The GOP Process, Explained in 7 Steps

1. Write bill behind closed doors.
2. Limit changes.
3. Cut off debate.
4. Eliminate hearings.
5. Attempt to pass on party-line vote via reconciliation.
6. Fail.
7. Blame Democrats.

5 Thoughts on USC Beating UCLA

1. Slop: Two teams combined to commit 23 penalties for 215 yards, 3 turnovers, and just looked bad at times. Josh Rosen had receivers dropping balls left and right while the Trojans frequently got caught out of position and not knowing what the call was on defense. The highlight of the defensive woes came when Rosen floated a pass to a receiver who slipped past three Trojans defenders in the end zone; they just stood there in a reenactment of the Three Stooges. On several 3rd-and-long plays, the Trojans completely lost receivers and the Bruins converted easily. Then there was Darnold with time running out at the half, scrambling on a run, choosing to go for the first down instead of running out of bounds to stop the clock, only to get tackled one yard shy and time expiring. We know the Bruins were bad but we didn't know just how mentally out of the game the Trojans would be.
2. Regular Season End: It's somewhat fitting that USC would win in sloppy fashion to close out the regular season. When they set their minds to it they're too good for most teams to keep up with. When they're bored or distracted, they look exceedingly terrible. On a weekend when the top-10 was taking other teams to the woodshed, USC woke up late, took an early lunch, then nearly forgot to finish the job before the end of the day. If you bet against the spread with the Trojans, you'd be rich after this season -- Saturday night was no different. I don't particularly buy the excuse of not having a bye week, but now that they have a bye week, they should be playing lights out at the PAC-12 Championship, right? Also, it was Jim Mora's regular season-ending game, too, as he was fired as UCLA's head coach.
3. Nonetheless, 10-2: Despite all of the complaints, they finished the regular season at 10-2 and that counts for something. In two seasons, the Trojans under Helton are 20-5 and no previous coach has done this since Pete Carroll's last two combined seasons, 2008-2009. So let's say that these coaches are learning on the job -- something most of us believe to be true -- then, doesn't this mean that Helton's got a very bright future ahead of him and the Trojans? I think so. In other words, as the coaches figure things out, the team seems likely to take the next step up into the echelons of powerhouse programs. I can state, without a doubt, that USC's got the best running backs coach in the nation and their backs have made huge strides over last year.
4. Signs of a Bright Future: You can already see just how bright USC's future is. What took years for Porter Gustin to figure out -- maintaining discipline on the edge -- has taken Jordan Iosefa just a handful of games. He played lights out against UCLA, stopping the reverse and backside cut. Tyler Vaughns catches everything thrown his way while Michael Pittman is too strong for most defensive backs to handle him. Vavae Malepeai is a bull while Stephen Carr is an explosive running back in the mold of a Charles White. Now, if only they'd cut out the mental errors and gain some consistency, they could take the next step into becoming a powerhouse.
5. Best in PAC-12?: Obviously, the answer to that question comes after the PAC-12 championship game in two weeks. And you know that most people have USC as the best in the league. At this point in time, however, and until they lose, Washington State remains the best team in PAC-12, not USC. Both USC and WSU beat Stanford -- which makes Stanford #3 in my mind -- but WSU beat USC. Head-to-head matchups matter a lot, so it's difficult to place USC ahead of WSU. And if you could come up with a script for a redeeming season end for USC, it would be WSU winning the Apple Cup and USC crushing WSU in a rematch at the championship game. That's why WSU should be tops in the PAC-12.

5 Thoughts on Pokemon Go, November 2017

1. One-Year Anniversary: Exactly one year ago yesterday, I began my Pokemon Go journey. I started months after the game was released so I missed out on several mons that were apparently more common in the beginning than they are now. Nonetheless, with my weirdly neurotic persistence, I've managed to climb to level 36 in that period. I've gained 7,733,316 XP during that time, which is equal to 21,187 XP a day, every day. In the beginning, I started out averaging roughly 8,000 XP a day, so obviously I've ramped up significantly since then.
2. Golden Razz Berries: They don't make sense. With other berries, feeding your mon in a gym when you're at the gym is more effective than when you're accessing it from afar. Golden Razz Berries, however, can be used to fully replenish a mon in a gym if you're halfway around the world. In turn, people have been using them to hold onto gyms for a very long time even when they're nowhere near the gym. That's antithetical to how the other berries work and the intentions of the game to get people out and about, socializing. If you're not physically at a gym, you shouldn't be able to fully replenish a mon; you should only be able to replenish it by 1/3rd. You know that Niantic realized this was becoming a problem because they suddenly changed the gym raid rewards to cut back on Golden Razz Berries.
3. Passive-Aggressive, Antisocial Game: While Niantic designed the game to boost social interaction, the weird thing is, my experience so far has been mostly the opposite. I've deliberately taken photos of people who have stopped in front of me at multiple gyms to prevent me from taking down a gym or to take down my mon in a gym, but fail to acknowledge my presence in the middle of the sidewalk. It's always the case that I'm the one initiating contact. Even raids are weird. Mostly strangers gather at spots, barely speak to each other, and once the raid is done, scatter to the winds. I don't know a single person's real name, just their face and their ID. Weird.
4. How to Get Ahead Without Really Trying: So you want to get ahead without really trying? Spend lots of money in the game and buy a PokemonGo Plus device. With the Plus wearable, it'll automatically spin Pokestops and catch mons. Again, see above, passive-aggressive, antisocial people. If you want to catch the rare mons, use a tracker to find them. If you want to collect tons of XP, use a GPS spoofer to play in thousands of gyms around the world. That's not me, however. I enjoy the struggle, the work, the effort, the process of getting to the top. All the fun of the game is removed if everything passively happens while you're not paying attention.
5. Three Rules: I have three rules, in general, but specifically for this game.
1. No cheating. I will not utilize rare mon trackers or GPS spoofing.
2. No money. I will absolutely not spend a dime in a game, no matter what. Most games have a half-life of a few months; better games have a half-life of a year or maybe more. I'm not that kind of consumer, though.
3. Exploit efficiencies. Other than FPS games, you mostly are battling to find the efficiencies of a game that enable you to maximize your potential. For instance, everyone who has played Pac Man knew about the specific patterns you'd use to navigate at each level. This is how you become an expert in video games. As a general rule, I'm always searching for those exploitable efficiencies so I'm always examining how I execute my strategy and specific tactics.

Back.

Following the passing of my dog, I sort of took some time away from writing and reading, and just took in some living and introspection. I'm back.

The Election Wave Has Started

The first wave already came ashore earlier this year, but mostly went unheralded because they were seen as isolated election results while the media cast losses by Jon Ossoff and others as a sign that there was no wave election coming. They misinterpreted what happened. Those losses were unimaginably narrower than Republicans expected in the reddest districts of the reddest of states, leading to many Republicans in swing-districts and swing-states to announce their retirement.

In reality, these were the red blue flags pointing to a wave election. Tonight, a bigger wave just arrived.

• Maine overwhelmingly voted, 59% - 41% to expand Medicaid against (R) Governor Paul LePage's refusal to expand under the ACA.
• Ralph Northam defeated Ed Gillespie in Virginia's race for governor by the widest margin (+9pp) for a Democrat in 32 years, outperforming all polls except Quinnipiac.
• Phil Murphy defeated Kim Guadagno in New Jersey's race for governor (+14pp), to replace the extremely unpopular Chris Christie, turning NJ blue once again.
• The Virginia House of Delegates marked a huge shift towards Democrats, previously held by Republicans with a 66-34 advantage, to currently 49-47 Democratic advantage, with four races still too close to call. One of these flips came from a transgender woman -- Danica Roem -- beating a man who'd sponsored a bathroom bill and described himself as Virginia's "chief homophobe."
• The State of Washington's Senate flipped to Democratic control, giving Democrats full control of the House, Senate and Governor's office.

Yet, Donald's troubles will only get worse with each passing day.

His poll numbers keep sagging, the Russia-Trump investigations keep growing, and elected Republicans continue to obfuscate their true feelings about Donald. The longer this drama goes on, especially in light of growing indictments involving more members of Donald's campaign team, the higher the next waves grow.

Do you believe, now?

Margrethe Vestager Misleads on Competition

The EU's head of their Competition Commission, Margrethe Vestager recently asked the crowd at Web Summit, "How many of you would like to find your companies on page four of search results?" People should understand that a company's placement on the fourth page is about SEO, not about a failure to pay Google, highlighting Vestager's willful ignorance or highly deceptive actions. But the greater issue here is that she used this misleading allegory to defend her actions against Google:

"We have no objection to Google dominating the market with its search engine. We just don't want it to use that dominance to squeeze out competition."

This is completely untrue, and I have covered this before. Vestager, in fact, has previously identified actions that are used by other search engines and other tech companies, then singled out Google's use of these actions as anti-competitive. Back in 2015, Vestager was interviewed by the late Gwen Ifill about the EU's position against Google:

Gwen Ifill:

"Do other tech companies like Amazon not do that?"

Margrethe Vestager:

"Well, they do not hold a 90 percent dominance in the general search market, as we see it in the European markets, and that’s a very important difference."

Credit Ifill for dragging the truth out of Vestager back in 2015, because Vestager has never repeated these words, since.

EU's understanding of competition is not the same as America's. EU's interpretation of competition originates from Ordoliberalism where the presence of a market-dominant company inherently indicates a failure of competition. In America, generally, anti-competition seeks to find harm and to alleviate the damage caused by that harm. Under a Robert Bork (Borkian?) evolution of the American view, only harm to consumers should be acted upon. In general, Economics recognizes natural monopolies and that they are sometimes beneficial to consumers; such a thing is an oxymoron under an Ordoliberal view.

I don't particularly mind if other people have different views on competition -- I think we should be able to openly discuss the differences and agree to disagree if we cannot come to a shared view. But what Vestager (and by extension the EU) is doing here, is misleading the average person.

Her continued failure to closely regulate EU's market-dominant companies while singling out American ones indicates the true nature of her actions: Protectionism.

Seema Verma Espouses Compassionate Conservatism

This is a quote from CMS administrator Seema Verma:

"Every American deserves the dignity and respect of high expectations and as public officials we should deliver programs that instill hope and say to each beneficiary that we believe in their potential."

What. The. Hell. This is Medicaid she's talking about, but she's pretending as though the working poor and their children -- the primary recipients of Medicaid -- should be working harder to earn their health insurance.

She should be forced to work for minimum wage without healthcare coverage -- let's see how she takes it when someone insults her dignity by declaring that she's a lazy bum who doesn't deserve insurance.

You know, anyone who criticizes the working poor for not working hard enough to earn a decent living should be forced to work for minimum wage.

Carter Page is Not Very Smart

This is an excerpt from Carter Page's letter to James Comey at the FBI, in September 2016:

"As you may be aware, the source of these accusations is nothing more than completely false media reports. Yet for the record, I have not met this year with any sanctioned individual in Russia or any other country despite the fact that there are no restrictions on U.S. persons speaking with such individuals."

Ugh. This paragraph is a complete mess, so let's break it down.

"As you may be aware..."

If Comey had been aware that the public accusations against Page were completely false, why would Page have to write him a letter? This is a weak attempt to persuade law enforcement through rhetoric, at best.

"...the source of these accusations is nothing more than completely false media reports."

No proof offered, just a statement urging the FBI to trust Page's word. The worst part for Page is that he's establishing a record of this current version of his truth, to be used later against future testimony to either Congress or the FBI or Mueller's team -- all under oath. The year that has followed has played out this way.

"I have not met this year..."

This is quite the qualifier. The presumption we're now led to believe is that he's met with interesting people before 2016.

"...with any sanctioned individual in Russia or any other country..."

This is another remarkable qualifier. Most spies and most of the FSB aren't sanctioned individuals. By raising this qualifier, it makes Page look rather ignorant and points to Page hinting that he'd met with many Russians while in Russia and other countries, related to campaign activities.

"despite the fact that there are no restrictions on U.S. persons speaking with such individuals."

He first established his point that he hadn't met with any "sanctioned" individuals, only to point out that meeting with such sanctioned individuals is not illegal. So, why are you telling us what we already know -- are there meetings with people you'd rather not discuss?

I almost feel sorry for him. On his own volition, he wrote a letter that produced a dozen red flags and a trail of his lies. In the year that followed, Page kept rushing in front of the cameras, each time producing a different version of his truth. Carter Page is not very smart; if he's convicted, he only has himself to blame.

Mr. Happy.

An Amazing Friend

Love You, Pal

When Kirby was 5, I made this video compilation of some of his photos. I was so proud of how wonderful of a job he did growing up, I wanted to let everyone else know how amazing of a dog he was, despite his very rough early life.

Rest My Friend

Though there's a hole in my heart

I'll always cherish us

and am eternally grateful

that we shared so much together.

Rest, my friend.

(Now go fetch my dad and Rusty!)

Life and Death

Life brings the inevitability of death.

In youth, we perceive death in an entirely different way than we do as an adult, and then as a senior.

In our younger age, death is an unfair, sad reality. Those we love shouldn't have to die, ever.

As an adult, we see and understand the inevitability of death. It can sometimes scare us, even. For others, death appears to be an absence of pain and suffering, leading some to end their lives prematurely. For others, it strengthens their resolve to live as well and as long as they can and enjoy the ride. We also grow more philosophical about dying, don't we?

As a senior (ascertained through my many conversations with retired, older folks) we look back on our lives and find it remarkable that, through all of our mistakes and terrible judgment, we somehow managed to live a long life. The inevitability is much closer, and though we fear it, we also accept the reality we face, understanding that life is that circle. We still fear the idea of the moment of death, but we can't prevent it.

Everyone wants to believe there is more after we die, even if we may not believe there is something else that follows. And it doesn't hurt to be a good person, just in case there is something that follows.

But, it is not our death that is tragic; whether or not there is something that follows, our time here in this life has ended and we aren't around to contemplate our own death. Rather, it is when our loved ones die, that we are, ourselves, grief-stricken from their absence and our choices relative to their livelihood.

This grief is doubled when we are responsible for making choices relative to our loved one's death. Should we have put our dog to sleep or should we have let him/her live out the rest of his/her life to die naturally? Should we have placed mom/dad into hospice or should we have spent the extra money and burdens to have in-home hospice?

If I were to die, I would not want those who loved me to suffer the grief of my death, whether choices they made or by the emptiness of my absence. Likewise, I would rather carry the burden of all my loved ones dying before me, that I may die without others being burdened from my absence.

I write this because my dog is nearing 15 years of age and is getting ready to die, and I want to cherish his existence as long as he can live. I know that I'll still be sad by his absence, but more than that, I will forever be grateful for his presence in my life.

Enjoy life and living, and cherish the experiences we had with those who've passed.

5 Thoughts on USC's Win at ASU

1. You're Kidding Me, Right?: In the 24 hours following the game, hundreds of thousands of Trojans fans were yelling at the screen, "YOU'RE KIDDING ME, RIGHT? WHERE WAS ALL THIS GOOD STUFF EARLIER THIS YEAR???" I slightly exaggerate, but that's the essence of the Trojan fan mindset right now. Had they brought that excitement and push, they may not have lost two games this season at this point.
2. That Overturned Call: The PAC-12 replay crew got it wrong. They're only allowed to overturn a ruling based on clear video evidence, but the video showed the opposite. The ASU receiver pulling back the ball to try to bring it over the goal line, but when the ball hits the ground the ball lands a foot outside the goal line. The video evidence was contrary to what the replay officials apparently assumed. That's a huge stain on the PAC-12 for getting the reversal wrong. It was somewhat inconsequential, but it was a ridiculous circus of errors.
3. But Was it a Turnaround?: Let's be frank here, this may not be the turnaround flip we've been led to believe. Yes, they blew out ASU, but upon closer inspection, things were a little different than the score shows. The first USC TD came on a poor positioning by ASU safety Dasmond Tautalatasi. The second TD came during Tautalatasi's run blitz with the cornerback in man defense missing a tackle on Tyler Vaughns. On USC's third TD, Tautalatasi read the run but missed the tackle that would have held Jones to a 4-yard gain. On their fourth TD, Tautalatasi wasn't responsible for the reception but his illegal targeting hit was critical going forward. With his ejection, the safeties were playing slightly deeper (instead of 8-10 yards off the line they were 11-13 yards back), which then resulted in a change of plays to go with more runs and shorter passes. The good news is, they didn't slow down and the defense didn't let up, however, which was something of a problem in previous games.
4. No, it Wasn't Balanced: The final stats show 35 pass / 46 rush attempts, but that's not how the game started. Through the first four series, USC attempted 14 passes and 5 runs. They were deliberately using the pass to set up the running game. Because ASU gambled a lot on single-high safety to bring another defender in closer for run defense, when the Sun Devils missed a tackle or got blocked out, they gave Ronald Jones a wide-open field to make a series of long runs. Other times, they'd play shallow cover-2 but it ended up burning them when they got stuck behind the receiver. Helton's been calling it a balanced game since Saturday, but it really wasn't. It was a brilliant game plan to set up the run by getting the ball to their playmaking wide receivers in 1-on-1 coverage. Give credit where it's due, Tee Martin came up with a great plan and the players executed it exceptionally well.
5. Next Up, Arizona: This could be a difficult game, not necessarily because of Khalil Tate, but because Porter Gustin will not be playing in this game. Over the years Gustin's endured through his mistakes of getting caught out of position on the edge, losing containment. Each year, he's gotten better at maintaining the edge while getting in on the tackle. This season, he was golden, that is, until he got his toe injury and his pectoral tear. He missed five games and finally returned to play quite a bit against ASU, but his toe apparently will prevent him from playing against the Wildcats. Edge contain is critical against Tate (and generally against the Wildcats) and without Gustin, I'm a bit concerned that Arizona will be able to run at will against USC, which then sets up their passing game. If they mostly contain the edge, they should do fine on defense and blow out UA. As well as the Wildcats defense did against WSU, it came against the backup quarterback, not Luke Falk, which bodes well for Sam Darnold and USC's passing game.