Month: August 2025

Donald the Great Cuts the Gordian Knot

photog Current Events, Trump ,

President Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hours after the agency released a jobs report that included substantial downward revisions for May and June, slashing a combined 258,000 jobs from prior estimates (May revised to 19,000 from 125,000, and June to 14,000 from 147,000).  Trump said McEntarfer, a Biden appointee manipulated the data to make him look bad.  He said on Truth Social that she would be replaced with someone “much more competent and qualified.”

It must be so much fun being Trump.  I think of how much fun it would be to fire the people who tick me off.  I’d fire the mailman when my mail was misdirected.  I’d fire the guy at the IRS who audited me.  I’d fire that cop who gave me the speeding ticket.  I’d fire the guy at the DMV who made me stand in the wrong line for a half hour.  I’d even fire that annoying woman who keeps sending me all that spam from my local politicians.  All these people would be fired and then I would crow about it and make them feel bad.  It would be so much fun.

But seriously, Trump is the guy who cuts through the nonsense and attacks problems as straightforwardly as can be imagined.  Base on the size of the revisions which are the largest such changes in sixty years he knows he’s being sabotaged by partisan operatives and he responds directly and effectively.  Something tells me the BLS is about to get a complete make-over that includes removing all the apparatchiks that were placed there by Obama and Biden and replacing them with a software program that gathers this data from the endless list of government statistics that already exist.  My guess is that it will streamline and optimize the process and it will also do it with a fraction of the number of employees and in a small percentage of the time currently taken to do it by abacus and cuneiform tablets.  I also imagine that there will be some BLS employees who will be willing to confess where the bodies are buried and whistle blow on McEntarfer and her cronies as to how they were cooking the books.

So, as we move past the six-month mark of the Trump administration the important thing to remember is that the fun is never really over.  At any time, Trump can descend from Mount Olympus and hurl a thunderbolt at some blasphemer among the denizens of Tartarus who still refuse to abase themselves at his feet.  Whether it’s the head of BLS or a climate scientist at the EPA or a college president or some state official in a “sanctuary community,” any of them are fair game for the “wrath of Don.”  And for me, the best part about it is the relish he seems to feel when he lowers the boom on these unfortunate targets.  They not only get fired or fined or audited he also mocks them mercilessly with deadly precision; replaced with someone “much more competent and qualified.”  I love that.

04AUG2025 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

Ulalume

…

And we passed to the end of the vista,

But were stopped by the door of a tomb—

By the door of a legended tomb;

And I said: “What is written, sweet sister,

On the door of this legended tomb?”

She replied: “Ulalume -Ulalume—

‘Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”

 

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober

As the leaves that were crisped and sere—

As the leaves that were withering and sere;

And I cried: “It was surely October

On this very night of last year

That I journeyed—I journeyed down here!—

That I brought a dread burden down here—

On this night of all nights in the year,

Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?

Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—

This misty mid region of Weir—

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,

This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

Edgar Allan Poe

Long, Long Ago in a Studio Far, Far Away

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , , ,

As the tent-pole summer movies of July fade into August obscurity and dinosaurs, Superman and lesser Marvel superheroes get rated and dissected by the movie critics I think it has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the failure of Hollywood to replicate the billion-dollar paydays from earlier versions of Star Wars and the Avengers franchises can now be definitively explained.  They forgot that a superhero movie (or even just a plain hero movie) requires a hero.  And the requirements of a hero (whether in book or on a screen) include that we like the hero.

And that seems to be where Hollywood has gone off the rails.  They’ve managed to make a bunch of movies where the heroes are unlikeable.  For the most part these unlikeable heroes have tended to be of the type currently known as the “girl-boss.”  The prime example of this category is Rey, played by Daisy Ridley in the Star Wars movies.  The type includes the following traits:

  • Although small and thin she is completely capable of defeating men many times her size.
  • She hectors male characters about their obvious shortcomings compared to her.
  • Completely humorless.
  • Has no flaws.
  • Has no setbacks.

Now, this sort of character fits perfectly into the social messaging of all modern Hollywood films.  It allows older franchises with male protagonists to be replaced with the girl-boss.  Examples include Rey in Star Wars replacing Luke Skywalker, Helena Shaw replacing Indiana Jones and Captain Marvel basically replacing all the Avengers.

The problem with these replacements is that the producers think that just saying that their new characters are just as good as the originals (if not better) is enough.  For some reason they didn’t think it would be necessary to hire good writers and directors to make the movies exciting and entertaining.  But as it turns out they are extremely important if you don’t want your movies to be unwatchable crap.  And that is the thing that all these movies share.  They’re awful.  And unfortunately for Disney they’ve been making these “better” movies and television series in the Star Wars and Marvel series for about ten years and they’ve completely dissipated the enthusiasm and good will of their legacy audiences that paid billions of dollars to see the older movies that actually were well written, exciting and entertaining.

Over the last six months it has finally dawned on Disney (and the other studios) that they’ve killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.  They’ve alienated about 70% of their audience and destroyed a machine that printed cash.  From what I’ve read, the most recent Marvel movie “Fantastic Four” went to lengths to not go down the girl-boss lane and even had a decent script that could be enjoyed as an adventure movie.  The problem is that most of their old audience didn’t bother to give it a try and so the movie while not a complete bomb is struggling to become profitable.

Regardless of whether “Fantastic Four” makes money I think we may be at a turning point in the fantasy-adventure genre.  It has finally dawned on the studios that social messaging for the woke agenda is box office poison that has a tiny audience.  As the recent purchase of Paramount by Skydance Media demonstrates, entertainment that doesn’t make money ends up on the auction block and then the chopping block where the unentertaining and unprofitable components get sliced off and thrown in the garbage.  And similar things are happening all over the media and entertainment world.  CNN, MSNBC and CBS are all finding out that woke ideology doesn’t equal profitability and if they can’t adapt to a world that isn’t amused by it, they’ll be out of work.  I guess I’m an eternal optimist but maybe, just maybe, in a year or two decent fantasy adventure may be produced in Hollywood again.  At least it could happen!

Capon Parts Ways with Red Lobster

photog Current Events, Humor , , ,

Girl Boss Anchor – And as we finish this broadcast I have heard that Jonathan Capon will be leaving Red Lobster.  Jonathan, would you like to address this development with our audience?

Jonathan Capon – Sure why not?  Well, first of all David Books brought me aboard under false pretenses.  He told them I was an illegal alien and would work for first pick of the kitchen scraps like some kind of rodent.

Second of all, the head waiter told me to “butch it up.”  And strike three, someone put up a poster of Sydney Sweeney in the locker room.  In this kind of hostile work environment I just couldn’t be my authentic self.  For all these reasons I’m going back to my refrigerator box and my crew under the overpass.  Let Books enjoy his corporate fat cat existence here at the Red Lobster but I have to be real.  I have to testify to my own lived truth.

Girl Boss Anchor – That’s interesting.  David told me you were fired because you fell asleep in the Shrimp Freezer Room and had to be chiseled off of a shelf.

Jonathan Capon – There might have been something like that but there’s more to the story that I won’t reveal until the case comes to trial.

Girl Boss Anchor – Thank you Jonathan for that interesting slice of life and we await your next assignment with great interest.

Jonathan Capon – Hey, any chance of an advance?  We need a new refrigerator box after the rains.

Girl Boss Anchor – Sorry, no.

August 2025 Update on Ukraine War

photog Current Events, Trump ,

I thought I’d do a short update on the Ukraine war.  Over the course of spring and summer 2025 the Russians seem to have increased troop strength significantly and adopted strategies and tactics that involve very slow encirclement of large cities like Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka and Kupiansk.  These tactics were aimed at limiting Russian casualties while attritting the Ukrainians during counterattacks.  The glacial speed of the Russian advance was mocked by Kiev.  They kept saying that it would take a hundred years for this type of warfare to reach Kiev.

But it appears to be working.  Trump recently shortened his window for the Russians to avoid additional sanctions by calling for a ceasefire.  And the reason is that the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly for Ukraine.  Ukraine is finding it impossible to reach its conscription targets.  And the United States has fallen far behind on the originally promised weapons aid.  Even worse, the state of the art of Russian drone warfare has begun to cause the Ukraine army real problems.  Anti-drone drones have become very good at knocking out the large drones that Ukraine uses for dropping grenades on Russian troops.  And long-range Russian drones have wreaked havoc in the supposedly safe regions far behind the lines in places like Pakrovsk and Kostyantynivka.

And this week the Russians announced that they had finally taken complete control of the strategic high ground in the town of Chasiv Yar, to the west of Bakhmut.  Kiev denied this and claimed that their soldiers were still on the ground there but the geolocated photos showed Russians with their flags in front of the rubble that once were high-rise buildings in Chasiv Yar.

So, Trump has said that he’ll sanction Russia and the customers that buy oil and gas from them if a ceasefire isn’t called in eight more days.  But the Russians have already signaled that they aren’t interested in a ceasefire at this time and it will have to be the Ukrainians agreeing to their conditions that will stop the fighting.

What will actually happen?  If Trump adds more sanctions and nothing changes; then what?  The way things are going by the end of the fall fighting season so many troops may have been lost and so much territory ceded that Ukraine may decide that the Russian war objectives represent the facts on the ground. In which case ending the bloodshed might make sense to them.

Or maybe not.  The sunken cost fallacy is a pretty powerful rationale in a war.  Maybe they really will fight to the last Ukrainian soldier.  Who knows, maybe they can fight until Putin has had enough and goes for a Korean War permanent ceasefire approach.

I watch way too much information on this war.  It’s a depressing but mesmerizing spectacle.  The losses on both sides are horrific.  But based on what I’m hearing from both sides the Ukrainian attrition is becoming unsustainable.  Pokrovsk is a very important place for Ukraine to hold.  But it seems to be falling faster than Bakhmut or Avdiivka did.  If it doesn’t hold out till winter, I think it will have a very negative effect on Ukraine and its European allies.

Well, the madness continues.

02AUG2025 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

The Raven

…

“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,” I shrieked, upstarting-

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted- nevermore!

Edgar Allan Poe