My Side Bias

We all sort of know it to be true, but interesting to hear how it's been replicated in lab settings and unlike many biases, smart people are just as susceptible.

Losing A War to China

We should not frame the question as a war with China. The war would be against the CCP. And it ought to be made clear to the top 500-1000 leaders members of that organization that they would not survive any war against us or Taiwan. At least that's how I'd handle it.

Rust Shooting

A story you won't see in the press is how COVID safety measures are very expensive for independent productions and some of the corners cut might be a result of those budget constraints.

Colin in Black and White

Dominick Patton has his critic's license renewed by speaking favorably about Colin in Black and White.

I could write the reviews for this thing without seeing it.

Logging

Film: Fat City

Sly Stallone owes John Huston and Leonard Gardner some residuals, methinks for the Rocky franchise. 

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Film: Dune

Packed IMax theater on a Tuesday night -- impressive. Visually stunning, of course. Overall experience satisfying but not exhilarating. The logical comparison are Star Wars and Game of Thrones, each of which surpass Dune by quite a bit...Star Wars by the sheer storytelling propulsion, energy, and landing of character/emotional moments. The world, pace, and tone more resembles Game of Thrones, but GOT earns their narrative twists and patient character revelations whereas those are quite clunky and inorganic in Dune. I mean, Dany's hero transformation with the Dothraki was much better traced that Chalamet's, was it not?

But despite all of that, I quite liked the religiosity elements of the film alongside the trippy visuals and of course, the score.

In Chicago

Just 14 percent of black 11th-graders are proficient in English Language Arts and just 13 percent are proficient in math. Hispanics aren’t much better, with just 25 proficient in reading and 27 percent proficient in math.

So how long before the woke adopt the exact same position as the slave holders in the South that reading is a really just for whites?

Taxing Unrealized Capital Gains ie Billionaire Tax

I wonder how the populists will feel when during a terrible down year in stock prices, the government will be refunding billionaires for their unrealized losses. 

Will be quite the spectacle to see a year in which the government is paying out tax revenue to the richest people and everyone's 401k balances are in the shitter.

GOAT

"First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny.”

Anyone Else Find It Strange

That the folks most concerned with structural and systemic racism seem to think government agencies and rules will do the trick to fix it? By their own argument, aren't these the same structures and rules that caused the "systemic racism" in the first place?

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TV: Succession S3 E2

Are we supposed to forgot Kendall killed someone in a car accident in season 1 while high out of his mind? Why doesn't Logan use this as leverage? 

Yep

The reason woke demands are so outrageous is because they are meant to break your will and doubt your sanity. The objective is gaslighting not persuasion.

Average Net Worth

California = 884K

West Virginia = 376K 

For all the egalitarians in California, I've never heard a single one suggest redistributing our riches to other States.

Uhhh...

Nike celebrates a senior executive who confesses to having committed a murder. 

Sounds like America in 2021. 

Manchin and Sinema

Are examples to me of the how our system actually still manages to function despite the craziness of our populace. Damn, those founding fathers were actually pretty goddamn smart. 

Logging

Film: Misery 

An emotional reading of the film--

Paul Shelton = America

Annie Wilkes = trans activists

People

You can tell quite a lot about a person by how they feel about Jojo Rabbit.

I stopped watching it.

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TV: Can't Get You Out Of My Head E1

The Cultural Revolution began with Mao's wife seizing the film studios and producing classic Chinese operas to convey her political ideas about struggling against the ruling class. The next move was canceling school for kids to focus on protesting.

Netflix Walkout

I will definitely evolve my views if we get a news story about a regular guy who watched the Dave Chapelle special and then decides to go out and kill a trans person. But somehow I don't really see this happening. Do they?

Weird Thing To Think About

China created a society whereby everyone aged 45 and younger has no experience of having a sibling.

Kyrie

To be sure, I have no clue what point he's trying to make about vaccines but I find his position at least as coherent as Colin Kaepernick's. What did Kap want?

Logging

TV: Succession S3 E1

Don't quite get why this show is so incredibly watchable given the repetitive and seemingly non-visceral nature of the conflicts. But it is. Perhaps the unpredictability of Kendall and Logan's behaviors makes it so. 

On a thematic level, it's probably the best expression of how the American ruling class sees itself. Power hungry sycophants where morality exists only as a tool to shame rivals and enemies.

Film: Reappraisal of Deuce Bigalow Male Gigalo

While by no means an excellent movie, I laughed harder at these series of scenes with William Forsythe than anything I've watched in awhile. He's out Leslie Nielsening Leslie Nielsen.

Carmen Mola

That three Spanish men were cowriting under single female pseudonym and won a prize makes me want to read all of her books. 

Especially the one set in the cholera epidemic.

Logging

Film: Smooth Talk

A rather banal, mediocre film up until the final sequence featuring Treat Williams and a young Laura Dern that merits any cinema lovers attention and reexamination. Vexing.

Film: Duece Bigalo Male Gigalo

Only watched the first act so far, but I prefer the Sandler films and Night at the Roxbury. 

Renewable Energy

It fits entirely with my understanding of the American ruling class "logic" that we would advocate for renewables at home, protest local usage of fossil fuel, and then refuse to pay the bill when it comes. Instead, behind closed doors, we encourage OPEC and other nations to increase their energy outputs (thus harming the environment in an exact equal amount had we produced it on our own).

Because at the core of our (now) ruling liberal elite is a moral vanity paired with no understanding of basic economics.

Safe nuclear was and is the answer. It's never too late.

Bravo

To Sarandos and Hastings for standing up to the mob. Finally! Public support of free speech and art.

If the employees really cared, they'd quit and build their a competitor netflix where they only show non-offensive and non-oppressive entertainment. Good luck with it.

What Netflix Ought To Do

Is fire any employee that walks out to protest. 

Logging

TV: Ted Lasso s2

I'll just repeat what others have been saying: something is WAY off. I guess they decided to take a comedy and turn it into a melodrama? What happened here? 

Also - check the storytelling pace. In season 1, the show was super patient. Moved at almost a slow clip. Season 2 they rush through story. Characters make sudden leaps. Roy Kent is a brilliant TV host right out of the gate?  Sam becomes an expert on Nigerian government corruption after reading one text message?

Ridiculous.

Wokeness as a Smokescreen

Say you do something wrong in the workplace or elsewhere, a pretty clever strategy would to be employ a "woke criticism" of your employer or authority figure to distract from the issue at hand. You'd get automatic public support and contrition from your employer. 

For instance, you get criticized for coming in late for work. You speak to HR about the workplace not being diverse enough. You get criticized for not being a team player, we need gender neutral bathrooms right now. 

A woke smokescreen.

The Closer

Wanted to link this from twitter, but can't figure it out. Critics score: 33%, Audience score: 97%.

Elite vs. Masses.

Logging

Film: Young Frankenstein 

Humor a bit dated. I've never totally vibed with Mel Brooks. 

Thought

Anyone who thinks the purpose of art is to validate their political ideology is a fucking idiot.

Logging

Comedy: Chapelle - Closer

The reason Chapelle is the GOAT - in his worst comedy specials, there will be a joke or two funnier than other comedian alive can deliver. 

And this is his best show I've seen.

Censorship 

Various fill-in-the-blank groups asking to pull Chapelle special from Netflix. 

Censorship has come roaring back into the picture and I'm baffled by how unoffended Americans are by it. It's happening at many levels - local schools, online, in political speech, and now the arts as well. That the forces excited by censorship feel bold enough to attack the GOAT comic of all time tells you all you need to know: we are in trouble.

Hmmm...

Pretty prescient of these Chinese institutions to start ordering PCR tests in May 2019, several months before the virus made a leap from animals to humans.

Great Countries

Pound for pound, South Korea and Denmark make the best films.

Facebook

As much as I hate Facebook, I cannot imagine Congress regulating it will accomplish much of anything. 

Solution here is obvious: Facebook buys the WSJ with its pocket change.

Logging

TV: Reservation Dogs and Squid Game Pilots

Reservation Dogs feels like a student film.

Squid Game was pretty terrific. 

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Film: The Many Saints of Newark 

I really wish there was an empirical way to study how film studios depict black characters post George Floyd. It's almost as if they portray every black character as the same person - good heart, victimized by the social structure, forced to do bad for the right reasons, and most importantly, cool. No flaws. No subconscious. No quirks. No humanity. And all movie reviews must praise the performance automatically. It's a template. 

If you want to see real black characters on TV, reality tv set on islands do a much better job. Love Island and F-Boy Island for starters.

I hate to beat up on the Sopranos film but it seems we've gotten a lot better at making trailers than movies.