Taiwan

For those who claim Taiwan has always been a part of China...when was the last time this was true? Here is a hint: 1895. Meaning, not a single person alive in the world today can remember such a time.

Before that, it was part of China from like 1660. So for roughly 200 years. It's almost NOT been part of China for longer than it has been part of China.

Logging

Film: Crime 101

Temu Heat 

Chugging Along

Richard Hanania says closing the Straits of Hormuz was supposed to be a doomsday scenario, but things are just chugging along. 

I'm not a geography or geopolitical expert, but in the long run, closing the Straits will hurt Iran's leverage the most, I imagine. Why? Because once they act on the threat, the rest of the world will counteract with contingency planning. So if I were KSA or UAE, I'd invest in major oil pipelines to the Med or Red Sea - essentially expanding what I already have.

If I were in Asia, I'd start buying gas from the US or Canada. Or invest in renewables. And so on. Iran crashes their own leverage in the long run.

The Real Crime

Most people with negative feelings toward insurance companies are just too dumb to understand how and why they function. 

2026 America

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni settle their suit. Neither gets any money, but the lawyers combined got $60 million dollars. 

I would like to point out that the film itself probably didn't make any money, much less 60 million. So in total, everyone except the lawyers lost a great deal of time and money. Very odd indeed.

Thugs

Iran is attacking anyone who goes by the Straits - South Korea, UAE. Not sure why they think this hurts the US. Seems to me, it would push the right kind of folks toward us. 

JP Morgan

I wonder if AI will become a better storytelling device than a storyteller. Because this guy who used AI to come up with a bogus legal claim about being sexually harassed by his hot female co-worker, is quite a funny story in and of itself. Not the story he told by the way, which was obvious BS from the get-go, but the actual real version... 

Country Bans

So, this Venice art exhibition will ban artists from certain countries for doing bad things. That seems to only include Israel and Russia. Hmmm. 

Chinese Cars

I still know very little to nothing about Chinese cars other than the hype that "soon" they will be very good. But can someone explain why there's no similar hype to Korean cars, which are here and now totally awesome? But also, Japanese and German cars remain pretty damn awesome too. As are Teslas. The only thing that seems to make the Chinese cars interesting is that they are Chinese. What am I missing?

Netflix Shows Losing Viewers

Could it be because Netflix sucks and doesn't know how to make TV? 

AI

Am I the only one who finds AI kinda stupid at the things I would like it to do?

 

The Kimmel Joke

Reading all these things second hand, but Kimmel arguing the "joke" is about Trump and Melania's age gap is an obvious lie. The joke is an expression of the hidden desire of Kimmel and his fans for Trump to die. Put another way, would the joke be funny if made about Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones? Would it be funny about Beyoncé and Jay Z?  Of course not. Kimmel is not calling for his assassination, but he and his fans are indeed wishing for the result. In this respect, Melania is correct.

Trump Shooter

From what I read so far, the weirdest part about this latest Trump shooter is how un-weird and un-crazy he seems at first glance. Cal Tech grad. MS in Computer Science. Had a job. Had hobbies. Built stuff. Seems like a pretty average-to-above-average American nerd. What's going on here?

I hold that the right-wingers have a point on this - assassination chic is a real thing on the left these days. I was just waiting for a cappuccino yesterday, and had to listen to some goofy lady chatting with her friend about how men were all evil and how Trump started the Iran war to distract from his pedophile crimes involving foreign children. What is this nonsense people come up with? Where is this information coming from? This is just a normal public conversation that people have in public now? Lunatics.