Drugs and Racism.

This isn't meant to be an expansive post about drugs and racism in America, but here's the thing: When Blacks (especially urban Blacks) were suffering from drug addiction and crime, America got tough on them, but with the current heroin epidemic hitting primarily Whites (especially rural Whites) America is sympathetic to their plight.

WTF.

The Mormon Tabernacle is Fooling Itself

Last week, the Mormon Tabernacle released a response to criticism of its agreement to perform at Emperor Donodus' crown ceremony. I've changed one word, to help people understand that the Tabernacle is fooling itself in an effort to alleviate their cognitive dissonance:

"The choir's participation continues its long tradition of performing for German presidents of both parties at inaugurations and in other settings, and is not an implied support of party affiliations or politics. It is a demonstration of our support for freedom, civility and the peaceful transition of power."

If this were 1934, most people couldn't discern the threat of Adolf Hitler's election as German President, either, except for those who were already targets of Chancellor Hitler. Like 1934, the economic populism of 2016 was focused on nativist racism mixed with nationalism. Like 1934, many people who either voted or ignored the existential threat looked for ways to alleviate their cognitive dissonance.

That is what the Mormon Tabernacle is doing in 2016.

One year ago, cognizant of the real threat of Emperor Donodus, the LDS Church specifically highlighted Joseph Smith's actions in 1841 in the Illinois city of Nauvoo, in passing an ordinance:

"Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Nauvoo, that the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Episcopals, Universalists, Unitarians, Mohammedans [Muslims], and all other religious sects and denominations whatever, shall have free toleration, and equal privileges in this city."

If people remember their American history, within a few years Smith would be lynched by a mob and the Mormons would discover their own Exodus. When you are under existential threat, you see the world quite clearly; when you're not, it's easy to ignore the threat to others.

That is what the Mormon Tabernacle is doing in 2016.

Why bring this all up? Because a singer from the Tabernacle has resigned from the choir. In her words, following an extensive examination of her conscience, she concluded that while she certainly didn't have to attend the inauguration, staying in the choir would betray both her morals and dishonor her father.

"When I first auditioned and entered Choir, it was to follow deep personal impressions, and to honor my late father, who was among the best of men. Now I must leave Choir for the same reasons. My father ( who was an expert airforce bomber) hated tyranny and was extremely distraught over the holocaust. He and Mom both loved people greatly."

I am not under any illusion that she is anything other than a conservative, but as Evan McMullin showed us, many conservatives could see the threat of Emperor Donodus.

You know right from wrong. You know.

5 Thoughts for December 29, 2016

1. The Bloggers You Should Be Reading: If you want to cut through the bullshit of the news media and its piss-poor coverage of the real stories in politics, you'll want to read Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones. On a daily basis, you will learn more about what's going on in politics and the truth behind the lazy headlines from these two guys, than from watching an entire day of broadcast news. Don't forget to read the comment sections! There are some particularly astute and extremely smart folks who engage in regular conversations. No one is 100% right, but through these blogs and their related discussions, the knowledge imparted will greatly increase your IQ by osmosis. Mind you, there are a lot of other blogs out there that are important to read, but they do not offer the daily churn that these two do.
2. Let the Emperor Take Credit: Emperor Donodus, in all of his glorious narcissism, has been trying to take credit for market movement and job announcements. I say let him. When the guy wants to take credit for the market, he's only thinking about the publicity of the 'now'. As I've said repeatedly, we're already reaching the tail end of the longest (time) economic expansion on record as we're now closer than ever to full employment (peak business cycle); by taking responsibility, his "actions" will now have "consequences" that he and the GOP have no means to disown. I'll do a separate post on this issue, later.
3. Summary of Russia Hacking Evidence: US Intelligence released its report and the two basic takeaways from it are, (1) The Russian hacks followed the same methods as previous ones (full diagram of the process); (2) They got lazy / sloppy and left bits of code that were the "signature" of prior hacks by the Russians. If you were paying close attention to all this, you'd realize that this isn't exactly new -- Crowdstrike basically offered up the summary a while back, but lacked some of the specifics included in the US Intel report. With the new, specific details released, Emperor Donodus will undoubtedly have to switch from offering up excuses (aka lies) about who did the hacking and outright defend the hacks -- Emperor Donodus, after all, must defend his foreign hacker allies as they were the ones who had his back.
4. College Basketball Rules: This is how retarded college basketball rules are: An Oregon State men's basketball player stomped on the leg of a USC player who was on the ground, and got called for a technical, but an OSU player who left the bench (5 feet away) got booted from the game. Is that nuts or what? In college football, both players would have been ejected.
5. Brother Printer: My printer is pretty good, except for one particularly gnawing issue: It auto-cleans so often that I've wasted an entire set of ink cartridges even though I haven't printed more than a couple dozen sheets at most within the past year. I think it has to do with keeping the printer in standby mode instead of just turning it off.

RIP George Michael

George Michael, like Prince, was an incredibly important pop icon from the 80s and early 90s, and like Prince, his subject matter was frequently edgy and racy. When we get older, all of our icons die, don't they?

I reiterate, 2016 is one of the worst years, ever. Gah!

Let's not dwell on his death; let's celebrate George Michael's brilliance. Here are my top-10 favorite songs from George Michael:

1. Father Figure -- by far, my favorite George Michael song of all time, it's a combination of hunger, longing and sadness.
   
   
2. I Want Your Sex -- so controversial at the time, they wouldn't air it during the day, and in the 80s interracial relations was still taboo for a lot of communities.
   
   
3. Fastlove -- a video 20 years ahead of its time, VR porn, anyone?
   
   
4. Faith -- the happy song you sing to your newfound love, when you're sure that you'll be together forever.
   
   
5. Everything She Wants -- the song you sing when the honeymoon ends and you're feeling chained down.
6. Freedom '90 -- the fashion models we all dreamed of dating, especially Cindy Crawford!
   
   
7. Careless Whisper -- the quintessential "I'm sorry for cheating" song of the 80s that most teenagers experienced.
   
   
8. Too Funky -- the first runway song with attitude (before Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" and Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back").
   
   
9. Last Christmas -- part of the lexicon of classic Christmas songs you heard on Sunday, and it made you sad because you had heard the news about George Michael.
   
   
10. Don't Let the Sun Go Down -- how I feel right now, and hopefully, Elton John will use it to pay tribute to George Michael.
    
    

(Silent Night)

Aloha oe, kupuna.

Christmas Comfort

I'm not going to lie, this is the bleakest year I've personally experienced. Instead of enthusiasm, I have an empty hole. Instead of Christmas cheer and a festive card, I have but silence.

I know many others are feeling dispirited as well, so for all of us, I offer a song to provide some Christmas comfort.

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago. 

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty,

Jesus Christ. 

Enough for Him, whom cherubim

Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk,

And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

Angels and archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Thronged the air -

But only His mother

In her maiden bliss

Worshipped the Beloved

With a kiss.

 What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise man

I would do my part;

Yet what I can, I give Him -

Give my heart. 

11 Ways I Look at Emperor Donodus' Tariffs.

This week, reports have circulated that Emperor Donodus is considering either a 5% or 10% tariff on imports in order to boost domestic production. There are at least eleven ways I look at this:

1. Foreign producers could absorb the tariff into their prices (10% is well within normal currency valuation fluctuations) resulting in no net effect on domestic production.
2. A trade war could erupt, where other countries enact a matching tariff on American products, thus, canceling out the intended rebalancing of trade through the unilateral increase in domestic manufacturing.
3. Assuming Donodus did not apply this tariff to countries where the US has a net surplus trade balance with, countries affected by the tariff could thus ship products through those countries into the US, minimizing their tariff costs while still underpricing domestics.
4. Along with the withdrawal from the TPP, China -- the intended target of an import tariff -- has already signaled trade rapprochement with the other members of the TPP, such that the net effect would be a gain for China even as its exports to the US are decreased, and a decline for the US.
5. Eventually, the tariffs would be challenged at the WTO and they would toss out the tariffs, leading to the usual alt-reality bullshittery from Emperor Donodus about how he succeeded in something.
6. Assume that the Donodus Economic Model is correct and there is a big boost of domestic manufacturing. It would tend to strengthen the dollar and lower US exports while increasing imports, and since Total GDP = Public GDP + Private GDP + Net Foreign Trade, the offset means no net increase in GDP...or worse...
7. Assume that the Donodus Economic Model is correct and there is a big boost of domestic manufacturing. This means that prices shot up. Now, think about what happens if your boss won't give you a big pay raise even as prices have gone up. You substitute your purchases and delay others. That would tend to lead to a recession.
8. A tariff is nothing more than a discriminatory tax, but whose effects are meant to be no less than a widespread tax. Thus, the hypocrisy of someone who proclaims that lower corporate taxes will lead to greater job creation, then tells us that increasing taxes on the poor and middle class will also lead to greater job creation. Also, congratulations to those unemployed blue collar workers whose tax burdens will now increase under the Donodus Economic Model.
9. In general, the last thing you want to do when you're at or near full employment is to throw a wrench in the system; if anything, you want to keep things humming exactly where they are right now. If you throw a wrench into the system near full employment, you risk an acceleration of inflation or a recession. That's probably why most countries reflexively assert tariffs in an economic downturn and not at full employment.
10. America's international trade, as a percentage of total GDP, ranks among the lowest in the OECD at roughly 17%. A 10% tariff would likely do very little to boost total GDP, even in the rosiest of scenarios that one could possibly come up with.
11. Manufacturing is rapidly changing and those jobs just aren't coming back, period. They're being lost to automation and to geographies with even lower labor costs. If China is the intended target of a tariff, China's exporters will move their manufacturing bases to other countries or provinces with even lower labor costs in order to compete.

Essentially, the Donodus Economic Model relies on fairy tales and wishful thinking.

There are other points to make on this (gov't spending, corporate taxes, etc.), but they depend on Donodus sticking around long enough to effect wide-ranging policy changes elsewhere. I still maintain the expectation that Emperor Donodus will be out before the end of his term. His life has been documented with a long list of criminal and civil violations, including this past year. His proclivity towards impulsive behavior is what gets him into trouble and it's what will earn him infamy, surpassing Nixon.

The Responsibility of the Electoral College Electors.

As the Electoral College electors are being bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls, you can tell that the chosen Republican electors are looking for ways to alleviate their cognitive dissonance. On the news, the most common excuses have been that they've signed an oath of faith or are otherwise bound to their state's presidential choice. Both excuses are probably constitutionally illegal.

There is but one responsibility for the Electoral College electors: Vote your conscience.

The First Amendment protects you broadly to cast your vote based on your conscience, unbinding you from your state's presidential choice or your party's oath of allegiance; in fact, forcing you to vote for a specific person is unconstitutional, else the 12th Amendment is completely worthless. If brought before the US Supreme Court, it is almost a guarantee that these oaths and state laws will be overturned; no government or party may force you to vote against your conscience.

Make no mistake, there will be a backlash against your vote of conscience, but you should also be aware that there will be a large majority of Americans who will be celebrating your name and supporting you, after the fact.

It will always be your choice, but your choice has consequences either way.

I am not one of those liberals who believes that your only choice is to vote for Hillary. While I would embrace the Electoral College's choice of Hillary as President, the existential threat here is Donald Trump becoming the next President. I'm not kidding: I would gladly see Mike Pence become the next President over Donald Trump. Trump presents a danger unlike any we've seen in the history of the United States. Many foresaw the danger he presented and tried to warn voters.

If you nonetheless alleviate your cognitive dissonance by sticking to your oath or state laws, remember that it does not actually absolve you from your choice. If you vote for Donald Trump, you chose Donald Trump. If he destabilizes the country's and the world's foundations, that is on your conscience. It is written in the Bible, Revelation 11:20:

The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your people who revere your name,
both great and small—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.

Your fielty to party or state has no relevance to God Almighty. When called to testify to your actions in this life, will you plead ignorance?

Right now, this may all seem like hyperbole, but in his brief time as President-Elect, he has already destabilized relations across the world and threatened the livelihood of those who did not agree with him. We have seen the rise in attacks against people and groups of people he'd spoken out against. A person whose tyrannical acts force people to react in fear is a person who does not understand the importance of our democratic republic and what it means to be a leader of the free world.

We are either free or we're not. Donald's threats against those who oppose him have already begun to crumble American society.

You should choose America over party and state.

"Russia" is a Logic Test.

Who hacked the US political infrastructure? Russia, of course. By deduction, the odds are highest that Russia was the culprit.

You can play the game of finding a plausible, alternative explanation, but it most likely fails Occam's Razor. Does this mean that all plausible alternatives are necessarily implausible? No, but it means that you've been forced to make far more unproven assumptions than the primary conclusion and therefore, you're offering a weaker substitute.

Saying that the "US has pulled out its Russian card" does not disprove the deductive reasoning that was first laid out by security researchers who initially investigated the DNC breach, and in fact is usually a red herring. The allegation of using a "Russian card" is itself fraught with counter-bias -- your implicit bias.

Suggesting that a lack of public proof is itself reason to distrust the conclusion, requires an assumption that, because the proof is not public it, therefore, does not exist. Yet, we have seen bits and pieces of it, whether from security researchers or hints as to the source of the evidence.

Downplaying the action by citing the false equivalence of "we do it, too", also does not reduce the importance of the conclusion.

Pointing to whatever Julian Assange is saying, is beyond pointless. Long before his Wikileaks began leaking DNC emails, I identified his naivete and simplistic idealism as a sign of immaturity and weak logic -- he is, and always will be, a useful idiot. Any utterance from his lips carries the weight of being both uninformed and self-centered.

Sure, I could be wrong about everything.

But I've previously said on the record that Guccifer was lying when he told Fox News that he'd hacked the Clinton server, by pointing to the odd assortment of tools that he'd highlighted, none of which were useful in hacking the Clinton server from overseas. We thus learned that, in fact, by his own admission to the FBI, Guccifer was lying.

And I've previously written about how Guccifer 2.0 is obviously not a single person by citing the method of communication, the timing, details about their language syntax, and false leads. We've recently discovered that security researchers are convinced that Guccifer 2.0 is not who he says he is.

I trust the security researchers who have built up long histories of the means and methods of the different hacking groups. I've read some of their white papers.

Doubters have tortured explanations.

Pulled Over by the Grammar Police.

Yesterday, I got pulled over by the grammar police for intentional misuse of an antonym. I pleaded with irony, but then the humor police arrived and demanded that I hand over my writer's license.

I panicked and ran over a sentence as I tossed out my excess commas. Yeah, I deliberately abused that antonym and I'm not apologizing for it, even if you catch me.

True story.

Electoral College: America's Last Chance.

It's the fourth quarter with just five seconds left in the game and America's down by 4 at the 50-yard line. The call from the sideline comes in: Weakside bunch formation, all streak patterns with a tailback screen to the strong side. She knows the call is stupid and won't work since the defense is already in a dime package all sitting 30 yards off the line. She calls an audible for a hail mary from the bunch formation in streak pattern with max protect.

Electoral college voters: It's time for that audible to a hail mary.

You know how Cam Newton likes to taunt the losing team in their face? Donodus has shown that he's much worse than that. Upon the blow of the whistle Donodus is going to fling his feces in your direction, then laugh at how stupid you were to lose to his lame team, just as he presses the red buttons with his tiny fingers to shoot off a bunch of fireworks. He said that he wouldn't do any of these things, and yet what are you going to do when his poop hits your face or the sky turns red -- complain that he lied?

Think about it: If he was good enough to win on his own merits, neither Russia nor Wikileaks seemed to believe it; through their actions, they subverted the election process to get their desired outcome, although I must admit to viewing Julian Assange as more of a useful idiot than a plain antagonist.

And you really shouldn't assume that a Republican-led Congress will impeach him for violating the Constitution or the US Code. He's telegraphing every constitutional and criminal violation he's planning to commit, yet the GOP has done nothing to signal their opposition.

So how do you want to go down in history -- the people who couldn't do the right thing and contributed to the collapse of the United States, or the people who stopped a tyrant? It's your choice, so choose wisely.

The LA Coliseum's Peristyle

Well over a decade ago, I had one important request of bequeathment to my father: That I get to keep all of his slides and negatives. No one else in the family shared the same passion for photography as we did, so I knew that no one would object. I grew up around his workplace, much of the time in the dark room, so I was probably the only one who fully appreciated the extent of his photographic interest.

Over time, I'll get to posting more images from his body of work, but I thought I would share this one image taken in the late 50s, of the Los Angeles Coliseum's peristyle. Notice the ziggurat of City Hall in the background?

He used a Rollei and 6x6 / 120 film most of the time, but also used a series of Nikon cameras. I regret that he never gave me his Rollei, but he did give me his Nikon FE2 in 1984 -- the start of my lifelong pursuit of photography.

This is Totally Me.

via Invisible Bread

RIP Dad

I regret to say, last week my dad passed away at the age of 92 years and 7 1/2 months. I was, literally, the last family member he saw, and I would have missed my opportunity to see him while he was still alive had it not been for my sister's concern that I could miss my chance to see him.

Though he was born in the Year of the Rat, he was pure Dog inside. He sought and received loyalty, was often wrong, incorrigible, loved to play, stubborn, and always wanted to do things his way. He was also reliable and supportive, and when asked for help, he came running.

When my prior dog fell gravely ill at the age of 5, he immediately flew up here and stayed for weeks, calmly and quietly being the rock for us. Only another Dog would come running at the sound of trouble to offer support. I am hardly the only one in the family who benefitted from his deep love and support in our most dire time of need.

I am, as you might expect, a reflection of my parents. From my father, I gained my creativity and interest in photography and sculpture. He wasn't the type to offer high praise, but I knew that he was both impressed and pleased at my creativity, evidenced by his constant support for my endeavors.

For everything, thanks, Dad.

Dad, 1924 - 2016

5 Thoughts for November 29, 2016

1. Sling TV DVR Functionality: Sling TV is going to put a cloud-based DVR into beta in December, for people with Roku devices and request an invite to participate. The only thing is, Disney's properties (ABC, ESPN, Disney) won't be participating. Still, having cloud-based DVR will further erode cable TV's advantages.
2. Useful Idiot: It is possible that in the future, historians will look back upon the 2016 election and balance the lack of useful information that was leaked from Wikileaks to the misleading stories that capitalized on these leaks by creating supportive innuendo. I'd argued that, if you were going to use the material, first you must carefully scrutinize it for its value and its veracity; if it has no inherent smoking gun, is only contributes to the innuendo of wrong-doing or impropriety, and as anyone who has paid enough attention to politics would know, behind closed doors it is often ugly or unseemly, but rarely illegal or improper.
3. Climate Something: It's nearly December and there are 18 active, uncontained wildfires in Southeastern US / Smoky Mountains area. I'm just saying if it's burning in late fall, the nation's got a serious problem on its hands and it just might be climate something. There's also the growing frequency of coral die-offs in Australia that is disconcerting.
4. US Healthcare: The impending repeal of the ACA -- Obamacare -- which will scale back Medicaid, combined with the privatization of Medicare, will devastate those very people who voted for Donodus -- the less-educated. And as far as the desire of having a good paying job over a federal guarantee and subsidy perfectly fits the American mythology of self-sufficiency, what these people may be unaware of, is that when the total cost of healthcare goes up, regardless of whether they had a good paying job with health insurance benefits or not, their personal costs will also go up. Losing government-run Medicare means no one will have the heft to control prices, thus leaving consumers to pay more.
5. CFP Committee: A few days ago I wrote about the legitimacy of the conference title games at stake with the CFP's actions to pass over the title winner; now it's even worse. You might have seen the CFP talk about how the separation between Washington and Michigan is "very, very small". It matters little if UW wins, but if they lose, then the CFP may end up putting Michigan into the 4th slot of the CFP, and that would be very ugly. Why? Because neither Ohio State nor Michigan will be playing in the B1G conference title game. Conference title games were meant to boost their conference winners into the national title game, so it's ironic that the CFP is effectively overruling their outcomes by choosing to simply mirror the polls. Since conference title games are money makers for the conferences, and if the CFP committee is merely going to mirror the polls, eventually, the CFP committee will either be eliminated or new rules will be written to require them to effectively select conference champions first. In wanting chaos to reign over the CFP, I now feel compelled to root for Colorado, even though I expect them to be blown out.

In Two Charts, Why Donodus' Labor Promises Will Fail

Chart One shows that global manufacturing as a share of GDP has been steadily shrinking for decades -- an indicator of increased productivity, generally, around the world, leading to lower labor demand:

Chart Two shows how the South Asian region's manufacturing as a share of GDP has fluctuated but generally increased for decades -- an indicator of how the poorest regions are boosted by labor flows to the cheapest source:

Combine the two, and there is just no way Donodus' promises to repatriate labor will work. In effect, he is trading short-term gains for long-term losses. Being a Luddite is not the answer.

Sidenote: This story repeats itself in other areas, too, by the way -- think climate change and coal.

So what's the answer?

Make our progressive income tax progressive again. Right now, we've got an inverted -- regressive -- tax code that rewards people like Donodus with low or zero taxes and punishes wage earners who end up paying a greater percentage of their income towards taxes, particularly at the lower middle class all the way down to just above the poverty level.

That money could be used to make wholesale elimination of welfare by providing for a universal basic income, or if that's too extreme (even though it'll come sooner or later), then enterprise credits for small and new businesses and a progressive subsidy for additional education / retraining based on age (18 years old = 10% subsidy --> 65+ = 100% subsidy).

Or, you know, we can just try it Donodus' way and see how far down the shithole this country can go and still get rescued by Democrats. 1929 was a really deep shithole and 2008 was arguably nearly as deep.

5 Thoughts for November 28, 2016

1. Seahawks Offensive Line: Bleh. You could see what TB's defensive line was doing with their wide splits and overloading one side then stunting, and yet the hapless offensive line could not respond. George Farmer got lots of time in the game, and even he did a better job of blocking defensive linemen than Seattle's O-line. The critical loss of their center and the sudden shuffling of personnel probably is to blame for most of the O-line's problems (aside from not being that good).
2. WWAD: What Would Annoy Donodus. That's how the left should gauge its actions going forward. I didn't think too much about what would come of Jill Stein's recount efforts, but it's the prudent thing to do, as you can't win the lottery if you don't play, so to speak. But now that it has annoyed Donodus, such that he's gone off on tweetstorms criticizing it, I'm completely in on it, 100%. Mitt Romney should come out in public and tell Americans that there's no way he'll work under a tyrant. Why? WWAD. A massive sit-in protest of thousands at his Trump Tower. Why? WWAD. The absolute worst of Donodus comes out when he's annoyed, so let the meltdown occur; the sooner the meltdown occurs, the quicker Americans will have their moment of clarity.
3. Nationalism: I have previously chimed in on the dangers of Nationalism, and for all of the supposed benefits of the Olympics, instead, we've seen the rise of yet another massive cheating regime that was state-based and vigorously defended by its people. This is not an isolated event. Brexit was partially driven by Nationalism and so was Germany's austerity push aimed at Greece. If you take it back further, WWII was the result of Nationalism gone bad. Mind you, I'm not saying that Nationalism is necessarily bad, but that a nation can easily slip from Nationalism into Autocracy which then speeds up the severance of ties that once bound us -- whether trade deals, friendly borders, defense or peace agreements -- and descend the world into chaos as one Autocrat confronts another.
4. PAC-12 Championship: You know, one of the great things about archive.org's wayback machine is that you can go back and check to see what the odds were set for different games. Naturally, I'm talking about going back to check what USC's odds were against Washington and Colorado. The Trojans had just a 21% chance of beating the Huskies while they enjoyed a 60% chance of beating the Buffaloes. Even taking out the rankings of the teams, one would expect UW to be favored, and indeed they are. I'm one of those people who believe that how you performed recently matters far more than how you were just one month ago, and as such, these two teams played WSU in the last two weeks. Washington beat WSU by 28 points while Colorado won by 14. Washington thoroughly dominated the Cougs while Colorado had a tough fight for about three quarters before the Cougs simply fell apart. As such, I think Washington will blow past Colorado, 31 - 17.
5. Economics + Politics: This video of Mark Blyth speaking about Economics at the intersection of Politics from this past September is entertaining and informative. If there appears to be cross-over with my point above regarding Nationalism, it's purely coincidental as I had already written that point before I had a chance to watch this video. I urge you to spend 52 minutes and listen / watch it:
   
   

5 Thoughts on the 2016 USC Trojans Football Season

1. Oh So Close Trojans: They did it, they completed the 8-game sweep following their 1-3 start in September. In that 8-game stretch, it always looked like this team had a few extra levels of play they could quickly ramp up to, to take over the game. Against Notre Dame, every time it seemed that the Irish were able to get back into the game, USC's special players just took it up a notch higher and scored at will. I'm speaking of course about Adoree Jackson, the most talented player on the team -- he's so fast, he makes the entire roster of both teams look slow. Alas, they fell short as Utah lost to Colorado and thus ending a possible run to the CFP. Outstanding season, regardless. I'm looking forward to next year, already!
2. PAC-12 Championship: Don't kid yourself, okay? The best team in the PAC-12 isn't playing in the championship. USC racked up 578 yards against Colorado and 400 against Washington and beat both of them -- both teams that are supposed to have better defenses but were clearly outmatched by USC. What it boils down to is that USC fell short by some 13 seconds -- against Utah -- from that PAC-12 Championship. Having said that, UW and CU did what USC could not do, so those two teams deserve to play in the PAC-12 Championship.
3. The Magic of Clancy Pendergast: Even with the blowout loss against Alabama, Clancy has done wonders at USC. In the three years before his first stint, Monte Kiffin's defense averaged 400, 375, and 394 yards per game. In his first stint (just one season) his scheme vastly boosted USC's defense to 335 ypg. In the Justin Wilcox years the Trojans dropped right back down to 408 and 401 ypg allowed. This year, in Clancy's second stint, the defense has jumped up to 358 ypg. And when you look at how well Uchenna Nwosu and Ajene Harris -- both 3-star recruits in 2014 -- look today, it's a testament to Clancy's abilities to bring out the athletic abilities of players.
4. All Apologies, But: That switch to Sam Darnold was the right -- and inevitable -- choice. As good as Max Browne may be, you could see that he was just slightly slower than Darnold when it came to making choices and getting the ball out of his hands. Furthermore, Darnold has shown his ability to improvise is on par with Johnny Manziel's, and as a redshirt freshman, looks better than a junior Vince Young. His throwing motion is so fast, it looks normal speed when you watch it at half-speed -- something that caught my eye watching YouTube videos of his game against UCLA. Heisman.
5. Heisman: How many times does Adoree Jackson need to score, before the country takes notice? I know that the knock on him will be the handful of times he displayed poor technique and gave up multiple touchdowns in man coverage, but he's got that second and third level to turn up to and take over a game, having shut down the best receivers of many teams. Against Notre Dame, he caught a ball in the backfield and ran it 52 yards for a touchdown, returned a 97-yard kickoff for a touchdown which including leaping over the kicker, a 55-yard punt return for a touchdown, and two pass breakups. He's so fast, he makes both teams look like they're playing at 3/4 speed, tackling running backs from behind when no one else can. He's got so many amazing plays this year, his 2016 highlight reel is better than most players' career reels. No one's going to forget his acrobatic interception against Colorado. What about that 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Utah? By the way, three years ago he did the same freaking amazing thing against Utah, 100 yards and all! Michigan's pushing Jabrill Peppers, but Peppers has just one INT / 1 PD while Jackson's got 4 INTs / 15 PDs, 2 fumble recoveries, 1074 all-purpose yards and 5 TDs. There is no comparison.

Why Fake News Works So Well.

Fake news uses a very simple strategy to lure people into clicking on it and accepting it as real: Confirmation bias. 

Most people (if not all) will fall for it, but once you understand your error in judgment and accept that you're fallible, you spend more time questioning the story -- even searching for supporting details online -- rather than instantly accepting and echoing it. 

The further you are to the fringe of beliefs (left and right), the easier it is to pull you in through confirmation bias. Because the facts of the real world do not readily align with an extremist's view, whenever one is offered up a snippet of (fake) news that would provide validation of one's views, it is accepted at face value as truth.

Yesterday, while the rest of us were eating turkey and stuffing, WaPo posted an article about the findings from two independent research teams covering Russian propaganda efforts through fake news:

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

I have seen this effect, specifically at Breitbart, but also constantly spilling over into more mainstream sites such as The Hill and the network news outlets, and occasionally leaking into liberal sites. Some of these propagandists would simply copy and paste their propaganda, but then doing so would expose the truth of their work as you could then copy and paste their own words into a search engine to track their progress around the world.

Sidenote: Hey Google, just because I frequently access Breitbart and Info Wars does not mean that I am interested in such fringe sources! Yet, ironically, it was your algorithms that kept shooting fake news from the far-right into my Google News feed, that alerted me as to what was going on, particularly how you were using blogs as a source of news.

Often (not always) when such political propaganda (from the far left and right) spilled into liberal outlets, the first thing you'd see was a demand for the source of information, followed by detailed, intelligent retort to reveal the truth about the propaganda, and finally, the original comment shut down while leaving the responses intact --  if you want to study the contrasts in liberal and conservative audiences, pay close attention to the comment sections. The Russians may have had a troll army, but liberals had self-organized into an anti-troll army.

Sidenote #2: While it may seem that liberals are anti-Russian, the truth of the matter is that liberals don't give  a shit about Russia in the manner Russians have come to conceptualize American geopolitics. Through American politics, Russians have two basic choices: A party that doesn't give a shit about Russia even as it appeals to nationalism at times, and one that harbors existential fears about Russia even as it is being led by a useful idiot. 

So how do you avoid fake news? You can't; propagandists don't simply give up and walk away. The best you can do is to identify the fake news and treat it as fake. While others can walk away, my modus operandi is to go after the useful idiots and mock them relentlessly, while working to shut down those social accounts used by the propagandists.

It's Still Thanksgiving in Hawaii.

Got home late through the mad rain, walked the dog and fed him some turkey, had a phone call, and finally got online to post a not-yet-belated ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's 'not-yet-belated' because it's still Thursday in Hawaii, making it technically Thanksgiving somewhere in the United States!  😁

Oh, and one more thing to Trojans everywhere, have faith that the door is still slightly open to making the 4-team CFP. Via 538, I was able to find the scenario where the Trojans would be most favored to make it in:

I've been fiddling with this thing for a little bit, and I frankly think that there are other means of getting in, but all of these scenarios rely on three absolute situations: Washington beats WSU, Utah beats Colorado, and of course USC winning out. Make it happen, men.

5 Thoughts for November 23, 2016

1. In Donodus We Trust: Long before the election, I had complained that the biggest problem with Donodus was that you couldn't trust whatever he said because he was a slick salesman who would say one thing to one group and the complete opposite to another group. You couldn't discern if he was a conservative, a liberal, or something else altogether. He hadn't even assumed office before he began backtracking on his promises, and now some of his supporters are outraged. Ha! The other major problem with Donodus is that he is less interested in doing the work needed to run the country as the CIC, and more interested in looking good and showing his face everywhere he can. The combination of low knowledge and weak interest in the details will be fateful, very quickly, and when things go wrong he'll be pointing the finger at everyone around him.
2. CFP and the Legitimacy of Conference Titles: The still fairly new move from the BCS to CFP in Division I-A football could face a question of legitimacy in a couple of weeks: Can a team that does not win its conference's title get into the 4-team playoff? If the answer is "yes", then there is no reason to have conference title games as the CFP would have signaled that a conference title has no weight -- all they're doing is applying teams' strength of schedules against the polls -- and we might see this take its toll in subsequent years in ticket sales and viewership numbers of the title games -- why tune in, when you know the outcome has no bearing on who gets invited into the CFP?
3. Pokemon Go: 9 days ago I decided to install the app. The last two days, it won't let me log in -- apparently, Niantic / Pokemon has had a long history of user authentication problems with the most convoluted solutions. I'm not sure why I've suddenly run into this problem, but one reason is getting banned, and to test it I used completely fake credentials through the Pokemon Trainer's Club and it shot back a quick message that I had used incorrect credentials, so it's definitely getting into contact with Pokemon's servers, meaning that it's probable that I was banned. That would be sort of funny if I got banned because of my prolific use of the game. In the 7 days I had been playing the game, I was easily able to jump up to level 15 -- a result of using the app every time I walked the dog and the fact that living in downtown means I'm constantly running into monsters and pokestops (places where you fill up on stuff you need to capture monsters). Because I already walk the dog more than a mile a day, it was very easy to hatch several eggs. IDK what's going on, but the app already had a ton of issues with it, so, no loss if I got banned, I suppose, even if I was on a fast track towards dominating the game locally. I only wish that I had screen captured my level and the monster I had whose power level was up to 1000. The point is, lacking a true addiction, the path of least resistance always wins out and that path of least resistance is to quit the game.
4. Recount? Voting Irregularities?: So, you probably heard about how a bunch of computer scientists believe that they have circumstantial evidence pointing to possible ballot counting irregularities stemming from potential electronic hacking. What it comes down to is whether or not the polls were badly off this year or not, because if they weren't, then there could have been widespread hacking across the country, seeing as Florida and many other states rely on electronic voting (DREs). So you wouldn't believe who just crowdfunded the money needed to ask and pay for recounts / audits: Jill Stein. Seriously, she deserves a lot of respect for doing this because Hillary's campaign is struggling on whether or not asking for a recount would make them look like sore losers. Would I hang my hopes on election results being flipped upside-down? No. Do I think people are actively trying to hack the elections? Yes. Did I donate money to get to that $2.5M needed to pay for recounts? You bet I did.
5. Seattle Seahawks: If you're a fan of Seahawks, then you already know about last week's decision to axe Christine Michael. Because of all the injuries from this past Sunday's game with Philadelphia, today the Seahawks promoted former USC wide receiver from the practice squad to the 53-man roster for Sunday's game against Tampa Bay. The guy is an all-around athlete. Undrafted (because he rarely got to play due to two injuries, but nonetheless left for the NFL early) he moved from wide receiver to cornerback, and this past off-season, moved to running back. That he's been kept by Seattle for two years, along with his ability to make multiple position switches, says something about Farmer and his character. Now, if only they'd use him to catch out of the backfield and show off his top-level speed.

Donodus and His Conflict of Interest, Explained.

I started adding this to a 5 Thoughts post, but then the entry became much longer than just a thought. Here is my larger composition -- a dozen pages and countless footnotes short of a complete exposition of the entire subject:

(jump break = you have to click on the post to read the rest of it)

5 Thoughts for November 22, 2016

1. Post-Election Analysis: I'm holding off on taking any of it seriously until after all of the ballots have been counted and certified. Nevertheless, there appear to be two salient stories right now: (1) Politics guide people to overlook truths, such that, (2) People require tangible proof to overcome their cognitive dissonance -- but sometimes that isn't enough. A lot of Americans believe in the false equivalence that both candidates were equally bad. As such, they need to see the tangible proof that Donald is vastly inept and destructive, before changing their minds (hopefully we won't see the complete destruction of this country before the nation realizes its error and acts). That is not defeatist; it is a review of the reality of human nature. A long time ago it was Religion, not Politics, that guided people into overlooking truth until tangible proof could dispel myth -- think Galileo -- and yet, the Flat Earth society highlights that some folks will never accept the truth.
2. TPP Effect: It is somewhat untrue that trade deals, such as the TPP, are strictly meant to create free markets; they are actually meant to balance Capital and Labor needs. When Democrats are in charge of trade deals, they tend to choose greater Labor protections while when Republicans are in charge, they tend to choose freer Capital. The TPP is slightly different, though, because it represented something slightly more: An offset to China's growing economic and political dominance. Early in his first term, Obama spoke about the need to pivot (away from Russia) towards China. By killing TPP, Donald will have effectively expanded China's influence and diminished America's.
3. Donald + Commodus = Donodus: I'm sure that I'm not the first to offer this, but the comparisons between Donald and Commodus are stunning. Donald's penchant for showmanship mirrors Commodus' spectacle as a gladiator in his public games. Donald's war against the Establishment appears parallel to Commodus' war against the Establishment (Roman Senate) and its elite -- they share a megalomanic's desire while appealing to a populist message. Whereas Commodus renamed the calendar's months after himself, Donald's properties all bear his name. While Commodus cheated the gladiator system, Donald's legacy of $12M in fines involving a dozen separate cases shows his desire to cheat the system. I deem thee, Donodus, Emperor of America.
4. RIP Gwen Ifill: This is a week late, but Gwen Ifill's death was immensely more devastating to me, personally, than the deaths of popular icons such as Prince. She was the reason why I started tuning into Washington Week. She pushed back against the politics of the moment far more than her brethren, and sought to raise the knowledge of her viewers by forcing the other journalists in her roundtable discussions to come well-prepared. I watched every retrospect and tribute to her, last week.
5. Breitbart: A few weeks ago there were two law enforcement officers killed in Iowa, execution-style. In the first (republished) story on Breitbart, the comment section ran well over a thousand, attacking liberals and people of color as the underlying cause. Another (republished) story that followed later on Breitbart, identifying the perpetrator as a white male, resulted in zero comments. That pretty much sums up this election, doesn't it?

Post-Apocalyptic Snark Fest.

Following the 2016 election season, it became apparent to me that I would be tempted to lavish this blog with an unhealthy amount of snark, what with the horn of cornucopia that was placed before us.

To that end, I have established a separate blog, Sippy Snark -- A Sippy Cup of Snark, because "you can't handle more than a sippy cup full of snark".

To which he hollered, "Just the place for a Snark!"

A second quick comment on the election.

Election results got you down?

We'll be okay.

I think.

A quick comment on the election outcome.

💩

Sorry, I'm furiously trying to finish a project. Much more, later this week.

5 Final Thoughts Before Election Day

1. Vote: You have just one priority and that is to go vote. You have to earn the right to complain or rejoice. You need to vote. 
2. Hispanics and Latinos: Rejoice, if you're Hispanic / Latino, as there has been a massive surge in registrations and early voting in Nevada, Florida, and North Carolina. If you want immigration reform, you cannot sit on the sidelines and complain about the system -- you have to vote. I still hold out hope that the Hispanic / Latino vote will quietly and surprisingly shake up Arizona, Georgia and Texas.
3. Everyone's Ignoring Wikileaks: Wikileaks has finally pissed off just about everyone in America, such that there has barely been any mention of their latest leaks. Fox News, CBS News, The Hill, and Breitbart have it, but Fox and CBS have it at the bottom of their page, and on The Hill and Breitbart it's been mostly ignored by people. NBC News, Politico, The Daily Beast, RCP, and others have completely ignored it. You can only cry wolf so many times before people simply shut you out.
4. Nerd Fight!: There's a nerd fight going on between Nate Silver at 538, Predict Wise's David Rothschild, The Princeton Election Consortium's Sam Wang, and HuffPo's Ryan Grim, but there are many others who are knocking Silver for his modified methodology. Many people have been focused on 538's relatively low probability of a Hillary win.
5. Prediction: On April 26 I offered my way-too-early electoral college map, and while the race has changed in unpredictable ways, I stand by that map and the 340 electoral college vote win for Hillary. By 5:00 pm west coast time, we'll have a very good idea where the election is headed. But if you're a political nut, you will want to be tuned in at 4:00 because there may be some huge upsets that'll lead to the race being called long before polls close on the west coast.
   

Now, back to work! 😫

Markets hate Donald

It's almost comical how much the markets hate Donald. As soon as the FBI released a letter saying that there was nothing of interest in Huma's emails, the stock futures market has shot up, and as Asian markets opened, they shot up.

It's a global conspiracy: Markets hates Donald!

This happened today.

Okay, I added the context, but Donald really did go before a crowd to give a speech with his cap on, hiding his eyes, just hours after learning that James Comey's new letter explained that the investigation was re-closed.

Clearly, he's doubled-down on the dark side.

50 Words or Less: FBI+Hillary Part II

James Comey released another letter today: "Based on our review [all of the communications], we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton."

Translation: THERE'S NOTHING HERE, END OF STORY.

You can go suck it, Donald, you utter, incomprehensibly idiotic twit.

6 Thoughts for November 4, 2016

1. Brad Avakian: Some people think that a SoS has no real powers to effect political changes, and thus, choosing to vote for Dennis Richardson is acceptable given Avakian's past troubles. But then, all you need to do is look at Indiana and Republican SoS Connie Lawson. I'm not saying that Richardson is either motivated to, or could, pull off a stunt like this in Oregon, but that politics cause some people to act out in both large and small ways as to deprive a group of people their rights, such as we've seen in North Carolina. Given the very long history of Republicans nationally working to suppress the African-American vote, I put it to you that having a Democratic SoS, in fact, matters a lot. Of course, Oregon being a very-White state, perhaps this issue doesn't matter so much with Oregonians.
2. Assange, the Puppet: My eyes rolled when Julian Assange adamantly said yesterday that the stolen emails involving Democrats did not come from Russia. First, anyone halfway knowledgeable about these things would not presume that Russia would directly hand over these documents to Wikileaks; in fact, most people would assume that Russia would obscure the source of the documents. Secondly, Assange's statement implies that he knows who is doing the hacking, which then places him in more trouble with the US government -- is he dumb or what? Assange is merely a puppet in all this, but his naivete prevents him from realizing the obvious.
3. Tangible Conservative Bias: There is no better gauge of conservative bias than through the case of Scott Greene, the Iowa man who shot and killed two police officers. In an earlier Breitbart story there were over 2000 comments, many of which included attacks on liberals and BLM. Later that same day, Breitbart added another story that was strictly about Greene's racist past -- zero comments. Zero. As in, not a single Breitbart reader could care less that a cop shooter was racist.
4. Can Biscuit Pizza: I feel like I should have thought or known about this a long time ago. Today I had opened up a can of biscuit -- $1.00 store brand -- and had used a couple of pucks to make morning biscuit sandwiches (egg + cheese + bacon). At lunch, I had the epiphany that I could roll the biscuit dough out and turn it into a pizza. It worked a lot better than I had expected. I normally use sourdough bread for this, but had a much better outcome. Mmm.
5. Store Brand Coffee: I stood at the store a few days ago, staring at the various coffee selections. On one side of the aisle the usual 10~12 oz bags and on the other were canned and instant coffee. I bought my standard, Seattle's Best #4 and then turned around and picked up a 1# can of medium-dark roast arabica bean store brand coffee. The store brand tasted like what you'd drink at Denny's, which is to say that it's not bad but it's not good. So I mixed the two, and the flavor is significantly better. Mind you it doesn't have the character of Ethiopian, Kona, Sumatran, Kenyan or anything in-between, but it's far better than the plain store brand or anything that is freeze dried instant, and for the time being it's my go-to daily coffee.
6. October Jobs Report: 161,000 new jobs added. Seems a bit low, but the two previous months' numbers were revised upwards by a total of 44,000. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.9% even as the participation rate decreased slightly, which is sometimes used to criticize the recovery, yet the notorious U-6 number continued to shrink -- in other words, the lower participation rate is likely due to baby boomers choosing to retire.

5 Thoughts for November 3, 2016

1. 2020: Prior to the 2020 election we will hit the decadal census which will result in the reapportionment of the US House and electoral college votes. You can pretty much draw a map from the midwest and northeast towards the west and south, to highlight the direction of the reapportioned seats / votes. The projected big winners: Texas, California, Oregon, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Virginia and North Carolina. Notice something? Two are solidly blue (California, Oregon), another two are leaning blue (Colorado, Virginia), two are perennial battleground states (Florida and North Carolina), one has turned from solidly red to a battleground (Arizona), and one is significantly less red than before (Texas). In each of these states, Democrats have been steadily gaining ground.
2. Chromebooks: The next generation of Chromebooks are officially here. This next generation incorporates 180-degree hinges while others are detachable, have full-HD screens (or better) at 12" or larger, and because they're touch-enabled, will eventually support the use of Android apps via the Google Play Store. THIS is the generation of devices to get, and the next computing device on my list. As much as I enjoy the Galaxy Pro 12.2, I think I'll get a lot more out of this next generation of Chromebooks that come packed with keyboards.Between now and December, there will be multiple manufacturers releasing similar, next-gen Chromebooks. I'm leaning on the soon-to-be-released Samsung Chromebook Pro with its pen.
3. Polls and GOTV: A good read on the problems with polls this year. It's a reminder, actually, that turnout is very important, with get-out-the-vote operations being extremely critical. In some studies, the observed effects of different GOTV methods range from .5pp to 4pp increases in voter turnout. This is why Hillary's money and operational advantages could have an enormous effect on Tuesday's outcome. In part, we're already seeing this effect in Florida where Democrats have an advantage in early voting. Democrats also hold a slight advantage (0.3pp) in total requests for mail-in ballots -- which is the opposite of 2012 when Republicans had a massive 19pp lead in mail-in ballot requests. If that last bit of data doesn't blow your mind, Tuesday night will.
4. Climate Change: Have you seen this Department of Energy map of renewable energy production? I realize that many people do not accept biomass as a good renewable energy source because of its implied carbon production cycle, yet, there are 6 states (and DC) that have reached 100% renewable production and Oregon is 7th at 99.8% (mostly from hydro, of course). It's no surprise that Wyoming, West Virginia, and Alaska are at the bottom of that list.
5. Cord Cutting: I hardly watch live TV these days. The only live TV I watch is football. I watch all of my TV shows on-demand via the networks' websites and, of course, Netflix. Cord-cutting is real and it's making a huge dent in how and what people do with their free time, that is, except for a few of my friends who somehow sit their asses in front of a TV to watch mindless stuff like the news. The effect of cord-cutting is real, and if you pay close attention, you'll notice that the big companies are catching on. That's a key reason why ESPN is available on Sling. It's also an important reason why the PAC-12 network had to sign on with Sling -- not enough people give a damn to pay for cable TV.

In 50 Words or Less: FBI Civil War

The FBI has an open insurrection split along political lines. Comey's letter was meant to head off rogue agents. These agents used a (discredited) political book to launch their investigation, a suspect's hearsay (I heard a guy say...), and illegally collected evidence. They're feeding Fox News via James Kallstrom.

5 Thoughts for November 2, 2016

1. 100%: According to Sam Wang's projection as of right now, the Bayesian probability of a Hillary win has now hit 100%. The current snapshot shows Hillary with a 317 electoral college vote win. Fivethirtyeight, having been burned by Donald's primary win, has been tweaked their formula to make it extremely conservative, showing just a 67% chance of winning, but with an estimate of 296 electoral college votes.
2. Cubs Win World Series: The curse is officially broken. The last time they were this close, a great former USC Trojan pitcher by the name of Mark Prior was pitching a 3-hit shutout and some fool intervened. That single event marked the collapse of the Cubs' post-season and everyone old enough to have watched that game would point to the curse as the explanation for that collapse. Thank goodness the Cubs have finally gotten over that curse. (ADD: You realize, Back to the Future was just one year off?)
3. Not the Weiner: Somehow, this feels both perfectly appropriate and inappropriate for right now:
   
   
4. Salt n Straw: Went there tonight and sampled nearly all of the November flavors. Sweet potato casserole with maple pecans is definitely my favorite this month. I was also at SnS last week and grabbed a cone of the Essence of Ghost, which I can only describe as totally smooth awesomeness.
5. PredictIt: Man, if only I had money to play around with, I'd dump thousands of dollars into buying up the panic that has set in the market. A Hillary win is down to $0.67, which is not quite the floor for the season ($0.61) but it would be a perfect opportunity to make a massive, quick profit. As of this writing, I'd need just $8111 to buy up the top 3 buy offers (lowest-priced), and following a Hillary win I'd net $3721 for a 6-day 46% ROI.

5 Thoughts for November 1, 2016

1. Forgiveness: I suspect most Christians would fail Jesus as Peter did when he struck that Roman soldier with his sword. These days, we're bombarded with a public showing of people who are quick to forgive someone of their own tribe while insisting that there are obstacles to forgiving someone from another tribe. Yeah, it's hard, but is it that hard?
2. 8 Years: Regardless of who wins -- hint: Hillary -- the odds are stacked against the next POTUS serving out a second term and having a full 8 years in office. By virtue of having entered the longest expansion period in a business cycle in American history, we're practically guaranteed to hit a recession within the next four years. Then there is the reality that the two current candidates will both be in their mid-70s, and with the stress of the job, will not by physically fit to carry that sort of weight heading into another campaign cycle.
3. PAC-12's Demise: I'm not saying that we're almost there, but this weekend will mark two straight weeks of zero PAC-12 football games on broadcast TV. Last week Fox chose to air #10 West Virginia against unranked Oklahoma State over #4 Washington at #17 Utah. As a result, not a single PAC-12 matchup garnered more than 1.4M viewers in the country during those two weeks. Fewer eyeballs is bad -- that's one possible reason why Washington wasn't in the first CFP top-4 rankings, despite being #4 in the AP and Coaches polls. PAC-12 commissioner, Larry Scott, is doing one heckuva job, don't you think? Fortunately, the UW - USC game will be on Fox the following week. Nonetheless, two straight weeks off broadcast TV in the back-half of the season is disturbing and a really bad trend for the PAC-12.
4. Polls: I know it seems rough when the polls get close, but it's not what it looks like. Hillary's numbers are durable and haven't actually moved; it's Donald's numbers that have climbed off their floor. For all of October, Morning Consult's tracking showed Hillary at 42% while Donald has gone down then back up between 36% and 39%. Within the undecided group, Hillary maintains a healthy 5pp margin between leaners. In other polls, the wide swings come from voter participation based on their mood, so when bad news comes out for Donald his voters will stop participating in polls and vice versa. I'll explain it all next week Tuesday or Wednesday after the election is finished, depending on whether I'm having a ball chatting it up with others online on political websites -- I'll have a bit of gloating to do if Hillary wins, as well as chase down that guy who made a bet with me online.
5. Unclog That Sink: Ever had to unclog your sink? It's been probably longer than a decade since I last bought extra-strength Draino to clear out a clog, but it has never left my mind that they used bleach (potassium hypochlorite). The other week I had bought a smaller bottle of store-brand bleach, and today I finally decided to test my suspicion that I could simply dump a half-cup of bleach into the drain and let it sit there to eat through the gunk. It worked. Cleared drain, $1.

The Test of False Equivalence

The media's so focused on speculating on the meaning of FBI Director James Comey's letter, that the media has seemingly forgotten the laundry list (including money laundering!) of known violations Donald has committed over his life time.

• 1973 -- Settled Fair Housing Act violation of discrimination against African-Americans.
• 1988 -- $750,000 fine for violating federal antitrust laws meant to prevent quiet takeovers of competitors.
• 1988 -- $15,000 fine to FEC for excess illegal contributions.
• 1991 -- $65,000 fine to NJ gaming officials for not getting approval for financing (chipgate) from his daddy..
• 1991 -- $450,000 fine for circumventing NJ laws blocking gifts to patrons, particularly a rich bigot (see next entry).
• 1991 -- $200,000 fine for pulling black workers from a casino pit, catering to a bigot's hatred of African-Americans.
• 1998 -- $477,000 fine for violation of Treasury's (Fincen) anti-laundering rules.
• 2000 -- $250,000 fine for secretly funding ads against a rival casino.
• 2000 -- $250,000 fine for not reporting lobbying money spent.
• 2015 -- $10,000,000 record fine for violation of Treasury's (Fincen) anti-laundering rules, directed at Taj Mahal property for activities in the 2000s (when Donald maintained majority stake).
• 2016 -- $2500 fine for using his charity to make a political donation (Pam Bondi).

Note that there are multiple criminal complaints against Donald, including corruption involving that donation to Pam Bondi who promptly dropped her investigation into Trump University. There are the investigations into violations of IRS rules against self-enrichment, too. Also, he has at least two ongoing court trials set for later this year involving Trump University and accusations of rape involving an underaged girl. That's all completely separate from the dozen allegations of sexual assault.

I profess that I can't quite understand the false equivalence of Donald's known violations to the innuendo and unproven accusations Hillary faces. By any measure, Donald is demonstrably worse -- and I'm not talking about the lesser or worse of two evils.

But even ignoring the known violations and simply comparing the current list of allegations, how exactly does a pedophile serial sexual assault perp who has cheated on his taxes and cheated people out of their money get high marks against classified info and an improperly secured server?

That is the true test of false equivalence.

5 Thoughts for October 30, 2016

1. The FBI's CYA Moment: If you really want to know why the FBI sent a letter to Congress talking about the possibility (not the confirmation) of new emails related to Hillary's time at State, just realize that this is what people do to cover their asses. Rather than be exposed to blame for not informing Republicans (who'd then tell the entire world), ahead of the election, they FBI covered their ass. To cover their ass-covering, confidential sources within the FBI then leaked information that the emails did not originate from the Clinton server and that it was unlikely to be consequential. The CYAC effort has made things look worse for James Comey because it revealed the CYA-ness of the letter he sent, and why his public announcement at the conclusion of the FBI's investigation was also a CYA moment.
2. Idiocracy: A few weeks ago I read this Daily Beast article about Idiocracy and I knew I had to watch it. That scene in the House of Representin' was perfectly prescient, but there's no way Mike Judge would have known that "Hector Camacho" Trump would arrive by 2016 and America was already this stupid. "Shit! I know shit's bad right now. With all that starvin' bullshit." Idiocracy is pure sarcasm, and there are logical failures all over the place, but if you ignore them, it's a scary but funny movie about the reality we're facing in 2016.
3. In Sam Darnold We Trust: After watching Darnold play several games, it's probable that Ricky Town saw what we now know to be true, that Darnold is going to win USC a championship. His arm and wrist are so strong, his throwing motion 50 yards downfield is the same as a short pass, and both are fast motions -- he doesn't go into some extended wind-up on long passes. He's tall, strong, and makes quick decisions, such that the run-pass options (RPO) are effective against any defense. He's a dream quarterback who can overcome deficiencies elsewhere in the offense. That's not to say that Max Browne isn't a great quarterback, but that he isn't equipped to compensate for failures elsewhere in the offense like Darnold is, considering that the USC offense has shown an exceptional ability to completely suck at times.
4. Russell Wilson's Woes: In exactly the opposite situation of Sam Darnold and USC's offense, Russell Wilson's knee and ankle injuries prevent him from compensating for their offensive line's shortcomings. They can't do rollouts or run options, and with a mishmash offensive line, Wilson's taking a lot of sacks. The pundits constantly praise Tom Cable's abilities to raise the play of the offensive line, but if Seattle hadn't drafted Wilson, the offense would be much worse.
5. All-White Jury: That was the first thing that came to mind when I read that Ammon Bundy and the other Malheur occupiers were found not guilty. But wait, this isn't some racist thing, right? Oh, but it is. This year's political climate has pushed the idea that White Americans have been cheated out of the American Pie. The Bundy takeover of Malheur fed right into that narrative. Sure enough, it was an all-White jury that exonerated Bundy and the others, in what can only be understood as jury nullification. I've read what juror #4 has said, and I am in total disbelief that he basically got away with uttering a bunch of incoherent, illogical statements that are provably wrong. In one of the most damning instances, juror #4 stated that he was waiting for the prosecution to present an agreement to prove conspiracy, but the instructions itself noted that a formalized agreement was not necessary to prove conspiracy. The two most plausible explanations for this are, (1) they're all idiots or, (2) as an all-White jury they applied existing bias to find cause to nullify the proper outcome.

50 Words or Less: FBI+Clinton+More Emails

FBI discovered related emails, apparently from Anthony Weiner's "devices" -- a double entendre. A review for possible classified info implies Huma Abedin may have shared State info with husband. As with Hillary, no jeopardy for Abedin: intent not established under 18 USC §793, §1924.

Hillary not involved.

Cue: *Outrage!*

Me: Eyeroll.

5 Thoughts for October 26, 2016

1. Aimless Google: Google has lost its way. Two years ago, it felt like the company was on the cusp of greatness, pushing the boundaries of everything with fearlessness and, most importantly, deep pockets. Today, it's still a growing company with deeper pockets but it has sold off its robotics, fiber has stalled, Nexus is dead, Glasses is gone, Project Ara is a fading memory, no one knows what Nest is doing anymore, their photo service has just gone through its nth iteration, and in my view they completely screwed up on their Google Wallet - Android Pay transition / redo. The only true bright spot is ChromeOS and its newly-gained Android app compatibility. There was no excitement from Google IO, and their recent device announcement left me confused about Google's goals -- was it to build an ecosystem or to move up the profit margin ladder into Apple territory?
2. Lexus UX: WTF? I think the folks at Toyota are confused. The C-HR that was meant to be a Scion, and its funky design thusly originated from its Scion-ness -- which is why it's so cool and awesome. Used as the underpinning of a compact crossover concept for the Lexus brand, it was bound to be their most daring concept, but WTF is the UX? Lexus is the luxury brand, not the ugly brand. UX is butt ugly; it's not even fugly, it's bugly. I was so horrified by it, I didn't bother passing it along to my friend who would have gone for an upscale version of the C-HR.
3. False Equivalence: You see it don't you? Everytime Hillary plows ahead in the polls and the race looks like a foregone conclusion, there are members in the press who push complete nonsense in order to create a false equivalence between Donald and Hillary. "Questions were raised" has become the bullshit meter of this election cycle.
4. Vox's Vote Compass: Vox has this adorable test that allows you to view how your opinion on a variety of topics places you on the matrix of progressive and conservative spectrum within economic and social issues. It's far too simplistic to be a proper judge of one's place in the matrix, but it's entertaining nonetheless. I placed in-between Jill Stein and Hillary, but slightly closer to Hillary.
5. The Death of The Walking Dead: The show is dead. I've already complained about season 6, and I haven't watched the season 7 opener (and I might never watch it) but the show's theory of mankind's turn towards sadism is preposterous. You might as well call it for what it is: The Walking Dead Gone Mad Max. Anyone who has watched the show long enough could tell you that the only true survivalists are Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne. Everyone else is too fucked up in the head, so much so that the show now centers on the question: Who's more fucked up in the head: the protagonists or the antagonists? So you think Negan's the most fucked up in the head? I guarantee you that Rick will challenge Negan for the title of most fucked up in the head.

50 Words or Less: Morocco + Clinton

In 2015, Morocco's king donated lots of money to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for an appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative with the king (which did not happen). She was not at State, therefore "pay to play" is a lie.

It was completely legal.

End of story.

#DrainTheTrump

VOTE!

Oregon Ballot -- How I Voted on Measures

This covers the range of measures I voted on, from state, county, city and metro. (Note to ballot measure people: When there are fifteen ballot measures in total, only a sadist reads through all of the material covering the arguments for and against -- I'm no sadist.)

State Measure 94, Repeal of state judge age limit: Yes
We don't have age limits at the Supreme Court -- reason enough to eliminate the limit. But as with most states, elected judge positions are not competitive races, meaning, there's just one name listed at any given position. 75 is an arbitrary age limit, anyway.

State Measure 95, Universities allowed to invest in equities: Yes
If you constrain what universities can invest in, you've essentially cut off its ability to offset risk. The more practical understanding of this is to watch how bonds go up as stocks go down and bonds decrease as stocks increase, then imagine how things would be if you were only allowed to put your money in bonds or hold your cash under the mattress.

State Measure 96, Dedicates 1.5% of state lottery funds to veterans: No
It's not that I have anything against veterans. I'm tired of these types of ballot measures meant to constrict how lottery funds can be spent. Limiting the flexibility of the state to allocate income always worsens a recession's effects.

State Measure 97, Increase of minimum corporate tax for companies earning $25M+: Yes
It won't have the impact many think it will -- go examine Donald's companies to understand how he avoids paying corporate taxes -- but at the same time it's undeniable that Oregon has the lowest corporate tax rate, in effect creating pressure for higher property taxes. The question is, do costs trickle down? They do when there's no competition, so maybe the real problem is a lack of competition.

State Measure 98, Requiring funding for dropout prevention: No
Much like appropriating state lottery funds, this measure effectively requires the state to allocate general funds to specific programs. I support the funding of these types of programs, but the Legislature should have the responsibility and flexibility of funding programs, and political parties and members ought to have to defend their actions rather than use these types of laws to alleviate their duties.

State Measure 99, Outdoor school education fund created with state lottery money: No
I think you can see where I'm going, this year: If the Legislature can't or won't fund it, voters should insist that they do so by writing to their senators and representatives. These programs shouldn't be hard-wired into the state's funds.

State Measure 100, Blocks the sale of exotic wildlife products: Yes
If the feds get to fine people who buy and sell elephant ivory, the state should also have the ability to fine people, too. By piling on, it creates greater jeopardy for people who traffic in such goods. Cutting off rhino horns and leaving them to die is pure evil.

Multnomah County Measure 26-181, Extend maximum term limits of county officials: Yes
In general, I'm against term limits. For one, they're arbitrary, but secondly, they're generally unnecessary as people have the ability to vote someone out through a recall. These term limits are especially meaningless when the offices they cover are nonpartisan.

Multnomah County Measure 26-182, Allow commissioners to run for chair w/o resigning: Yes
This one is mostly about whose convenience matters most, the people or the individual. Normally I'd side with the people, but convenience is not a valid reason to kick someone out.

Multnomah County Measure 26-183, Sheriff's position change from elected to appointed: No.
I like elections. Giving the county chair the power to appoint and fire the sheriff at his/her pleasure seems counter-intuitive to good government.

Multnomah County Measure 26-184, Limits contributions and requires disclosures of higher value donations: Yes
Call it the backlash of the Citizens United ruling. People should have the broader right to transparency, particularly in election money. The broader effect is to limit the politics behind these nonpartisan races.

Multnomah County Measure 26-185, Changes appointment process for the Office of Citizen Involvement: No
Talk about busy work. It creates new rules and changes dates to the appointment process while eliminating rules that fill out vacancies. Someone thought this made for a better process, but all I see is a waste of time.

City of Portland Measure 26-179, Bonds to affordable housing: Yes
This is my preferred method of tackling a lack of affordable housing. Why? Because it directly increases the housing stock as soon as it can be built, and years down the line when they're not needed, they can be converted to market-rate units or condos.

City of Portland Measure 26-180, Local tax on recreational marijuana: Yes
Call it a sin tax or just getting your hands in the -- ahem -- pot, it's all good. There is no valid reason why you wouldn't want to tax marijuana, anyway.

Metro Measure 26-178, Renew tax to provide Metro money to protect environment: No
Shocking right? Not really. Metro is a waste of money. The cities of Portland, Gresham, etc., could do just as good of a job as Metro, but without the added administrative costs. But the most annoying part of Metro is that it has hundreds of acres of mowed lawn that it considers too sensitive for dogs. Meticulously kept lawns, zero dogs, under the guise of sensitive areas. One of the things I'd do if I won the lottery, would be to personally drive an effort to shut down Metro, stop charging people to pay for access to those green lawns and allow dogs to accompany their families on picnics on those green lawns. Who's with me?