We don’t see much for graffiti around where I live, probably because there’s a scarcit of appropriate surfaces. However, a local strip mall did have an empty spot, and my Arts Editor said she liked the graffiti, so, without further ado…
There ya go.
“I will get you and your little dog, too! Oooops, wrong script. “Uh…. To go where no …. darn it, too many scripts! Script-boy! Bring me all the scripts labeled Mustache!”
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) is a film adaptation of the famous Agatha Christie novel, a lovely, if unrealistic – train cars are not that wide – retelling of the story of vengeance wreaked upon a narcissist, perhaps even a solipsist, for the kidnapping and killing of a baby by those with a connection to the victim, and how an injustice such as the heretofore unpunished murder of the child, and the shared murder of the perpetrator, troubles Christie’s famed Hercules Poirot.
This is the Kenneth Branagh version, based on a screenplay by Michael Green.
There is little to criticize here – oh, but that mustache! – and a lot to admire. The moral questions explored in this tale are, in my limited experience with the Christie canon, far more salient than most of her stories; perhaps Mr Green or Mr Branagh enhanced the original story, which I have not read, to bring them out. If so, this is welcome.
We enjoyed this version quite a lot, and if you enjoy murder mysteries, you will, too.
Rep Kay Granger (R-TX), who withdrew from the primary to be reelected earlier this year and thus would ordinarily see the end of her term in about four weeks, may have actually already seen it. Having not voted since July 24, a Dallas Express journalist went looking:
We then received a tip from a Granger constituent who shared that the Congresswoman has been residing at a local memory care and assisted living home for some time after having been found wandering, lost, and confused in her former Cultural District/West 7th neighborhood.
Which is an ending I would wish on no one. However, the fact that this has been concealed does require investigation. Along with the Dallas Express‘ many questions, I’d like to ask if Speaker Johnson (R-LA) knew? Why has this not been announced? Worries about losing another special election to the Democrats? As Granger (and now her successor, Rep-elect Craig Goldman (R-TX)) have been winning elections in this district by a 2-1 margin, that hardly seems likely.
This doesn’t even make sense in my understanding of the context of who controls the House. It doesn’t matter, if she’s not their to vote. Or were Johnson & Co worried that, on word of Granger’s hypothetical resignation, other Republicans angry at Johnson might also resign, giving the Democrats control of the House in July of ’24?
Or is it just something as venal as her staff being determined to continue to collect salaries?
The Judge was about to read the latest chapter of her murder mystery to the convicted murder when all Hell broke loose. First came the innermost circle, then there was an administrative foul-up, and now we’re waiting for the 8th circle.
Die Muse des Mörders (2018; English version, Murder By The Book, which is what we saw) is a murder mystery that lets the plot of a book guide the actions of the killer. As plot twists go, I’ve seen worse, such as any mystical movie you’d care to name. It may clue some audience members in to the identity of the maniacal killer, though.
But this story suffers mightily from a lack of interesting characters. Victims, bystanders, killers, all they evoke is a yawn. None, absolutely none, do anything to evoke a positive emotion, such as rescue a cat, give a kid a cotton candy face, or indulge in popcorn lust. Nothing. Quick, kill another one and alarm the Austrian cops a bit more. They need the exercise, emotional and physical.
Add to this the dubbed versions inferior dubbing. Hello, you’re outside, not buried in a bad sounds booth!
And the climax!
Actually, the best part of the movie. The hysterics are reasonable and well-conveyed. But will they survive, or just become more chopped meat? How much do you limply detest them?
In the end, don’t bother with this clunker unless you’re in the mood for an Austrian drama.
On Lawfare, Kevin Frazier, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, and Peter N. Salib have a report on a jump forward in generative AI:
OpenAI’s Latest Model Shows AGI Is Inevitable. Now What?
Last week, on the last of its “12 Days of OpenAI,” OpenAI unveiled the o3 model for further testing and, eventually, public release. In doing so, the company upended the narrative that leading labs had hit a plateau in AI development. o3 achieved what many thought impossible: scoring 87.5 percent on the ARC-AGI benchmark, which is designed to test genuine intelligence (human performance is benchmarked at 85 percent). To appreciate the magnitude of this leap, consider that it took four years for AI models to progress from zero percent in 2020 to five percent earlier in 2024. Then, in a matter of months, o3 shattered all previous limitations.
This isn’t just another AI milestone to add to a growing list. The ARC-AGI benchmark was specifically designed to test what many consider the essence of general intelligence: the ability to recognize patterns in novel situations and adapt knowledge to unfamiliar challenges. Previous language models, despite their impressive capabilities, struggled on some tasks like solving certain math problems—including ones that humans find very easy. o3 fundamentally breaks this barrier, demonstrating an ability to synthesize new programs and approaches on the fly—a crucial stepping stone toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The implications are profound and urgent. We are witnessing not just incremental progress but a fundamental shift in AI capabilities. The question is no longer whether we will achieve AGI, but when—and more importantly, how we will manage its arrival. This reality demands an immediate recalibration of policy discussions. We can no longer afford to treat AGI as a speculative possibility that may or may not arrive at some undefined point in the future. The time has come to treat AGI as an inevitability and focus the Hill’s regulatory energy on ensuring its development benefits humanity as a whole.
Oddly enough, while the word exponential gets a bit of use in this article, generally in the context of human lack of intuitive comprehension of the implications of exponential growth, there is neither mention of the decades of near-zero progress in AI capabilities, despite predictions, nor is there mention of the hypothetical singularity, which is the time when exponential technological advancement, if graphed against time, becomes approximately vertical, and irreversible. Nor do they mention the Mechanical Turk, an infamous fraud.
But then, the point of the article was creation of regulatory frameworks in order to keep how AI disturbs society orderly.
If o3 is marginally beyond human intelligence at 87.5%, I gotta wonder what it takes to make 100% – and where it scores if it accomplishes the destruction of its makers.
Art Deco design found on the road.
Sometimes the best information after a loss comes from the front-line folks, and in politics that’ll be the candidates, win or lose. Soon-to-be former Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has a view that needs to be considered:
Why? Brown says the political shift in his state began with a signal event: the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
“Workers have slowly migrated out of the Democratic Party,” he told [interviewer Jennifer Rubin]. “It accelerated as more and more jobs were lost. And I still heard [about NAFTA] in this campaign, especially in the Miami Valley, Dayton, where we still won, [and] up there in Mahoning Valley, where we didn’t win.”
Workers came to view Democrats “as a bicoastal elite party,” he explained. “We were too pro-corporate. They know Republicans are going to shill for corporate interests. They expected Democrats would stand up for them, and they don’t see that nationally.” [WaPo]
The NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) issue is painfully funny, because I recall President Bill Clinton (D) stealing the entire free trade issue from the Republicans way back when, and that theft quite probably contributed to the Republicans’ hatred of President Clinton and his subsequent impeachment over trivial issues involving a blowjob. The real point is that the Republicans, if Clinton had not been involved, would have heartily endorsed NAFTA.
But yes, it does seem like the Democrats have lost the back of the workers, despite President Bidens efforts to boost unions during his term.
But although he himself will no longer be there come January, Brown insists that Democrats can — and must — win back the votes of working-class Americans. Those voters may disagree with some of the party’s stances on social issues, such as guns, abortion, crime and immigration, but will return to the fold “if we stay on economic issues and do it right.”
“We have to sharpen our message. I don’t look at politics left and right. It’s who’s on your side,” he said. “Work really binds. I mean, what do we have in common? The term ‘dignity of work’ really cuts across all lines.”
What American voters face.
(Yes, I know I’ve used this several times. It’s a favorite.)
For workers, the jobs that don’t require college degrees, that take the workers down into mines and forty stories up tacking together buildings are very important – and the Democratic Party, steered by legitimate or illegitimate leaders more concerned with exotic ideologies, and burdened by a lack of knowledge concerning how liberal democracies work, managed to steer the Party onto the rocks of madness and leave American voters with a Party that feels autocratic and facing another Party that feels … autocratic.
Ludeme:
A ludeme is “an element of play” within a card game or board game, as distinct from an “instrument of play” which forms part of the equipment with which a game is played. An example of a ludeme is the L-shaped movement of a knight in chess, whereas the knight itself is an instrument of play. [Wikipedia]
Noted in “The ancient board games we finally know how to play – thanks to AI,” Jeremy Hsu, NewScientist (14 December 2024, paywall):
Another way that AI can help is testing how the myriad permutations of possible rules play out, to find out which are fun and which lead to tedium. This is done by breaking the game down into units of game-playing information and feeding these “ludemes” into an AI.
Neither article gives the etiology of ludeme, so I can’t actually say that ludeme comes from an early game otherwise mentioned in the NewScientist article:
One of the first case studies for this AI approach has been Ludus Latrunculorum – one of the ancient games that we know the most about because of historical writings. “This gave our reconstruction process the best chance of success,” says Cameron Browne at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who led the Digital Ludeme Project (DLP) – a five-year project that ran until 2023 and that “investigated the full range of over 1000 traditional games throughout 6000 years of human history”.
A side issue that arose in this recent election was the Presidential poll by Iowa’s Selzer & Co, a firm treated with enormous respect in the polling industry and rated a 2.8 out of 3, at the time, by FiveThirtyEight’s rating of pollsters. Collected and released late in the voting cycle, the poll gave Harris a three point lead in the state of Iowa, a shocker in that Iowa had strongly favored Mr Trump in his previous two Presidential runs, which were in 2016 and 2020. Of course, I was tracking Senate races; the Selzer poll was noted only in the context of whether or not it would effect Senate races (“no”). But I was curious as to the Iowa results.
In the end, Vice President Harris did not win Iowa’s six Electoral College votes. The margin? 13.2 points.
That’s not even close. Off by 16 points.
What went wrong? WaPo’s Philip Bump has an analysis, based on Selzer’s comments, which might be best summarized as dated methods. The ways in which we may be contacted are becoming more and more specialized, anonymized, and, for the purposes of statistics, self-selecting, meaning we have some idea of who’s calling, even if the caller’s name is not made available. In the old days, you whippersnappers, the phone rang and you either let it ring or you picked up without knowledge, generally, of who was calling. That’s not true today. The majority of citizens don’t want to answer a poll, leaving only a few that do (self-selecting) or don’t pay much attention to caller’s ID (those curious about the world, perhaps) or refuse to pay for it where it costs (cheapskates).
It’s a recognized problem in the industry, and it’s a problem because it skews the raw results, meaning corrections built on unverifiable assumptions must be applied.
The Des Moines Register had a discussion of its own:
Selzer’s review has taken the form of testing plausible theories against available data. To date, no likely single culprit has emerged to explain the wide disparity. But I wanted to walk you through what has been looked at and what relevant data shows.
Following the Register’s long practice, we already released the poll questionnaire. For transparency, we’re also releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs and weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from Selzer detailing her review.
The balance of the analysis comes to Nothing yet, still looking! I did notice they did not address the issue of poll respondents simply lying, but then that would be a tough reason to address. If true, though, to the extent such a supposition can be proven, it would be very disappointing concerning the moral character of Iowans. I’d rather not think so.
Selzer has also announced she’s leaving the business:
Public opinion polling has been my life’s work. I collected my first research data as a freshman in college, if you don’t count a neighborhood poll I did at age 5. I’ve always been fascinated with what a person could learn from a scientific sample of a meaningful universe.
Beyond election polls, my favorite projects were helping clients learn something they did not know to help them evaluate options for their companies, institutions or causes. That work may well continue, but I knew a few years ago that the election polling part of my career was headed to a close.
Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities. [Des Moines Register]
Taking her at her word, it appears the polling game is becoming more and more difficult, not due to the usual factor of increased competition, but because the data they are mining, if I may use a precious metal metaphor, is becoming more and more difficult to obtain, and thus interpret.
For those of us who like polls as a way to learn how the nation is leaning, this is a horror-filled message.
Finally, Mr Trump is suing Selzer & Co:
But Trump, apparently still smarting from having to endure a day of people wondering if he might lose Iowa, sees himself as the one who had to deal with dire consequences. On Monday, his lawyers filed a lawsuit in Iowa alleging that the poll’s release was an example of “brazen election interference.”
Selzer would “have the public believe it was merely a coincidence that one of the worst polling misses of her career came just days before the most consequential election in memory,” the lawsuit claims. It later adds that the poll “was no ‘miss’ but rather an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election.” [WaPo]
Mr Trump will, or should, be laughed out of court. Or he’ll endanger a bunch of bad Republican pollsters. I think Selzer should ask how much money Trump has via the press, and then comment how much fun it’ll be to strip that money out of Trump’s operations. Once that’s finished, have his lawyers disbarred.
“I always wanted Kermie to play Ebenezer,” Miss Piggy said, “but, alas, the producers wouldn’t listen to me.” She paused, continued. “I kicked the shit out of them in that alley two years later.”
“I tore a hangnail something fierce.”
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) suffers from a central flaw:
The supplier of most of the cast members, the eponymous source of the title, the Muppets of The Jim Henson Company, is for kids.
What does this cause? While I’ve not read the also-eponymous actual source material, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, I’ve seen enough versions of the story, effective or disappointing, to notice that this is, wait, keep the groans to a minimum, a quintessential story of redemption. Money-lender Ebenezer Scrooge, despite several positive role models growing up, decides to embrace laissez-faire capitalism, free of sentimental restraints: the lascivious, single-minded pursuit of wealth. At the beginning of this story, when his partner, Jacob Marley, passes away just prior to Christmas, Scrooge is rich in money and, maybe, material things, but poor in his ties to the community and communal morality.
And the spirit world, from ghosts of humanity to embodiments of Christmas, objects. It objects strongly. The spirit world, interrupting his rest, guides Scrooge to access to information he doesn’t have: how hard his assistant Bob Cratchit works; the sad circumstances of Cratchit’s family, in particular the failing health of his youngest son, the charming Tiny Tim; Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, poor in wealth and possessions, yet undoubtedly a happy man for all that lack, for he has enough to eat, and has his many friends, and a fiancee: his ties to the community and, therefore, communal morality content him; and several other more anonymous members of the community.
The more effective versions of this story include Scrooge committing vile, morally dubious acts in pursuit of wealth, such as forcing Fezziwig, one of his good role models, and a moneylender himself, into selling out. Doesn’t sound so bad? As a moneylender, such institutions have a choice: to be, like Scrooge, highly avaricious people, perhaps members of the community in name; but, in reality, more in the vein of parasites, creatures that are all take and no give. Or moneylenders, through using their judgment concerning rates charged and the strictness of repayment, can be pillars of the community, respected and happy because of it, for that is one of the things that make humans tick.
Given the importance of exploring moral dimensions, it may be telling that the most popular movies of the season are those deriving from A Christmas Carol, and It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), include, as a necessary part of their foundation, and in different forms, moneylending institutions. I’ve not reviewed It’s A Wonderful Life, but I can recommend it.
Returning to the tragedy of Fezziwig, he is portrayed as a pillar of the community, and the joy that helping people brings him is integral to the character. When Scrooge, in those versions of the story that include Fezziwig’s victimization, destroys him as a moneylender, both Fezziwig and the community are damaged – and it’s an avoidable tragedy.
One more example, which I’ve only seen in one version, is Scrooge (and his partner Marley) backing the embezzling head of, as I recall, a charity. They are helping persuade the Board of Directors not to report their client, the embezzler, to the police, by suggesting it would destroy the charity’s reputation. The case is dubious; yet, through veiled threats, Scrooge and Marley carry the day, much to the detriment of Justice, and to the great outrage of the audience. Naturally, the morally bankrupt, but flush CEO, rewards Scrooge and Marley.
As I said, this story is about redemption, and the worse Scrooge’s moral turpitude and decay, the more effective the story becomes at his redemption.
And herein lies the problem. Muppets are, by nature, comic characters. That’s their purpose, which drives their design, and that comedy is marvelously accomplished. This carries forward to the movie. Nevermind their reputation; their appearance and mannerisms, even toned down, constrain the effort to make Scrooge’s initial moral decay strong enough to sustain a high level of uplifting redemptive force. The makers of this story understood that, and so the moral decay of Scrooge is minimized. He drove his fiancee away with his avarice, a common element of these derived stories, but not convincingly here; he insults the advocates for the poor, but not memorably. He’s Scrooge, but it’s more of a handwave at the avarice, not a heaping spoonful.
And therefore, when we came to the end of The Muppet Christmas Carol, my Arts Editor and I stared at each other and said, Well, that was a little flat.
The other elements of this rendition are quite nice. The stage is a revelation, the muppetry is fine puppetry, and the implied humor of adding Jacob Marley’s brother, Robert, to the mix was one of the more clever bits that I’ve seen. But while Scrooge’s portrayer, Michael Caine, has a reputation for playing morally torn characters himself, it doesn’t come through here. The script doesn’t let him be evil enough.
It does make me wonder how famed evil character actor Basil Rathbone, who I see played Scrooge in The Stingiest Man In Town (1956), would play Scrooge. I’ll have to search.
In the end, Muppet completists will not suffer in viewing this movie, because it’s well done. However, inherent limitations make its impact dilute, and that’s a sad result.
Professor Richardson has an admirably succinct summary of the events over the last few days in our nation’s capitol[1]:
As CNN’s Erin Burnett pointed out “the world’s richest man [Elon Musk], right now, holding the country hostage,” Democrats worked to call attention to this crisis. …
Tonight [that is, the evening of Dec 20, 2024] the House passed a measure much like the one Musk and Trump had undermined, funding the government and providing the big-ticket disaster and farm relief but not raising or getting rid of the debt ceiling. According to Jennifer Scholtes of Politico, Republican leadership tried to get party members on board by promising to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion early in 2025 while also cutting $2.5 trillion in “mandatory” spending, which covers Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP nutrition assistance.
34 Republicans voted against, 15 Republicans and 14 Democrats did not vote, and the balance of each Party were for it, for 366 votes. Of most importance:
The fiasco of the past few days is a political blow to Trump. Musk overshadowed him, and when Trump demanded that Republicans free him from the debt ceiling, they ignored him. Meanwhile, extremist Republicans are calling for Johnson’s removal, but it is unclear who could earn the votes to take his place. And, since the continuing resolution extends only until mid-March, and the first two months of Trump’s term will undoubtedly be consumed with the Senate confirmation hearings for his appointees—some of whom are highly questionable—it looks like this chaos will continue into 2025.
Publicity hound Trump may be furious with Speaker Johnson (R-LA) for not delivering a debt ceiling increase, a demand he added to the debate just a few days ago, and he may be furious with Musk for making both Trump and Musk look like losers in this contest.
Seasoned politicians know that you win some, you lose some, but Trump and Musk have influence due to their air of invincibility, even if Trump’s aura is more than a little tainted from his various failures.
But what about his backers? This is a hit to their investments. If some of those are of international stature, such as President Putin, could Musk be in trouble? In very serious trouble?
This could become frighteningly interesting.
Quixotic:
having or showing ideas that are different and unusual but not practical or likely to succeed:
This is a vast, exciting and some say quixotic project. [Cambridge Dictionary]
Sometimes, it’s just nice to know a definition more precisely, and, yes, I’ve read, in translation, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, which I found tiresome, but I have a low boredom threshold.
Noted in “To fix the world’s problems, we need both optimism and pessimism,” NewScientist (14 December 2024):
Going into a new year with such uncertainty, it is hard not to feel pessimistic, but that might not be a bad thing. Next year will mark 10 years since the Paris Agreement came into force, and even at the time, it was clear the 1.5°C target was pushing at the limit of what was achievable. As we wrote in our end of year leader at the time: “As a call to action, it is quixotic: its aspiration of a 1.5°C cap on global warming seems almost totally unachievable.” Indeed, remaking the modern world to halt greenhouse gas emissions and reach net zero is the most ambitious goal humanity has ever set itself.
WaPo’s Dana Milbank caught me by surprise in this column concerning the potential, but perhaps voided, government shutdown of tonight[1], and the future of Speaker Johnson (R-LA):
But this is just the first act of what promises to be a four-year circus. Already, a dozen or so House Republicans, angered by Speaker Mike Johnson’s inept handling of the spending bill, are now making noises about blocking his reelection as speaker Jan. 3 — and the defection of even two or three Republicans could doom him. This, in turn, could delay Congress’s certification of Trump’s election victory and possibly create a constitutional crisis over the transfer of power. Even if Johnson (R-Louisiana) gets out of that mess, a few House Republicans are already lining up in opposition to extending Trump’s tax cuts, a core component of his 2025 agenda.
My bold. Delaying an Inauguration by finding a different manner of imbecility. Bless their hearts, the Republicans do like to shoot themselves right in the nuts in public. As my Arts Editor asked, What happens if there is a delay? Does President Biden remain in office?
Democrats are far more subtle when they shoot themselves in the head and then spend months wandering about wondering what happened to them in the election.
I can’t see such a delay actually happening, but maybe SCOTUS had best stay up late and do some research. And maybe issue a proactive ruling. We don’t need an Army Colonel standing around on January 20th, holding the nuclear football, muttering, “Now who do I give this to?”
Bad grammar, that. SCOTUS, think, think! Republicans, get your Speaker situation straightened out and save us from televised bad grammar! No, no, I insist. And whoever’s muttering Speaker Musk, just stop that right now. Even former Rep and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), later a convicted pedophile, would be better than Musk. You have better choices, so stop it. Now.
1 LATER: Avoided, as a Continuing Resolution (CR) was passed by Congress, and signed by President Biden. No shutdown.
The promises of the Summer God was proven empty, its icons glazed, its wardens overwhelmed.
The Director was then promptly eaten by the air-conditioners. Air-conditioners are notoriously grump guardians.
Soon to be former leader of Senate Republicans and generally honor-free person Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), reportedly planning to yield his position as leader to Senator Thune (R-SD) sometime around Inauguration Day, and then retire at the end of his term in January of ’27, is the subject of a Steve Benen dream:
It was a notable brushback pitch from a key GOP official, but it was also part of a recent pattern: McConnell has thrown a lot of these pitches at Trump and his team lately.
- In an interview with the Financial Times, published last week, McConnell warned about the dangers of isolationism, which he seemed to tie directly to his party’s incoming president. “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” the senator said, adding, “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First’ — that was what they said in the ’30s.”
And etc. – Warnings about the RFK, Jr nomination, isolationism, Gaetz, and other nominations and positions of Mr Trump’s, which Senator McConnell finds distasteful – or worse.
Benen’s dream? That Senator McConnell successfully leads the GOP opposition to Mr Trump.
Will it happen? I doubt it. Senator McConnell has had such a zealous allegiance to the GOP that he’s broken Senate norms and rules and indulged in brazen lies in service of this dubious allegiance.
However, with retirement in sight and a Senate GOP that is, honestly, not what McConnell has led for all these years, he may feel free to be stubborn.
And if, despite all of his flaws, his inability to pass real legislation, to be barely capable of simply approving judge nominations with minimal oversight, he still considers himself a brassy, loud American, there’s always an option that would positively shock the political world.
He could cancel his registration in the GOP and become an independent. Senator McConnell (I-KY).
That is actually interesting. He might still caucus with the GOP – or he might not.. Republicans might no longer count on his vote on matters legislative or even judicial.
Currently, if you just count Senate election results, in the next Congress Republicans hold 53 seats, Democrats 45 seats, and two seats will be held by independents who caucus with the Democrats, so it’s 53-47. But don’t jump to conclusions.
Senator Vance (R-OH) must resign his seat in the Senate to become Vice President, making it 52-47.
Then there’s Senator Rubio (R-FL). Mr Trump has announced the Senator is his nominee for Secretary of State. Now, nothing is official until Mr Trump is sworn in, so I figure there’s a 70% chance that Rubio will be the nominee. And if he is and the Senate confirms one of their own, as seems likely, forcing his resignation?
51-47.
Now, what if Senator McConnell becomes I-KY? Yes, 50-47, while closer, is more or less unimportant so long as McConnell votes with the GOP caucus. But if he doesn’t on certain matters? 50-48.
And then there’s the matter of Senator … Murkowski (R-AK). She has been making noises of disillusionment with her Party. If she, too, took I-AK status, and announced limited cooperation with the Democrats, then … 49-49.
Now, it’s true that the Democrats would be short one vote for taking control of the chamber, as then Vice President Vance would break ties in the chamber, and, depending on the views of soon-to-be Majority Leader Senator Thune, they might not even want the majority. And then the special elections for the seats of Rubio and Vance will restore the Republican’s margin – but those will be a couple of months out.
A meditative Republican might note the Democrats have a definite advantage in special elections over the last few years. That Republican might consider those special elections to be not skirmishes, but flat out wars. Maybe our Republican might only consider that Democrats are inclined to blame anyone but themselves, and even when the latter is achieved, it’s always some other wing of the Democrats.
Meanwhile, Senator Collins (R-ME), another traditionalist, will be feeling the pressure of a GOP made up of aliens, from her perspective – and also, on the other hand, feeling pressure from her constituents in famously hard-headed Maine, who might prefer to see their many-termed Senator, who is already reported to be planning for another Senate run, be an independent rather than caucus with the businessmen and unapologetic extremists who are coming to dominate the GOP conference.
Potentially interesting times. I don’t actually expect any of this to occur.
But it could.
Catherine Rampell of WaPo has a disturbing report concerning the incoming Administration, because what else can you expect?
Consider the troubling idea to abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported. Congress founded the FDIC in 1933 in response to a series of painful, “It’s a Wonderful Life”-style bank runs. Hordes of panicked customers tried to pull their money out of banks all at once because they worried their cash would not be safe, causing thousands of banks to collapse.
In the 90 years since, the FDIC has run a national insurance system for deposits, up to certain limits, so that customers can trust that their money would be protected if their bank got into trouble. The independent agency also supervises the banks it insures to prevent them from getting into trouble in the first place. (Knowing you’re backed by insurance can lead to riskier behavior, after all.)
Reportedly, one of the issues that infuriated many voters following the Great Recession in 2008 was the lack of punishment for those who were seen as abusing their corporate positions. So, just to make this proposal to abolish the FDIC a bit spicier, let’s refine it thusly:
The CEO of every bank that goes under must serve a prison term of not less than a decade.
There, that makes me feel better. After all, consumers cannot exert the necessary pressure to ensure their banks are run conservatively, but hang a sword over the CEO, that’s immediate pressure.
Max Miller of Tasting History nails it:
This is from his Mock Christmas Pudding video, and his reading is delightful.
We were going to race motorcycles off this ramp, but then the King called and said No!
Darn it.
The King’s Man (2021) is a chronological prequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), and is the origin story for the King’s Men, a secret organization dedicated to preserving the British monarchy. Their creation is the result of a fictional incident during World War I, involving Rasputin, Mata Hari, Archduke Ferdinand, and the Duke of Oxford’s son.
It’s not a bad story, building sympathy for characters and then killing them off, but it somehow doesn’t quite work. Good acting, nice story, but it lacks some of the panache present in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Possibly, kept in the background but present, is the fact that the main character has achieved his status not necessarily through merit, but through the ruthless acts of his ancestors, which is acknowledged – and becomes the unspoken driving force in the story.
But it’s not dealt with satisfactorily. In the end, there’s no agonizing over this unfortunate fact, and it takes the oooomph out of the story. But perhaps that won’t bother you.
In any case, the goats are the scene stealers here. The goats were charming, fabulous, and fun. Never abuse a goat might be the theme of this story.
So-so.
Roundelay:
- (music) A poem or song having a line or phrase repeated at regular intervals.
- A dance in a circle.
- Anything having a round form; a roundel. [Wiktionary]
I sort of expected it to be listed as a portmanteau, as I’ve never heard this word before, but that it’s associated with music explains the matter. I’ve never pursued musical knowledge beyond visiting some Sacred Harp circles. Noted in “The 10 best movies of 2024: ‘Anora,’ ‘A Real Pain’ and home-brewed charm,” Ty Burr, WaPo:
A throwback to when movies were unafraid to be sexy (see also “Hit Man”), this tennis roundelay from Italy’s Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name” and other sybaritic delights) casts Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor as participants in a years-long throuple’s match on and off the court(ship). “Challengers,” more than “Dune Two,” stakes Zendaya’s claim as one of the sharpest Gen Z actors around — let’s just go ahead and call it Gen Zendaya — and the movie’s a sensual/sensuous treat on the filmmaking and narrative levels alike. Profound? Hell, no. But it sure hits the sweet spot.
I’m a little behind, but I can’t help but notice that Mr Trump is making waves again, in the same way as he did during his first Administration, when he offered to acquire Greenland – but now his eyes are bigger (sorry about the visual). I’ll use Steve Benen’s summation, as I have no interest in Mr Trump’s Truth Social:
The day after the interview aired, the president-elect published yet another related item to his online platform, which referred to Trudeau as “governor.” Lest anyone think he simply mistyped, Trump called the Canadian prime minister “governor” twice in the same missive.
In case this was too subtle, the same item referenced “the Great State of Canada.”
Not to imply anything.
Mr Trump appears to have quite a standard for his legacy. His first Administration not only ended in a metaphorical fire, but in a literal legal disaster, no matter how much supporters and neutral observers try to twist his various prosecutions into weaponization of the legal system. The former & future is trying to put his mark on the United States by adding a 51st State.
While Benen doesn’t mention it, I think long-time readers of UMB are familiar with Mr Trump’s tactic called Name it and claim it, which is a murky religious tenet. I think we can look forward to Mr Trump frantically repeating, with variants, the idea that Canada is a member of the United States, hoping that it’ll somehow happen, and secure his legacy.
I doubt anyone but the flakes in Canada want to join the United States. Indeed, those who do have probably moved here. Maybe they should get together and elect Mr. William Shatner to Congress as an at-large member.
But I do not expect Mr Trump’s loose-lipped wishing for something better than inflating the American Federal debt to result in Canada joining up. Republican inclinations to increase the Federal debt cannot be attractive.
Red One (2024) is one of those movies that, set in a land of fantasy in which there’s already a point – Be Good, or it’s a lump of coal for you! – it must struggle to find a way to make some version of that point in a memorable way, like all such movies. This isn’t a Christmas movie, so don’t compare it to the superb It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), because that uses Christmas as a contrasting background. Instead, we’re talking about the operationality of Christmas, or Who’s this dude delivering presents worldwide, and why? Some of that is clever, and some of it is even referenced as key elements of the denouement. That’s certainly good.
Thus the examination of the technology presented to us. But there’s also the butting in of other creatures from related myths, with whom old Nick has some sort of relationships. What’s going on there?
And then there’s Cal Drift, head of E.L.F., who would ordinarily fill the screen.
But none of these are the main character; that would be Jack O’Malley, morality-free hacker who occasionally talks to his young son, and who just happens to be the key tool in finding a way into Nick’s fortress – but that also makes him the key for tracing the people who have grabbed the big man.
The problem is that O’Malley is painfully predictable in his reactions. Got a ten foot tall monster, relishing the chance to have a bit of its own revenge, staring down at you? Running around shrieking in disbelief was obvious. Too obvious.
A bit of balls would have been better. In fact, I began composing dialog in my head for each situation, trying to come up with the sort of dialog a hacker nicknamed The Wolf might try, no matter how close to wetting their pants they might be. A bit of panache, please?
The other characters are better, although the aforementioned Cal Drift comes off as a bit stiff. Still, for a possibly non-human character, that’s believable – but mostly boring.
If you need to shred a couple of hours, you could do worse. I’m sure it’s a lovely popcorn movie, although I didn’t go that route. It’s a bit interesting, and if you enjoy Dwayne Johnson’s movie career, this should be on your list.
But I fear it’s not really memorable, no matter how hard it tries to reinforce its version of the Christmas message.
Man with Caterpillar on Lip. (2024, Branagh)
Death on the Nile (2022), which is the Kenneth Branagh version of said movie, differs from the Ustinov version in that this is less a subtle send up of the British upper classes, on which author Agatha Christie, I think, built a career, and more an examination of her magnificent detective, Hercule Poirot, as to the costs of being a standout in his field.
And how much his highest standards of excellence has cost him outside of his chosen field – and why.
To this end, we see Poirot prior to the cruise on the Nile, setting up story elements that reinforce Poirot’s sacrifice, but eventually, as with the prior movie, the bodies begin to pile up as we anchor at Abu Simbel.
And Poirot begins to sweat. But maybe for more than reasons than when he was partnered with Ustinov.
An excellent way to spend a couple of hours, although those who idolize the fabled detective may be outraged at the ending.
WaPo published this article a couple of weeks ago detailing another new money millionaire and their desire to hook up with the future President after being caught with their fingers in the cookie jar:
I was struck by Mr Trump’s language reported in a recent interview:
President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that “you have no choice” but to deport everyone who is illegally in the U.S., including possibly removing the American citizen family members of those deported. [NBC News]
You have no choice … classic passive-aggressive language, isn’t it? “It’s not MY fault that I have to deport you …”
But, of course, it’s not true. Politics is all about finding palatable compromises to slushy situations like legal children, illegal parents. But Trump is no good at making deals, of emotionally handling compromises that bind him to actions that he doesn’t like.
So He has no choice.
It’s really a key to his entire personality, his man-child approach to being a President. He wants to be a strongman just so doesn’t have to deal with hard situations. And we elected him Prezzie? His own people may bounce him out on his ear.
