End of Year Thoughts, 2018


On the eve of the traumatic year 2019, I took a thoughtful look at the factors in play. It’s in three parts. They are self explanatory.

Part 1 — The Overton Window

Part 2 — Mental Models, Old and New

Part 3 — The Trump Enigma Explained


Comments

Post a Comment

Readers also liked…

Sudden Bout of Dragonfly Mode…

Image
  It   strikes   me now and again. Can’t help it. Just try to control it… I’ve only done one thing: That’s all. I swear. Okay. Couldn’t help it. But’s that’s all. Really. I was working on my long postponed post about the best movies in the first 25 years of the 21st Century when this overpowering sense of ennui overcame me, and dissing the movies suddenly struck me as more important than debunking the big lies mass media tells about itself. Working my way through it… P.S. An old friend just checked in with an enhancement of my comic cover that blows mine out of the water. Couldn’t resist sharing it with you all. ________________________ Below the Fold What I had of the new/old post I was trying to finish:  Keeping My Promise about the Best 21st Century Movies It’s that time of the year when movies are back in the news more than usual. The recent Oscars broadcast was chiefly notable for its record-low viewership, inane political rhetoric from the podium, and a crop of...
Read more

The Sneaky Cowardice of So-Called Conservatives

Image
Here’s the story that’s running at the righty news outlet called National Pulse. Here’s what they think we need to know: Sufficient for us to know he’s a “Biden Judge.” What if the lead graphic of their post had looked like this instead? See, they kind of left out the most sinister background of this story, which goes far beyond a medical issue, however grave it is to those involved. National Pulse fails to see that our real concern should be the supine role played by Congressional Republicans in enabling this man to be seated on a federal bench. For once, it is truly important to read the entire Wikipedia entry about this man, which is alarming even in the prose of the far-left leaning site that published it: <<Mustafa Taher Kasubhai  (born 1970) is an American lawyer who has served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon since 2024. He previously served as a United States magistrate judge...
Read more

The False Gold of the Meidas Touch

Image
I first heard of Meidas Touch shortly after I joined ‘X’ in the wake of Musk’s takeover of the poisonous lefty site called Twitter. The lefties continue to be a dominating presence there, and even when freeloader Citizen Free Press links a decent post there, the first one or two replies at least are screeds by the kind of crayon-armed haters who want all Republicans assassinated. CFP loves to indicate that outrageous lefty posts are ‘buried’ or ‘destroyed’ by MAGA derision, but this is usually an overstatement. Why I was occasionally moved to reply to the worst of them. The Meidas Touch editor Filipkowski was one of the first to tempt me to. After a quick review of the MT site, I told him it was the most egregious pile of vile libel made up completely out of whole cloth I had ever seen. (A permanent sidebar there declared that there are over 20,000 pending lawsuits against Trump for a variety of sex crimes.) I told him he was a disgusting cancer on the corpse of journalism that was sti...
Read more

Sunday Video News — 5/5/2019

Hot Videos of the Week New York Post: Why Kentucky Derby Disqualified Maximum Security in Stunner CNN:   Plane Skids off Runway into River News Busters: Medley—Blaming Trump for Terror Attack and Paving the Way for Pete and Joe           PLUS:   ABC Can Barely Speak of 50 Year Low in Unemployment Desmoines Register: Elizabeth Warren Campaign Even Disrupted by Animal Rights Protest C-Span:   Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham Reacts to Barr Hearings ABC News: House Judiciary Chair Gives Ultimatum to A.G. Barr, Could Charge with Contempt Breitbart: MSNBC Panel—‘We Can Handcuff People Who Ignore Subpoenas Media Research Center: Tutorial on Media Bias    [ bkgd ] CNN/Van Jones:  Chelsea Handler—Trump Was a Personal Trigger for Me Power Line: This Week in Pictures—Close Down the Barr Edition VIDEO ARCHIVE BONUS: New York Daily News: Inside Old Abandoned City Hall Station _______________ Ed. Not...
Read more

Seventh Heaven for Hamilton

Image
  Lewis Hamilton wins Seventh World Championship at Formula 1 Grand Prix in Turkey: A stunning drive from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the Turkish Grand Prix gave him his 10th victory of the season – and, more crucially, saw him claim the seventh drivers’ title of his career, to equal the record of Michael Schumacher, as Racing Point’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel completed the podium after a thrilling race in Istanbul. Hamilton had started the race in sixth, risen to third midway through the first lap and then dropped back to sixth by the end of Lap 1 after an error at Turn 9. But a decision to change his intermediate tyres just once saw Hamilton drive a masterful race to claim victory by over 25 seconds from Perez. The win alone was enough to claim championship #7, but it was even more assured after a disastrous race for Valtteri Bottas - the only man who could have stopped Hamilton winning the title today - who spun six times en route to a P14 finish.
Read more

Today’s News — 3/29/2019

Image
Today’s Hot Headlines: NY Daily News:   Vaccinate All Kids—Rockland County Exposes a Weakness in NY Public Health Detroit News: Trump in Michigan—‘The Collusion Delusion is Over’ The Epoch Times: Spygate—The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump The Week: Joe Biden’s Endless Gaffe-Riddled Apology Tour Newsweek: John Brennan Spokesman Says Trump Defenders Are Failing to Accept Reality Washington Post: The Trump-Russia Collusion Hall of Shame Breitbart: Limbaugh—‘They’re Setting Up the Impeachment Now‘ New York Post: Mexico Warns, Mother of All Caravans Headed to United States CNN: Fact-Checking Trump’s Michigan Rally The Babylon Bee: Stopped Clock Named CNN’s Most Accurate Reporter
Read more

Christmas Gift Suggestions

Image
*I’ve* never even had one of these. I’ll leave this one for one of you guys. Plenty of time to get this before Christmas. Here’s the EBay proffer for what’s called the ‘Pinback Button.’ The cute graphic treatment even includes the pin side. It you actually want to read a physical book that you can hold in your hands, put on your shelf, or give to some friend or family member who’d like to understand what happened to the Great American Experiment you can find a copy quite easily, still in time for Christmas, via the following retailers and others. Just search the ‘Shopping’ tab at Google for “The Boomer Bible” and you’ll find it. (If you’re viewing this on a tablet, you can read this graphic more easily by clicking on the pic and turning your device 90 deg counterclockwise.) I don’t make any money from your purchases obviously, but I feel like I’m doing a public service in showing you what’s out there. For example, here’s something that’s out there I hadn’t actually found till yesterday...
Read more

Party Time

Image
  No, I’m not going 100 percent Youtube on you. Truth is, the post I did the other day about the Progs  getting nutso when elections don’t go their way was an accident. I was really searching for the songs I’ll be posting here, and those political clips kept showing up in the sidebar. So I grabbed a few of them just to remind you that they really are out of their minds out there.  Right now, of course, a lot of MAGA people are also out of their minds, with very little power or insight about what’s going on behind the media tantrums. That’s why i started collecting this little musical refuge. When is it the right time to party? By which I don’t mean drug yourself into a coma but find a sound and a best that will make you dance or at least reach a philosophical state of equilibrium. It’s always time for that. Because not all party songs are happy things. Some of them are quiet reflective moods when the dancing and singing are winding down. Not a bad place to be when you thi...
Read more

F1 Forever… and Clark… and Hamilton… Forever…

Image
  He died he did in ‘68.. So sorry. So sorry. How the best, most tragic story of F1 ever, unfolded. Jimmy Clark. Just possibly the real GOAT of Formula 1. Grosjean. Made podium one year into Indy racing. Last weekend at Indycar’s Laguna Seca, Romain Grosjean put on an F1 Show not seen since Jimmy Clark won the Indy 500 in 1965. Grosjean waged a war. Americans might not know that Grosjean’s F1 career went up in smoke a year or so earlier in a fiery crash that should have ended his competitive driving forever. His hands were badly burned. People didn’t think he’d drive again. Said similar things about Niki Lauda. F1 is where the superheroes live. Presently, three F1 drivers competing in Indy stuff. Ericsson, Sato, and Grosjean. All fast, no hurt and rebuild on the fly, and forget the ad-heavy car costumery… Yet… Burned his hands, bad. So he came to America. In 100+ F1 starts, Grosjean had scored, well, this: In that same approximate period of time, Lewis Hamilton registered 99 wins, ...
Read more