5 Thoughts for December 31, 2015

1. USC Football: That final USC play in the Holiday Bowl perfectly encapsulates USC football and Cody Kessler this season. You've got 7 seconds left in the game and it's fourth and 10, so you throw the ball wide to a receiver who ran the route short of the 1st down. Last year it was a defense that would lose games on last second throws. This year it was a team that often didn't know what it's supposed to be doing. Signs: Leaving receivers uncovered on defense; allowing defensive players to come untouched through the line and straight to the quarterback; throwing short of the 1st down, on 4th down; dead ball personal fouls.
2. Northern Lights: No, there will not be northern lights in Portland tonight or tomorrow, contrary to what some folks in the news media have been saying. How do I know this? Because I've looked at the Aurora Forecast Center at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks' website and it clearly shows that the northern lights won't be visible in Portland.
3. Metromile: I got a year-end email statement, telling me that I drove 1,370 miles this past year. Yep, I fill up my gas tank about 6x a year. They also have a blog post about some other stats they've gathered from customers. Apparently Metromile users in Portland Oregon, average 4,940 miles this past year. It's been over a decade since I last averaged that much.
4. Sling TV: Ironically, I've stopped trying to use SlingTV via Chromecast, to watch football games on the big TV, and have instead used my SlingTV account to sign into ESPN WatchNOW, and cast that Chrome tab to the TV. Flawless. Ironic, but flawless.
5. New Year Resolutions: Next year, I am resolved to get done what I said I would do, last year, which was the same thing I had previously resolved to do the year before -- obviously I don't believe in New Years resolutions. Since I was in elementary school, I'd write them down at school, then promptly ignore them. I am comfortable with who I am, and have basically ignored what other people think of me, since I was 3 feet tall. Really.

5 Thoughts for December 29, 2015

1. Bill Clinton: I don't think too many people have realized quite yet, the inherent message behind Donald Trump's attacks on Bill Clinton, the minute after Hillary's team announced that Bill would be joining the campaign in the new year. Up to now, we've seen two conditions where Donald would attack: First condition was when he was directly attacked; second condition was when he'd fallen behind someone else. His attacks on Bill represent a third condition -- the fear of someone else taking over the campaign. This third condition reveals to us that Donald believes Bill to be the true Alpha Male threat, and has thus taken the threat on, before it has materialized. This represents a new method to defeat Donald: Mock Donald as the weak imitation of Bill.
2. Affluenza: Schadenfreude.
3. Seattle Seahawks: The Rams have always performed well against the Seahawks, even in losses. This time around, I can confidently say that the Seahawks defeated the Seahawks. The team was error-prone in all phases of the game, from just about every player, but especially from the backups. The team had 10 accepted penalties and three turnovers, not including the recovered fumbles from bad snaps. Even with the poor officiating -- a fumble that was advanced 7 yards! -- the Seahawks lost this one on their own.
4. Netflix: Latest binge, Season 2 of Helix. Season 1 was marginally acceptable (3 stars), but Season 2 is much better (4 stars) with the plot and character development. Next up will be Marco Polo: 100 Eyes, probably following up with Making a Murderer.
5. College Recruiting: Fans are too much, sometimes, when they start criticizing players for their choices, or their parents for influencing their children. This epic parent totally pwned some fans, recently. I think it's good to cheer your school on, but to criticize kids and their parents is entirely wrong, and sometimes it comes back to bite you.

Belatedly, Merry Christmas!

I was busy on Christmas, and didn't have time to post this sooner.

10 Best Christmas Song Recordings / 5 Best Christmas Albums

On the eve of Christmas, while there are gazillions of recordings of several dozen Christmas songs, here is a list of my top 10 best Christmas song recordings, as influenced by my roots:

1. White Christmas, sung by Bing Crosby -- There is no better Christmas song, sung any better than Bing Crosby, ever.
2.  Merry Christmas Darling, original composition and song by Karen Carpenter -- The classic Christmas ballad that everyone fell in love with, in the 80s.
3.  Christmas Time is Here, original sound recording from A Charlie Brown Christmas
4.  Mele Kalikimaka, sung and performed by Cyril Pahinui -- Most people would have Bing Crosby here with his iconic rendition of this song, but Pahinui's slack key guitar is perfect.
5.  Sleigh Ride, Leroy Anderson orchestration, performed by Boston Pops Orchestra, directed by John Williams -- Leroy Anderson's orchestration is the only one worth listening to, and John Williams has always kept this song moving at the right speed -- not too fast, not too slow -- with the bright brass of the Boston Pops.
6.  Silver Bells, sung by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards -- The absolute best crooner in history makes this recording a must-have; this recording makes you melt away.
7.  Carol of the Bells, performed and sung by the Mormon Tabernacle
8.  Do you hear what I hear?, instrumental performed by Keola Beamer
9.  The Christmas Song, sung by Nat King Cole -- He's the second-best crooner behind Bing Crosby, and his version rises above all, including Mel Torme's, although old Mel Torme is much better than young Mel Torme.
10. Merriest Hawaiian Christmas, sung by the Honolulu Boys Choir

These five albums are what I would call essential in any collection, but especially in mine:

1. Christmas Portrait, by The Carpenters (listen / buy)
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas (listen / buy)
3. White Christmas, by Bing Crosby (listen / buy)
4. Ki ho'alu Chrismas (listen / buy)
5. A Canadian Brass Christmas (listen / buy)

5 Photos from the previous week.

I was walking with the dog with coffee in hand, in the Pearl, between showers yesterday, at The Fields park, when I saw this view present itself. I'm sure people wondered what was so special about it, and what sort of nut would spend five minutes trying to get this image from a phone, just right.

On a break between rain, a puddle looks like a lake.

Last Friday, I was treated to a meal at Taylor Railworks. It was early enough to avoid the rush of diners, and the food was great. I would call it a blend of SE Asian, Italian and American cuisines. The Noodles alla Johnny was a bit salty; the Fried Chicken dish's flavors reminded me of Chinese Crispy Duck.

Taylor Railworks, Braised pork with grilled long green beans and sesame cracker

Taylor Railworks, Fried chicken, steamed clams, chilies and herbs

Taylor Railworks, Noodles alla Johnny, spicy crab, prawn and tomato

Taylor Railworks, Octopus ranchero, spicy tomato, arancini

How to Destroy Donald Trump

It amazes me, how terrible the analysis of Donald Trump's candidacy has been. In July, immediately following his tongue-lashing of John McCain's hero status as a POW, I wrote that Donald's popularity would survive this; I offered a strenuous explanation as to why these apparent foot-in-mouth incidents would not affect him, elsewhere on the internet. I even explained why he'd won the debates and why his numbers would rise.

Pundits, dumbfounded by Donald's lasting power in the polls, have apparently thrown their hands up in the air and decided to label him Teflon Trump. As if!

I previously wrote that I would offer a full write up on the various strategies one might use to destroy Donald Trump's candidacy, but in this season of giving, I'm offering this one strategy that might be called the nuclear option. Later in the spring, if Donald remains on top of the polls and no one has employed the nuclear option, I'll write up the additional strategies that one can use to stop Donald in his tracks.

The Plan

Rule #1: Indirect attacks are counterproductive.

By "indirect", I'm referring to situations where you're not face to face with Donald. Don't be a fool. If you aren't face to face, attacking Donald Trump inadvertently gives Donald the advantage of having the luxury to respond under his terms. Months after scorching indirect attacks, and the candidates (and media) haven't yet figured this out. These attacks ironically contribute to his popularity, which is why they must stop.

Face to face, push him over the edge.

In the next debate, attack him relentlessly. I mean, go all out warfare on him, attacking him relentlessly by mocking him and dismissing his opinion, face to face. The more candidates participating in the attack, the more effective it is.

When he attacks you, don't respond with a defense; you attack back. A defense implies that you need to defend yourself, because you have weaknesses to explain. Instead, you lay into him about how thin-skinned he is, etc. Mock him on how his ego is a WMD that might explode any second. Tease him about how his mouth is a garbage truck in reverse. Taunt him about how his business acumen isn't worth the paper it was printed on. Tell him how you had to look away as he was french-kissing Putin in their love-fest. Ask him if he's already proposed to Vladimir, and if they're planning a summer wedding in Soche.

Remember, you're insulting Donald, not offering critique on his ideas. Once you get into critiquing his ideas, you've lost the game. You want to go ballistic ad hominem on Donald.

Watch him lose it.

In the last debate, some of the other candidates came close to pushing him over the edge, but for some reason they stopped. By stopping, they made it worse; by stopping, they made it appear that Donald had won the confrontation, while also allowing him to regain composure.

You have to understand, if you want to take down the bully, you can't look as though you're falling in line under the alpha. These little attacks came off as minor complaints; literally, the other candidates signaled that Donald was their leader.

Follow through and finish it.

To finish him off, you need to see his face glowing red, ready to fight with his fists, upon which you do a 180 and completely ignore him. Don't mention his name or obtusely reference him. You've won the fight. By ignoring him, he'll continue with his attacks, but you need to refuse to acknowledge that he's even on the stage with you. When he mentions your name, you interject with the moderator, that you heard your name mentioned, but in your response, you never speak to what Donald said; instead, you take it to a parallel subject.

If you manage to stick to this, the national media will follow, every last one of them, left, right, and indifferent.

Factcheck is misleading on Social Security.

According to Factcheck, Bernie Sanders is wrong when he claimed that Social Security did not contribute to the deficit. They point to SS being off-budget, without actually understanding how SS works.

“Politicians decided to classify Social Security and the postal service as ‘off budget’ so that they would be treated as their own programs and not as part of the government,” Goldwein says. “It didn’t work. Everyone uses the unified budget deficit concept.”

Technically, the only people I've seen use the unified budget deficit is the CBO and the politicians who make a big deal about deficit spending for all the wrong reasons. What this signals, however, is that this issue is a point of semantics, only.

But what's misleading about this, is that it implies to many people that SS contributes to the federal debt; it doesn't, except for the margin of the borrowing costs to the federal gov't.

As I've written many times before, the SS Trust Fund buys special (non-marketable) Treasury bonds -- bonds which are used to pay for the federal debt. If I buy a Treasury bond, am I adding to the debt? Only on the margin of the borrowing cost, right? Mind you, that margin remains close to historical lows. For a bond to count as adding to the debt in the way people imply, it would thus be counted twice.

To highlight Factcheck's misunderstanding, they conflated federal spending with SSTF spending.

For years, Social Security was a boon to the government’s bottom line, lowering the deficit and even causing a budget surplus in 1998 and 2001. But now outlays outpace revenues, and the government has to use deficit spending to honor its obligations to the program.

That's extremely misleading. Of course the Trust Fund lost its primary surplus; it's been this way for a few years now, with baby boomers retiring in droves and Americans living much longer than anticipated. But again, because the Trust Fund invests into Treasury bonds, the federal government is not using deficit spending to honor the Trust Fund's obligations, except on the margin of borrowing costs, as it rolls debt over.

If you pore through their lengthy writeup, they know that only an Act of Congress can conflate general budget with the Trust Fund's. In practical terms, this means that Congress could always make contributions to the Trust Fund to pay for the shortfall (between revenue and outlays). Now pay attention here, because this is the aha! moment: When Congress does make a contribution to the Trust Fund, it will increase the federal debt, but not before. Aha!

I don't often write long form these days, but I had to call out Factcheck's deception, because they've only further entrenched falsehoods with the American public and media.

Torch cutting at night on the Fremont Bridge.

I happened to be walking the dog when I saw sparks cascading down from the top section of the 405 Fremont Bridge tonight. It was too cool to pass up, so I walked up a few blocks to check it out.

3D prints

Last week, I got my 3D prints back from Shapeways, and I just finished a blog post about them, on my other, design-focused, blog. Here's a couple of images of the finished prints. No, they're not for sale just yet. They will be, next year, at which time I'll take much better photos. :D

By the way, there are several projects I'm working on besides this, including some furniture with mixed 3D printed parts and laser-cut sections, as well as tons of graphic projects, as always.

5 Thoughts for December 13, 2015

1. 3D Printing: I got my shipment from Shapeways, and everything came out spectacular...well, except one tiny issue over dimensional stability. I got too cute and tried a very small (i.e. under 1 mm) detail on two pieces that were meant to fit within each other, but the heat apparently deformed one piece, such that it would not allow for the other piece to slide in. I just need to take a file and take a little off the other piece, and it should fit. I'll make a separate post on it.
2. Fallout Shelter: The last time I wrote about this subject, I had trashed my last vault after hitting the 200-occupant limit; of course a week earlier I had set up a new vault, initially just as a means to demonstrate to some folks on how to start the game. I've been keeping this current vault well below the 200-occupant limit while strengthening it to the max. Today, Bethesda Softworks released a major update which introduces pets, a Christmas theme, and some new tools and objectives for people who've already hit the 200-occupant ceiling and are well-experienced in vault building. I think I mentioned this before, but I'm certain that I know why they have a 200-occupant limit: The higher the number of occupants, the more taxing it is for your mobile device; if you think about it, 200 occupants with a weapon, clothing, levels of experience and levels of SPECIAL attributes, rads and stimpak levels, and now pets, means that your device is keeping tabs on 2800+ variables, simultaneously, not including various vault and room level variables.
3. Conservative Bias: Perhaps you hadn't noticed, that when there is a mass-shooting event, there are calls by conservatives to not publish the images and names of the perpetrators, so as to not grant these people the infamy they were searching for. They are terrorists, by the very definition of the word. However when a Muslim is involved in a mass-shooting event, these same conservatives rush to get out the names and photos of these perps. Are they not one and the same?
4. Provincial fashion: I passed a mixed-use townhome being used as a commercial space, last night. They appeared to be software developers, all tapping away around a conference table. What struck me about the group, was their clothing. Of the 8 seated, 7 were all wearing flannel shirts or wool sweaters, and a beanie hat. Indoors and wearing beanies...it must be Portland.
5. Seattle Seahawks: With a blowout win at the Baltimore Ravens it's clear now, the Seahawks are surging on all sides of the ball. Before Thomas Rawls sprained his ankle and left in the 1st quarter, he was gashing the Ravens for over 7 yards a rush, and looked good. With Rawls out, Russell Wilson was explosive in the air and the offensive line performed fabulously, allowing Wilson to stand in the pocket for nearly 5 seconds, to throw a touchdown to Tyler Lockett. The clear difference on the offensive side has been the replacement of Drew Nowak at center, with Patrick Lewis. With Patrick Lewis at center, the Seahawks have scored 30+ points on offense in three of five games. In the last four games, they've been lights out on 3rd down efficiency at 61.5%, blowing away the entire NFL by 12 percentage points. OC Darrell Bevell has definitely earned job security, with the offense going red-hot, hotter than it has ever been, under Pete Carroll.

What powers Trump's staying...err...power?

Chuck Todd and others have come up with a list of six reasons why they believe Donald Trump has staying power.

Look, if you're going to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, you're obviously not aware of what's going on. All of the reasons given, could have been applied to any of the other GOP candidates with a modicum of truth to it, but none of them explain what gives Trump his staying power.

I understand his staying power. I predicted it back in July, when everyone thought that his candidacy would sink over his comments about John McCain. I predicted that his numbers would dip, but then come right back. I even said that he could do this over and over again, recovering each time.

Ask yourself this simple question: Is speech consequential?

If it is, then speech may not be as unencumbered as is wont to be described as free. Trump's supporters fervently believe that speech is completely unencumbered as to be free from consequence, and Trump is the ticket to that right to inconsequential speech.

As a practical matter, Trump's supporters are against what they believe is politically-correct speech; whether or not they understand the meaning of being PC is irrelevant. In their eyes, it is a right to be politically incorrect. Trump even says so himself, but no one in the Commentariat believes him.

Now, as I said, whether or not they understand what PC means, is beside the point, because unlike someone like Bill Maher, to them politically incorrect speech does not require defense -- it is a completely unencumbered right to express any belief without consequences. Maher clearly understands that speech has value and therefore consequential, and defends what he says, rigorously, but many of Trump's supporters do not comprehend this; in that sense, many of Trump's supporters are poorly educated, and the polling data correlates to this.

If you distrust or disbelieve what I am telling you, through the next few weeks, apply my filter to every GOP candidate, and see what happens. Is the verbal scolding by Rubio or Cruz hurting Trump? Is another disgusting or questionably moral stand, hurting Trump? Is there a verbal outrage so disgusting that Trump cannot recover from?

Finally, there is a reason why this is happening primarily to the GOP and generally not to Democrats: The GOP have been stoking anger against what they term to be PC speech, for decades, going back to the days of Newt Gingrich. The final straw came with Mitt Romney's candidacy, whose loss is often seen under the belief that he continually attempted to navigate around PC issues by changing his opinions on them. To many GOP, Trump is fresh air, where a candidate expresses his opinions and sticks to them. Again, notwithstanding, the meaning of PC speech; obviously the 47% wasn't an issue of being PC or not, but of factual context.

No, I'm not writing a book, but there are still many issues to be expounded on this topic, including the rise of the Tea Party, and a full dissection of the conservative's indoctrination of America on the 1st Amendment. Maybe some other time?

5 Thoughts for December 8, 2015

1. Cardboard Camera: Google has a new (for now, only an) Android app, called Cardboard Camera, that allows you to take panoramic images that is converted into Google Cardboard 3D images. I've tried it, and it is absolutely incredible. I'm almost certain that these photos can be shared, in a roundabout way with others using the camera app, to view panoramas in 3D; the sample images in the app are located in the download folder of my phone and the photos I've taken are in the DCIM/CardboardCamera folder, and they all have a "filename.vr.jpg" naming system. This seems to imply that you merely need to send these files to a phone and place them in the correct folder, to open them up for viewing in the Cardboard Camera app. Exciting!
2. Accessory Dwelling Units: Portland's already got freer zoning rules covering ADUs than other jurisdictions, particularly Beaverton / Washington County, where you need to build an off-street parking area for any ADU -- I consider this a really dumb requirement. Now, Portland's city council has passed amendments that make it even easier to build ADUs, and within the traditional 5' buffer zone in the side / rear yards. Furthermore, you're allowed to build an ADU in R2.5, (2,500 sf lots) which should mean that you can build a detached office / in the rear yard of your townhouse. The problem is, the Oregon Tax Court needs to explicitly rule that Multnomah County has misapplied the tax laws to revalue entire properties where ADUs have been built, rather than just the additional value added by the ADU; not many people will find the doubling of their property taxes worth the cost, especially if you're building an ADU for a non-renter (granny, kids, etc.).
3. SlingTV: After a few weeks now, I have to say that the promise far exceeds what they actually deliver. The only good experience I've had, has been streaming to mobile devices. Attempting to use Chromecast has been a very rough experience. While streaming to my TV, for some unknown reason the stream will stop and buffer endlessly. I can still watch videos on my devices and my Chromecast easily streams from other means, but the SlingTV app just completely fails to stream. In fact, there are many problems with the app's operation, and updates are rare.
4. ACA / Obamacare: At the time that the ACA was ramping up, I used to rag on Forbes contributor Avik Roy with his shamelessly terrible logic and fact-challenged statements. Well, it looks like he's back at it again. Now, while I could write a 1000 word post, breaking down his false assertions, I'm just going to tackle the laughable and quite common error in the media: Roy conflates percentage point change with percent change, insisting that, "Obamacare has reduced the uninsured rate by only 2.7%". Well, no. The ACA has reduced the uninsured by 19.5% between 2008 and 2014, and is quite clear in the study's chart that he's referencing. Percentage point change is useful when comparing it to total market share, so for instance, it's a great way to track changes in market share of smart phone operating systems (e.g. iOS is up 1pp while Windows OS is down 1pp shows where the direction of the market is going.) So, Roy doesn't know what he's looking at, nor does he know what he's doing. You know what, I'm going to tackle another of Roy's false assertion, that the ACA hasn't slowed down spending. The study he's using, is exceedingly clear in its title, what's driving healthcare spending increases: "Faster Growth Driven By Coverage Expansion". It stands to reason that if you reduce the number of uninsured, those people will be spending money for insurance and thus, total healthcare spending will increase; it does not mean that this is driving up premiums faster than historical average, however, but this was his implication. Again, Roy is not very bright. BTW, he's advising the Rubio campaign.
5. El Nino: Apparently there are many localized floods as a result of the heavy rains, which in turn were probably caused by El Nino. A clue to El Nino: It was 58°F / 14.4°C at midnight. Second clue: The vapor imagery highlights the atmospheric river of the pineapple express, although the clouds don't actually extend all the way down to Hawaii. Being the contrarian, I enjoy a good soaking.

5 Thoughts for December 7, 2015 (all about football)

1. PAC-12 Championship: 461 all-purpose yards by Christian McCaffrey, means that McCaffrey just beat Barry Sanders' record for total all-purpose yards in a season. If he doesn't win the Heisman, something's wrong with the system. Those 461 all-purpose yards also happens to be more (offense + returns) yards than USC had in the game (453 yards). McCaffrey beat USC, period. Once he'd gotten past that first level of defense, he was pretty much gone.
2. USC Football: It's easy to point the finger at Justin Wilcox, especially when the 'jumbo package' on defense consisted of bigger linebackers instead of extra linemen (for reference, in 2013 Clancy Pendergast's base was two tackles and two ends, and his heavy package was three tackles and two ends). It's even easier to wag the finger at Justin Wilcox, when you realize that he was given a redo on his defensive scheme against Stanford, and did even worse. But Cody Kessler shares some fault for not trusting his receivers when covered on deep passes, willing to take the dump-off pass, instead. Likewise, Helton probably shouldn't have called Kessler to run into the flat for a throwback in their 2-point conversion attempt, right after Kessler ran into the end zone on the run-option; the guy was already lumbering around at about a 6-second 40 yard dash. All around, it was a very poor performance by the Trojans.
3. USC Football, part II: As expected, Clay Helton released several coaches, and none of them are surprises. The four coaches who lost their jobs are defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, secondary coach Keith Heyward, defensive line coach Chris Wilson, and offensive line coach Bob Connelly. If you watched this past season, these coaches were in charge in areas of the game where USC struggled mightily, with either scheming, technique, or both. You're USC; you don't give up 461 all-purpose yards to any person, no matter how good they are, and you don't give up 6 passing touchdowns to any quarterback. If you're like me, you're surprised that Heyward was shocked that he lost his job, given that at the end of the Oregon game, he told the media that he had no idea what went wrong; if you don't know what went wrong, it seems unlikely that you'll be able to correct it.
4. Steve Sarkisian: Sark fired off a lawsuit to recover money from USC, after being fired less than two months ago. I understand the "why", but it seems that Sark just kicked himself out of the Trojan Family for life; the NCAA may have forced USC to drop Reggie Bush from the family, but the family never rejected Reggie Bush like it is primed to reject Sark. Reading the lawsuit, it seems to me that his lawyers are handing USC a separate for-cause reasoning for Sark's firing: By his lawyers' own retelling, USC's gig is a high-stress job where championships and wins are of the utmost importance, and Sark knew he was failing the job -- which he claims is the cause for his alcoholism; in essence, Sark knew he would be fired because he'd failed to produce wins (coming off the embarrassing loss to Washington). But here's the problem for Sark: How can he win a lawsuit claiming a disability, when he was the roadblock to his own recovery? More than that, how can his memory of the events be trusted, when he was drunk at the time that he showed up on campus? If he drove himself to the campus, drunk, it would be the nail in the coffin of his lawsuit and any remaining sympathy from all Trojans. 
5. Seattle Seahawks: Even though Jimmy Graham is a great player who gave the Seahawks an added dimension in the passing game, it seems very clear now that trading Max Unger for Graham was a bad decision. The experiment with Drew Nowak at center came to a close, and the offense has dramatically improved with far fewer sacks and much greater efficiency on 3rd downs. With Graham out for the season, Luke Willson proved to be more than an adequate replacement at tight end. When we look back at the season, you can already tell that the Seahawks got their 2015 draft and undrafted free agent picks spectacularly right: Tyler Lockett, Thomas Rawls (undrafted!), and Frank Clark are doing exceptionally well as rookies. The blowout game against Minnesota in Minneapolis is the sort of game that could scare the rest of the NFL -- was that the sign that Seattle's officially gotten its groove back?

5 Thoughts for December 2, 2015

1. PAC-12 Football: Is it just me, or are people way too focused on how Stanford can make it into the playoffs? Just because Stanford beat USC earlier this year does not mean that Stanford can beat USC again. That game against USC was the first time this season that Stanford had taken the training wheels off its offense, while anyone who watched USC play UCLA would know that there were some wholesale changes in the team's approach on both sides of the ball -- this isn't Sark's team.
2. Fed Rate: Remember back in the day when the Feds would raise their rate when inflation was starting to get too hot? These days, we're wondering if the economy is strong enough to raise rates. Need reference to the current rate of inflation? I would point to NAIRU. If inflation isn't accelerating even as job growth continues, why would you want to screw the pooch? Therein lies the problem: The Feds are asking the wrong question.
3. Bipartisanship: As I mentioned the other week, in response to the terrorist attacks in France, holding up the already lengthy and difficult refugee program makes no sense, as this program is the hardest means of sneaking into the US; in fact, what you'd want to do is hold greater scrutiny of the visa waiver program. Sure enough, in a rare show of bipartisanship, both sides are working with the White House to curb the visa waiver program. These things don't need to be politicized, but too frequently they are.
4. Syrian Refugees: Sticking with the topic of terrorism, Conservatives don't want to let Syrian refugees into the US, because of fears of terrorism. I can understand, of course, because here in the US, we have weak gun laws to prevent terrorists from purchasing guns legally, thanks to Conservative Libertarians. No really...people on the No Fly List can buy guns, and just last month the NRA blocked efforts to stop terrorists from buying guns. You see where I'm going with this, don't you? They created their own problem and refuse to take responsibility for it.
5. ACA: In keeping with the theme of a lack of accountability, Senate leaders have assured their colleagues that voting to repeal the ACA, would likely end with a veto by President Obama, thereby relieving them of the effects of millions of people losing healthcare insurance: "Senators were reminded that the president would veto the repeal bill anyway, meaning Republicans could vote on the measure without having to deal with the political risks of actually making major changes to existing law." Sad, right?

Why Clay Helton is the right choice.

I don't think this needs to be explained, but from reading online media and comments, apparently many people were hoping for a home run hire, more than anything else, which I find odd and far outside of reality of USC's past record and success.

Let's look at some past, successful coaches, shall we?

John McKay

After nine years as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Oregon, McKay was an assistant coach at USC for just one year before he was promoted to head coach. Is that a big hire? No. But he's a revered USC legend whose teams were ranked #1 at the end of the season, four times in 16 years.

John Robinson

Before becoming head coach at USC in 1976, he was a 12-year assistant at Oregon, a three-year offensive coordinator at USC, and spent one year as the running backs coach with the Oakland Raiders. As with McKay, he was never a head coach prior to getting the job at USC. In his 7 years, his teams finished once with a #1 rank, and twice as #2.

Pete Carroll

While Pete had four years as a head coach in the NFL prior to his hiring, most critics echoed the current complaints of Helton's hiring -- that he wasn't a home run hit. Watch 30 for 30, Trojan War, to get a sense about how the media and many people thought of Carroll's hire. From the start, I was excited about his hire, because I'd watched his defenses; when he hired Norm Chow, I was 100% in. So, even though his first year at USC looked like a dud, at 6-6, they were 4-2 on the back half of the season, including a blockbuster shutout of UCLA, 27-0, to end the season, and you could sense the change in attitude. The rest of history is well-known.

Clearly, USC's past success has not been predicated on hiring blockbuster, proven winners. This talk about getting a proven winner is mostly hubris -- the same sort of hubris that we've seen with the firing of Mark Richt at UGA, and the threat of firing of LSU's Les Miles. Today, people see the world through the lens of fantasy sports, where you can just pick winners and instantly win.

Clay Helton

So why is Clay Helton the right guy?

Go watch the UCLA game, then watch his post-game presser. It wasn't so much about winning the game, but it was the way they played the game, and Helton's demeanor throughout.

We saw the defense completely change it up, putting Su'a Cravens into the safety role, defending the inside / slot receiver, rather than as a linebacker lining up at the rush end. Seeing how intransigent Justin Wilcox had been the last two years with his defensive scheme, it doesn't seem to be a stretch to assume that this change occurred because of Helton's push.

We saw the offense determined to bully the Bruins with heavy doses of run, with Damien Mama pulling, Zach Banner bulldozing, and the fullbacks leading. Under Helton, the fullbacks climbed back from the purgatory that Sark sent them.

And of course, Helton has been nothing short of authentic, truthful, and clear about the direction of the team. When you hear him speak, he's fatherly but not paternalistic, confident but not cocky, and when he takes responsibility for the team's performance, you can see the results the following week. The guy's name is Clay -- you can't get any more grounded than that!

If what you wanted in the program was stability, Helton's attributes and actions are the sort of things you'd want to see established in the program. If you wanted a flashy hire to make everyone swoon, I think you've mistaken the history of USC for the history of Somewhere Else U.