Illegal Special Counsel?

Trump is tweeting that the Special Counsel is illegitimate because it was brought into being by the illegal leak of classified memos by former FBI Director James Comey:

James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a Special Council? Therefore, the Special Council was established based on an illegal act? Really, does everybody know what that means?

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

 

Though he has the chain of events right, I think his conclusion is weak.  The whole point of a special counsel is to investigate crimes where the DOJ has conflicts.  In fact, that statutes is stronger case for challenging the Special Counsel investigation.

 

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 28, Chapter VI, Part 600, Section 600.1

The Attorney General... will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted...

 

What crime was Robert Mueller appointed to investigate?  Collusion?  That makes a great headline but what specific law was broken?  The indictments to date are not related to collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign and, as such, should have just been handed back to DOJ.  Mannafort lobbied for Ukraine, a country essentially at war with Russia.  His indictments against Russians in Russia for trying to tinker with the US election is just stupid; does he expect Putin to extradite them?  Does anyone think we don't tinker in Russian politics?  If Putin asks, should we extradite our spooks to Russia?  Stupid but it put some numbers on the board, even if pointless.  The whole intent of this investigation - like the Plame Affair during the Bush Administration - is to catch someone lying to the FBI.  Interesting fact: James Comey appointed the Special Counsel in the Plame case even though he knew that Richard Armitage was the source of the leak.  However, Scooter Libby got caught lying to the FBI.  James Comey also sent Martha Stewart to jail for lying to the FBI, not the insider trading that had launched the investigation.  I see a pattern with Comey.

 

Comey is an admitted leaker and, according to recent claims by Andrew McCabe - another fired FBI Director, lied to Congress.  If Martha Stewart went to jail for lying, Comey should get her old cell for lying.  He needs a taste of the 'justice' he has meted out to others. 

A Quiet Place

The story opens in an abandoned town sometime in the fall; the trees have red and gold leaves.  In a store that has been ransacked, a figured dashes through an aisle.  Soon, all 5 members of the Abbot family are shown.  They are on a shopping run and try to do everything in complete silence.  A newspaper hints at the monsters that hunt by sound.  On the way home, the youngest child turns on a toy that makes noise.  Before his father, Lee (John Krasinski), can get to him, a monster dashes from the woods and carries him away.  The story resumes a year later.  Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is pregnant and Regan (Millicent Simmonds) - who is deaf - is wracked by guilt because she gave her little brother the toy that summoned the monster.

 

In some ways, the movie reminded me of the recent It Comes At Night.  There is no explanation of how these monsters arrived on scene.  Sure, there mention of Day 89 or Day 472 but what happened on Day 0?  They arrived?  That was a benefit to the movie since it doesn't matter as far as the story is concerned.

 

The movie is excellent and well made.  The pacing is great, the tension is high, and the characters are well-developed despite the limited dialogue.  Really worth seeing.

 

Nitpicks: Yes, despite being a great movie that I recommend, there are some problems.  Why doesn't Lee have a big rifle?  Evelyn managed to kill one of the monsters with a shotgun (which is a terrible weapon against armor) so a rifle would have punched through that dense hide.  Granted, the gunshot would draw more monsters but how many of these things are there?  There are SO many rifles in the US that it would have required a huge invasion of these things to depopulate that rural town in only 3 months time.  At one point, Lee takes his son to the river and they speak, explaining how the river's noise masks them from the monsters.  If that's the case, why don't you live at the river?  We know there are other survivors in the surrounding countryside.  Why don't any of them live at the river?  Lee has setup a radio and he signals an SOS but gets no response.  Was even the US Navy wiped out?  Shouldn't there be some response?  Cade, the child who was killed, was 3 or 4 years old.  How do you keep a child that age quiet?  The monsters chase after any sound, which means you can lead them where you want them.  The monsters had some clearly exploitable weaknesses before the big one is finally discovered.

 

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Just finished this book and found it interesting but mostly repetitive.  Oh so repetitive.  He was determined to hammer the ideas into my head.  Robert Kiyosaki grew up in Hawaii.  His father was a teacher who had a PhD.  His best friend Mike's dad had very little education but was a successful business man.  Contrary to expectations, his highly educated dad - 'Poor Dad' - paid bills but never accumulated wealth.  Mike's dad - 'Rich Dad' - lived frugally while making what money he earned grow into considerable wealth.  That he tells his tale by setting up scenes where rich dad says one thing and poor dad says another was engaging at first but eventually awkward.

The heart of Kiyosaki's differentiation between a rich dad and a poor dad is that a rich dad buys assets while a poor dad buys liabilities.  The definition of assets and liabilities is at odds with the popularly held view.  An asset is something that puts money in your pocket.  A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket.  Therefore, a car, a home mortgage, an iPhone, and the like are all liabilities.  Stocks, bonds, rental property, a business, or other money generating endeavors are assets.  The goal must be to put as much money as possible into buying assets which will eventually generate enough income to allow you to support your lifestyle.  The sooner you start, the better.

 

The biggest money-making endeavor he outlined was purchasing foreclosed houses at a bargain rate and selling them for something still below market value but well-above what he spent.  As described, he made nearly $200K with no risk and hardly any effort.

 

He spends a lot of time pushing the idea of being a salesman.  Clearly, a good salesman can achieve wealth, especially if he finds the right product to sell.  He referenced Ray Kroc as a salesman who found the right product which led him to... the real estate business (see The Founder).  Donald Trump, another real estate mogul and salesman, is also mentioned.  He doesn't say one needs to be in real estate but that is the field he knows so it often feels more like a get rich via this path rather than a get rich mindset.

 

The biggest takeaway for me was the asset vs. liability definition.  It is strange to think of a house with growing equity as a liability but it is a good point.  With a 30 year mortgage, it takes a long time to accumulate significant equity and there is a good chance you move before then.

 

Knife Control

In the wake of London somehow eclipsing New York in murders recently, mayor Sadiq Khan is moving to implement knife control.  Gun control is already very strict in the UK so now knives must be controlled.  England has already gone through the gun control debate and the gun owners lost.  Now that all the guns are gone, the knives are next.  Once the knives are gone, will there be fork control?  Cricket bat control?  Whatever the case, those who oppose gun control can point to the case of England where 'weapon-du-jour control' is just the incremental disarmament of the populace.  Once 'assault rifles' are banned, the controllers will move to ban shotguns, then to handguns, and eventually to knives.

 

A disarmed populace may be less violent (London appears to be an exception) but is also much less of a threat to the government, which funds the police and military.  Government always prefers docile and defenseless subjects and will always say it is for your own good.

Isle of Dogs

The movie opens with a prologue of a time long ago when the Kobayashi clan sought to wipe out the dog populations of Japan.  On the very day that the dogs were about to be wiped out, a boy samurai slew the leader of the Kobayashi clan and saved the remaining dogs who became pets.  In the present, dogs are everywhere and assailed by dog flu.  To prevent a potential leap from dog to human, all dogs are banished to Trash Island.

The story centers on a particular pack of dogs: Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Ed Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum).  They are all alpha dogs and thus all decisions are put to a vote.  Soon after they have won a fight with a different dog pack, Atari (Koyu Rankin) crashes on Trash Island in search of his dog, Spots (Liev Scheiber).  Most of the dogs take to him immediately but Chief - who has been a stray for the majority of his life - shows mostly disdain.  The growing relationship between Atari and Chief is extremely well done and the best thing about the movie.  That Atari wins over the misanthropic Chief is the heart of the movie.  Cranston does a brilliant job in bringing Chief to life and provides an emotional and convincing transition from a 'bad' dog to one that risks life and limb for Atari.

While Atari and the dogs seek Spots, Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) the American exchange student and cub reporter for the school paper untangles the machinations of the Kobayashi Clan's plot to avenge themselves on the dogs of Uni Prefecture.  This storyline is mostly uninteresting but does provide some background for Atari, setting him in the role of the modern version of the boy samurai of the prologue.

The movie is somewhat awkward in using English for the dogs, exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig), and a translator.  Though used to good effect a couple of times, it more often slows the movie because we hear both the Japanese and then the English translation.  On top of that, there are scenes that could have been cut or shortened.  It felt like a long movie though it was only an hour and 40 minutes.

 

Not the best Wes Anderson film but not his worst.  Enjoyable but nothing to rush out and see.

The Sino-American Trade War

There is much panic about a coming trade war with China.  However, China will benefit the faster it can cut a deal with President Trump.  How is that?  The US exports to China $170 billion but imports $479 billion.  That $479 billion (jobs in China) represents just over 4% of the Chinese economy while the $170 billion (jobs in the US) is just shy of 1% of the US economy.  If trade came to a screeching halt (which will not happen), China would take the bigger hit.  This is not to defend tariffs and trade wars but the US has more leverage than the press is reporting.

 

Mostly, the imbalance of trade is our fault.  By increasing the cost of manufacturing in the United States through expensive regulation, foreign countries can easily undercut us.  Scale back the cost of regulations so that they are less than the transportation cost of importing goods and you will see a return of manufacturing to the US.  It isn't rocket science.  If it costs $10 to manufacture a widget on the north side of the Rio Grande and only $5 to manufacture it on the south side, manufacturing will move to the south side as long as importation costs are less than $5.  It's good business.

 

Adversaries of the United States use our belief in free trade against us in much the same way that Islamic terrorists uses our belief in Freedom of Religion against us.  China doesn't believe in free trade any more than Islam believes in Freedom of Religion.  China strikes trade deals that are to their benefit while the US has struck deals that meet an ideal free trade principal that doesn't work as a one-way street.

 

Those who hearken back to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff that exacerbated the Great Depression are comparing apples and oranges.  The depression had already begun when Smoot-Hawley passed whereas the current economy is expanding.  Of course, this trade war is not going to be fully engaged because it will be more damaging to China than to the US.  Trump is renowned for shorting employees and getting high-quality goods on the cheap.  He's like the real life version of William Shatner's Price Line Negotiator.

Chesterton's Fence

All police are racist murderers so only they should own guns. Trump is Hitler so we should give him power to define and ban “offensive” speech. America savagely abuses immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East so we need to bring in as many as possible.

Jon Gabriel, Richochet

Though he is only seeking to translate the thoughts of Chesterton for a modern audience, this is a brilliantly keen insight in surprisingly few words.  Along these same lines, Trump is a fascist who suggested he should be president for life but citizens should be deprived of guns.  Not surprisingly, this all reminded me of Chesterton's Fence.  A reformer sees something that appears to have no purpose and wants it removed.  Chesterton replies:

 

If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it

G.K. Chesterton, The Thing

 

Laws and traditions have been adopted over the centuries and the problems that they solved are often inscrutable to modern people.  However, once the law or tradition is repealed or ignored, the problems it addressed are likely to return.  Do not lightly overturn what your predecessors have wrought unless you clearly understand why it was done and the consequences of removal.

The Empty Throne

Book 8 of the Saxon Stories takes place when Aethelred, Lord of the Mercians, died and his wife, Aethelflaed - daughter of Alfred the Great - became Lady of the Mercians.  Of course, that is just the backdrop for action and adventure with the aging and injured Uhtred of Bebbanburg. King Edward of Wessex - son of Alfred the Great - shares his father's desire to unite all the petty kingdoms into one: England.  As such, he has dispatched an ealdorman - who happens to be Edward's father-in-law, to pave the way for Edward's ascension to the Mercian throne.  There is also a plot to kill Aethelstan, a boy with a strong claim to the throne of Wessex and thus an impediment to the ealdorman's goal of seeing his grandson as king.

In the previous book, Uhtred had been seriously wounded and remains in such pain as to be a virtual invalid.  Luckily, he has his son, also named Uhtred, and a band of warriors to do the fighting for him.  The elder Uhtred is a cunning strategist and a shrewd judge of character.  However, he is a man of his times and believes that to heal himself from his injury, he must find the sword that skewered him.  He must go to Wales.  While in Wales, he sees a fleet of Viking ships that can only be headed to Mercia!

 

This is one of the better books in the series.  Uhtred is more of a chess master than a warrior.  He has always been brilliant and insightful but hobbled with crippling pain forces the story to focus on his wits and not on his combat prowess.  This also provided opportunities for his children, Uhtred and Stiorra, to play pivotal roles and perhaps helm the Saxon Stories when Uhtred the elder dies.  The history of the early 10th century is sufficiently opaque that Cornwell has wide latitude to shape the story.

 

Great fun and recommended.

 

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Eric H. Cline, PhD in Ancient History, presents a theory on why the once flourishing Bronze Age civilizations collapsed.  It was long held that the mysterious Sea People, a vast horde of invaders who may have come from the Western Mediterranean, toppled one nation after another, moving through Greece, then Anatolia (modern Turkey), into the Levant, and finally being stopped by Egypt, the only civilization to survive the collapse.  The belief that the Sea Peoples were at fault was largely tied to Egyptian reports of attacks.  Cline has a different view.  Recent archeology (last half century) has revealed a variety of ills that befell the Late Bronze Age.  There are signs of drought, which would have led to famine and migration; the Sea People may have been fleeing famine and seeking more fruitful lands.  There are signs of earthquakes that toppled cities.  There is the amazing level of international trade which, when interrupted, could have led to crashes in the economies.  All of these factors struck before the civilization could recover from the previous shock.  This 'perfect storm' of misfortunes caused the collapse and an ensuing dark age.

 

A great and engaging book for those interested in ancient history.  An excellent presentation by the author himself is available on YouTube: 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed.

 

Tomb Raider

Lara Croft is back and less busty.  The movie opens with an apparently poverty-stricken Lara who works as a bike courier, steals apples, and can't pay her bill for her boxing class.  This is different.  A surprising amount of time is spent showing the trials of Lara's hardscrabble life - including a bike race - before we discover she could control a vast fortune if only she would sign a document that her father - missing for many years - is dead.  She finally agrees to sign and gets an item that her father left for her.  It leads to a secret vault that launches her on a search for her father.

 

The story follows the plot of the Tomb Raider reboot (2013) though it purges the supernatural aspects.  Having played the game, a lot of the scenes were very familiar.  However, the tacked on story about her missing father was a huge distraction that was there for sequel considerations.  In fact, there was so much effort to prepare the ground for a Tomb Raider Cinematic Universe that the story at hand was rushed.

 

Alicia Vikander was good as Lara.  She is competent but not a superhero.  When confronted by three hoodlums, she wisely ran.  Dominic West was cloying as her doltish father.  At one point, Lara is determined to fight and Lord Richard just watches her go.  What?  He then shows up and gets captured like a buffoon.  This guy is a famous adventurer?  Walton Goggins, who has been great in Justified and The Hateful Eight, doesn't come across as the right person for this role.  The lead of this team should be a geologist, a mining engineer, or an archeologist; this guy is a good ol' boy with lots of explosives.  Daniel Wu had a surprisingly large role as the owner of the boat that Lara hires.  The producers had to have the villain's act stupidly so that Wu could survive for the hoped-for sequel.

 

There is ludicrous action but there are no giant robots, animated stone monsters, time-controlling talismans, or bizarre otherworldly chamber of black goo with Pandora's Box.  Fun but unfocused.

Ready Player One

Yet another dystopian future in which a teenager leads the forces of freedom against the tyrannical corporation/government that seeks to further oppress the people.  The hero (Tye Sheridan) is not particularly likeable or interesting.  For as smart as he supposedly is, he is often very stupid.  Mostly, this movie is an opportunity for nostalgia, referencing movies and video games through the years.  Much of the action takes place in the OASIS, an entirely CGI world of virtual reality where the biggest danger is that your avatar is killed and you loose all your virtual money.  It is fun and engaging to watch but very shallow as far as the characters and the story.  Take out the bountiful cultural references and the movie barely qualifies as an outline.  Mediocre.  Like George Lucas before him, Spielberg has allowed visuals to make him blind to story.

Cold War, Part 2?

With the ejection of diplomats/spies in the United States and Russia, there is talk that we are entering a new Cold War.  Unlikely.  Sure, we may not have the best of relations but the US is the world's number 1 economy and Russia ranks about 12th at a paltry 7% of the US economy.  California alone has an economy twice the size of Russia.  Economically, Russia is to the US what Slovakia is to Russia.  South Korea has a bigger economy than Russia!  Embarrassing.  Coal and Petroleum are the big exports for Russia and US fracking has depressed prices.  When ANWR starts producing, the oil market is going to be even more competitive.  We can economically hamstring Russia just by drilling for oil here.  Win-win!  As far as population, Russia is suffering a decline in population and has only 45% as many people as the US.  What about allies?  The US could count on the majority of the EU, Japan, South Korea, India, and probably most of the former Soviet Republics.  Russia can look forward to support from Syria and Iran.  China might adopt Russia as the new North Korea but wouldn't commit itself.  The breakup of the Soviet Union left Russia as a far less formidable country.

 

Putin benefits from memories of the Soviet days and makes great use of the memories of the former super power.