Tuesday Smirk

Image courtesy of today's Politico.

Logan's Run Reviewed

Last night the DrsC watched Logan's Run, a 1976 film we hadn't seen before, having recorded it from TCM. I like science fiction and the premise isn't terrible, but the plotting and execution ... darn sad. 

Michael York played the title role and did himself no favors. Peter Ustinov and Farrah Fawcett-Major had minor roles and Jenny Agutter was the love interest. 

Ustinov did his usual good job, and got to quote a handful of lines from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which was fun. The musical Cats didn't debut in London until 1981 so T. S. Eliot's poetry wasn't so widely known.

What passed for special effects 50 years ago are beyond lame today. The robot named Box looked like a dalek with a human head added. 

Mostly, we concluded we hadn't missed anything by not seeing the film in 1976.

Dear Diary ....

Somehow Dr. Anthony Fauci's diary of the Covid time has become public. It turns out he knew almost immediately the lab leak was a much more likely source than the wet market, he confided as much to his diary. Yet for months thereafter he publicly maintained the opposite, so he is a fluent and shameless liar, perhaps under oath.

Through a cutout Fauci was directing federal funding to that lab in Wuhan to do gain-of-function research unlawful in the US. It leaked and millions died around the world.

The most creative response I've seen to this was the suggestion that while Biden pardoned Fauci, his pardon is only a reprieve in the US. Nothing is stopping some nation with which we have an extradition treaty from issuing a warrant for his arrest for negligent homicide, a warrant we'd have to honor.

Cruise Ship as Petri Dish?

There has been an outbreak of articles recently arguing whether or not cruise ships are "floating Petri dishes." Some examples of these include this, this and this. Let me share some cruising pro tips.

The other DrC and I have done several dozen cruises as passengers (pax) and dozens more as passenger/lecturers. We've been on several ships that had norovirus outbreaks, and a couple of times the other DrC caught it. For reasons unknown, I dodged the norovirus bullet every time; I have gotten a shipboard cold more than once.

What to know about norovirus: it is basically the "stomach flu" that would go around when we were kids. Dysentery, vomiting, and general misery that lasts 24-36 hours, after which you are fine. 

Transmission is by touching contaminated surfaces, or people. Try to keep your unwashed hands off your eyes, nose, and mouth.

It is probably life-threatening only to those whose health is already severely compromised. Such individuals should not cruise. Shipboard medical facilities are roughly those of a walk-in clinic, far short of even a small hospital.

Why the ship makes disease more widely transmissible? Everything outside your cabin is a public space. You and your fellow pax are constantly touching railings on stairs, arms on chairs, elevator buttons, etc. If the sea is rough, you do more touching - basically holding on as you walk the corridors.

If you go to the buffet, as most do at least for lunch, if not for breakfast which we have delivered to our cabin, the serving utensils are handled by many. You take your food, sit and eat without washing your hands in-between. 

We started pocketing a tiny plastic bottle, maybe 2.5 inches tall of hand sanitizer, which we'd refill off our larger bottle in the stateroom. And we learned to push elevator buttons with a knuckle or elbow.

Once an outbreak occurs, ships stop letting pax serve themselves at the buffet, they start piling what you point to onto a plate which they hand you. And they start having minions wipe down the railing and elevator controls with disinfectant. 

There are hand sanitizer dispensers outside the buffet and dining rooms, and elsewhere people gather. Extra-frequent hand washing very helpful. 

All of that helps, but won't stop an outbreak, which almost always only affects a minority of pax and crew - yes, crew catch it too. Those with an active case are asked to stay in their cabins for its relatively brief duration. 

What is your likelihood of being on a cruise that has a norovirus outbreak? I'm guessing 1in 20-25. You odds of actually getting sick are less than that. 

A cruise ship is a meals-and-entertainment-included luxury hotel that makes stops in interesting ports. Enjoy cruising, we certainly do. 

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Images courtesy of Sarah Hoyt's

Meme Days of Summer.

Mini-Review of Enola Holmes 3

After watching the first two Enola Holmes films starring Millie Bobby Brown and enjoying them, I was predisposed to like the third film featuring her adventures. Sadly, I was disappointed.

EH3 isn't a bad film, but it lacks the freshness and sassiness of the first two. It felt like "here we go again." I am not especially looking forward to more episodes, as I had looked forward to this one. That is disappointing.

Friday Meme Fest

The smoke is Canadian

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Mourning Lost Social Capital

The American Mind, a publication of The Claremont Institute, publishes a very interesting essay by Colin Redemer concerning the declining value of higher education, and more importantly, the mechanism by which that decline is caused.

The argument focuses on a decline in free social capital available, and the consequent need to purchase replacements at inflated prices.

Young people only appear to be doing fine in official statistics because those measures fail to capture the collapse of “social capital”—the free inheritance of trusted neighbors, functional public schools, safe streets, and marriageable norms that previous generations received at no cost. 

Because that commons has been liquidated and privatized, young people must now repurchase its components individually at market prices. Expensive homes in good districts, private schooling, daycare, credentials, and more—all of it requires substantial financial resources, even as incomes have risen only modestly. Meanwhile, the cost of these essentials has increased many times over.

Higher education is much more expensive today than it was when I was a 20 year old. Meanwhile, the BA/BS is worth less in terms of career access and graduate degrees have also been devalued. Reason: supply exceeds demand.

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If I have any criticism of the Redemer treatment, it would be ignoring the impact of the late 1940s GI Bill which flooded the employment market with degreed people without much concern for how doing so devalued the formerly esteemed high school diploma.

The GI Bill was an inspired way to prevent runaway unemployment as veterans in their hundreds of thousands left the military and resumed civilian life. It's unintended societal consequences, however, were profound and far-reaching.

Red States Keep Winning

Power Line's John Hinderaker posts a couple of charts you will like, from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Based on Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis data, they look at the effect of states' political orientation on household income and net migration (both in and out). 

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called our states "the laboratories of democracy." Very clearly red states - unambiguously embracing Republican policies - have experienced more growth in income and in population over the past quarter-century, and the differences are far from trivial.

Blue state politicians need to tell us how their model, which drives people away and provides less income growth for those who remain, is still somehow superior. I don't believe they can do it.

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Image courtesy of today's Lucianne.com.

We Have a Promise ...

Nearly a week ago I wrote that I'd be certain we were serious about Iran when we started bombing power plants. It hasn't begun yet.

Now we have at least the President's promise of bombing civilian infrastructure, specifically power plants and key bridges. One destroyed for each ship transiting the strait attacked in any way by Iran.

I'm still awaiting before and after photos of Tehran brightly lit, and in the no-power dark. We'll see ....

Who Are the DSA?

Nate Silver is a data guy; number crunching, polling, and gaming are his jam. At his Silver Bulletin website, he looks at DSA demographics.

What is the most Democratic voting group in America? It’s voters with postgraduate degrees but lower-to-middle household incomes of $30K to $60K per year.

This is very much also the sweet spot for the DSA. In the group’s most recent member survey in 2021, 80 percent of members aged 25 or older had bachelor’s degrees, but 45 percent had household incomes below $60,000 per year.

This is unusual, because education and income are usually substantially positively correlated. In the composite CES data, only 19 percent of Americans with bachelor’s degrees or higher had household incomes of $60K or below. The DSA rate is around twice that. These voters aren’t necessarily “blue collar” in the sense of working with their hands. But that doesn’t mean they’re privileged.

Silver concludes thus:

DSA members aren’t necessarily struggling to pay the bills, nor are most of them traditionally “blue-collar”. But they’re likely to be genuinely upset about their station in life as well as how things are going with the country.

Translation: Most Democratic Socialists of America are overeducated and, by their own lights, underemployed. They do not earn enough to ever purchase a home.

Data Center Popularity … Cratering

Politico reports their recurrent poll finds in the past 6 months public opinion on AI data centers has shifted dramatically in a negative direction. In January it was 37% for, and 28% against, today the results are 24% for and 41% against. Coincidentally, 35% were unsure or had no opinion both times.

The shift was especially pronounced among people who said they had voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.

Republicans also shifted in a negative direction but by a much smaller margin.

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Looking back on these opinion shifts, historians may perceive the beginnings of what the Arabist/novelist Frank Herbert called “the Butlerian jihad.” He predicted that mankind would be swept by a movement that opposed “thinking machines,” eventually abolishing them. 

A product of his era, Herbert explored what would arise to replace AI in his novels beginning in 1965 with Dune. What he came up with was drugs and mysticism. 

While I hope he was wrong, in Herbert's universe the spice must flow.

A Natural Experiment Beckons

RealClearScience links to a Psychology Today article that argues if we are to go to year-round time, that should be standard time, not daylight savings time. Standard time more closely tracks the body’s circadian rhythms, it argues.

What PT doesn’t mention is that a natural experiment already exists. Most of Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time year-round. The exception being the large but lightly populated Navaho Reservation. 

Does the non-rez AZ population experience fewer of the negative effects attributed to time-switching per capita than an equivalent comparison population from other states? If so, are the differences large enough to justify the change to year-round time? Specifically, to year-round Standard Time?

We need this analysis.

Geopolitical Game of 'Chicken'

Writing for Asia Times, Leon Hadar calls the standoff at the Strait of Hormuz "unwinnable." Both sides have (and are willing to use) the ability to close the straits to shipping, neither is able to genuinely prevent the other from doing so. Ergo, stalemate.

Except, as Hadar notes, Iran cannot tolerate the Strait being closed indefinitely, as doing so means they cannot export significant oil and LNG, with such export being almost their only source of foreign exchange. And our allies pressure the US to get the strait open.

If the US was politically able to continue the blockade semi-indefinitely Iran would eventually overthrow its current leaders as the nation-wide poverty became unsustainable. Our political system doesn't really accommodate such a policy, and Iran knows it. 

Therefore, both sides are trying to outlast the other, and because our timetable is fixed and knowable, whereas Iran's is not, the advantage is theirs, unfortunately.

Glimmers of the Future

A very interesting long article at Tyler Durden's Zero Hedge website, authored by Madge Waggy. It looks at how far androids have come since the early days of vaguely humanoid robots. 

I have not read widely in the relevant literature, but I've had a notion that I've not seen elsewhere. It is that the real market for artificial women exists in China where the results of the one-child policy have created a decided scarcity of young women.

In a true market economy, that need would produce product innovation; China is not entirely a market-driven economy. China's government exhibits outbursts of prudishness which militate against this innovation.

In the US the market demand will be for live-in caregivers for the widowed or single elderly. A talented artificial companion would enable individuals to live at home for years longer. Why shouldn't these resemble an attractive young adult, with designed gender of your choice?

Saturday Snark

Both can hurt you.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Images courtesy of Sarah Hoyt's

Meme It Like It's Hot.