Seems Right

Lessons from a Russian oligarch. 

"A man must regularly, every five to seven years, change his life. If he doesn't do that, he becomes internally boring." It goes on.

Logging

Film: Sing Sing

A film emblematic of our peculiar moment. They insert a subplot about Coleman Domingo contesting his wrongful imprisonment, implying his innocence. But the the filmmakers elide entirely past whether he was wrongly imprisoned for decades or unable to admit his guilt. They will surely argue their film "wasn't about that," to which one might ask - then why make it a subplot at all? I know the answer. They want to make us empathize with the character and thus suggest he was an innocent man. But then they want to insist the film itself isn't about injustice but rather the power of art to heal. In other words, they want their cake and to eat it too. 

The steel man case might be - we are telling the film from the perspective of Divine G - and from his perspective, he was an innocent man. I call bullshit. You might as well say Norman Bates was actually his mother. Come on people. Lets grow up.

The first time I encountered this phenomenon with younger people was around the time of the podcast Serial. After listening to 8 hours of this thing, I asked some younger folks whether they thought Adnan murdered Hae. They couldn't answer. Literally couldn't come up with a thesis. All they knew were the cops acted poorly and Adnan should be free. So I said, well then that means you think Jay the friend who Adnan showed him the body was lying. They said, no. So they managed to hold this position in their minds that Adnan both didn't murder her, but Jay also didn't lie. As if this were possible. 

We see this everywhere now. We had to believe Christine Blasey Ford's testimony against Brett Kavanaugh even though literally not a single person could corroborate any of the details. Nor could she present any evidence of anything like the incident ever taking place. To this day, I would bet 80% of Democrats "believe" she told the truth. Why? Because they find it mentally impossible to think it couldn't be so. And so yes, Coleman Domingo is innocent because his character believes it to be so. If only there were no such thing as reality.

WNBA Racist Fan Incident That Wasn't 

Reads like an Onion article. 

Everyone seems to love how the WNBA handled the non-incident. Incredible. 

Lawlessness

I have a lingering sense the so-called liberals will regret only following laws they feel are moral. 

Logging

TV: The Four Seasons

I thought it was a White Lotus rip-off, turns out not to be the case. Coleman Domingo steals his scenes. The show...what can I say? I finished it... Will Forte much better when weird than serious.

Film: Return of the Jedi

As a kid, my favorite Star Wars but as adult I see why least loved of the first three. Film peaks in the first third.

Film: The Phantom Menace

Pod-racer sequence underappreciated! The acting...not so much.

War and Irony

The more Putin succeeds in Ukraine, the greater opposition he will face. 

Similar Thoughts 

Tyler Cowen rips Scott Alexander a new one for not thinking...this is a huge problem for all the anti-Trumpers - they simply think reflexively everything he's doing is evil. 

Take Harvard. A common refrain at this moment amongst those I'm most sympathetic to goes something like this - yes, Harvard is really messed up and needs fixing, but Trump has gone overboard and wants to vindictively destroy the institution. But where I differ from them - I don't see Harvard fixing itself. How can they? What indication is there Harvard is even trying? The place is captured. All the canaries in the coal mine are dead. It's probably been captured or borderline captured for 25 years, but only now is it self evident to everyone outside their walls. There are approximately 0% conservative faculty. They had a President who was a plagiarist. They are controlled by a cabal of billionaire offspring with weird agendas. If they could've changed, it would've happened. They can't. And everyone knows it. So the only choice you've got is Trump or someone like Trump or more of the same. 

Interesting

Brief snippet about why Harvard could be in financial trouble despite a "50 billion" dollar endowment. 

Points:

1) 80% of their assets are in private equity and real estate and are essentially overvalued or not properly valued. Why? Because the things they own don't have many buyers. It's like owning a 50 million dollar house but needing 100K to buy something. Where do you get the money? You can't sell a bedroom. Plus, you can't easily sell a 50 million dollar house. You might have no buyers or one buyer. And with one buyer - guess what? He isn't paying 50 mil. So is it really worth 50 mil? 

2) So Harvard borrows against their assets. They have something like 7 billion in debt. Not the behavior of an entity with "50 billion".  They are looking to me house poor.

3) For "income," Harvard depends on a few sources: Fed government, donors, tuition. Trump is threatening Fed govt and tuition (by targeting foreign students who pay full freight). 

Interesting stuff. Harvard might be in a worse position than they imagine. Say you own an NBA team. Those are worth 5-6 billion these days, right? But what happens if NBA ratings tank? Or like in golf, a rival league with big pockets starts poaching your stars. What happens to that 5-6 billion dollar value? It doesn't just stand to lose 20%. It can start to look like an albatross. It can go to zero. It can go negative. 

It seems almost unimaginable in the case of Harvard. But if the Roman Empire collapsed...

More Murders by Leftists

Everyone who celebrated Mangione knew they would be encouraging copycats like this new kid in DC. Hope you are happy, sickos.

Trump

Wins because despite many flaws he seems very human whereas the Democrats are the opposite - they dehumanize all. It all starts with identifying people by their race. 

The Moment I Think The Dems Are Peak Retard

The Republicans go "hold my beer." The guy wants to get rid of OPT for college students. This is a way for foreign students who come to the US to learn to get a work visa to find a job for 1 year. These are literally the exact cohort of people we would WANT to immigrate here - college graduates proficient in school and English to succeed. Essentially the most likely candidates to become be productive citizens. 

We want to discourage this talent pool? Are you kidding me? I don't even know what to say.

And if you want to be cynical and consider this program an immigration scam - well the scam is working both ways. It's a way for rich kids to come hang in the US. Is this a bad thing? What is the argument against rich kids coming to the US? Are they a drain on the resources in this country? I think not! They contribute by spending their rich parents money. Ask any club owner, movie theater chain, or clothing shop owner. And in general, the rich kids are more likely to be productive down the line with parental help, etc whether you want to admit it or not. I just don't see the problem. 

Let me put it another way - if we don't want these people at the party, who do we want?

Beginning to Think

Nancy Mace might not be okay upstairs... 

Smartest Decision of My Life...

Is not following the WNBA... 

Credit Rating Downgrade

US loses AAA credit rating for first time. 

Seems not good.

If Pres, I would cut $1k on every monthly social security check for every senior citizen raking in over 200K. Of course, I'd never get elected but our country is in shambles and someone has to pay for it.

Our "Elites"

As I've suspected/known from years ago, Pfizer executives held up the vaccine trials for political reasons (ie to avoid Trump getting reelected). These brilliant idiots killed thousands of their countrymen to get a dementia patient elected and provide us 12 years of Trump stealing oxygen ether rather than 8. Bravo you idiots.

An AI Tell

Good writing has a "hang out" quality to it. Meaning on some level you want to hang out with the book, script, author, etc - at least for a bit. When I read AI (and maybe I'm not using it correctly yet), I don't feel this. Everything takes a bit too long. Too many caveats and big, unnecessary words. Everything feels a bit generic. Overexplained. And not very fun. Like you want to punch it. 

Question

What percent of Mandarin speakers around the world immigrate back to China for better lives and opportunity? I figure the answer to this question will tell you a lot.

Newsom

After 7 years of letting homelessness fester in all our major cities, spending billions on "combatting" it, finally Newsom decides to "ban" encampments. What a complete piece of shit this guy is. He trashed our cities and wasted our money for his own political convenience. 

Shameful

Of all the people who knew of Biden's decline, not one called for him to resign. Why not? You call yourselves patriotic Americans? You can yourselves responsible citizens of the world? We had a President with dementia in charge of nukes and the "free world." You think the Russians and Chinese didn't know this as well?

When push came to shove, these folks chose partisan political calculations over wisdom. And the most pathetic thing - it didn't even work! They still lost the next election.

I Suspect

This will not work. 

Trump's prescription drug plan will likely lead to fewer new drugs being developed. 

Logging

Film: The Empire Strikes Back 

Watched with kids...they laughed out loud when Luke reacted to "I am your father." Striking thing to me - the film goes on for another 10 or so minutes after this climax with another climax -- Millennium Falcon escaping from Vader with Luke aboard, etc. Star Wars should be studied not for dialog or special effects, but how editing impacts storytelling. 

Film: The Equalizer 3

Watched over the course of several nights...went to finish the film and realized I had finished it the night before. It was that memorable. I wonder how many days Denzel committed to for the paycheck...my guess is 15. 

TV: Common Side Effects

Good show but has internalized all woke liberal platitudes of the moment which means it can only be admired but not loved. 

The Real Move

Would be to trade war China and vow to protect Taiwan until they get them to halt Russia. But that would take a lot of balls and brains.

Property Destruction

You'd end the campus property destruction tomorrow if you made the protestors pay for it. 

The Pakistani Bomb

Was designed and assisted by China, just for some historical context.

A Common Theme

For those who've started wars recently - Russia, Pakistan, the Palestinians - they all have the implicit or explicit "backing" of China.

Nothing to do with Trump. 

It was Barzini all along. They are testing Western resolve and capabilities.

Logging

Film: Sinners

We are being gaslit with this film, right? I don't remember Blade or From Dusk Til Dawn getting rave reviews...this is a messy mash up I tried to like but didn't give me much to hang onto. Sorry, I'll pack my bags to the gulag.

Nextdoor

My casual observation - a lot of dog-related posts. Must be some type of overlapping demographic. 

Dumber Idea Competition

Is tariffing movies or rebuilding a prison on Alcatraz a dumber idea. I can't tell. The weird thing - and I say this as an "idea" person myself - I prefer Trump's dumb ideas to his opponents who have no ideas (one of the reasons why they embrace wokeness and related concepts).

Yes

Safetyism: if the acceptable amount of risk is zero, the acceptable amount of activity is zero

Trumpism is preferable to Safetyism because it's easier to dismantle.

Movie Tariffs

Everything is a gimmick for attention with the guy and I'm increasing my odds of thinking it will end badly. 

VT

Total world stock now actually up for the year. Question. 2 weeks ago every Trump critic on the planet was using the market drop as evidence of his poor governance. Does the opposite hold? Or is the narrative the market stopped Trump's foolishness? Seems to me he got his tariffs on Chinese goods, got his DOGE, got DEI on the run -- whether the tariffs will be effective remains to be seen...