Sinwar

Good opportunity for the Middle East players to bring this war to an end. Return hostages for ceasefire. Some type of political settlement whereby Hamas must compete with Fatah and other Palestinian groups for who calls the shots going forward in Gaza. Let Palestinians decide if they like the way Hamas ran things.

Trump Didn't Enjoy Getting Tackled in Football

This is the most sane thing Trump has said in awhile and Dems think it makes him look bad. 

I Support...

Women who want to wear bow ties. 

Anti-War

Do the anti-war and ceasefire people realize what they're really saying is: let's do this thing over again in 5-10 years when Iran has nukes? 

Overlap

I wonder what percentage of people who think Columbus was a force for evil also think Elon Musk is a force for evil. My prediction: 80%. And the only thing in common: men with tangible accomplishments.  

Columbus Day

Rather than celebrate nautical accomplishment and being a brave, bold explorer of the world, we shall now criticize and judge a man who lived 530+ years ago as a way to make us feel better about sitting on the coach staring at phones. Congrats America, we've made a lot of moral progress by simply nodding along with the zeitgeist. Who knew it was so easy to be a good person?

Of All The 20th Century Horrors...

Where would one rank the Nakba? I'm guessing in the 50s-70s. Why is this the only one the world doesn't want to move on from?

I wonder. A mystery wrapped in a riddle. 

Liberals

Called Reagan a fascist. Then called Bush 1. Then Bush 2. Then McCain. Then Romney. Then Trump. Now Elon.

Notice a pattern? Everyone who disagrees with the progressive agenda is by their account, a fascist. Cluster B personalities. 

Envy

Is what makes the world go round. This is right. 

The man could cure cancer, take us to Mars and miraculously walk on water and half this country would still hate Elon. Not surprising at all, unfortunately.

Psychotic

It is psychotic to want to see men playing in women's sports at a competitive level.

Hamas Documents

These are the people Israel is dealing with. There will be no peace for Israelis or Palestinians until Hamas and Hezbollah are gone. It will be fake and temporary. If you care about the Palestinians the fastest path would be surrender. If you cared about the Israelis...come on, you don't care about the Israelis...

Fire The Entire Commission

CA state commission in charge of coastal wildlife rejects SpaceX plans to shoot rockets because they don't like Musk's politics. 

And you wonder why Donald Trump appeals to people.

Tragedy

Yes, there are horrors in Palestine - a terrible situation for all. But made so by the intractable and ridiculous demands of Palestinian political leaders and all those who support them. Imagine if the Chinese who lived in Taiwan demanded their lands and property back - confiscated by the Chinese Communists. What if they conducted suicide raids on the mainland. What do they think would be happening to them? Would Americans be supporting them? Not in a million years. Plus, they aren't so stupid to think this could ever work.

My Lovely Alma Mater

Protestors at Pomona College celebrate October 7th in numerous violations of student codes.  

1) Disrupting classes, not letting teachers and admin into their work

2) Vandalization

3) Wearing masks on campus (many of these "protestors" are not students but activists from the area)

Easy solution - kick all participants out of the school. Make they pay for destruction to property. No arrests needed. 

Lunatics

Think Saleh was fired as Jets coach because he wore the Lebanese flag. These fools no nothing about football and see the world through one lens - Palestine. No one in the US or football fans even cares about this stuff. Delusional.

So Lame

Bring me back to the 20th century, please...

Who wants to play VR games on an omni-directional treadmill? Begin on a treadmill is a metaphor for boredom - go outside, people!

Vibes

The vibe I get from Kamala -- drunken class President who organized the 30 year high school reunion. Goes around hugging and slurring and reflecting how much she misses everyone.

Lies

From Scientific American about inequities between males and females in sport. 

In my casual observations as a youth soccer coach, by age 6 I can see significant athletic differences between boys and girls - strength, speed, coordination so much so that 95% of girls would simply not enjoy playing real competitive sport against boys. And for the record, 25% of boys do not like competing against other boys their age simply because of the physical challenges. So if you want to get rid of this gender stuff - and did a simple thing like made soccer co-ed - you would see probably about 1 girl per team of 8 actually playing and enjoying it. 

I Know

The Republicans are crazy, inept, and conspiracy-oriented. Yet there's quite a bit of evidence they'd be better at governing or at least not worse.

In Chicago, the public schools doubled per student spending over the past decade only to see test scores drop.

This is what happens when liberals govern. They spend more money for worse results. You see the same exact thing in California on both public schools and homelessness. Why? Because they create incentives for career bureaucrats to make up fake work for themselves in order to pay themselves more. The Republicans at least attempt to cut this stuff and do better by just not fixing what isn't broken.

All of DEI can be seen this way. It's all fake work. And costs money. To get worse results than if they had done nothing at all.

True

This is true about humiliation, but people also remember suicide bombings and fanaticism -- people know by instinct the order of things can be worse. Suicide terrorism is a glimpse into it.

Blacks and Browns

Are testing nearly six grades apart from Asian students in California. It seems like average black and brown students are 3 grades below grade level and average Asian students are nearly 3 grades above grade level. Even if you believe there might be some genetic and demographic aspect to these differences, I cannot think that could account for more than 1-2 grade levels at most. 

This is at least two trends - main one being a the total shit show of public education - bureaucrats trying to change how they teach basics like reading and math and no one in the system being held to any standards at all. And two, Asian parents not giving two fucks and insisting on their kids learning by paying for tutoring like Kumon to get it.  

My question: why not just outsource all math education to Kumon? It couldn't be worse than what the public school system is doing. Why won't they do it? Too many people making money for not doing shit.  

The Sopranos: Johnny Sack doesn't like the shoes

Answers

Now seems to be a great time to get deep answers about dark American secrets. Ask Joe Biden, he will forget what he's not supposed to say. "Mister President, was there a second shooter when Kennedy was shot?" "Oh yeah, definitely...right on the grassy knoll. I've seen the film." "Mister President, are there aliens living amongst us?" "Not living amongst us right now, but there are alien artifacts being studied by scientists in Area 51. Next question?"

Woops

CNN says Nasrallah agreed to a ceasefire before he was killed. Now remember Hamas and Hezbollah both had a ceasefire with Israel on October 6th.

For all the folks who claim to stand with the Lebanese Shia and Palestinians on "moral" grounds - does it give them any pause to consider these are groups are allied, funded, and controlled by the mullahs in Iran? Does that reality sink into their mind at all? Does it give them pause? 

Bring It On

Some students at Tufts want to "bring the war home." These folks are so weird - desperate for their lives to have meaning, but at the same time too scared to step off campus. 

When They Tell You Who They Are...

Believe them. A US progressive organization wants to "Flood the Streets of NYC" on October 7th.

Now This Is True

I woke up with a disturbing thought: with Kamala there is a near-certainty of more wars coupled with a lot of bullshit about "peace" initiatives. With Trump (rather, Trump-Vance) there is a possibility of peace coupled with loud saber rattling.

A Lie Agreed Upon

Both Israel and Iran are incentivized to lie about the damage done by the Iran missile attack. Iran, so it looks like they can retaliate. Israel, so it looks like they are under siege and continue their war on Hezbollah.

Weird times. 

 

Apparently, Charles Schulz had the same issues with organized kids sports that I have in 1972-1973. Hmmm...

Logging

Film: The Wild Robot

It would not surprise me to see this get a best picture nomination. I'm loathe to admit, but movie animation making large creative strides that cohere artistically unlike its live action counterparts.

Film: Megaopolis

I've encountered this phenomenon twice now in theaters where some part of the audience laughs, but I'm not sure whether it's at the movie or with the movie. Or perhaps both? For all the low audience numbers in the press, at the AMC on Monday night, this movie was half-full. Not bad although this might be the movie crowd sensing it won't last long in cinemas. One of these laughs was when a giant hand reached out of a cloud and grabbed the moon. Cut to Giancarlo Esposito sitting up in bed telling his wife "I just had a dream where a hand reached out of a cloud and grabbed the moon." Not sure what's going on here on a narrative, filmmaking, and audience level -- is it the equivalent of listening to drunk Uncle Bob on Thanksgiving? At another point in the movie Adam Driver says something to the effect, "Man should only love women," which elicited uncomfortable chuckles (I am assuming he was quoting Marcus Aurelius, btw).

I'm enjoying the contrarian takes on the film that its full of ideas and not boring, etc. But...come on now. What astonishes me is not all the clunky writing and uneven pace and plot holes but how the film wasn't all that pleasurable to look at. Consider the images in The Godfather films, The Conversation, or Apocalypse Now -- or even the documentary films he produced - Koyaanisqatsi or Powaqqatsi? It seems to me the quality of images has regressed.

For the first half of the movie I was thinking: this is brilliant - Coppola has managed at age 85 to make what feels like a first feature film. He's somehow regressed into his youth. But by the end, I no longer felt that way. 

I have one strange theory...this film was actually made to be re-cut by billions of people on the internet into their own remix versions of the film.

Film: Billy Madison

Kids loved it.

Film: Mission Impossible 

Kids weren't that into it, actually got frightened by first act since Ethan Hunt's entire team was murdered. I did not recall Emilio Estevez was in this film and gets impaled in the first act. That said, I think I'm doing them a service by showing them how DePalma places the camera...

I might start including the scene in the restaurant between Cruise and Henry Czerny as a scene study. Really awesome scene...