Wow, And Just in Time For Father's Day

Karl Marx's dad shits all over his philosophy. 

Incredible.

Reminder

Trump is actually moderate on illegal immigration. He's prioritizing sending back criminals, not the regular hardworking folk. 

Value Proposition

Can someone explain the value proposition of AI making movies or writing novels or journalism? Say you drive down the costs. What does this achieve? More movies and novels and news articles? Has anyone out there seen all the movies or read all the novels they want to? I doubt it. In fact, my lists are too long already.

It's like AI is designed to put Hollywood out of work so they can get back to the real fun stuff like gardening and washing dishes and raising kids. 

When you step back, the thing makes no sense. Why invest trillions in this? Why not invest trillions in solving real problems? Like maybe AI could solve medical problems or have a military function, but that's not what we see right now.

What I've Been Saying

"Watching Morning Joe talking about California and Trump and Newsom and the military and I'm seeing Republican dominance of American politics for the next two decades unless these people stop being psychotic"

Democrats been captured by the mentally insane wing of the party.

PS - Pitch: to hold elected office one needs to pass a mental health check. Reasonable, right?

"Fascism"

LA Times reports 330 illegals detained. Hundreds protest. Consider the population of LA area - around 12 million. The turnout and stakes of this situation is smaller than a high school football game. 

Live action role playing for all involved. 

What Am I Missing?

Republicans and Democrats see immigration differently. Republicans want to crack down on illegal immigration. Democrats don't. Republicans won the national election handily and thus control policy. They won the debate politically. California Democrats think it doesn't matter, they want to oppose how the Federal government enforces immigration policy under vague reasoning like "democracy is under assault." I think what they are attempting to argue is that what Trump is doing violates rights. But they can't articulate what rights. So what they are really arguing is that it's "mean." Their actions in this matter are seditious.

I Don't See the Argument

Maybe ICE raids are brazen, cruel, and unnecessary. But I don't see how they are illegal. Newsom and Bass are encouraging insurrection and non-compliance with federal law. We live in a country last time I checked. 

Democrats

Burning an American flag is freedom of expression but burn a Mexican flag or a Pride flag is a hate crime.

Why Does Anyone Object to ICE Raids?

If in the US legally you should man up and accept the occasional ICE raid. This seems to me entirely fair game. If you're under 21 and wandering around drinking booze and acting like an idiot, accept you'll get an occasional minor in possession. If you keep it on the down low, you'll probably get away with it. Same with being an illegal immigrant. If you act cool, you'll probably be fine. 

This systematic rejection of any immigration enforcement makes zero political sense. You're just helping Trump. If anything, let him overextend himself. 

Da' Mayor

Karen Bass claims we would not have protests if not for ICE raids. Another way to look at it - we would not have ICE raids without open borders and sanctuary cities. 

UPDATE: After spending about 6 hours over the last couple days weather treating a new gate, I am officially in favor of all illegal immigrants, especially for those with painting and fence building skills.

Great Tweet

"Hey guys, instead of taking the 20% side of 80/20 issues, let's take the 5% side of 95/5 issues"

Trump's greatest skill is simply knowing how to bait liberals into looking like the idiots they are. 

LA Riots

First they rioted for BLM, then Palestine, now immigration. It's all organized by the same people. The only unifying idea is a hatred for what Americans prefer (no DEI, Israel to win, and legal immigration).

Logging

Film: The Plot Against Harry

The most Jewish movie I've ever seen and you can consider that a recommendation. 

Also one of my favorite subgenres called "Man Gets Out of Prison and struggles to recacclimate." 

They Won't Dude

Bill Maher suggests to liberals bringing Elon and Joe Rogan back into the fold. 

They won't because they can't. They bet the farm on pronouns and Hamas. Aren't gonna recover. 

Best Headline of 2025 So Far

"Alex Jones-Catturd Proxy War Breaks Out Amid Trump-Musk Feud. 

Logging

Film: The Substance 

Starts terrific but gets progressively worse. Need a word for that in a film. It's the same beat over and over. I got so sick of the film last night, started thinking this should've ended 15 minutes ago. What's going on. Then I check the time - 30 minutes left! Unbelievable. When did we start taking 90 min genre pics and attempt to turn them into 2.5 hour epics? Horrible idea.

20 Years

Like I've said, Dems won't win a Presidential election for 20 year operating at this level of absurdity. They don't want to enforce immigration laws and give illegals free healthcare. And this while our national debt spirals out of control. They want to bankrupt the country.

Evil

Officials in North Carolina charging parents with a felony for letting their kids walk to the store and one gets hit by a car and dies. 

Weirder

Seems like things are just gonna keep getting weirder for awhile longer. I wish there was a way to bet on this.

Democrats Are Quiet Quitting

In Minnesota, a boy "powers" his softball team to state championship while the league, etc force everyone to remain silent.

I continue to think Dems won't win a Presidential election for 20 years. 

“You’re looking at a whole team of future Republicans,” one man said.

Personally, I don't see why the teams don't protest now and sit it out, but I'm sure it comes with annoying consequences. But the real dummies are the Democrats. Do you think people are going to forget this - ever?

Liberals

I'm sure liberals don't know how to react to the Elon / Donald feud. My guess is they start removing the bumper sticks off their Teslas? 

Class Based Affirmative Action

I want to congratulate myself for coming to this conclusion in high school roughly 30 years ago after a friend claimed he was African American because he had French ancestors who lived in Morocco at one time.

Oh, Good News...

"Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research." Carl Jung

Accreditation for Columbia

If colleges want to die on the DEI hill, I suppose they will get their wish.

Be Careful With AI People...

"To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth."

Here are a few improved versions, depending on the tone you're aiming for: 

Option 1 (More concise): "The last rains fell gently on Oklahoma's red and gray counties, barely touching the scarred earth." 

 Option 2 (Maintains original rhythm): "To Oklahoma's red country and the gray, the final rains came softly, leaving the scarred earth untouched." 

Option 3 (More vivid): "The last rains whispered across Oklahoma's red and gray counties, too gentle to heal the wounded earth." 

The original has a nice biblical cadence, but "part of the gray country" is awkward, and "they did not cut" is unclear—rains don't typically "cut" earth. The improvements clarify the geography, strengthen the imagery, and create smoother flow while preserving the elegiac tone.

No.  

Bi, Non-Binary

Although I don't really understand these fashionable concepts, the closest thing I can come to is that I don't identify as my actual age but as both 37 and 57. 

A Possible Future

AI won't write our fiction for us, but we will write our fiction for the AIs. 

Yes...

The majority of guys I know are Democrats.  I would guess exactly 0% are pleased with the direction of the party in the past 10 years and every single one at least flirts with jumping to the other side if they haven't already.

The guys who are super vocal supporters of Dems nowadays are weird tools and normal dudes see right through them.

Delusions

On the left and right.

China - Pretending to Work

In China, they pay to pretend to work. In America, we simplify the expression and just call it work.

Logging

Film: Wicked

Watched last weekend and forgot to log it...suppose it had that much of an impression on me. Story not bad, emotions not bad. If China could make such a film, I'd be worried. But still not my cup of tea.

Film: Sicario 

Rewatch...although this film seems right up my alley, I never loved it. In fact, I contend the sequel is better (contrarian coming out). But upon rewatch, I'm not totally wrong. Something is off about the film. The main issue is the lack of an underlying morality, or the moral universe in which the film operates. It's so deeply pessimistic about human nature, the vibe asserts that "American" values are only slightly superior to the cartels because we manage to be moderately less evil. Bleak! No universal, humanistic concerns. In fact, Emily Blunt's moral objections to the actions of Brolin and Del Toro seem to amount to "not following the rules." As if FBI procedures are the thing that makes us non-savages. 

In Public Enemies, Michael Mann shows numerous characters disgusted by the FBI guy torturing a woman for information. In Sicario, we are all meant to understand and root for Del Toro the torturer because he gets results. 

But this isn't the biggest problem with the movie. The biggest problem is how the film represents itself as gritty reality, but is in fact completely absurd. A former lawyer becomes a Sicario for the Columbian cartel to get revenge for his family while secretly also working with the CIA? We're sending over Delta Force and the CIA to Juarez to kill cartel dudes because of bad press in Arizona? Huh? If you've seen any of the Tom Clancy or Michael Mann films, I don't see how this film feels plausible to you. It bears closer resemblance to John Wick than Jack Ryan.

Credit Default Swaps

"Analysis by Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo, suggested that US government credit default swap spreads — which reflect the cost of protecting a loan against default — are trading at levels similar to Greece and Italy."

I can't pretend to understand what this means, but it can't be good.

Ukraine and Drones

Can't stop reading about this Ukraine attack. So impressive. I guess I keep going back to my theory on these wars - my feeling is our strategy should be to help Israel and Ukraine win.

Logging

Film: Mission Impossible Final Reckoning

Every parent of a young boy in the world is familiar with "hey dad, look at me..." followed by jumping off the bunk bed, climbing the monkey bars, or throwing a curve ball, etc. These films are Tom Cruise doing "hey dad look at me" to the whole world as a 60-something year old man with a $500 million dollar budget.

Other observations:

-a lot of nuclear bombs laying around on timers in this world

-exposition at the beginning comically poor

-set pieces are beyond incredible

-nice final moment as a callback to the conceit of the franchise

The best part of the later part of the franchise: side character casting. A lot nice discoveries.