The Enemy: Nihilism

On the revolt of a nihilistic public and the rise of Trump.

Hillary Clinton

She does not possess the attributes I like in a person, much less a Presidential candidate. She strikes me as foremost a careerist and to what end, I do not know. In this way, she most resembles Ted Cruz of the remaining candidates.

I don't even know where she comes from. Isn't this strange given her long career in the public eye? What is her "base" other than women who support other women? What election has she ever won other than Senator of New York, which is essentially a celebrity position? What is her foremost policy accomplishment as a Senator or Secretary of State? I remember the following:

1) Voting in favor of the Iraq War and then flipping on George Bush's war when it seemed politically expedient to do so.

2) Public failure at health care reform as a first lady.

3) Leading from behind as part of Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East, which lead to the pullout in Iraq and chaos in Libya.

4) Getting investigated by the FBI for breaches of email security.

What else? Being generally good on liberal and women's issues? What accomplishments can she point to other than joe-average Democratic party policy positions?

Here are some things that annoy me:

1) She is touted as having "experience"? Why? Why does being First Lady count as experience for Hillary Clinton and no other First Lady in the history of the position? She's won one - ONE! - election. (Note: She actually won re-election and only served 2 years)

2) What has she accomplished independent of Bill? As far as I know, she wasn't a particularly successful lawyer. In fact, she failed the bar exam in DC and passed in the much easier state of Arkansas.

Logging

Film: Triple 9

Great cast, but unpleasant tone and barely coherent story telling. The characters were uniformly bleak and treacherous, but most notably, stupid. And this was the downfall of the storytelling and the movie.

Montana Was Better

Lots of guys on talk radio now say Brady is the best QB of all time. This is total recency bias.

Montana played in a much tougher era for QBs and still prevailed.

All you need to know about QBs in the Brady era is to look at Manning, Brees, Rodgers, Eli, etc., and realize Brady wasn't even the best QB in the league for many of the years he played.

Montana had no peer.

Brady is great, but he rides the coattails of Belichick. One could say the same of Montana and Walsh, perhaps, but Montana won a Super Bowl without Walsh and took the KC Chiefs to the AFC Championship game and the playoffs, still performing his late game heroics late into his career. On the flipside, the one year Brady went down, the Pats were still 11-5 with a career backup in Matt Cassel.

IMO, Montana was not only the best QB of all time, but the best player. People talk about "clutch" players, but there was no one - not Jordan, not Kobe, not Brady, no one -- who was calmer, cooler, and better in the clutch than Montana. Go look at the tape.

SIDE NOTE: I actually think there's a better argument that Manning in a superior QB to Montana because he did a lot more - basically functioning as his own offensive coordinator - if you went by overall, regular season metrics. Manning's flaw, of course, is his inferior postseason record where he can't hold a candle to Montana (or Brady).

MMQB

On Kaepernick's flaws:

And then there is Kaepernick’s poor understanding for why certain plays are called. Case in point: multiple times in recent years, the Niners have opened a game with a simple fullback flare pass to the flat. It’s a play you call to get your QB comfortable and to put yourself in at least second-down-and-medium right out of the gates. There isn’t a more basic concept in pro football. Unfortunately, Kaepernick, several times, has failed to pull the trigger on these throws, opting instead to kick off the game with a randomized, sandlot throw. That he’s repeated this mistake more than once is baffling, especially considering that he threw an interception in this scenario on the first play of the Raiders game two years ago. (The Niners went on to lose that one.)  

If a nearly four-year starting quarterback can’t be trusted to even attempt—let alone complete—something like a fullback flare on the game’s first play, then he can’t be trusted. You can’t construct, let alone perfect, a passing attack with such instability.  

All of these flaws speak to an ill understanding of basic progression reads and coverage diagnostics, as well. Because if Kaepernick consistently knew what he was looking at on his dropbacks, there’s no way his pocket poise and decision-making would be so erratic. Adding to this: when Kaepernick does play with patience, he has a tendency to be late with the ball or to flat-out leave open receivers untargeted.

Yep.

Logging

TV: The Missing, e. 1-4

A good British mystery series in the vein of Broadchurch and Top of the Lake and True Detective, if you like those things.

Good Analysis

On why Trump will flame out.