Stalemate Here and Over There

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Nigel Farage has been the voice of British nationalism for a couple of decades.  Fourteen years ago, he drove the movement that successfully forced the United Kingdom to exit the European Union; “Brexit.”  And he helped the Conservative Party (the Tories) regain their majority and sweep back into power on the basis of his Brexit campaign.

And then these Tories ruled for a decade as the Leftists they truly were.  And this allowed the Left (Labor, The Green Party and the Liberal Democrats) to regain control of Parliament and wreak further havoc on the English in their own country.  Basically, the Tories and the Left have gone all in on turning Britain into a land of third world immigrants.

In the last few years Farage has spearheaded a new party called the Reform.

Well, the chickens have come home to roost.  Current polls show voters have the following preferences:

  • Reform – 28%
  • Labour – 19%
  • Tories – 18%
  • Greens – 15%
  • Liberal Democrats – 13%

Interestingly, this new party now leads both traditional parties; Labour and the Tories by about ten percentage points.  This just shows how hated both parties have become.  But note that neither the Left nor the Right have a solid majority on which to base a coalition.  Reform and the Tories together have 46% of the electorate.  The three leftist parties; Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats control 47%.  So, the remaining seven percent must be made up of people so apathetic they still can’t figure out which side to vote for.  Basically, the electoral situation is on the razor’s edge.  Now doesn’t that sound familiar?

So just as in the United States control of the government oscillates back and forth between the Left and the Right.  And each oscillation enrages the partisans out of power and eggs them on to greater and greater revenge when they do return.

Just as in Britain, so too here eventually something has got to give.  My guess is that it will eventually cause some large-scale violence and after that there will be a political solution involving a permanent division, either complete or else some constitutional change to give greater autonomy to both sides within the states where majorities for the Left or the Right have firm control.  And probably the “purple” states will have to choose which side they want to get in bed with.

Now, this idea isn’t something I enjoy.  The United States is the only home I have ever known.  And so many things about it are wonderful.  But there is no longer one people living here.  There are two.  And they believe in diametrically opposed visions of how this country should work.  And since the Left is the group trying to change “the deal,” they are going to have to be the ones excluded from the areas where the Right wants to live.  They’re using unlimited third world immigration to drown out their opponents at the polls.  So citizenship in the blue states will not be automatically transferrable to the red states.  And you can imagine how this will end up becoming very ugly after the initial breakup of the country.  Families may end up stuck on both sides of a divided America.  But that’s what seems to be coming.

It’s Shiny and New

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So, it hasn’t snowed in a week and I’ve got a good four or five days to relax.  I guess, life is good.  The news kind of bores me at the moment.  The courts are going back and forth on the ICE arrests and the protest riots.  I guess it’ll take a while for that stuff to get sorted out.  I’ll let Trump get on with his work.  He doesn’t need my applause to do his job (I hope!).

So what else is going on?  Well, we’re sending a rocket around the Moon I hear.  They’re sending four astronauts and one of them is a girl.  Well, what can you do?  She can make sandwiches for the return trip, I guess.  I’m glad they’re planning missions to land on the Moon again.  I think the Moon is a better location for space missions than either the space station or Mars.  Mars is currently too far for our current capabilities to be attempted safely and effectively.  The space station doesn’t seem to be very interesting or useful.  A moonbase on the other hand has definite possibilities.  I think they can start by using robot equipment to transport lots of equipment to the lunar surface and then have a few manned missions to set up a permanent base.  Using unmanned flights to accumulate fuel before humans begin inhabiting a base would provide more of a safety factor.

As for what purpose the base would fulfill, I’d say it would be almost completely scientific experimentation.  Personally, I have a theory that somewhere below the surface of the Moon we’ll find bacterial life.  Specifically, it will be terrestrial life that reached the Moon as spores.  There is supposed to be frozen water on the Moon and below the surface there may be more moderate temperatures.  Of course, there is no atmosphere but I’ve got this feeling that somehow all the life on Earth must leak out into space over time.  Of course, Mars is a better place to look for wandering terrestrial micro-organisms.  But I want to put in my claim for Moon bugs early.  Maybe they’ll even name them after me; E. coli photogiensis.  But I think the Moon would also make a great location for astronomical observatories.  And in terms of the astronauts, having one sixth gravity on the Moon would be many times better for them than the micro-gravity of the space stations.

Finally, they could call the base Luna City.  Robert Heinlein based a number of his short stories and one of his best novels on the Moon (“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”) I think Luna City is an excellent name.  Of course, when it gets big enough for a main street, that should be Neil Armstrong Boulevard.  Of course, it may turn out that living on the Moon isn’t healthy for humans.  If that’s the case we’ll know soon enough.  Then the Moon will be the domain of robots.  And since it’s so close that will someday happen.  It’s a very large rock that’s very close to Earth and eventually we’ll think of lots of things to do with it.  But right now, it’s shiny and new and waiting for us to walk on its surface again.  Maybe even girls.

With Extra Butter

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Oldest Grandson is a fan of video games and of video game adjacent internet personalities.  There is a guy named Markiplier (well, technically that’s an alias) who has made a fortune playing video games on his YouTube channel and currently has something like thirty-seven million followers.  I’ve only ever watched a couple of minutes of his content and must confess I don’t see the attraction.  I guess it’s because I’m old.

Anyway, this guy decided to make a horror movie using his own money and then put it on 3,000 movie screens.  It cost him about $3 million to make.  And on its first weekend it’s made more than $18 million.

Now here’s the thing.  In Hollywood the catering budget for a movie that makes $18 million on its first weekend would cost more than $3 million.  Anyone who would be employed to open a movie of that size would make at least $5 million in Hollywood.  So just based on scale any movie made for less than $3 million is in a completely different league from Hollywood.  This movie couldn’t fail with the built in audience it has and almost any Hollywood movie can’t help but fail.  Even Forbes magazine is touting the new entertainment model that “influencers” like Markiplier has pioneered with his movie success.

So, this is the third movie I’ve heard of that made a bunch of money because someone with tens of millions of followers on line self-financed it and got his people to buy tickets.  Does this show us the future or is this just a blip while the streaming giants kill off or buy up Hollywood?  Maybe it’s a little bit of both.  Markiplier would never get his movie made by a Hollywood studio.  And Netflix and Amazon are frantically looking for content that won’t be ignored by the Zoomers.  I think what we’re beginning to see is a realization that creative types and Silicon Valley are going to have to blow up the Hollywood model with its bloated budgets and maniacal dependence on poorly written sequels of old intellectual properties.  They’re going to have to forget about making crap like “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” or “Star Wars 37: Search for Obi Wan’s Lesbian Aunt.”

The kids around today want to watch stuff that speaks to them.  Some of it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to old people like myself.  But it doesn’t have to.  What they don’t want is corporate slop disguised as sequels to movies that their grandparents watched as kids.  And you really can’t blame them.  So next Saturday I’ll be going with Oldest Grandson to see “Iron Lung.”  And I’ll leave my expectations at the door and watch it with an open mind.  Maybe I’ll love it or hate it or just feel kind of confused.  But I’ll get a chance to see what the future looks like.  And at the very least I know there won’t be a girl-boss character.  Apparently, Markiplier Has 90% of the character face time in the movie.  And I’ve decided I’m going to splurge on the large popcorn.  With extra butter.