The Good the Bad the Weird (2008)

Here is a Korean version of the Sergio Leone classic The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.  The movie takes place in Manchuria during World War II.  There is a treasure map that is purported to show the location of a hidden treasury of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1912).  Chang-yi (the Bad) has been hired to steal the map.  Tae-goo (the Weird) stumbles upon the map and flees with it.  Do-won (the Good) is a bounty hunter who is after Chang-yi; he knows Chang-yi is after Tae-goo and thus keeps close to him, essentially joining forces: Good and Weird.  That is about as far as the story goes.  There are twists and turns with plentiful action and often slapstick comedy at Tae-goo's expense.  Tae-goo is a goofy hapless rogue who is easy to like.  He had Jackie Chan charm without the martial arts prowess.  Chang-yi is cold-blooded villain with an extra helping of nasty.  He kills his patron, he kills his followers, and he even shoots a woman because she is screaming in terror.  Though he gets all the money he could possibly need about half way through the film, he continues on his path.  There is more between him and Tae-goo than the map; revenge drives him.  Do-won is cool gunfighter personified, which made him the least interesting of the trio.  Unlike Tae-goo and Chang-yi, he has no backstory.  Of course, like the movie upon which it is modeled, the trio all find themselves at the X on the treasure map and face off in a three-way gun battle.  It is a big letdown by comparison.

 

There are lots of funny scenes and entertaining action but the overall movie is mediocre.  The action is too often over the top and the ending is unsatisfying.

Conservatives Against Trump

Max Boot - a long time Republican - has a piece in the Washington Post where he calls for the destruction of the Republican Party.  Comparing it to Germany and Japan in the wake of World War II, he says it must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.  Gee, that's not just a little hyperbolic.

The straw that broke the camel's back is the separation of children from parents on the border.  Of course, the separation 'policy' dates back to the 90s and has been reconfirmed over the last 20 years.  This has been happening for years but a picture (taken during the Obama Administration!) was published with kids in cages and suddenly this blew sky high.  Boot should know this.  In fact, he probably does but this makes a good pretext for his continuing Trump hatred.  Basically, it boils down to criminals go to jail and their kids are put in protective services.  Should kids go to jail with their parents?  No.  Just like Americans, if you don't want to be separated from your kids, don't commit a crime that puts you in jail.  Duh!

 

I've long liked Max Boot - I own a couple of his books (Out of Order & War Made New) and definitely recommend them.  However, like George Will, he has somehow lost his way.  I don't know quite what it is about Trump that has driven so many staunch conservatives to support the increasingly socialist Democratic Party (e.g. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).  Not resting his argument just on the child separation issue, Boot offers other reasons to vote Democrat:

"...a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice

 

No example is provided; you just need to take his word on it.

 

...rampant conflicts of interest

 

No example is provided; you just need to take his word on it.

 

...the demonization of minorities

 

Trump has been hard on illegal immigration and that is often equated with anti-Hispanic because the vast majority of illegal immigrants are from Latin America.  Trump did indeed speak ill of MS-13 gang members, who deserve demonization.  Boot is embracing the Democrats tactic of conflating Trump's comments against MS-13 to all immigrants.

 

...the debasement of political discourse

 

Really?  How many times did Democrats accuse Republicans of being Nazis and racists?  Yes, Republicans have usually refrained from such talk even when Democrats accused them of being fascists, sexists, bigots, homophobes, etc.  I had a family member intimate that I might be racist because I opposed Obama.  Clearly, if Obama had been white, I would have been in favor of higher taxes, more regulation, and weak foreign policy.  The political discourse was debased decades ago but Trump is the first Republican President to punch back twice as hard.  Trump adopted the tactics of Democrats and none of the Washington Elite is going to forgive him for that.

 

...the alienation of America’s allies

 

Do you remember how Obama abandoned ally (Mubarak in Egypt) after ally (Poland & Czech Republic) after ally (Israel was always at fault and the Palestinians were blameless for 8 years) and tried to embrace enemy (Iran) after enemy (Russian Reset) after enemy (Cuba!), all to no avail?  Trump is trying to get NATO to pay their treaty obligations in defense; if that alienates them, they deserve it.  While Obama tossed allies overboard to the sharks, Trump insists allies do their part in swabbing the deck.

 

...the end of free trade

 

There is no free trade.  The US has trade deficits with most trade partners.  While the US moves toward free trade, our trade partners game the system to create a trade imbalance in their favor.  Trade with China is $375 billion in their favor, Mexico is $71 billion, Japan is $69 billion, Germany is $65 billion, and Canada is $18 billion.  He who pays the piper calls the tune.  The US is paying and if each of these deficits were cut in half, those nations would still be getting the better of the deal.  Trump is going to use his leverage (cf. The Art of the Deal).

 

...and the appeasement of dictators.

 

And you think the Democrats are the way to fix that?  The party that sided with the mullahs in Iran's 2009 Green Revolution and then gave billions in cash to the mullahs in the wake of the unenforceable and counter-productive Iran Deal?  The party that canceled a missile defense agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic to placate Russia?   The party that favored Hamas and the Fatah over Israel?

 

Like Will, Boot is a longtime insider who sees an outsider upsetting the apple cart.  Trump is like no president before.  Unlike most previous presidents, he has worked and thrived in the private sector.  The private sector will not long suffer detrimental policies and money-losing propositions.  If we are in deficit on trade, let's renegotiate.  If allies aren't paying their share (i.e. NATO dues), let's send a collector.  If regulations are choking economic growth, let's repeal them.  If conservatism is about limiting government, we haven't had it this good since Reagan.

 

If you think the boat is going the wrong direction, you try to correct course, you don't jump off the boat and yell "I hope you sink!"  This is what Will, Boot, and other Never Trumpers have done.

Cognitive Dissonance of George Will

Yet again, George Will has praised something that is only possible because Donald Trump is President.  In his latest article, he discusses how the Supreme Court has corrected an error it made 41 years ago when it ruled that non-union members could be coerced into paying agency fees since they benefit from the union's collective bargaining.  His tone indicates that this was a correction that was inevitable, much like Plessy vs. Ferguson (i.e. separate but equal).  However, the ruling was 5 to 4.  Huh.  Who were the five and who were the four?  Well, the 5 were justices appointed by Reagan (Kennedy), Bush I (Thomas), Bush II (Roberts and Alito), and Trump (Gorsuch).  The four were appointed by Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer) and Obama (Sotomayor and Kagan).  What if, instead of Justice Gorsuch, we had an appointee from President Hillary Clinton?  How would this decision have gone in that case?  Almost certainly 5 - 4 in the other direction.

 

Trump is implementing policies more conservative than either George Bush or George W. Bush.  He is pushing issues that the Republican voters have requested for decades but the party has offered nothing but lip service.  Previous presidents have been very good at speaking but not very good at doing.  Trump has this reversed.  Of course, the old adage is to pay attention to what they do and not what they say.

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts 2018

Dear Basketball: This love letter from Kobe Bryant to the game of basketball had mediocre sketch animation - like it incomplete and this was a working storyboard - and Kobe Bryant narrating.  It was a paean to Kobe himself, a long bragfest thinly disguised in love-of-game-made-me-great rhetoric.  This was the most difficult of the bunch to watch and yet it won the Oscar.  Wow, in the year of #MeToo, the 2003 rape accusation and out of court settlement didn't stop the Academy from giving the big prize to Kobe.

 

Garden Party: Frogs jump around an abandoned and overgrown garden.  Slowly, it becomes clear that something bad happened during the final party at this mansion: bullet holes, broken windows, an open safe.  At the end, a dead body bobs to the surface of the pool when the frogs accidentally turn on the fountains.  Though the animation is impressive, this is nothing but juxtaposing the comic antics of frogs with a crime scene.  Meh.

 

Lou: On a school playground, the kids are all called back to class and leave toys behind.  A mysterious figure zips through the playground, collects it all, and dumps it in the Lost and Found box.  Notable, the letters L, O, and U are missing from Lost and Found.  The mysterious figure proves to be the lost items: baseballs for eyes, jacket for body, baseball glove for a hand, etc.  When the kids come back out, Lou alerts the kids that the items are in the Lost and Found box.  Then a bully starts taking them and Lou has to teach the bully a lesson.  Animation is outstanding, which is no surprise since it is a Pixar production.  Cute.

 

Negative Space: A man demonstrates the process of properly packing a suitcase to get the most use of the space.  He explains how his father taught him and he used to pack his father's suitcase when he would go on business trips.  Odd though it was, he and his father had bonded on packing suitcases.  Today, he has packed a suitcase to attend his father's funeral.  Alone with his father who is laid out in the casket, his only thought is at all the wasted space.  Funny.  The animation is peculiar, appearing to be paper mache figures and settings.

 

Revolting Rhymes: The longest of the bunch at 29 minutes - the other 4 combined only amount to 25 minutes, it was also the best.  It tells a variant of some noteworthy fairy tales.  There are the 3 little pigs, Red Riding Hood, and Snow White.  The tale is told from the perspective of a wolf who seeks to correct the record while talking to a matronly woman in an unassuming diner.  She can't hold back a cheer when he tells the death of his nephew who tried to eat Red Riding Hood but she is later sympathetic to the wolf when the second nephew meets an untimely end trying to eat the third pig.  This is taken from a Roald Dahl story and is immensely entertaining.  It ends on a cliffhanger!  Highly recommended.

George Will the Democrat

In his latest column, George Will calls on his readers to vote for the Democrats in November.  Less than a month after he heaped praise on Mitch McConnell's recent achievements - made possible because Republicans control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, he demands that it be torn down.  Yes, the Zero Tolerance Policy on the border - where the laws are finally being enforced as they were written - is a demonstration of bad government.  Hmm.

 

Though I dislike much of Trump's style, his results have been nothing short of amazing.  Regulations rolled back, conservative justices, tax reductions, economic growth, improved employment numbers, unbelievable shifts in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East.  Jerusalem recognized as capitol of Israel (something the previous 3 presidents said they would do), women can drive in Saudi Arabia, and there may soon by a railway link between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  I have been an avid reader of George Will for years; policies that he has advocated for decades are being enacted and he is furious.

 

It should be noted that Will references a recent incident where Corey Lewandowski - Trump's former campaign manager - dismissively said "Wah, wah," when confronted with a story of a Down syndrome child separated from her parents at the border.  George Will's son has Down syndrome.  Trump may be implementing policies that Will should like but Trump is not at all presidential in the common usage of the term.  Trump is a Washington outsider while George Will has been an insider for most of his life.  If Trump had the demeanor of Romney and was accomplishing these same things, I suspect Will would be far more supportive.  Clash of personalities more than policies.

Due Process Not Required to Stop Crime in Progress

In a recent tweet, Trump said, "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came."  Of course, this has resulted in panic and hysteria.  But let's look at this a little differently.

One day, you come home to find that Walter has setup a tent in your backyard.  You call the police and ask them to remove him because he is trespassing.  The police arrive and say they will not remove him without due process.  So, Walter gets to continue trespassing in your backyard for as long as it takes for a court date.  Illegal aliens are trespassers.  Taking them off the property necessarily means kicking them out of the country.  As it happens, there are US Consulates in Matamoros (across Rio Grande from Brownsville, TX), Nuevo Laredo (across Rio Grande from Laredo, TX), Ciudad Juarez (across Rio Grande from El Paso, TX), Nogales (across the border from Nogales, AZ), and Tijuana (across the border from San Diego, CA).  Drop them at the nearest one and let them make their case.  If you reward trespassers by letting them continue to trespass at your expense, you are encouraging more trespassers.

 

Do we let the drunk driver continue to drive until his day in court?  In Texas, the driver's license can be confiscated on the spot.  In the case of trespassers, they are escorted off the property.  In this case, the property is US soil.  If that was government policy, we wouldn't need a wall.

Supreme Legislature Writes Tax Law

In South Dakota v. Wayfair, the Supreme Court - in its infinite wisdom - decided that ecommerce had reached such a level that it was unfair for brick and mortar stores to pay sales taxes while internet companies did not.  Though I agree that it is unfair, that is a legislative matter.  The court doesn't get to change policy because the economy has changed.  This new ruling is going to create far more trouble than it solves.  If anything, it might nix a lot of ecommerce as companies refuse to do business with a vast number of localities with differing tax structures.

It is one thing for Texas to require Texas-based companies to collect sales taxes for all sales within the state, but now Texas can require Alaska-based companies to collect Texas sales taxes for internet purchases and forward it to Austin.  Alaskans will be conscripted as tax collectors for a state where they are not represented.  Hmm, taxation without representation?

 

The way to do this would be to have citizens required to report out of state purchases and pay the tax.  Of course, there is no way the citizens would approve such a law.  It is easier for state governments to strong-arm thousands of businesses than millions of citizens, especially since many of those citizens have a negative view of business.

 

Such consequential changes in tax law should not be made by a 5 - 4 majority of lawyers.  The appropriate answer should have been to refer South Dakota to Congress to change the laws.