The Scarecrow

Jack McAvoy, the newspaper reporter who exposed a serial killer named the Poet, has been working for the Los Angeles Times ever since.  However, it has been 12 years and he hasn't had a big story like that since.  Thanks to the internet, newspapers are downsizing and McAvoy was hired at a premium during the height of his fame.  As such, he is given a pink slip but can stay on for 2 weeks if he agrees to train his replacement.  Angela Cook is 20 years younger and much more tech savvy than Jack.  When they look into a murder case, she inadvertently alerts the killer by using specific search terms online.  They have hardly even begun to investigate the story and the serial killer is on to them.  The Scarecrow is a serial killer who hunts via the internet and is a master hacker.  In the information age, he is a formidable adversary.  Since Jack is on the trail of a serial killer, he calls Rachel Walling, the FBI Agent he worked with on the Poet case.  She is less than thrilled by his call but something he says nags at her.  Despite herself, she gets involved.

I didn't much like Jack in The Poet.  He was a whiner and his teenage antics with Rachel irritated me to no end.  This was no hard-as-nails Harry Bosch.  This time, he is much better.  The changing news industry is used to great effect, the villain is truly terrifying, and Rachel is more of a partner than a love interest/liaison.  Last we saw Rachel, she was working with Bosch in Echo Park.

An outstanding book and highly recommended.  Great page turner.

The Great Texas Freeze of 2021

There is much talk about what is to blame for the disaster that has been Texas this week.  Many are blaming the state's move toward renewables.  Others say that gas pipes froze and not to blame green energy.  Well, let's check out the data.  I found the ERCOT website with a nice spreadsheet for the variation in power from each source.  Click here if you want to download it too.  All those windmills froze and the power provided dropped from a peak of 9,101 Megawatt/hours (MWh) to a low of 649 MWh.  That sounds pretty bad.  However, at most, wind power only provides around 16% of the state's energy.  The average for this week was 8%.  On the other hand, there is natural gas.  It had a peak this week of 43,967 MWh but dropped as low as 25,964 MWh.  That's a precipitous drop, especially since natural gas is far and away the primary source of energy for the state (over 60% on average).  Sure, percentage-wise, wind dropped by 93% but that's only 8.500 MWh.  Natural gas saw an 18,000 MWh gap from its peak.  Based on the data, blaming the windmills doesn't stand up.  This is a system-wide failure though there are sure to be calls to shake up the grid based on the politics (fossil fuels vs. green energy) rather than the data.

Though I'm no fan of windmills for energy production, they are not the exclusive culprit - as some have painted - for the current crisis.

Acquitted Again

As should be a surprise to no one at all, Trump has again been acquitted.  It was a foregone conclusion.  At least the Senate only wasted a week on this folly.  The evidence did not matter.  The Constitution did not matter.  If these people really believe that Trump incited an insurrection, they should report him to the DC District Attorney to bring charges.  You know, just like with the people who broke into the Capitol.  He broke a law, right?  He's out of office and can be prosecuted, right?  Do it.  If the evidence was enough for impeachment, surely it must be enough for law enforcement.  Right?

<sound of crickets>

Yeah, that's what I thought.  Just another show trial.

Earwig and the Witch (2020)

A woman rides a motorcycle down the highway, pursued by a yellow Citroen with a gaping maw for a grill.  She escapes by creating a mass of worms with a strand of her hair.  Ah, she is a witch.  She arrives at an orphanage where she leaves a baby girl named Earwig.  The matron finds the name Earwig unacceptable and renames her Erica Wig.  Years go by and Erica essentially runs the orphanage.  She has everyone wrapped around her finger because she is a savant of manipulation.  Better still, she has managed to avoid being adopted.  Until now!  A strange couple arrive and select her.  Bella Yaga is a witch who needs an 'extra pair of hands' for her work.  Mandrake (Richard E. Grant) is a mysterious figure who commands demons and passes through walls.  He is quick to anger and Bella fears nothing more than annoying him.  Why do these two live together?  Initially, Erica is eager to help, expecting to learn magic.  Bella has no interest in teaching.  However, her familiar, Thomas the talking cat (Dan Stevens), is willing to help Erica learn magic.  Antics commence.

The latest Studio Ghibli film, I had high expectations and this fell far short.  Who was the woman who left Earwig at the orphanage and why?  She had mentioned angering the 12 witches and being on the run.  Is Bella Yaga one of the 12?  The Citroen from the opening chase is in the garage.  Has Erica fallen into the clutches of those who chased her?  Right when the movie feels like some of these questions are about to be answered, it ends.  What?  Is this a pilot for a series?  That can't be all there is.

The epilogue shows Erica has managed to dominate Bella and Mandrake in much the way she had dominated everyone at the orphanage.  Does she have a magic power of bending everyone to her will?  Maybe.  All in all, very disappointing.  Without doubt the worst Studio Ghibli film I've seen.  Skip it.

Bullitt (1968)

In Chicago, Johnny Ross flees town before mobster hitmen can kill him.  He has embezzled two million dollars and now has a price on his head.  The next day, he's in San Francisco and calls Senator Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) to arrange for police protection.  He'll be an informant in exchange.  Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) of the SFPD is assigned to protect Ross for the weekend.  On Monday morning, he'll give testimony.  Bullitt and two other detectives meet Ross at a rundown hotel with inconveniently large windows.  They will work 8 hour shifts.  At 1 in the morning, two hitters gun down both Detective Stanton and Ross.  Both are alive but Ross is critical.  Chalmers can't wait to lay the blame on Bullitt.

Despite having one of the most iconic car chases in all of cinema, the movie is rather slow.  Bullitt is a world-weary veteran cop who is unfazed by the violence he sees.  His girlfriend, Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset), is shocked by this and wonders what the future holds for them if he is so numb to the horror.  The investigation, such as it is, is slow and plodding.  There are scenes that drag with no payoff.  Must we watch as the detectives sort through luggage?  The plot is excellent, a clever switcheroo, but the overall execution is mostly dull.  Take out the 10 minute car chase and this ceases to be a noteworthy film.

Though groundbreaking in its day, the movie is rather pedestrian now.  Later movies did every facet of this one better.  This is the first draft.  Just okay.

The Brass Verdict

It's been two years since Mickey Haller was shot during The Lincoln Lawyer and it hasn't been a good two years.  Pain killers led to addiction and addiction led to not practicing law for a year now.  He thinks he's ready to make a comeback when an old associate, Jerry Vincent, is murdered.  To his amazement, he is assigned Vincent's caseload, which includes the high-profile Walter Elliot case.  Elliot, the head of Archway Studios, has been accused of murdering his wife and her lover.  It is the latest trial-of-the-decade.  To complicate matters, Detective Harry Bosch is investigating the murder of Vincent and constantly asks questions that give Haller pause regarding Elliot.  Would the person who murdered Vincent now target him?  Among his other problems are reporter Jack McAvoy (protagonist of The Poet), his perpetually disappointed ex-wife, his daughter who thinks he always represents the bad guys, and another ex-wife who is his accountant and dating his investigator.

Here is yet another page-turner from Michael Connelly.   Haller, who is a defense attorney, is a big shift from the usual prosecutorial view one gets in a Bosch novel; it's really amazing that Connelly can flip the table and write an equally exciting book.  It is entertaining to see Bosch from this perspective.  He comes across as very gruff and unfriendly when he isn't the point of view character.  Really, I thought he was a jerk and Mickey was entirely too deferential.  Jack McAvoy had already appeared as a nuisance for Bosch and now needles Haller.  Funny.

Outstanding book and highly recommended.

Political Show Trial

It is a given that Trump cannot be convicted.  In any normal proceeding, the prosecutor would drop the case rather than have the jury acquit.  It is a waste of time and money to pursue a case that cannot be won.  So what is the point?

First, it is a political show trial.  The winning party wants to march the losing party around and throw rotten fruit.  Yeah, this is just the thing to promote 'unity' in the wake of a disputed election.  Brilliant.

Second, it is a distraction.  During the Obama Administration, there was always the latest scandal - at least on Fox News - that was overshadowed by the next one before the last one played out.  It turned out that the press, and the public, have a short attention span.  Obama would do something - say, the Iran Deal or drone strike an American in the Middle East, or say you could keep your doctor, etc - and the press would jump on it.  Before the story could really rise to the level of a national scandal, he'd rollout something else that would be the new feeding frenzy, the last one forgotten.  It was a surprisingly effective tactic.  In fact, because none of the stories was ever pursued in depth, he left office with a supposedly scandal-free administration.  Trump did something very similar.  He would diminish a war hero, imply a rival's father was involved in the Kennedy Assassination, spout demeaning nicknames, attack the press as fake news, and so forth.  While the media frothed on about his bad manners, he would advance his agenda out of sight.  While a pointless impeachment unfolds, all eyes will be on it.  What is going on where it matters?

Third, demonstrate the uselessness of the government.  Congress doesn't really do anything.  Despite being the first branch of government, it has voluntarily reduced itself to the third.  Each party plays defense for their guy in the White House and mostly follows the president's lead.  Rather than risk angering the voters by making any real decisions, they delegate all the tough decisions to the courts - who can't be voted out - or various bureaucrats - who also can't be voted out.

Forced to choose, I would select "all of the above."

The Angry Astronaut

I watch a lot of YouTube videos that cover spaceflight, whether that be about the history of the Apollo Program, the shuttle, or the current advancements of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, or Blue Origin.  On that account, The Angry Astronaut appeared in my feed.  Though not an astronaut, he is angry.  Initially, I was turned off by his angry shtick and ditched out of the first video I watched.  However, he kept showing in my queue and some of the topics were not covered by other vloggers.  I gave him another shot.  It turns out that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of space-related topics.  He is the biggest cheerleader for a Mars colony with the exception of Elon Musk.  His channel covers every idea you can imagine about space exploration, from spacesuits and nuclear engines to possible life on Venus, Mars, or beyond the Solar system.  He is often pissed off by great ideas that were considered in the 1960s but never implemented.

If you are following the current space race, The Angry Astronaut provides great insight into almost every facet of it.  Highly recommended.