Glad We Solved That Problem

Gavin Newsom signs into law regulations against discriminating against hair.

No Ideology or Religion

Rami Malek has conditions on his playing a Bond villain.

Also, he should not have opinions, thoughts, or desires. Last, he will not look like anything either. Oscar.

Too Little Too Late

Joe Scarborough tweets a vent against woke Democrats and Nike and says they're lighting themselves on fire and will reelect Trump as a result.

Trump got reelected when they put Christine Blasey Ford up there knowing full well she was probably delusional.

Whitlock

On the difference between Rapinoe and Kap.

I agree with him. And still haven't watched a second of the Women's World Cup.

Where Nike Stands

They pull shoes with the American Flag from the shelf, along with shoes designed by a guy who supports the Hong Kong protests.

Guess we know who owns Nike now.

Dewey Decimal System

And now they've come after Dewey.

Drunken Epiphany

The reason none of the Democrats can beat Trump is that there isn't a single one you'd enjoy getting a drink with. Think about it. If you ran across these folks at a cocktail party, you'd run the other way. Say what you will about Bill Clinton (maybe a rapist) and Barak Obama (maybe feckless as a leader), if they were at the bar, you'd want to chit chat with them. Am I wrong?

Joe Biden. I'd be awful afraid of long winded one-sided conversations.

Kamala Harris. I can think of few things less pleasant than hanging with KH.

Pete Buttigieg. Snooze.

Cory Booker. I'd be checking my emails.

Bernie. Fun for a few minutes. And then very very old.

Elizabeth Warren. Would feel like you were talking to the school principal.

Tulsi Gabbard. Close, but ultimately, isn't she just kinda weird?

Beto. Good from far but far from good.

Castro. Ugh. As enjoyable as a head cold.

Yang. Nice guy...maybe...smart...okay...I need to go to the bathroom.

Point is this. On the debate stage, the only person who'd actually be fun to hang with is Marianne Williamson and if you want to understand the appeal of AOC...let's be real...she'd be fun to shoot the shit with. Everyone else. I'd choose Netflix.

Question For Democrats

If healthcare is a human right and immigrating to America for opportunity is a human right, shouldn't also housing be a human right? Shouldn't everyone have a house? So lets just add that to the list as well for the "rich" or whoever to pay for while we're on it.

Brief Thoughts On Democratic Candidates

Kamala Harris. She seemed to capture the spotlight and be "on brand" for what the Democratic Party has become. That said, I really, really do not like her at all. She comes across as a joyless scold and completely cynical. She is also backwards looking in the worst way, assuming a mantle of victimhood about her days of being bussed to school in liberal Berkeley California as if she grew up in the South. Please.

Joe Biden. Seems old.

Pete Buttigieg. Too young and without any significant political or business accomplishment as far as I can tell. Maybe is smart and maybe has some good positions, but his most attractive traits are: served in military, gay, rhodes scholar -- all things done in his 20s or before.

Bernie. Comes across as energetic and genuine and clearly makes his points against big business, but I don't agree with his solutions and nor do a vast number of Americans.

Marianne Williamson. Did an incredible job of making herself visible. Seems like she practices Wicca. Kinda like her being in the mix. Would bet my entire live savings she won't become President.

Hickenlooper. I don't think so.

Swalwell. Seems like he's running for Pres in order to get a job.

Gillabrand. I had never heard her speak before and only knew her by reputation. I actually thought she got her POV across well: she's an advocate for women. And I found her more likable than I imagined. I prefer her to Harris because I don't think she is a completely joyless cynic. She seemed to have both broad ideas and elegant solutions for them. I'm not sure her about her priorities or whether those solutions are realistic or legal (ie public funded elections).

Bennet. Somewhat unremarkable, almost like a bad VP candidate.

Yang. Poor guy got ignored. Seems to be his own guy. Like that he's got ideas, even though I don't think they have any chance of gaining traction.

More On Debate...

...didn't watch all, of course, but what Dems fail to account for in demonizing large companies is that many Dems actually work for these companies, want to work for these companies, buy these companies products, and are mostly happy with these companies. That's why they are companies!

The way the problem ought to be articulated is that sometimes the incentives of these companies are misaligned with the public interest. Not only is this more true than reducing all problems to the issue of greed - but also frames the problem towards a workable solution.

Same with this student loan ridiculousness. The students loan crisis is the result of a well intended government policy that created perverse incentives. To pay off loans is a cheap, short sighted solution that will only incentivize more of the very problem we are trying to solve.

A way to approach the student loan problem:

a) Recognize IT IS A PROBLEM.

b) Recognize part of the "fault" lies with people taking on too much debt in an irresponsible manner. Parents and college students are adults and bear responsibility for their own actions.

c) Recognize the colleges bear responsibility for their escalating costs and have chosen to raise costs because people are willing to finance through government sponsored debt.

d) Recognize the government is complicit in the debt crisis by subsidizing loans.

e) Recognize part of the problem is our employment system / ie employers who use college degrees as a screen to weed out candidates.

I think the solution will require attacking the problem on multiple fronts in a "blitzkrieg" method.

1) Incentive companies to abandon college degrees as a screen for jobs that don't actually require a college degree and incentivize "apprenticeship" programs.

2) Put colleges partially on the hook for any and all student loan defaults of their students.

3) Create incentives akin to matching 401k contributions to paying back loans (better than simply writing folks a check).

4) Cap loan amounts students can take. You hear about these extreme cases where students are 100K or more in debt. It's crazy. If it costs that much, go to a different college.

That's just a start.

I Wish

You could bottle Cory Booker's expression when Beto launches into a Spanish answer to a question that wasn't asked.

Elizabeth Warren saying Latinx was an unwelcome sign. I don't know any hispanic folks who self refer to themselves as Latinx, so to hear Elizabeth Warren doing it strikes me as phony, only slightly less than going around calling herself Native American.

As I'm listening to this debate, it seems to me there is consensus amongst the Democrats that everyone in the country - esp women - should get free healthcare and free higher education and all the "big companies" are evil and the cause of our woes.

She's Not My Type

It's ironic to have the President of the United States making uncouth jokes about "serious" matters and late night comedy hosts lecturing him on it to applause, but that's 2019 America.

Fascists

The students at Bowling Green who insist on removing Lillian Gish's name from the theater.

Here's how you know they're fascists -- no one -- literally, no one -- talks about Lillian Gish. She is of no significance to the current culture whatsoever. And yet, they've targeted her. This is insanity and purely about the exercise of power and the attempt to seize control over institutions and minds.

So there's all these people out there who want to imagine themselves brave by standing up to the evil government of the USA and the evil corporations and all the racists, etc. But of course, they aren't brave at all -- this is the trend! They are not punished for their positions as Civil Rights protestors were. They are not put in the crosshairs of the British Authorities as the Colonialists were. They are rewarded and celebrated. See Ava Duvernay, a basically incompetent filmmaker celebrated only for her self-branding as a race-crusader.

The fascists are right here showing their colors and the response by all these "brave" people is the same response from all the sheep throughout history: silence.

23 Million Views

For "When They See Us." Netflix should be required disclose how many of those viewers were sleeping.

As George Costanza Could Tell You

...White females disclosing parole matched at a higher rate than White females not disclosing parole. (while online dating)

Adults in Charlie Brown

You know how they sound? Wa-wa-wa, etc. Listening to a podcast when guys get really into a hockey discussion. I guess I know how most women feel around guys talking about sports... It's like a foreign language.

All You Need To Know

San Francisco bans e-cigarettes. This is the 21st century version of Monsanto creating both the disease and the cure. San Fran / Silicon Valley is where the e-cig is created, then banned within the same borders, and happily exported to the rest of the world. So many layers of dysfunction.

Logging

Film: Booksmart

I am an idiot for being suckered by the trailer. Booksmart is an objectively bad movie. Bad, as in, the story is poorly told. All the major "turns" of the story are false and driven by the sense the story must change direction and not by any emotional logic. The basic visual storytelling tries to hide a "style" behind what amounts to illiteracy. It's like a reading a book with grammar mistakes.

What can be said in favor of the the movie is the casting. It's good. Two main girls have chemistry. Side characters are vivid as well and many are given nice moments. Some standalone scenes and even sequences are pretty good - particularly towards the end. But as a whole, I would not recommend the film to anyone with somewhat decent taste in movies.

There are other major sins. The lesbian storyline(s) have zero sexual chemistry. None. And in doing so, reveals something about the intentions behind the marketing and making of the movie. It's overly concerned with being a female-empowerment, LGBT empowerment, a Girls-can-make-Superbad too kind of film, and swaps any soul that might've been for being "woke."

Go watch Fleabag instead. Or Superbad. Or Sideways. Or shit, even Riverdale.

Ugh

Jemele Hill defends the women's world cup team for scoring 13 goals and celebrating after 9.

The shameful part is that how the U.S. women’s soccer team celebrated on the field will cause more of a stir than whether the players are paid fairly. Despite having won three World Cup titles, earned four Olympic gold medals, and generated millions of dollars more in revenue than the men in 2015, the women sometimes earn 38 percent of what the men earn per game.

If the women want equal pay, they should try marking Mbappe and see how it goes. The reality is they probably play at level of D3 college guys, so the other way to look at it is that they're lucky to be making any money at all.

Freedom of Speech

For those who say what we want to hear.

So Is This Article

The TV is too damn long.

Good For Them

Hundreds of thousands Hong Kongese protest new Chinese extraction laws.

Suspicious

You ought to grow suspicious of your ideological beliefs if the solutions to what you believe are the most pressuring problems involve general immiseration.

Here's CurbedLA touting the benefits of recession to the housing market.

Income inequality would greatly be diminished with a massive stock market fall.

And global warming could be solved by the majority of the worlds 7 billion people returning to poverty level conditions or dying off more rapidly.

Just saying, careful what you wish for.

Fake News

The story about Americans being unable to come up with $400 emergency expense is wrong.

It's actually not just wrong -- it's a lie. Because the folks promoting the story have an agenda and promote the story with the intention of misleading.

I'd Like To Sit This One Out

Chinese audience prefers pale skin actors.

I wish we could put the Chinese Communists in the ring against the "Woke" and just have a Mountain vs. Viper duel and deal with only the winner.

I Kind Like Clarence Thomas

An article on him.

“People who will get very upset if someone said all blacks look alike are really comfortable saying all blacks ought to think alike,” Justice Thomas said.  

“If you said that blacks should not be allowed to go a library, you’d be against that,” he said. “If you said that blacks couldn’t read certain books in the library, you would say that’s wrong.”  

“But now we are so comfortable saying that blacks can’t hold some of the ideas in some of the books in the library,” Justice Thomas said. “That’s absurd.”

He's not wrong.

Movie of the Year, By Trailer

Starting last year, I now believe I can predict the movie of the year by a trailer.

Last year was A Star Is Born. And I kinda still think the first act was the movie of the year.

Here is this year's.

Wokeness is Language

Word usage at NY Times.

The argument against wokeness is an argument about how the woke are changing language to suit their political end goals. The argument for wokeness is that people are finally "awakening" to the horrors of what are around them. See the plot of GET OUT. And it's the most subtle form of delusional thinking we have going today, ranking above 9/11 Truthers, Anti-Vaxxers, Flat Earthers, and those who believe in Astrology.

And Who Is To Blame Now

Democrats control a supermajority in California. The state is solid blue, electorally. And yet, we're in the midst of a haves vs have nots crisis in housing, and opted to do NOTHING about it.

Can't blame Trump for this one.

It's almost like the Dems want the boost in ego one gets by pretending to care for those less fortunate, without actually doing anything to care for the less fortunate. Is it incompetence? Hypocrisy? Greed?

All of the above?

Unsurprising

Charts of how much terms like "white privilege," "unconscious bias," "diversity training," etc have exploded in the last 10 years.

Logging

Film: Collateral rewatch

If you only add up Tom Cruise's performances in "minor" roles, his career would be remarkable. Risky Business, Collateral, Tropic Thunder, Magnolia, Knight and Day, Cocktail. Amen.

TV: Fleabag S2

Best writer in TV. By far.

Book: Eat that Frog

Self help shit for a teaching a class. But it's actually really useful stuff.

TV: Chewing Gum and Riverdale Pilot Episodes

Not my cups of tea.

Game 1

Terrific game. Siakam too much for Draymond. Toronto defense is legit. Got a lot of crazy shots falling their way tonight, but that D won't go away. Love how Toronto can throw a lot of quality two way players out there. Kawhi off night and you still got a chance for production from Lowry, Gasol, Siakam, Green, Van Fleet, Ibaka.

NBA

Kawhi is the best player right now.

Yep

State and local policies are the real immigration policies.

If you like immigration, don't complain about Trump, make your hometown an affordable place to live with low minimum wage. Hence, parts of LA.

To Read / Watch List

Before I die.

-Scenes from A Marriage
-Persona
-Decalogue
-My Struggle
-Elena Ferrante
-Moby Dick
-Lord of the Rings

Ongoing...

True 

The rediscovery of great literature.

I still recall many of my English teachers from grade and high school...maybe moreso than any of my other teachers. I remember in high school I had this teacher Mr Feeney, who all the students liked because he was "easy." I remember sometimes in class, he would just give us 30 minutes to read. A part of me thinks back - jeez - wasn't that an easy assignment for him! But think about it. We were sitting there reading Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald... Was there a better use of our time?

And the only other thing I remember - not the assignments or the grades or any of that - but goddamn did Mr. Feeney love the books he taught. I can't remember a damn thing he said, but I do remember he loved books and loved writing and loved sharing that with us.

I guess what I'm thinking now is that I somehow had a lot of things wrong. That the "easy" teacher was communicating to me perhaps the most important thing one can get: a love of reading. What were the "harder," more challenging teachers teaching me? Perhaps how to succeed.

Jury's out on what was more important.

The Absurdity and Evil of Russian Communism

A pointless extermination of world whale populations.

And yet, privileged folks here in the West still sometimes contend, it just wasn't implemented correctly.

Hmmmm...

Tyler Cowen's worst post -- and there are very few -- defends Harvard's decision to get rid of Weinstein's lawyer by making the claim, essentially, by taking on Weinstein, he'd be too busy to do his dorm job.

Let’s say I hired a TA for my Econ 101 class, and then I learned that TA would be defending Edward Snowden in his or her spare time. Probably I would ask for another TA! And that has nothing to do with my view of Snowden, one way or the other, or whether my students have rational views of Snowden or not (I genuinely do not know if they do).

In a healthy world if a TA got another job, he'd talk to the professor and explain he couldn't do both. In the Weinstein lawyer case, Harvard made the point they were dismissing him because of the student concerns.

Maybe the argument, then becomes: they needed a decent reason to get rid of the guy and used the Weinstein case as an excuse. But that tells even a worse story about Harvard. Instead of just being un-American and not believing in the right of a defendant to legal counsel, they are actually just cowards who fear being construed as being in favor of basic American values. Such a sentence can only make sense these days.

Liberals

Chose to prioritize Green New Deal, Impeaching Trump, and Transgender bathrooms instead staying center and protecting Roe v. Wade on the flank. Elections have consequences.

Affordable Housing

A long article about the multitude of reasons housing is so costly.

Missing a big factor: people getting married later. The most obvious and dirty little secret is getting married means combining resources means much better odds of being able to afford a house. Demographically, young Americans are staying single longer and thus less able to buy...

As I'm In The Middle of a Major Housing Renovation

A good, succinct reminder:

PL: Housing isn’t an investment. A home is an extremely undiversified bet on a single structure in a single neighborhood in a single geographic region. A home is illiquid and indivisible (you can’t slice off a piece of your kitchen to buy milk). Worst of all, a home carries high transaction and carrying costs. Historically home prices have barely kept up with inflation – and only if you continue to pour money into it for upkeep and maintenance, not exactly something you want from an investment. Housing is consumption.  

Looking at it this way will allow you to make better housing decisions. Something I painfully had to cut out of the book was research on the happiness derived from housing. The quick summary is you don’t derive much lasting happiness from your home. There is plenty of research, however, that says your commute time is correlated to your happiness. The implication is it makes sense to place a higher value on your home’s location than whether it has a remodeled kitchen or extra closet space.

Thinking about housing as consumption only makes academic sense. I actually think my dad put it better to me a long time ago - a house is a place to live.

Student Loans

Strange irony. A bunch of the more progressive Democrats are talking student loan forgiveness, etc. They've identified the problem, but is forgiveness the solution? If student loans are so "problematic," why does the Federal Government subsidize them? I honestly feel as though Democrats can only think about 1, maybe 2 steps ahead if you go by their policy ideas.

If you believe in equal opportunity, labor rights, and even correcting past historical wrongs, my suggestion is to come up with better ideas and better solutions as opposed to ideas that can easily be dismissed as simplistic, virtue signaling, and stupid.

A better idea:

1) Put colleges on the hook for defaults.

2) Peg financial aid that goes to institutions to reasonable rates of tuition increases.

3) Broaden GI bill, and other service oriented programs for scholarships, etc.

4) Track effectiveness of state university systems (which I think probably do a better job than we give them credit for overall)

And for the students/parents:

1) Don't take out loans than can't be easily repaid.

2) Go to cheaper schools

Game of Thrones S8 E4

A pitch: could of incorporated the Golden Company into the ambush to take down the Dragon. It could have set up their prowess and done a bit more to downplay Dany's sloppiness. Maybe they snuck onto Dragonstone.

Wednesday morning QBing...

I'm Convinced

Sullivan thinks Biden can beat Trump.

I'd take it a step further: Biden might be the only Dem who can beat Trump. Here's why:

He’s a union man, and always has been. In what was a brilliant ad-lib, Biden began a speech to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers by making a joke about the excesses of #MeToo — “I had permission to hug Lonnie,” the union leader, he quipped. Later, as he brought some kids onstage, he joked again, as he put his hands on the shoulders of a boy: “He gave me permission to touch him.” The crowd’s reaction both times was bellows of laughter. Yes, this might be seen as insensitive, or tone-deaf. It is certainly politically incorrect. But what Biden’s joke did is tell the white working class that he has not defected to the woke, white urban elites. This matters.  

In a recent poll, 80 percent of Americans say “that political correctness is a problem in this country.” Hostility to new speech codes from elites was one factor that drove support for Trump in 2016. Americans do not want to abolish all differences between men and women, do not support reparations, and view college campuses as strange, alien pockets of madness. Any Democrat in 2020 has to reach that “exhausted majority” who are sick of all that. Biden has already done it.

Nobody who's woke is getting elected in this country because woke people are so fucking annoying and they're the only ones who don't realize it.

Populism and Late Bloomers

Interesting piece from Overcoming Bias.

Random question: is bias such a bad thing if you are aware of it?

I Wish There Was A Way To Bet This

Predictions:

1) Ong Choy or Chinese Water Spinach will become a more popular vegetable in the future. I don't suppose it will overtake broccoli or anything, but it's quite delicious, easily flavored, easy to cook, crunchy and fun. I suppose it will be seen in fancier/hip type restaurants if it isn't already...

2) Chimichurri will be the next salsa. You sometimes hear salsa is now more popular than ketchup. A somewhat strange comparison given the different uses. Like: would you ever say - ketchup is more popular than guacamole? But anyways, they are condiments, I guess. And made of tomatoes. Regardless, chimichurri is quite similar to salsa and can be applied to many meats -- deliciously. Salmon, chicken, steak, pork...it's high versatile, simple...

Military Evaluation of the Battle of Winterfell

An analysis of Team Alive and Team Dead battle tactics.

He makes good points.

But I agree with social media that the Dothraki charge was stupid and bound to failure. My opening salvo would've been to fire the cannon balls to induce a Team Dead  infantry charge into Unsullied. While the Unsullied held the line, employe one dragon to burn up  dead and to lure out the Night King dragon. Keep other Dragon in reserve to attack Night King when he appears. If he fails to appear, the wights get all burned up.

Use Dothraki and flaming swords as a reserve force to flank the dead should the dragons get called away to do battle with Night King or need to protect Bran.

I don't think Team Alive needed to induce battle as it was clear Team Dead came to fight. Don't think Team Dead had a siege plan.

Writer makes a good point about White Walkers not utilized in the fighting - they had spears that could take down dragons --  although we've never seen a White Walker chuck the spear, only the Night King himself. It might be reasonable to assume the White Walkers are not good at throwing.

I believe Bran's ravens were also not used well in the fighting. Seems to me, they should've been out looking for the While Walkers and then a small Team Alive navy SEAL type unit equipped with Valyrian Steel ought to be have out hunting the White Walkers.

Obviously, the Night King has a stupid top-down army design and should just put himself in a box like 100 miles away to avoid being killed, but it seems he was not designed that way.

Nevertheless, you cannot argue with success to much and Team Alive prevailed.

Game of Thrones

Per the internet, S8 E2 was one of the greatest episode of all time and S8 E3 was a disappointment. I'm more in between. Brianne getting knighted was a terrific moment, but I felt like episode 2 was too many of the same type of scenes. Now, I get from a story perspective needing to do this, but it nevertheless felt a bit repetitive to me. Episode 3 had some awesome moments. The Dothraki Sword lighting? Are you kidding me? Awesome! The Red Woman overall stole the show. Her final moment - stunning. The Arya stuff was badass as well. Hiding from the wights and of course, the Knight King death blow. I get it didn't have the spectacular, gut wrenching plot turns of the Red Wedding, etc, but I've given up hoping for that as we moved past the books.

Biggest downsides to last night: dragon fighting and the overuse of slow motion. I couldn't follow the dragon fighting at all. I thought two dragons died - Jon Snow's and the Night Kings, but then they both showed up again. Confusing...

For the people who say it was too dark, I say, it was at night.

Hitler Comparisons

People keep comparing Trump to Hitler, which is preposterous, of course.

If you're looking for the next Hitler, here's someone who meets the profile.

After years of depression, eating disorders, and anxiety attacks, she finally receives a medical diagnosis: Asperger’s syndrome, high-functioning autism, and OCD. She also suffers from selective mutism—which explains why she sometimes can’t speak to anyone outside her closest family. When she wants to tell a climate researcher that she plans a school strike on behalf of the environment, she speaks through her father...  

...Greta is not alone in her mental suffering, according to the book. Her sister Beata, who was 12 when the book was written, lives with ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome, and OCD. She is prone to sudden outbursts of anger, during which she screams obscenities at her mother. What would normally be a 10-minute walk to dance class takes almost an hour because Beata insists on walking with her left foot in front, refuses to step on certain parts of the sidewalk, and demands that her mother walk the same way. She also insists that her mother wait outside during class—she isn’t allowed to move, even to go to the bathroom. The child still ends up weeping in her mother’s arms.  

...Like many parents of children with similar diagnoses, Greta and Beata’s parents fight hard for their daughters to receive the right care and assistance in school. When Greta refuses to eat they do everything they can to save her from starving herself. Her father begs their doctor to save Beata from whatever it is that plagues her. To read the story is heart-wrenching, many times over...

Here are her words -- words that are getting applause by folks at Davos and the UK Parliment:

“I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” Greta said when she addressed the world’s leaders in Davos. 

I fear these people way more than I fear climate change.

Advice For The Ringer

Please write less articles. And the ones you write, make them shorter.

Like, this is a good idea for an article that I cannot finish. Why are celebrities lashing back at the media? Uh? Because the media sucks and they lie?

Happy Birthday To Me

HBO giving me this.

Logging

TV: X-Files Pilot

Has it all in there. Very simple and clean in narrative design.

Favorite Blog Post In A Long Time

This is an incredible blog post that is basically about EVERYTHING.

Blogging so much better than twitter.

Logging

Film: Free Solo

I'm writing this blog post while watching which ought to mean something.

UPDATE: Am tempted to start a gofundme page to hand over footage to Werner Herzog and watch his recut.

TV: Catastrophe s4

My favorite season so far. Last episode terrific and haunting.

TV: After Life

First couple episodes the bits of humor were so funny it made up for the unrelenting bleakness. But after episode 5, I'm quitting.

TV: Killing Eve S2, E1

Loved season 1 and will probably not finish season 2.

Book: The Border

Pulpy fun. Not as good as I remember The Cartel being so far...but I still love it.

Film: High Plains Drifter

Clint rapes a woman within the first 15 minutes of this one!

I'm No Expert

But it seems pretty strange to have a pension plan nearing the red after a 10 year bull market with nearly 12-15% stock returns. What happens when it dips?

Unusually Level Headed Piece

From the Atlantic pointing out how all of the Trump alarmists have been wrong.

How could so many get it wrong? Underlying these various accounts of doom is a major analytical flaw. In some sense, the flaw is so obvious that I wasn’t entirely aware of it until I started thinking about this article. If we exclude cases of military conquest or occupation, as occurred during World War II, there is no clear case of a long-standing, consolidated democracy becoming an autocracy. Democracies backslide—it is a spectrum, after all. But democracies, or at least certain kinds of democracies, do not “die.”  

Germany is a touchstone for any conversation about the fragility of democracy. But Germany, when Adolf Hitler entered politics, was a young democracy, and the particular democratic configuration known as the Weimar Republic was even younger, having been established only in 1918. Young democracies are fragile. Moreover, Germany was suffering from historical afflictions that the United States—and, for that matter, most other countries—is not likely to experience again. In an essay for The American Interest, and also the subject of his forthcoming book Democratic Stability in an Age of Crisis, Jørgen Møller lays out the case in convincing detail. Germany, Austria, and Italy, he writes, were “bedeviled by the legacy of the World War,” which “created revanchist yearnings in all three countries, which could be harnessed by undemocratic forces on the Right that had, in the first place, been brutalized by four years of fighting in the trenches.”

Here's another hint: if you know any of the people who compare Trump to Hitler, you know these are the very last people who would every ACTUALLY stand up to fascists when they are ACTUALLY in power. They - and this is a generalization of course - are more likely to be the types leading you to the gallows.

Jack Dorsey

Had he been an adult in the 70s, my money would be on Jack Dorsey being a cult leader.

What He's Saying

Aspiration and the death of the middle class.

"Green" policies and local regulations mostly result in making housing less affordable and entrenching the rich. It's a threat to liberal democracy. My only question is whether this is by design or just idiocy.

The 401k

An article about the terribleness of the 401k.

Traditional pension plans force people to save and protect them against investment mistakes, market risks, and the possibility of outliving their savings, not to mention predatory financial institutions. 401(k)s don’t, and, lo and behold, most people don’t put enough in them, make serious investment errors, and fall prey to heavy fees that crush long-term returns. Worse, because 401(k)s can be tapped into (with a penalty) before retirement and are transferred to workers when they lose or change jobs, middle-class workers often use them as rainy-day fund when times are tough, further beggaring retirement security.  

Granted, 401(k)s work well for one group — the group who needs them least. For the affluent, 401(k)s are a lucrative way to manage retirement investments. They are also a great way to build up an estate and delay paying taxes. (Traditional defined-benefit plans didn’t become part of workers’ estates; like Social Security, they promised benefits for the remainder of a workers’ lives, pooling the “risk” of living longer — and potentially running out of money — across all those covered by the plan.)

I used to agree with this type of thinking. Here's why I changed:

1) My financial dealings with the state and federal government via paying nanny taxes, personal taxes, having a loan out corporation, dealing with EDD, etc. It's way more cumbersome and worse than you can imagine. Just try for instance - to call EDD to get an answer. For the record, this is an organization that my household PAYS between 1k-2k a month. And we can't get them on the phone.

2) Teaching and writing experience. Here's the thing: just because someone doesn't use a 401k right at the moment, doesn't mean they can't learn to use the 401k. People can learn. People can be taught. I think liberals in general make a huge mistake when focusing on RESULTS (which are by definition, looking at hindsight) versus focusing on IMPROVEMENT.

3) A general attitudinal shift from getting older and being a parent. People can learn when there is someone there to teach them. Rather than focusing on how stupid people are and how governments or computers or bureacrats or corporations would be so much better at making decisions for people than themselves -- how about we focus instead on teaching people to be more self reliant. Teach people thrift, savings, compound interest. I learned all this stuff when I was around 10-12 years old. Adults can figure it out. And if they can't, believe me, social security isn't going to save them.

4) Pension plans are good if managed well. But why should we assume they will be managed well? Most are underfunded, including Social Security. 401ks are good if managed well,  too.

Student Loan Forgiveness

30,000 applied for it, 96 were granted it.

Funny how the government is so much less stringent about giving out the money than forgiving it.

Reparations Fund

My counter for those interested in reparations would be a fund that anyone who feels guilty about their role in enslaving black americans or that they've unfairly benefitted from slavery, ought to be able to donate as much as their money as they'd like in order to right their grievous wrong. Myself, having come from Chinese immigrants and Quakers, honestly don't feel like my money ought to go that way. Also, I wasn't involved in the slave trade. Neither were they. And also, I'm not responsible for what my ancestors did. I don't get credit for the great things, nor deserve the blame for the bad things. I find it strange this issue is coming to the forefront these days.

Along these lines, should we be obligated to pay some taxes to the ancestors of Alexander Hamilton and anyone else we can think of who helped build this modern economy we all benefit from? Shouldn't we owe benefits to those who helped us as well as those we wronged? It all gets very confusing very fast.

For The Record

I could care less about AOC "code-switching," but the content of her message is that she encourages an African American audience to take pride in driving buses, serving food, etc. I don't think she's wrong -- I actually think she ought to take the same message to Stanford and Harvard if you ask me -- but it's important to point out George W Bush made the exact same speech to underprivileged inner city kids in 1990s and was chastised by Democrats as a racist. The Democrats said to these same kids "you keep going to college." And now these same kids are no doubt some of the folks we hear about drowning in student loan debt. So you tell me - who was/is right and who was/is wrong?

Should We Be Happy About This?

Intelligence community has ways to avenge politicians that anger them.

That's a Puzzle

The prices of big pharma predicted Trump election.

Logging

Book: The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow

Just a warm up for reading The Border. It's good stuff. Less sadistic than Ellroy, who I like less than I used to.

TV: Catastrophe S.4 E.1-2

Best show on TV?

MMT, Anti-Vac, Flat Earth...

I can't figure out why so many strange ideologies are gaining in traction today. Oh, wait. Actually I can: the internet.

Maybe Time Really Isn't A Flat Circle

Instead, it is racist.

Thought Experiment

My 3 year old informed me today he didn't want to grow up and would prefer to say "little" forever. Now say the world of science could meet such a request - let's call it an aging blocker. Not totally implausible, right? Would this be a good idea? I mean, it must be tough if you are a 3-year old trapped inside a 30-year old body? I mean, this isn't really fair, right? Likewise, it must also be tough if you are what people call an "old soul" while in middle school and high school. Lots of movies have told us this. What is one to do? Should we be fixing this problem? Writing some legislation? Changing laws? Why not?

Preventing Astroids

From hitting earth seems at least as important from a human survival standpoint as manmade global warming. Yet, it doesn't provide the same benefits of virtue signaling and ability to demonize political opponents and thus we hear a lot less about it.

Logging

Film: Bicycle Thieves

Beautiful. Sad. Simple. This movie could be made today and would still be acknowledged as special.

Internet

Can be used both ways. Taiwanese project to map out restaurants paid to play CCP tv only.

Well Put

Democratic positions.

The Democrats are making it real easy to mock them. They call the vote on the Green New Deal a GOP stunt. But doesn't that imply the introduction of the legislation itself is a stunt also?

Children and Climate Change

Cowen argues having children will help solve climate change.

He's fighting windmills. The folks who cite climate change as a reason not to have children cannot be taken at their word. They are looking for excuses to not parent. But why not admit this? Instead, they also want the ego boost. It's called vainglory.

Also related, if you want insight into who these people are, the Atlantic has a new section called "Dear Therapist."

Since hearing the news, I have been honest with her about my feelings. I reminded her that we simply cannot afford a second child and we can kiss our joint career aspirations goodbye if we have another baby. She agrees with me. More important, I said our marriage will be over in the sense that we will just be co-parents rather than lovers because I will resent her, and the baby will always be a reminder of my career sacrifice and our indebtedness...  

...We're both Christians, and I know she will struggle with making the decision I prefer and might regret it afterward. I don't think I will share those regrets, but if she keeps the pregnancy I will likely enter into a state of lifelong depression and feel stuck in an unhappy marriage. I feel like there are only bad outcomes with either choice. What do we do?

What an awful person is what I come away thinking...

Murch

Rules for editing, but are really rules for visual storytelling.

Maybe guidelines.

Logging

Film: Misery

Dark, funny. Underappreciated. Hollywood doesn't make 'em like this anymore.

Interesting

Who is most receptive to pseudoscientific bullshit.

Arrogance

Amazon banning anti-vaccine books.

I'm into vaccinating children, but not into banning books. I can only imagine what's next. Maybe books about the Confederacy.

Parental Indecision Therapists

People in my age group will pay someone $400 an hour to help them figure out whether they want kids.

To not understand yourself enough by age 40 to know whether you want to have kids or not seems to me a failure of sorts. Maybe that's a shitty thing to think.

My Favorite and Least Favorite NBA Players

Favs:

Paul Millsap. Just love his all around game and adaptability to systems. Whenever he's on the team, the team is good.

Playoff Rajon Rondo. He's getting old and we see less and less of the old Rondo, but I just love his idiosyncratic skill set, his toughness, and his oddball nature.

Joel Embiid. As far as I can tell, the closest we have to Hakeem in the modern game. Great size, athleticism, and low post moves. Fun to watch an old school big man. I don't care for stretch fives.

Russell Westbrook. Incredibly frustrating at times, but man, does the guy demand attention. Any given night is boom or bust, but it's never what I would call boring. Love that he thinks he's the best player on the court when he is not.

Kyrie Irving. The handles, the shooting, the creative finishing. Artwork.

Damien Lillard. Leadership, grit, and a great sense of timing.

Joe Ingles. Love his slo-mo perimeter game and how he irritates better players on defense.

Chris Paul. Still like the guy for his competitive fire and intelligence.

De'Aaron Fox. Toughness. Cleverness.

Trae Young. His passing.

Kahwi Leonard. Because if he's locking down on D, it seems more likely he'll steal the ball than his guy will score.

Least Favs:

Draymond Green. The most annoying person in the NBA.

Jason Tatum. So talented, so soft.

James Harden. Too much dribbling and drawing fouls.

Lonzo Ball. I never feel his impact on the game. I forget he is playing.

Brandon Ingram. The reason LeBron to the Lakers isn't working is because the Lakers haven't identified ANY talent since the Kobe-Gasol teams.

Side Notes:

Steph Curry. Is the most underrated player in the league. People routinely tout Durant as the best Warriors player and rarely speak of Steph as a generational superstar. LeBron, Durant, Giannis, Harden, George, etc., are all spoken of with more awe than Steph. Maybe because we're bored by the Warriors. Or maybe because he doesn't have the physical stature. Absurd as it is that a two time MVP and three time champ could be considered underrated, but the guy is a game changing force and very often the best player on the court in games facing off against those other guys. He's also the heart and soul of arguably the greatest bball team of all time and creates little to no drama. The only knock may be his injury history. But he's played and showed up when it mattered. And consider this: even when he was injured, it took LeBron 7 games to defeat them. As a thought experiment, I'd love to see Durant and Draymond leave the Warriors and just see Steph and Klay win a championship with whatever else they could throw together.

Facebook

Removed ads by Elizabeth Warren calling to break up the tech giant.

I guess they could call it hate speech.

Agreed

With Ross Douthat.

The “more meritocracy” argument against both legacies and racial quotas implicitly assumes that aptitude — some elixir of I.Q. and work ethic — is what our elite primarily lacks. But is that really our upper class’s problem?

What if our elite is already diligent and how-do-you-like-them-apples smaht — the average SAT score for the Harvard class of 2022 is a robust 1512 — and deficient primarily in memory and obligation, wisdom and service and patriotism?  

In that case continuity and representation, as embodied by legacy admissions and racial quotas, might actually be better legitimizers for elite universities to cultivate than the spirit of talent-über-alles. It might be better if more Ivy League students thought of themselves as representatives of groups and heirs of family obligation than as Promethean Talents elevated by their own amazing native gifts.  

It might be better if elite universities, in being open about seeking a specific ethnic mix and encouraging an intergenerational tradition, ceded a certain amount of talent to public universities, and even saw their average SAT score go down.

Or just let in more students.

Maybe we need genius's in fields like physics or tech. I don't know. But in fields like politics, entertainment, business, education, etc., I don't see IQ as the critical factor to success.

Logging

Film: The Professional

In my top ten.

Operation Varsity Blues

Is the real offense that Felicity Huffman didn't have enough money to buy USC a building?

He'd Be A Good Bond Villain

Zuckerberg wants to build a mind reading machine that people do voluntarily.

After all this is said and done, Zuckerberg is gonna find out what's he's suspected all along: people still won't like him.

Faster, Please

White House considering putting colleges on hook for students defaulting on student loans.

Logging

Film: Payback

Some great elements, but overall doesn't quite hold up. An awful lot of violence against women. Awful lot...

Corruption

I don't know if American society is becoming more corrupt, but it feels that way. A college admissions scam.

Me Wants To See This

Redoubt.

Strange Thing About Trump Presidency

There seems to be a constant unfolding of revelations of who stands for what. Germany will no longer list Hezbollah as a terrorist group and won't cooperate against Chinese spying.

This Seems Right

The issue is the issue.

When I used to be a professor, there was a joke about faculty senate debates being so vicious because they involved such trivial issues. In the modern world, the political debates aren’t about consequential issues like workers’ rights, civil rights, war and peace, etc. 

No one seriously expects Trump to do anything about illegal immigration, trade deficits, etc. Today’s debates are about symbolic issues. It’s as if half the population decided to pick a fight with the other half, just as an aggrieved spouse that had built up years of resentment suddenly lashed out at their partner over some trivial issue—forgetting to do the dishes.

While Brexit itself has only a trivial effect on the UK in utilitarian terms, the Brexit debate might be the biggest blow to the UK’s aggregate utility since WWII. It is reducing happiness on both sides. The real issue is the issue itself, not what the issue is about.

I wonder if this boils down to young vs. old? The young feel the old have screwed them deeply in some way and can't figure out how or why and the anger manifests itself in a number of bizarre ways. Could go some of the way toward explaining the attempted demotion of all things from the "the past." 

Logging

Music: Tash Sultana

Reminds me of being younger. Love it.

TV: Murder Mountain, Peaky Blinders s. 1

Interesting doc about Humbolt county.

Somehow I didn't get into Peaky Blinders the first time I tried. I don't know how that was. It's brilliant pulpy storytelling.

Film: Midnight Run

No matter how many times I watch the film, the scene when DeNiro visits his ex-wife and daughter gets me.

Best SNL Skit I Can Remember 

Peak California 

I agree 100%. 

Housing prices are going to cause decline in the state. Already are. New generation of start ups will not be in California. SF economy not diverse enough - in the way New York is - to create sustainable balance.

If I could figure out a way to long term short California and the Bay Area in particular, I would.

Reparations

David Brooks comes out in favor.

If your idea is to heal rather than sow more tension, I can imagine few worse ideas.

NBA Players Misery

Adam Silver discusses isolation, social media, etc.

If social media makes you unhappy, get off it.

If you yearn for camaraderie, build it.

If you want a community, participate in it.

These things are simple in concept, harder to make happen.

Which makes it all the more disappointing when we allow angry people to tear these things down.

Social Conservatives

And the Religious Right were the boogey men of the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps the most sympathetic portrait was John Lithgow's preacher in Flashdance, a badly misguided man who wanted to ban dancing in his town. Dancing! What a misguided fool we said. Of course, these folks had lost the battle years before and have since faded away. For the most part.

Their point was that the loosening of moral standards and embrace of a more sexualized, boundary-less society would lead to very very bad things. So rock and roll music, alcohol, dancing, no school uniforms, etc would eventually lead to drug addiction and sexual depravity. Absurd! We all said.

But in light of the R Kelly and Michael Jackson documentaries, along with the fact that drug abuse now claims 70,000 lives per year in America, would it be fair to say....

They had a point.

?

Because one takeaway I got from the docs was the music and fame was a critical component of how these guys lured their victims in. Am I wrong?

And now, how in this era that we live in, can people justify listening to Michael Jackson?

Logging

Film: Green Book

Was the Academy members version of electing Donald Trump. Here's the message from the old folks in the Academy to the "woke": fuck you!

Who will be the next group to give the woke the middle finger?

And the movie? Familiar and not without charm.

Bones Lawsuit

This is a big deal.

The $179 million should be put into a bonus fund to be distributed to everyone who worked on the show from PAs to Interns to Assistants to Truck Drivers to Electricians to Staff Writers. 

It won't.

Hmmm

Prince Harry and Megan Markle will raise kid as gender fluid.

The first King-Queenx.

Democrats

Goal: Defeat Trump in 2020

Tactic: Push late term abortion, reparations, and 93 trillion dollar Green New Deal

Odd choices.