Not Showering Himself in Glory

JD Vance failing on this Iran negotiation doesn't bode well for his Presidential ambitions. Rubio pulling ahead. Maybe JD can be VP for 12 years.

Forget Trump For A Minute

And just look at the issues. Iran is holding the world hostage over nuclear material. It's that simple. They want a bomb, and won't give up the quest. And to achieve it, they will hold the world economy hostage. Those are the sticking points. So the options are:

1) Allow Iran to develop the bomb. And BTW, every single far-leftist and anti-Israel commentator secretly really wants this outcome. Don't believe otherwise.

2) Do what Trump is doing: attempting to negotiate and not giving in.

3) Overthrow the IRGC, also called the Israel plan

What are the other options? 

If there was such a thing as a global order, we'd be all be working together to overthrow the IRGC so long as they threaten the straits. 

Every Intelligent Planner

Ought to be figuring out oil and fertilizer routes that bypass the Straits of Hormuz. I still think in the long run, Iran won't be better off. They've played the big card, and now it will become progressively less valuable.

Logging

TV Movie: Peaky Blinders

Better written than One Battle After Another.

Logging

TV: DTF St. Louis

Strange show. Richard Jenkins stealing it.

TV: The Rooster

Don't like it, am watching it.

TV: Imperfect Women

Don't like, stopped watching it.

Main characters who run a lot...enough to qualify as a genre?

This Will Sound Crazy

But Trump deserves some credit for backing down. 

Everyone says this is a win for Iran. I don't think most of these people have any clue whatsoever, but are paid to talk out loud and thus must say something. I would not overestimate their takes. Like with most things, time will tell...

Trump's Statement/Tweet

My best hopeful explanation of the tweet is that he doesn't know what he's saying. Not a good place to be.

Wait...What?

Gavin Newsom's wife killed her own sister with a golf cart? And thinks prisoners in San Quentin are in jail for accidents? What the hell is going on here?

Avoiding War

We are re-learning the lessons of earlier generations about why it's smart to avoid war.

Civilizations

I don't think we ought to be threatening them. 

Low Pressure

Part of me wonders if we can flip the script on the Iran situation and keep a low-level pressure on the Iranian regime until they begin to crack or need to negotiate. They think they can keep the low-level on pressure on the US until we cut and run. Why can't we flip it around? I don't understand why we always do this timetable thing with our adversaries - it basically signals to them: just hold out for 2 weeks. Which is easy to do. But if the timeline becomes uncertain for them, I feel the calculus changes. 

The Liberal Worldview

Has no sense of duty or obligation or limits. It's all feelings all the time. Not making you feel good, you oppose. Make you feel good = support.

Logging

Film: Sentimental Value

Impressive degree of difficulty points for pulling this film off. No real plot other than the "making of the movie" to hang their hat on. Just relied on powerful scene and character work. Everything a European film ought to be. 

Loon

Taleb says Israelis can't fight. 

Then explain how they took on an enemy Arab and Persian population about 10x their number for 50 years and seem to be winning.

I Demand Proof

That talk therapy works better on men than sports bars with fairly priced beer. 

Comfort Level

Maybe the real debate boils down to this: Europeans are willing to bow at the feet of Iranian fanatics and have no real issue with them developing a bomb, but Americans and Israelis cannot. 

Gavin Newsom's Wife

Changes the protagonist of male stories to women when reading to her kids. This is one of the most psychotic admissions I've ever heard uttered. Why? 

a) A more sensible approach would be to read books with female protagonists (of which there are many!).

b) Total arrogance and zero respect for the author who made a deliberate choice 

c) And we wonder why children are illiterate?

Rahm

Is 100% right here. 

But the problem with the Emanual bros is that they are careerists first and foremost. So he's right at the wrong time and when it no longer matters. If you think about it, the ascendency of these guys more or less coincides with the downfall of the institutions they mastered. Rahm for the Democratic party and Chicago politics, and Ari for Hollywood. That tells me something...their true skillset is scavenging the carcasses of dying giants.  

Birthright Citizenship

Do I really need to develop an opinion on this matter? Please say no. 

LGBT Cruelty

Fine, I'll weigh in on this Jaden Ivey thing. Everyone here will flip sides, including me. The woke folks will argue the NBA has every right to fire Jaden Ivey even though they said the exact opposite about Colin Kaepernick. I'll argue something a bit different - if this is all true about his troubled childhood - maybe we ought to give Jaden Ivey a little grace.

Oil Theory

For the folks getting excited about "blocking" China's oil, just want to point out that's precisely what led to Pearl Harbor -- the choking off of a rising Asian power's fuel.

For the Record

I pitched this idea weeks ago: oil pipelines bypassing the Persian Gulf either into the Mediterranean Sea or the Red Sea. 

No brainer to build in flexibility.