The Bills Are Coming Due

For COVID, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Entitlements. 

Not lying, the grocery store tried to charge me $32 yesterday for a bag of cherries imported from somewhere.

Novel Writing Capacity

I'm fascinated by how much money is being invested into AI to write novels and essays - billions and billions plus all the ongoing energy costs. The irony, of course, is: what is the total amount of money the globe spends on novels? Or essays? It's gotta be less than we're spending on the AI to write them. Someone explain this. 

The other thing - why would anyone need an AI novel? Are there people out there who've read every novel they want to and are like - come on, please hurry up, we need an infinite number more? Or is all this to write one great novel?

Logging

Film: Girls Trip

I'm a big fan of trip movies in general, just not this one. Why do the girls urinate like it is a fire hose? Who set up this stunt?

Reunions

Been to a high school and college in the past couple years. The point of the reunion is to feel the anticipation beforehand and reflect afterwards with friends on all the funny details. The reunion itself is secondary. 

Aliens and Israel

Wonderful tools in the modern age, where there is too much information out there. Once the subject becomes one or the other, you can safely ignore anything the person says, for you are highly unlikely to glean any useful information. 

Good Lord

Devastating and a bit funny AI political ad. I didn't think about this before - but AI will come first for the cheese-dick quality stuff - so think corporate videos, political ads, pharmaceutical products, infomercials.

Real movies a long way off, IMO. 

Logging

Film: Anchorman

Like a talented baseball team with the wrong lineup. Movie doesn't work. Maybe actually kinda sucks. Fell asleep each night I tried to watch it. 

Inevitable

The same commentators who view China's rise and the US decline as inevitable also see the Iran war as a catastrophic US defeat. I say pick a lane: inevitable decline or decline by poor foreign policy. But it can't be both...

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...