Avengers: Infinity War - No Spoilers

I saw it twice over the weekend. What did I think?

I thought it was amazing. The movie features around 20 superheroes and managed to balance them all pretty well. Some have complained about the lack of character arcs, but a few characters do have arcs, and those who don't have been well established over multiple movies. They don't need arcs because we know who they are and how they got here. So this is definitely a movie for people who have followed the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They also don't take a lot of time setting things up; they just launch into the action. For a two hour and forty minute movie, I thought it was incredibly well paced. I really didn't want it to end.

As has become standard for Marvel movies, there's a lot of humor, which is important to balance out  the universe-level stakes. Combining the various groups (Avengers, Guardians, outliers) was just fun.

And finally, there are quite a few surprises. The audience I saw it with on Thursday gasped, and screamed, and shouted. I had the kind of theater experience that rarely happens and which I treasure when it does.

Ben is still away at college so I texted him after he saw it and his reaction was "It was a lot to process." He's absolutely right and I am really enjoying processing it.

I can't wait to see it again.

Guns and violence

Public policy should be informed by information, research and science to come up with the most effective solutions to our problems. Obviously, there are Constitutional considerations for all policy, but without information and reason, we'll never have effective laws.

In 1997, researchers John Lott and David Mustard asserted that more guns meant less crime; it was an influential argument that likely contributed to states passing right-to-carry laws. Ever since, there’s been a debate over the effects of this legislation on violent crime.

But with an updated paper by legal scholars John Donohue and Abhay Aneja and economist Kyle Weber, there’s a new consensus: Right-to-carry laws actually increase the rate of violent crime. Ten years after a state passes a right-to-carry law, violent crime—which includes murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—will be 13 to 15 percent higher than if the state had done nothing.  (emphasis added) Link

Regardless of your political position on gun control, it's important to know the facts. And the fact seems to be that right-to-carry laws INCREASE violent crime. Once we have that fact, solutions start to suggest themselves.

If only America was lead with facts and reason.

Don't forget, Republicans are the pro-veterans party (sarcasm)

If you've been watching the unfolding drama of Trump's choice to head the Veteran's Administration, the second largest government agency, you know that there's a lot going on.

Trump's choice, Ronny Jackson, physician to the President, in addition to having no management experience, is accused of:

Writing himself prescriptions.

Not properly documenting pharmaceuticals.

Frequently being drunk while on duty.

Being abusive to underlings.

Handing out pharmaceuticals like candy.

And wrecking a government vehicle while drunk.

He was described as "the most unethical person I have ever worked with,” “toxic,” “abusive” and “incapable of not losing his temper.”  Link

He also said that Trump was not obese and in great health. ::rolleyes::

But the big takeaway from the story isn't that Ronny Jackson is completely unqualified and unsuited for the job.

The big takeaway is that he is the guy that Trump chose to take care of veterans in America.

It seems like when it came time to pick the Cabinet Secretary in charge of the care of military veterans, Trump looked around and picked the first "medical" guy he saw. Jackson doesn't seem to have been vetted at all by the White House. This is at a time of unprecedented challenges at the VA due to the huge number of veterans who need medical help after 17 years of war.

And THAT'S how much REPUBLICAN President, Donald Trump, cares about veterans.

The World in Music

This is fun.

this is what the world map sounds like on the piano😮 pic.twitter.com/eyonAOz3D9

— kara☀︎ (@karaweeks_) April 17, 2018

Infinity War

Ten years ago, the movie Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since then, the MCU has become the best franchise in modern movie history, better than Star Wars and Star Trek in terms of quality films. There are a couple of movies in the series that are merely decent, most are good to great, and some are amazing.

This week, the culmination of those ten years, Avengers: Infinity War, premiers and I couldn't be more excited to see it. I've avoided most spoilers, so I'm going in as clean as I can.

Early word is that Infinity War is really good, which should not be a surprise after Spiderman Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther.

I can't wait!

Syria

I honestly don't know if our bombing the Syrian chemical factories and storage facilities was a good idea. It's a complicated situation and while this may (or may not) discourage Syria from using chemical weapons again, it's not a fix for the terrible situation in Syria.

What I do know is this:

Ordering up a bunch of cruise missile attacks does NOT make one Presidential.

Saying "Mission Accomplished" is a stupid thing to do, especially when it's too early to know if the mission is acomplished. Remember this? Sheesh.

We don't have any strategy BEYOND this one action.

This is NOT OVER.

Also, this makes me sad:

"I just want to tell Mr. Trump directly: I'm a Syrian refugee who survived chemical weapons attacks, who lived under two years of siege and bombardment by the government," Eid said. "I would love to, like, buy you a beer, and just sit in front of you and tell you how bad it is in Syria."

Eid also said he would tell Trump, that he "proved once again, yesterday, that you have a big heart. At least a lot more bigger than Obama because you actually tried to do something. We need real, long-term commitment to bring peace to Syria." Link

If you think Trump has a "real, long-term commitment to bring peace to Syria," you are sadly, horrifically mistaken. This was almost literally the least action Trump could take and he's thinking that he won and it's over. And Obama went to Congress in 2013 to ask for authorization to use force in Syria (as obligated by the Constitution) and was denied out of spite. And then Republicans blamed him for not taking action.

Also, this:

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis: "I've never seen refugees as traumatized as coming out of Syria. It’s got to end."

Number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States:

2016: 15,479
2017: 3,024
2018: 11

— Matt Viser (@mviser) April 12, 2018

Yes, Trump really loves Syrians and clearly has the biggest heart ever.

Get to Know Me! Earliest memories

After I was born, I lived in a little house on Stevens Avenue in Elkhart, Indiana. I think my parents were renting it, but I don't know for sure. When we left, it was to live with relatives temporarily while my parents had a new house built in another part of town.

I have three memories from that house, although they may be manufactured from stories I was told about my childhood. I lived in that house until I was three, I think.

(I'm pretty sure my Mom will correct me on this and, if so, I'll edit this entry.)

Here's the house today, by the way (from Google Street View).

The earliest memory I have is walking into my parents room at night with my beloved teddy bear, Teddy. (I was really good at naming things.) I had pulled one of its eyes out and showed them, which sounds pretty gruesome now that I think about it. For the rest of the years I owned him (until my Dad made my Mom throw him out) he had only one eye. I loved that bear.

The second memory I have is a drum set I had in my closet. I remember pounding on the drums so hard that I put a drumstick through one of them.

I guess I was a pretty destructive kid.

The final memory I have is coming down some stairs in my pajamas while my parents and some friends were watching TV. I've always thought it was at the neighbor's house who lived behind us, but I don't think that's right; it was likely our house. This would have been around 1967, so I like to think they were watching Star Trek, but that's also pretty far-fetched.

I do know that I had a beloved Batman costume as I have a picture of myself sitting on that porch wearing it. But I don't remember that.

As I said, they all may be false memories, but they're in my mind, so they may as well be real.

Edited to add: My Mom says they owned the house, buying it for $10,000.

Do you kiss Trump's ass with that mouth?

Wow. This is from a REPUBLICAN Congressman talking to conservative blogger Eric Erickson.  Link

"I read you writing about this, about wanting to say nice things when you can and criticize when you need to. He may be an idiot, but he's still the President and leader of my party and he is capable of doing some things right," he says before conceding it's usually other people doing the right things in the President's name. "But dammit he's taking us all down with him. We are well and truly f**ked in November. Kevin [McCarthy] is already circling like a green fly circling sh*t trying to take Paul's [Ryan] job because nobody thinks he's sticking around for Nancy [Pelosi]. She's going to f**k up the cafeteria again too. [Lord's name in vain], at least I'll probably lose too and won't have to put up with that sh*t." He won't lose. His district is very Republican.

"It's like Forrest Gump won the presidency, but an evil, really f*cking stupid Forrest Gump. He can't help himself. He's just a f**king idiot who thinks he's winning when people are b*tching about him. He really does see the world as ratings and attention. I hate Forrest Gump. I listen to your podcast and heard you hate it too. What an overrated piece of sh*t movie. Can you believe it beat the Shawshank Redemption?"

"I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherf*cker would just go away. We're going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn't led. He wakes up in the morning, sh*ts all over Twitter, sh*ts all over us, sh*ts all over his staff, then hits golf balls. F*ck him. Of course, I can't say that in public or I'd get run out of town."

"Judiciary is stacked with a bunch of people who can win re-election so long as they don't piss off Trump voters in the primary. But if we get to summer and most of the primaries are over, they just might pull the trigger if the President fires Mueller. The sh*t will hit the fan if that happens and I'd vote to impeach him myself. Most of us would, I think. Hell, all the Democrats would and you only need a majority in the House. If we're going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherf**ker. 

Of course, it's too much for this anonymous Republican to actually put country before party and stand up to Trump. Because Republicans are all Trump now.

Still.  Ouch.

It's time for Scott Pruitt to go

To be fair, it was never time for Scott Pruitt to come.

Scott Pruitt is the current "head" of the EPA, one of the worst of Trump's cabinet members (that's saying something), and one of the many trying to destroy his own agency. Pruitt is in a league of his own, however, for paranoia and corruption.

Keep in mind the list of Trump administration members who have quit or been fired for far less serious (but still serious) malfeasance.

David Shulkin - Veterans Administration
H.R. McMaster - National Security Adviser
Rex Tillerson - Secretary of State
Gary Cohn - Director of the National Economic Council and chief economic adviser
Tom Price - Secretary of Health and Human Services
Reince Priebus - WH Chief of Staff
Mike Flynn - National Security Adviser

This is just a partial list. And all left under a cloud.

So what's Scott Pruitt done?

Again, this is a partial list. 

Pruitt spent more than six months living in the townhouse of a fossil fuels lobbyist, getting complete run of a swanky townhouse for himself and guests for $50 a night — a fraction of the real value. And he didn’t even pay for the room when he was out of town.

The lobbyist who owned the townhouse had a client with a oil pipeline that needed EPA approval. Pruitt told the State Department the EPA had no issues — even though the pipeline had already generated the most damaging spill since BP’s Deepwater Horizon.

The townhouse wasn’t just a place where Pruitt could hobnob with lobbyists without it appearing on his calendar, it was also a place where lobbyists could host fundraisers for GOP congressmen. Pruitt won’t admit to being there … but he was there. That is on his calendar.

Pruitt gave enormous raises to his favorite aides — raises that violate federal law. He even gave out a raise as a favor to an EPA official who took time away from official duties to help Pruitt locate a cheap place to live.

Pruitt took his top aides on a four-day vacation to Morocco, during which Pruitt made a speech promoting fracking for natural gas. Neither the trip nor Pruitt’s speech had anything to do with the mission of the EPA.

Pruitt spent $120,000 on a single trip to Rome that included a private tour of the Vatican. More than $30,000 of that was flying around Pruitt’s private security detail. That’s on top of $36,000 Pruitt spent commandeering a military aircraft simply to take him to the New York airport to catch his Italy flight.

Pruitt had a sound-proof booth constructed in his office at a cost of $25,000 — even though there was already a sound-proof booth in the EPA building.

Pruitt was so convinced that someone was tapping his phone lines, that he frequently leaves his office and takes over the phone of another EPA staffer to throw whoever he believes is listening in off the scent. He has also had his office swept for listening devices. Twice. They found nothing.

Pruitt mandates that not only can no one bring a phone or other device to meetings, no one is allowed to take notes at meetings. Because that way, no one can prove what was said.

Link to Daily Kos. There are a bunch more.

People have been forced out of this Administration (again, rightly so) for far less.

GET RID OF PRUITT NOW

And serendipitously, it will stop this bastard from trashing the environment. Because he's a terrible asshole who is wholly owned by oil and gas interests.

Believe

This is brilliant. And true. And completely relevant. And you should click through and read the whole thing.

(Mom instructions: Click on the big black box to go to a new web page. Once it loads, scroll down the page to read. You're welcome.)