The amazing thing about the era of filmmaking that ended with "Wonder Woman 1984" is that a script that dumb and joyless could get past dozens of people without anyone pumping the brakes before a firehose of funding was sprayed over the project.

Just as no amount of flat temperature data would dissuade the climate cult, so no amount of flat (or even negative!) data on mask effectiveness will shake the faith of the Church of Covid. Beautiful Theories cannot be disproven by mere information.

The "Covid emergency" will never be over. It will mutate and seek out new missions when this particular virus threat abates, repurposing its funding and clinging to its power. They're already talking up the "next pandemic" and how we must forever remain at DEFCON 2 to be ready.

Masks are now a visible and tangible symbol of an entire agenda. Its champions will use every means possible to force you to wear them forever, including corporate pressure, their new favorite tool. Expect commercial mask requirements to linger, especially big corporations.

True believers, meanwhile, will wear their masks with grim determination and scowl ostentatiously at everyone who refuses to join them. It's a new virtue signal that will not go away any time soon. Mask scolding is a quick, easy, heady power rush.

All the while, studies will keep rolling out that masks don't help, and might even hurt. That was fairly common medical knowledge before the pandemic began, but it was aggressively suppressed when masks became a political symbol, and a totem for people desperate to DO SOMETHING.

It's entirely reasonable to say Trump's election lawyers need to produce hard evidence to back up their sweeping allegations, PDQ.

It's absurd to expect them to do it live on a talk show, as if they were carrying Marsellus Wallace's magic glowing briefcase from Pulp Fiction.

Host: You say thousands of votes were switched by corrupt computer software. You need to prove it.

Sidney Powell: Of course. I have the proof right here.

[opens briefcase, golden light spills out]

Host: Is that...?

Powell: Yes.

Host: Wow. OK, you win. I'm sold.

There is no way the "evidence" of the most serious claims is something that can be dangled in front of cameras. There is no way that attempting to do so would convince anyone, nor should it. The evidence will be extensively evaluated by experts and presented to judges.

It's perfectly appropriate to say the clock is ticking and this evidence needs to be correctly presented in the proper venue very quickly. Treating it like prop comedy on a talk-show set or at a press conference isn't exactly going to make it look more serious and credible.

It's possible Trump's team sincerely believes they have ironclad evidence, but it doesn't pass muster with court analysts. In other words, they're not trying to scam anyone, but they're mistaken about the value of what they have. Their reputations would survive in that case.

Every modern effort to crush free speech begins as a crusade against "disinformation." China's massive Internet censorship apparatus was initially justified as an effort to control the spread of false information, and the Chinese state still describes it that way.

Censors begin by claiming that they only want to control the spread of deliberate falsehoods and push back against propaganda campaigns. They always begin by saying their primary concern is disinformation spread by hostile foreign powers. China constantly says that to this day.

The definition of "disinformation" begins to expand as the censors seek more power. Soon they aren't just going after DELIBERATE falsehoods pushed by malevolent conspiracies - they're suppressing everything from honest mistakes to predictions and "wrong" opinions.

It soon becomes clear that the censorship rules - like all other rules in totalitarian societies - are not applied evenly. The ruling party and its friends are judged much less harshly than dissidents. They get far more latitude to make unfounded statements or outright lies.

The censors move on, suppressing not just "disinformation" or demonstrably false statements, but even completely true statements that lack some vital "context." The censors declare that even pure truth is deceptive when it's not packaged and delivered "correctly."

One problem with the GOP's inability to understand or process populism is that it gets walloped by the all-populist all-the-time Democrats. Another problem is that when Republican populists do appear, they tend to be rather unfocused and undisciplined.

Political focus and discipline are very hard to come by. It takes a huge organization that spreads across both the political and private spheres to harness popularity and convert it into effective policy action. The Left spend decades building and refining its machinery.

The Left's machine spots populist talent early and begins guiding it toward politically productive ends. Detailed plans are made to move the country toward the populist's goals across multiple election cycles. Money and media influence is lined up to achieve concrete goals.

Achievable goals are important, because without them - and a serious political/financial/media machine dedicated to achieving them - populist crusades usually end in disappointment, resentment, and unfocused anger. "What was all of this FOR?" furious or dejected supporters ask.

Many of the Left's endless populist crusades seem kooky or utterly unrealistic at first, but they've got a serious political machine that usually manages to come away with SOMETHING to show for it. If nothing else, they end up with more power they can invest later.

The liberty and mobility granted to average people by cheap gasoline and home energy is absolutely infuriating to socialist central planners. They need you people to stop moving around so much. You keep scuttling their glorious five-year plans.

Some thoughts on episode 54 of #Hercai

If you ever cross the distance and come to me, come with love that blooms in your heart.
~ Şems-i Tebrizi

#Reyyan #Miran #ReyMir #EbruŞahin #AkınAkınözü
#HercaiThoughts

1
I have to make a note before writing about this episode. I was the person (still am) who thinks that bringing back D. was a bad idea. I repeat it that for me the writing of S1 and S2 is like tossed into the bin with that plot evolution, but they had to invent something+
#Hercai

2
+ to be able to continue to prolong the general story after Aslan’s story did not work out. All the suffering of M., all the crying seems for “nothing” for two seasons and we viewers are also kind of fed up in seeing him cry all the time when with the upcoming episodes+
#Hercai

3
+he is justified the most to cry. With her resurrection now the attention shifts back to Miran’s storyline and I don’t know if I like this to be honest. This said, Dilsha is here and we have to deal with her.
#Hercai

4
So, my comments are going to be how I find they wrote her into the story, the details we get to know, the flashbacks we get to see, the way it was filmed and directed, with leaving out if I agree on it or not but describing along the way what I saw.
#Hercai

on a very basic level it is astounding to me that seemingly half the country is hooked on the adventures of The Vision & Scarlet Witch, whose last series together was a precise contemporary of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and which was quarter box fodder for decades

in hindsight, of course, the idea of framing a superhero story as a suburban dramedy seems novel and fresh to people, but that’s only because other people spent literally three and a half decades sleeping on it

now, of course, many new fans who look into the history of the matter might wonder why such a seemingly popular and fecund direction for these two characters was permanently shelved in the late 80s, what set of factors could possibly have -

they were able to put back some of what was broken - in time - but they never were able to get back to the marriage, and by the time the characters had new status quos in the early 90s the company had moved away from those kinds of genre experiments, and the rift became permanent

the Vision was a humorless drip for years, doing much the same schtick as Data during the precise years ST:TNG was airing

and as a consequence of those stories Wanda permanently became the poster child of women who cannot handle their power because of female inconstancy ...

Inequality requires narrative stabilizers. When you have too little and someone else has more than they can possibly use, simple logic dictates that you should take what they have.

1/

The forbearance exercised by the many when it comes to the wealth of the few isn't down to guards or laws - rather, the laws and the guards are effective because of the STORY, the story of why this is fair, even inevitable.

2/

Think of the story of monarchy and its relationship to the Church: the Church affirms that the monarch (and the aristocracy) was chosen by God ("dieu et mon droit") and the monarchy reciprocates by giving the Church moral and economic power within the kingdom.

3/

Capitalism replaced the story of divine will with a story of a self-correcting complex system: humans are born and raised with a variety of aptitudes and tastes, and at any moment, historical exigencies dictate that some individuals are better suited than others to do well.

4/

When it's railroad time, there are people who were born to oversee the laying of track and the coordination of rail networks: markets find those people, allocate capital to them, and allow them to mobilize that capital to produce shared prosperity for all of us.

5/

Which book took you the longest time to actually finish reading?

For me: Underworld. 17 years from buying it to actually getting around to reading it, and maybe 19 months on and off to make myself read it until the end.

Still, ticked it off the list ✔

Second place goes to The Charterhouse of Parma, which Stendhal wrote in 52 days. According to the Oxfam Books receipt I used as a bookmark I bought it on 11 April 2009. Finished it last month.

Coming Up For Air was torture. It's nature's punishment for autodidacts.

One slightly warm day and I'm all...

If tomorrow's as slightly warm as today...

And if it's not...