attorney who had some dirt on Hillary.  Perhaps the best summation was from Kyle Smith: "Don Jr. is why Nigerian e-mail scammers keep trying their luck."  Burn!  The Russian attorney had nothing on Hillary and instead tried to lobby regarding adoption policies between the US and Russia.  It sounds like the meeting was arranged under false pretenses, a bait and switch operation.  If anything, this meeting demonstrates that the Trump campaign failed in a collusion attempt.

As for treason, that's just nonsense.  As discussed here, treason can only be committed by giving aid to, or fighting alongside, the enemies of the United States.  Enemies is narrowly defined as those with whom the US is at war.  As we are not at war with Russia, it is impossible to commit treason on their behalf.  Now, if it had been ISIS or Al Qaeda...  Just because treason is off the table does not mean that espionage or some other crime wasn't committed.

 

Was it treason when Senator Ted Kennedy sought Soviet assistance in derailing President Reagan's re-election in 1984?  Was it treason when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton approved the sale of a Canadian uranium mining company (which controlled a quarter of US uranium mines) to the Russian Rusatom, especially after her husband had been paid handsomely for multiple speeches in Russia and the Clinton Foundation had received millions from parties interested in the sale?  Was it treason when the Clinton Administration approved a technology transfer to China after his re-election that was funded in part by illegal donations from the People's Republic of China?  If you hold that Don Jr. is a traitor, then so was Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton.  In fact, none of them are traitors though that doesn't mean they aren't reprobates and criminals.

I'm a Genius!

My desk is constantly a disaster, a pile of books, papers, mail, CDs, soda cans or bottles, glue, batteries, cables, remote controls (for a BlueRay Player and TV that are within arm's reach), pictures, pens, pencils, Scotch tape, coins, newspaper clippings, and a variety of kids toys.  According to this video on the Independent website, I must be a genius.  In fact, if the amount of mess correlates with IQ, I may be a super genius.  Hold on, I think I can pile some more stuff on that part of the desk.  I can feel the IQ growing with each added piece of clutter.

 

As flattering as it is to learn that the mess on my desk demonstrates my brilliance, let's say I'm nevertheless skeptical of this study.

Rationing

There is only so much of everything (supply).  Somehow, those who have or provide the resource need to figure out how to ration that limited resource among those who want it (demand).  What are some options?

 

There are 4 hamburgers at Mr. Sloppy's Rough House Café but there are 5 customers who want hamburgers.

 

Brute Force: Bluto is the biggest and meanest customer and Popeye has no spinach on hand.  Bluto takes all 4 hamburgers.  Everyone comes back the following day in hopes that Bluto isn't there to take all the hamburgers again.  This is a system used in countries with a weak rule of law.  The strong take what they want.  This system is beneficial to the least number of people and actually has a negative effect on supply.  Who wants to produce the good if it is just going to be forcibly taken.  Thus, it will do the worst job of rationing the scarce supply while also making the supply more scarce.  This would be most equivalent to despotism.

 

First Come First Serve: Wimpy was first in line.  Then comes Bluto, Popeye, and Olive Oyl.  There are no hamburgers left for Poopdeck Pappy.  Poopdeck Pappy makes sure to be first in line tomorrow.  This is the rationing system that was used by the Soviets, and is currently used by US Veterans Administration and the British National Health Service.  The First Come First Serve system provides for everyone but it has a built in delay since the current supply doesn't meet current demand.  The delays will serve to limit demand by some people finding an alternative, go without care, or die during the wait (e.g. the VA Scandal).  As the cost to the consumer (demand) is paid through taxes, there is no limit to how much product is consumed if one is willing to stand in line.  Government provides the supply and has an incentive to provide enough to prevent hostile voters but not enough to eliminate waiting times.  This is socialism.

 

Price: Popeye, Olive Oyl, Poopdeck Pappy, and Bluto each buy a hamburger.  Wimpy can't afford a hamburger until Tuesday.  Wimpy comes back on Tuesday when he can afford a hamburger.  This system is used by McDonalds, Apple, Toyota, PepsiCo, and countless others.  This system is the most dynamic of the bunch.  As the price rises, some consumers are no longer able to afford the product.  However, suppliers have an incentive to be more efficient - and thus lower their price - to expand the number of consumers who can afford their product.  Also unlike the other systems, a price system allows consumers to pay for different levels of quality (e.g. an old jalopy, a used 2005 Honda Civic, or a 2017 Rolls Royce).  This is capitalism.

 

Each system has winners and losers.  Price has consistently provided the most winners and fewest losers.  Best to ration by price.

Demographic Collapse

Here is an article that delves into Elon Musk's concern about shrinking populations in developed countries.  It is an interesting article with graphs, tables, projections, and potential consequences but it doesn't ask the important question: why have fertility rates plummeted?

 

In the comments section, one person suggests that secular regions see much lower fertility rates than religious ones.  This certainly reflects the situation in Europe - which has embraced secularism - and has very low fertility vs. the Islamic Middle East which has high fertility rates.  This is surely a factor.

 

What is more likely the reason for the collapse in fertility in the West is the social safety net.  Programs throughout the industrialized world have been implemented to guarantee an income and healthcare to the elderly.  In the United States, there is Social Security and Medicare.  Prior to these programs, people had to count on their children to take care of them in their old age.  When these programs came into being, the government guaranteed that other people's children would take care of them in their old age.  Unless someone had a real desire for offspring (an expensive and time-consuming commitment), one would be better off not having kids.  Europe was the first to embrace the cradle to grave safety net and is the first to suffer the inevitable cost-benefit analysis of rearing children.  Whereas it used to be that more kids would mean more workers on the farm and eventually more adults to support elderly parents, it is now a case of fewer children incurring lower costs to raise while satisfying the desire for parenthood for those who want them.  Therefore, the best way to reverse the fertility crisis would be to abolish the social safety net.  If you want the workers of tomorrow to support you in old age, you need to contribute to having workers of tomorrow.

 

Even if governments were to abolish the safety nets, the development of robots may provide a new safety net that will cause the demographic problem to persist.  The Japanese are far along in developing robots to take care of its aging population.  A robot labor force could thus exacerbate the demographic collapse.  It will be even worse when Skynet comes online.

"Man" gives Birth

The Sun reports that a British man made "history by giving birth to baby girl thanks to sperm donor he found on Facebook."  Wait.  Sperm donor?  Shouldn't a man be able to provide sperm?  I would think that he would need an egg donor.  No, it comes as no surprise that Hayden Cross was born Paige Cross.  Thus, Hayden is a 'man' who has a uterus.  In biology, that would be a woman but "woman gives birth" just doesn't get the clicks.

 

If Hayden wants to be a man who gives birth, that's fine.  The annoying issue here is the media reporting this as if it's news.  Thirty years ago, this would have been a headline on the National Enquirer right under "Aliens Meet President Reagan" and "Elvis Presley Found Living in Manitoba."  Maybe The Sun is the British version of National Enquirer.  The 'man gives birth' story is old hat now.  The novelty is gone.  When an actual man gives birth to a baby like Arnold Schwartznegger in Junior, report that.  Until then, give this a rest.

Master of Distraction

Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful!

Donald Trump, Twitter

 

I do not believe for a second that 'everyone' is talking about that.  I suspect you could count the number of people talking about it on one hand and still have four fingers remaining.  This is a silly claim.  However, it puts Podesta and the DNC back in the news.  The President has tweeted and that is automatically newsworthy.  Looking at it from that perspective, it's plain wrong.  Podesta had no role over the DNC server; he was Hillary's campaign manager and not in any way in charge of the DNC server.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in charge of the DNC when it was hacked by Russians or others.  The released emails showed that the DNC had put a thumb on the scale for Hillary in the primaries, not the sort of news that pleased Bernie supporters.  The DNC did not allow the FBI to examine the server but instead hired a company with no discernible biases:

 

The Russian expat leading the fight to protect America: In a war against hackers, Dmitri Alperovitch and CrowdStrike are our special forces (and Putin's worst nightmare).

Esquire

 

Why have US law enforcement investigate a crime at taxpayer expense when we can spend donor money to have a private company reach a convenient conclusion for us?  What happened with Podesta is that he fell for a phishing scheme and accidentally granted access to his email to another hacker, perhaps Russia.  Those emails exposed collusion between various media sources and the Clinton Campaign.  The CIA has nothing to do with all this and it is baffling why he mentions it.

 

And there you have the crazy like a fox brilliance of the tweet.  In exposing Trump's apparent ignorance of the issue, the DNC and John Podesta are again painted in a negative light.  While the left keeps the Russian collusion story alive, Trump keeps the DNC and Podesta email story alive.

 

Meanwhile, while the media gape at his latest tweet, Trump is meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit!

Axis of Testosterone

I only browsed the story but the headline is the important part:

 

Merkel’s Patient Diplomacy Is Tested by Trump and Putin’s ‘Axis of Testosterone’

Wall Street Journal

 

The subhead declares that Merkel is hosting three of the world's most polarizing figures: Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and Donald Trump.

 

The last G20 was held in Hangzhou, China in September 2016.  Of the twenty leaders who participated, 16 are still heads of state and participating in Hamburg, Germany now.  Of the three designated members of the 'Axis of Testosterone,' two are returnees: Putin and Erdogan.  Therefore, the replacement of President Barack Obama with President Donald Trump created the axis.  Did President Obama lack testosterone?  Is this an unintentional swipe at his manliness?  I was reminded of Chuck Schumer indirectly calling Obama a 98 pound weakling.

 

Obviously, the headline is contrasting that Merkel - leader of the host country - is a woman and the big personalities are men.  But had Obama been there in Trump's place, this headline would not have been written.

Making Machines Competitive

Robots are coming to a burger joint near you

CNBC

Here is an article that talks all about the efficiencies of replacing human fry cooks with a machine named Flippy because cooking burgers is just repetition.  Unmentioned is that machines long ago ate into a far more complex repetitive task of assembling automobiles.  Why has it taken so long to move into the burger flipping efficiency?  That would be the ever expanding minimum wage and the associated costs of human employees.  It is no coincidence that California is the first to see inroads by Flippy.  Get rid of the government-imposed cost burdens related to human employment and Flippy would have no market.

 

Unlike how telephone operators and horse-drawn carriages were replaced by new technologies, this is a case of government driving up the price of a product - low-skilled wage labor - to the point that machines became competitive.  Rather than providing more money to low-skilled workers, the minimum wage is going to put them in the unemployment line.  If one believes that the intent was to improve the standard of living of those on the bottom rungs, then this is a clear case of unintended consequences.  On the other hand, if government wants more citizens dependent upon it, perhaps this is the intended - though unstated - goal.

Complete Waste of Time

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland has introduced the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act.  The act would create a panel who would determine if the president was physically and/or mentally fit to continue in office.  Raskin, a Democrat, must be aware that such legislation is not likely to get through a Republican House.  Nor is it likely to get through a Republican Senate.  If by some miracle it did get through both those bodies, I can guarantee that President Trump is not going to sign it into law.  This isn't news, it's a publicity stunt.  Representative Raskin's constituents should be irritated that he has wasted time on what amounts to "I hate Trump" legislation.  Worse, Raskin would be screaming from the mountaintops if this exact bill had been introduced during the Obama Presidency so it isn't even as if it can be pulled out of the drawer for a Democratic president to eventually sign.  Wasted paper.  Wasted time.

Happy 4th!

Each Independence Day, I read the Declaration of Independence.  Today, I listened to someone else read it.  Jim Meskimen does some terrific impressions and a few mediocre ones.  Still, worth watching:

Declaration of Independence in 61 Celebrity Voices

Vintage Space

Recently I discovered Vintage Space hosted by Amy Shira Teitel and I'm surprised how long it took for me to encounter it.  Some years ago, a friend told me that he believed the moon landings were a hoax.  I immediately set to the task of demonstrating that we had landed on the moon.  Many times!  In the process, I became a fan of the US Space Program from the 1960s and early 70s.  I spent a lot of time on the NASA website and created spreadsheets of Space Race that broke down the satellite launches and manned spacecraft from both the US and Russia.  Amazingly, Vintage Space covers exactly that window.  It is all about the Apollo Program, covering the developments that fed into Apollo and all the current advances that are Apollo's progeny.  Amy is an extreme Apollo-phile, which is both good and bad.

 

To the good, between her blog and her YouTube channel, she has a vast encyclopedia of information about the space program and related science topics.  Fascinated with space history, she somehow turned that into a paying gig.  Way to go!

 

To the bad, she is something of a downer when proposed missions don't meet her Apollo achievement bar.  Thus, she is less than excited by the proposed SpaceX repeat of Apollo 8, the 1968 trip around the moon.  Been there, done that.  True, but we haven't been there and done that in 45 years.  A refresher with a new capsule might not be a bad idea.  Yes, she grants that is so but this isn't part of a larger program.  It's just a one off funded by a couple super rich tourists.  This is not advancing space exploration or space science.  She makes an excellent point but humans haven't left Earth orbit in decades and this will get the ball rolling.  She's also less than keen on landing people on Mars as that will suck all the funding from cheaper missions that will better expand human knowledge of space.  Yeah, kind of a downer but that is on her soapbox channel.

 

After watching just a couple of her videos, it became clear that I had only scratched the surface when I did my deep dive into the US Space Program.  Thumbs way up for Vintage Space.

Minimum Wage on Steroids

Maybe we should just go to a $150/hour minimum wage with no phase-in period and let the Fed figure out how to make it work.

 

You'd have a big burst of inflation, nobody would lose their jobs, a lot of old debts would be wiped out, and we'd be better off for it.

Matthew Yglesias, Twitter

This may just be a thought experiment or a way of demonstrating the general folly of the minimum wage.  Many respondents took this seriously and Yglesias may mean it seriously.  I hope not.  But, for the sake of discussion, let's suppose the government set the minimum wage to $150/hour, effective immediately.  How would that work?

Bob owns a McDonald's franchise where his labor cost is $8,000 a week.  That covers part-time and full-time employees who average out to $10/hour.  Tomorrow, his labor cost will rocket to $17,142.86 for that day.  He will need $120,000 for the week.  Bob's entire cost structure has been thrown into chaos.  No problem.  Bob has kept $120,000 in reserve in case of emergencies and he uses it to pay labor costs for the week.  He raises his prices to reflect the 15 fold increase in his labor costs.  The Dollar Menu is now called the $15 Menu.  During that week, Bob has virtually no business.  In fact, by the second day, he has sent all the employees home since business is so slow.  That afternoon, the delivery truck with the bags of fries, meat patties, paper cups, straws, and all the rest shows up.  Rather than thus usual $5,000 invoice he gets, this one has a $75,000 invoice; costs have skyrocketed for his supplier as well.  Bob refuses the shipment, just like the last 5 McDonald's franchise owners refused theirs.  This same scenario is playing out across the country as the economy grinds to a halt.  After all, every full-time worker is now earning $300,000 per year.

 

A couple of weeks later, the Fed has flooded trillions of dollars into the economy.  The value of the dollar crashes, now worth about what a dime was worth before the minimum wage increase.  People who were holding cash take a big financial hit.  Banks suffer a huge hit as borrowers pay off loans with deflated dollars, thus wiping out the 'old debts' as predicted.  Gold goes through the roof.  Debtors and those holding assets that appreciate would benefit.  Lenders and those holding dollars would suffer greatly.

 

Yglesias has offered an extreme example of raising the minimum wage that demonstrates the destructive power of government setting arbitrary price floors without consideration of the ripple effects of those decisions.  The $150/hour minimum wage would obviously be catastrophically bad but what about the $15/hour minimum wage?  It generates the same negatives just to a much lesser degree.

 

It should be noted that the minimum wage was created with the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.  It was passed because blacks from the South were migrating north and working for lower wages than white workers.  Even racists want to save money.  With the minimum wage set, the racists couldn't save money by hiring blacks and thus just hired whites.

Global Warming Hyperbole

Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.

Stephen Hawking

 

Interesting.  This is coming from the most celebrated scientist of our era so let's not dismiss it out of hand.  Let's take a look at what is said by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  I have never heard of that particular organization before right now but it was the first thing to come up when I searched Global Warming.  The NRDC indicates that "unless we curb global-warming emissions, average U.S. temperatures could increase by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century."  The NRDC does not agree with Trump that climate change is a Chinese Hoax and would be put firmly in the climate-change-is-real camp.  Let's do the math with their presumed worst-case scenario of 'up to 10 degrees' in 100 years.  Okay, 10 degrees divided by 100 years gives us 1/10th of a degree a year.  Trump will be out of office in 4 or 8 years and can thus - worst case per NRDC - see 0.8 degrees of warming.  Okay, we are missing a piece.  What is the current average global temperature?  If it is 249.2 degrees, then I have to give the win to Hawking.  My Google search provided Atmos News, which says the average annual temperature from 1951 to 1980 was 57.2 degrees while 2015 saw an average temperature that was 1.8 degrees warmer (reportedly the hottest on record), which - if my math is correct - would be 59 degrees.  Even if NRDC's worst case scenario played out entirely within the Trump administration, that would only get us to 69 degrees, woefully short of Hawking's fear-mongering 250 degrees.

 

If the science is solid, it doesn't need to be sold with this sort of easily debunked hyperbole.  For a famed scientist to spout such obvious nonsense only damages the credibility of scientists.  There is so much junk science in the world today that it is much harder to trust any science.  Hawking is not helping that sad state of affairs.

Twitter Strategy?

Trump's latest Twitter outrage is a series of personal attacks on Mika and Joe from MSNBC's Morning Joe.  One is 'crazy' and the other is 'psycho' and Mika's cosmetic surgery was a mess when she visited Mar a Lago.  What is the point of these ad hominem attacks?  It's one thing to dispute the accuracy or tone of the reporting but another to descend to name-calling.  Moreover, Morning Joe is a low-ratings show and Trump may boost those ratings with all the attention he is giving them.  What is the point?

 

What if Trump's ravings are a strategy.  As soon as he unleashes one of these nutty tweets, the various news outlets fall all over themselves to denounce him and spend a couple of days pondering his mental state.  While the press obsess, Trump moves on to other things.  It's like he tosses a stick and the media chases after it for a while before getting back to reporting.  Are these just staged distractions, like some magic act that convinces the audience to look where the trick is not happening?  Is Trump creating an irresistible story for the media so that they will not have time to report his agenda?