It's Mueller Time

Another week, another rash of stories in which politicians, particularly American politicians, are brazenly and unabashedly illustrating their continued assault on democracy.

As you might expect, it's Meuller time! What TF happened there? Sometime about a month ago when I heard he was now looking into possible Russian leverage on Trump through his inexplicably obtained loan from Deutchebank, I knew things had taken a turn for the worse. Either somebody had gotten to him or he'd given up. August 12, 2017 I posted this. These are the things I was thinking about almost 7 months ago. Including this Deutchebank story. (not to mention Venezuela!)

I sometimes predict things in this blog that don't happen (or at least haven't happened yet) but I like having some things on record here for the "I-told-ya-so" effect. On this occasion I just didn't feel any thrill. What I felt was outrage. It instantly occurred to me that Meuller was done. Not just done, but after two long years, his report was going to be a huge disappointment. A few people cajoled me and said to be patient, he's a good man and all that, but I saw the dump truck in the sky. And sure enough about a month later he DOESN'T release his report, he gives it to the absolute LAST person he should give it to and says, "Here ya go, William Barr. YOU tell the world what's in my report." What the fucking frigging fornicating FUCK?!?!

Here's what I wrote back then based on something someone else had written well before then: "How much of a stretch is it to imagine Vlad seeing Trump holding out his small hand for a loan and thinking, "He's not gonna pay this back, but if we could make him president and have him in our debt... hmmmmmm..." I've heard unconfirmed estimates that Trump, through Deutschebank, borrowed 4 billion from Vlad the Enabler. Or one of the various banks and businesses he rules with an iron fist. With what we know about Humpty Trumpty, when he falls off his little wall and all of his shady dealings are exposed and he finally gets the real estate he has earned, (a jail cell), he'll be yelling through the bars, "I'm a great man! You can't put me in here! I wasn't afraid of the banks! Fuck them! I wasn't even afraid of Vladimir Putin! You think I'm afraid of jail time?""

Back then I still believed his shady dealings would be exposed. But a month ago, the idea that I could be THAT far ahead of the Meuller investigation made me realize it would soon be over and it wasn't going to be a success. If he's just now looking into this issue it had to be a last straw. And it appears that it was.

But why did he give his report to this William Barr character and who is he? I believe the answer to both questions is the same. Let's do some history: First of all, why did Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions recuse himself from the whole Russian collusion investigation? The rule that Sessions cited — 28 CFR 45.2— states that DOJ employees may not "participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution, or who would be directly affected by the outcome." This is one of those little rules that guilty people add to political protocol that allow other guilty people to get away with what they're guilty of. That's all. "You can't add your guilty testimony that will make the investigation a slam dunk to the investigation because it will make it a slam dunk and you will be found guilty." That's 28 CFR 45.2 without the legal ambiguity. This and many other little gems like it are the very fucking core of modern politics because banks and big business need dirty people to protect their dirty business.

Anyway, Sessions had had two conversations with Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, denied having had dealings with the Russians before being sworn in as attorney general, then after the truth was revealed, assured us all that they weren't talking about anything naughty. And why wouldn't we believe him? Well, because (as a possible audition for the position) he was lying. Now let's not forget, let's not fucking forget, that this doctor of douchebaggery fired James Comey, the FBI director who was the first to start investigating Donald Trump's collusion with Russia to fix the 2016 election. What's that called, children? That's right! Repeat after me: "obstruction of justice." Goood!

I'm getting ahead of myself. So the Mueller investigation started in response to the firing of James Comey because it was obvious that Trump didn't want anyone investigating his collusion with the Russians. Once again, he wanted to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE. He didn't want anyone finding out about his withdrawals from the Bank of Putin. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Then after Sessions recused himself, making it impossible for him to fire the NEW investigator into Trump's Russian collusion, he was, for that reason, bullied and belittled into resignation. Well good riddance on the one hand but on the other hand, who was his replacement? Matt Whitaker. And why? Give THIS a gander:

I like the word that one guy uses: preposterous. But par for the course (sorry bad Trump pun) for the anti-democracy Trump administration. Whitaker was a Trump flunkey and Trump loved his plan to starve the Mueller investigation of funding. So welcome to the team new attorney general and hot tub scamster! You're just the kind of guy Trump is looking for! A guy who (and I'm not sure this is true but it's out there) once promoted toilets that are deeper so as to allow well-endowed men to take a leak without their penis touching the water or porcelain. Not sure how much this contributed to the Trump/Whitaker bromance but... moving on...

And in keeping with bromance, I guess Whitaker fell out of favour with Trump for not being able to halt the Mueller investigation or for some other gross overestimations. This guy's name is very close to "Whanker."

But on February 14th, Valentine's Day 2019, William Barr was appointed as Trump's newest sellsword to triumphantly behead the Mueller monster that was threatening the kingdom. Why did he get the appointment? Well it probably had something to do with his 19-page article about how Mueller has no right to investigate Trump, or how Barr worded it, "submit the president to interrogation," on Russian collusion. Folks, I read this thing and there is a lot of legal jargon that would impress some weak-minded people, but there are also grammar mistakes in practically every paragraph. This guy is citing laws like he understands them but clearly exhibits difficulty with the language in which they are printed. In paragraph 4 he says "designed subvert" instead of designed to subvert then goes on to explain (rather coherently) how obstruction laws are designed to prohibit "bad acts." Acts like witness/jury tampering, destruction/alteration/falsification of evidence, or anything depriving the proceeding of honesty.

He goes on to say that unlike Clinton and Nixon, Trump's actions cannot be defined as obstruction of justice. He then contradicts paragraph 4 a mere 3 paragraphs later with the following flimsy reasoning: He says that public officials exercising constitutional (that's debatable) discretionary powers in a lawful way, like removing an official (James Comey), giving direction on a case (like suggesting the Mueller investigation be cancelled), or using pardoning power (which Trump suggested he may use for Michael Flynn), is NOT obstruction of justice and the perception of this as a crime means the president can be accused of a breaking the law based on a subjective reading of his state of mind.

Presumably because of their positions as public officials and some perceived constitutional endowment of super-human morality, William Barr is suggesting that determination of public officials' actions such as the above as "bad actions" is too subjective to allow even though it is, as he admitted, what obstruction laws are designed to do. Did Trump fire James Comey because he was investigating Russian collusion? According to Bill Barr, why, that's just too subjective a call for normal human beings like us to make about a president. Even though he admits it, and even though it absolutely would be depriving the proceeding of honesty. You can't really have an honest investigation if you fire the investigator. I don't see any subjectivity in that call. The exact same can be said of cancelling or starving the Mueller investigation of funds. Obviously, and totally objectively "bad acts."

So just like the little rule of law Jeff Sessions used to recuse himself lest his guilt cause him to be found guilty, Bill Barr is promoting the exact same defence for Donald Trump in his 19-page manifesto. And this is what got him hired. This and his past performance of keeping bad people committing "bad acts" out of prison that goes way back to the Reagan administration and the Iran/Nicaragua/Contra scandal. He was in on the George Dubyuh Iraq WMD debacle too.

So now you get an idea of why it might not be the smartest thing to trust this wizard of wankery's summary of the almost two year investigation that Mueller compiled. And where these came from:

However! Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters have been probing this whole Deutsche Bank thing and they are convinced of collusion and obstruction of justice. I submit to you they exist, it's just decades of these little legal rules that are designed to allow the guilty freedom from prosecution for their crimes that are hampering the whole investigation. Here's a guy who basically says that:

And now, guess what? ADAM SCHIFF NEEDS TO BE FIRED! How long before reasonable doubt is gone? It's no longer there. People just want it to be. Bad people. Who do bad acts.

But wait, that's not all! What about THIS douchebag?

I specifically chose a pic that has the stupidest thing in all of politics: the presumption of honourability amongst our thieving politicians. The only honour amongst these thieves is right there. That antiquated thoroughly unwarranted and I'm going to use that great word again, preposterous title these people get when they cheat, lie and steal their ways to the top of the political food chain.

This abortive rooting hog? All she did this week was take funding away from blind kids, deaf kids and the Special Olympics. "We had to make some HAAARD choices," said this lump of foul deformity. Only thing hard is your heart Betsy. If you were the philanthropist you pretend to be, you'd cover the cuts you claim were so hard to make. You can easily afford it.

But her mission (from God?) is to separate the highly fed and lowly taught from the refuse of society. And they ARE lowly taught because private schools suck. In fact they lead directly to the presence of rich people who don't understand, trust, or tolerate regular people in positions of power and leadership in politics and industry. And this whole post is the tangled web of deceit they weave.

Chinese Cheese

I reckon I should follow my music post with a movie post. But, as always at this time of year, I'm a bit peeved at the motion picture academy for stiffing my favourites at the Oscars. I liked "Green Book" but both "A Star is Born" and "Vice" were better in my humble opinion. But maybe therein lies the rub. My opinion of movies may just be too humble. So it will likely be movies with which you are unfamiliar of which I write today. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your personality. And I do not write for the average reader. My ideal reader is one who is daring, adventurous and unafraid to expose him/herself to an unknown movie, song, or conspiracy theory from time to time. So strap yourself in. If you have the time, this may send you on a lengthy Youtube binge or even a hunt for some obscure titles to illegally download and watch. If so, I will consider this post a success.

As a university-going young man in Thunder Bay, Ontario back in the late 80's and early 90's, I remember looking forward to late, late Tuesday night TBT (Thunder Bay Television) programming for two reasons: Benny Hill and Kung Fu Theatre. I still can't tell you which I liked better, the naughty (for his time, BAWDY) antics of the great English comic that ranged from clever witticism to cheap sideboob shots and slapstick, or the very same story re-told by a thousand Chinese filmmakers of a young boy losing his family to an evil villain, vowing revenge and dedicating his life to it and at the 2-hour point of the movie dramatically succeeding. Probably the latter for the simple reason that it was thoroughly unintentional comedy.

I was a young and virile man. Staying up till 2 AM hoping to catch a glimpse of one of Benny's Beauties' boobs was well worth a bleary-eyed 8:30 AM class the next morning. But it wasn't just that. He was always funny and sometimes (dare I say it?) ingenious especially with his songs, rhymes and acrobatic manipulation of the English language... if the acrobat were a busty, young tart in T-bar and pasties. One of my favourite sketches was the one where he substituted the "S" with the sound of "F," which was the way the old "S" looked on a very old typewriter. I've searched high and low for that one but can't find it. However, it was a common theme on the benny hill show. There's one poem written on a typewriter without an "H" and here's one with the "P" and "F" substituted. It's so pucking punny I nearly feed my fants when I heard it!

However, there's nothing quite as funny as something that is absolutely hilarious while trying to be serious. The entire canon of Kung Fu Theatre must have boasted over a thousand titles and even at that I defy you to find two movies that don't have at least ONE of the same actors. Many have almost ALL the same actors. And I use that term loosely... OVERactors might be more accurate. Like the plots and the performers, the settings rarely changed. There was always some connection to the heroic Shao Ling Temple. Even the sound effects. All exactly the same. The punches, kicks and especially the falls. The falling sound was the one from the Pink Panther cartoons. Check it out! See if I'm wrong! The super-heroic fighting scenes with ordinary people catching arrows and swords, flying through trees, leaping over buildings, I honestly am not so sure even THESE were not meant to be taken literally! And the dialogue, while it may well have been Shakespearian in Chinese, it was uproariously simple, full of amateurish profanity, grunts, unconvincing laughter... well there's nothing worse than analyzing comedy, why don't I show you? See if you can make it through this clip without laughing.

And in French? LMAO! Oui, oui!

Those were the days, eh? But Benny Hill is no longer with us. As for the movies in China, well up until very recently, they were just as crappy in my opinion. "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" was nominated for 10 Oscars and won a bunch but the plot was identical and you still had the super-heroic flying through trees. The actors were slightly better and the dialogue had improved, but this seemed a little too much attention for a movie that was pure cheese. I think maybe the Academy saw its shot to seem inclusive of Asian movies. "Damn you! Your crouching tiger is superior to my white crane kung fu. And your enchanted sword must have been forged from pure Shao Ling steel! Bastard! I am defeated! ha ha ha ha ha..." Thank goodness for "Gladiator" or it would have won more awards!

However, it's been almost 20 years and even Xi Jin Ping has gotten behind the motion picture industry in China. Surely they've come up with better movies by now! 2017's "Wolf Warrior II" is the highest grossing movie in Chinese box office history. Let's see how the Chinese movie has evolved. Here's a plot summary of their best movie:

After the events of Wolf Warrior, Leng Feng and members of his special-ops team bring his comrade's remains back to his home town and his comrade's family for his funeral, only to see it on the verge of being torn down completely. A real estate company is pulling down his house and that of his comrade's family during the funeral. The boss of the real estate company confronts them with a gun and sneers at them for presenting the remains to the family, only for the boss to be kicked to the ground. The boss calls on his henchmen to attack them but they are all swiftly disabled by Feng and the other soldiers. Police arrive shortly after and ask Leng Feng to put down the gun he confiscated from the boss. The boss gets back up and boasts that he will "make the family wish they were dead", enraging Feng to a point that he kicks the boss in the stomach, sending him crashing onto the windshield of a police car and killing him. Leng Feng is sent to a military prison for two years and discharged from the Chinese army.

After release from prison, Feng leaves for Africa, planning to wander for the rest of his life. While serving as a mercenary providing security on a freighter delivering relief supplies to Africa, he foils an attempted hijacking by Somalian pirates by defeating them in hand-to-hand combat underwater. The freighter arrives safely at its destination. For three years Feng has been carrying a bullet which he found, a clue to the kidnapping of his fiancée, Lieutenant Colonel Long Xiaoyun, that happened while she was on a mission.

Feng and some locals are partying on a beach one day when they are attacked by rebel forces aiming to overthrow the government of the African nation. Shortly after the arrival of the Rebels and mercenaries who overrun the government troops, the Chinese fleet arrives to evacuate Chinese nationals caught up in the civil war. While on board, a Chinese shop owner that he helped rescue tells him that the bullet he is carrying belongs to European mercenaries who are helping the rebels. After overhearing guards talking about needing someone to rescue workers at a factory and a VIP, Dr. Chen, who is developing the vaccine for Lamanla, a deadly endemic disease, Leng Feng volunteers. However, he is on his own as no other personnel can follow him while they are on foreign soil without permission from the Chinese military's higher authorities. He travels to the hospital, 60 kilometres away from the dock and enters the hospital building just as Dr Chen is accidentally killed by the mercenaries led by Big Daddy, a ruthless American warrior. With his dying breaths Dr Chen tells him to take his daughter, an African girl named Pasha. Leng Feng and Pasha, along with a female volunteer doctor Rachel Smith, escape the grip of the mercenaries. While escaping, he cuts his hand in a pile of Lamanla infected bodies but shakes it off and moves on. They continue their mission of saving Chinese as Leng Feng also goes to save his godson’s mother, who's working in the Hanbound factory.

Upon arriving at the Hanbound factory, Feng is confronted by security and the factory's owner's son, Zhou Yifan, a cocky fuerdai who is also an army fanatic. Big Daddy's mercenaries attack the factory to capture Pasha, thinking she is the one who has the cure for Lamanla. At the factory, Feng tells everyone that the Chinese fleet will be sending a helicopter to rescue them. The women and children will evacuate via helicopter and everyone else will walk to the fleet. Feng with his old pal and Yifan saved the factory crew members from the red scarf members and deadly mercenaries. Feng is about to be overrun when Big Daddy, the other mercenaries and rebels are ordered to fall back. The leader tells Big Daddy that no Chinese can die because he needs China when he is in power, since China is part of the United Nations Security Council. Big Daddy kills the leader of the rebellion and takes over as leader. He orders everyone to go back to the factory to retrieve Pasha and kill Feng. In the factory, Feng chooses to leave as the factory workers learn of his infection with Lamanla. He is injected with a serum for the virus and learns from Rachel that Dr Chen has manufactured a cure using infected patients that survived and developed immunity, and Pasha, who is in fact one of Dr. Chen’s patient rather than his daughter, is the only subject carrying the immunity.

Big Daddy and the others arrive at the factory to capture Pasha and kill Feng. They round up the workers and wait for the Chinese helicopter to arrive. Feng arrives with Rachel and Pasha to rescue everyone trapped in the factory. The workers are saved and the helicopter arrives. Pasha and Rachel leave via helicopter, but it is shot down. The battle continues with everyone taking cover. Seeing the massive casualties taking place, the Chinese fleet fire missiles taking out the tanks. Meanwhile, in the battle while confronting Big Daddy, Feng learns that the bullet which killed his fiancée belonged to Big Daddy and, driven by rage over his fiancée's death, kills Big Daddy and saves all the crew members by taking them to UN camps.

So no change. I am sure this movie is an unintentional comedy. I haven't yet seen it, but I found it on YouTube. It might not have English dubbing or subtitles though. Rats! This would be hilarious with some bad dubbing I'm sure! What I think I'd find even more comical is what many critics, including the Chinese, are calling, "muscular nationalism," and other similar terms. Because the Chinese government exerts its control on movies (along with everything else) there has to be an element of propaganda in the films and it's laid on quite thick in this movie according to the reviews I've read. Now, it's not very different from the steady diet of "only-America-can-save-the-world" movies Hollywood has provided for years. Just cornier. So I'm guessing it'll be Kung Fu Theatre of the new millennium.

But now that I've ripped on one of the modern Chinese movies you may actually get an opportunity to see, I have to say I am intrigued by another. Here's a synopsis of the movie that includes references to some other movies you might want to check out. The movie is called, "The Wandering Earth," and it's a film adaptation of the Chinese Sci-Fi author, Liu Cixin's book by the same name. THIS guy is interesting! I think I'm going to have to go out and get "The Three-Body Problem," another of his books that is slated to be made into a movie soon.

The story of "The Wandering Earth" still includes a lot of "only-China-can-save-the-world," but it sounds like it might not be the same old Chinese movie! Hooray! In case you didn't click the link, it's about Chinese scientists in the year 2070 I think, with some help from other countries' scientists (but not America's in case you were wondering) figuring out how to build giant engines that propel the earth away from the burning out sun, out of the gravitational pull of Jupiter and into a safe, new solar system. I read that in the book (but not the movie) the absence of the U.S. is explained. You see, they had a private plan to build space ships and bring people to another planet but, as you might expect (and what would undoubtedly happen in America (and if we're being honest, in China too, just not in a government sanctioned book or movie)) only the rich were allowed to go. And this created well deserved chaos in the U.S. China, on the other hand, being the righteous country it is, chose to use its superior technology and minds to help save EVERYBODY. Yes, there's a chance that this schlocky storyline might be just as hilarious as the director's "English" name, Frant Gwo, which isn't even as good as "Big Daddy," the villain's name from Wolf Warrior II. On the other hand, I'm going to give it a try. I'll be as objective as possible, but if I laugh, I laugh. I still think it'll be good entertainment.


Epilogue: After writing this post I found Wolf Warrior II on YouTube with English subtitles and was able to make it all the way through. WOW! Just WOW! Possibly the worst movie I've ever watched. So bad it WAS funny. It was not just hooray for China (and they really DID bludgeon you with THAT blunt instrument right up to the superhero strapping the flag to his injured arm and driving into an African war zone where the Chinese are welcomed as friends, not fired upon) but it was a political and economic "Choo Choo Choose Me" to Africa from China. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that EVERY country is falling all over each other to court Africa, who are predicted to be the next China as far as economic booms. It has even been called, "China's China." Totally shameless! But good for a laugh for sure! And they made it obvious at the end that there is going to be a Wolf Warrior III too! Can't wait!

I'll Never Remember You This Way

Just a light blog post this time with a few of my latest musings. I've been singing songs from the soundtrack of "A Star is Born" non stop lately and think it might be the first album/tape/CD I'd buy, if I had the technology to play it, in about 15 years! I'm not kidding! After spending every spare dollar on music, (and recording off the radio all I could), for most of my youth, I haven't been interested enough in music for the past two decades to really purchase any of it. But recently I've been making compilations in my head. Some I'm sure are not original. But who knows? Maybe I'll inspire someone to create them. Like, wouldn't it be great to make an album of all the great songs made by people who are actors PLAYING musicians in movies? This compilation was inspired by the recent version of "A Star is Born," although I might include Barbara Streisand's song from her version of the movie, "Evergreen," and if you actually watch that movie, there are a some spectacular lyrics to her songs. I have to say her voice makes those songs a bit better than they actually are, but the lyrics alone, without tune, I find a lot more powerful.

I was warned as a child of thirteen
Not to act too strong
Try to look like you belong but don't push girl
Save your time and trouble
Don't misbehave
I was raised in a "no you don't world"
Overrun with rules
Memorize your lines and move as directed
That's an age old story
Everybody knows that's a worn out song
But you and I are changing that tune
We're learning new rhythms from the woman
I said the woman in the moon
Little sister, little brother
Keep on pushin'
Don't believe a word about
Things you heard about
Askin' too much too soon

'cause they can hold back the tide
But they can never hold the woman in the moon
I believe there's a best of both worlds
Mixing old and new
Recognizing change is seldom expected
As I long suspected
They believed that strange was a word for wrong
Well not in my song
'cause you, you and I are changing that tune
We're learning new rhythms from that woman in the moon
Little sister, little brother
Keep on pushin'
Don't believe a word about
Things you heard about
Askin' too much too soon
'cause they can hold back the tide
But they can never hold the woman
I said the woman in the moon

But then, is she a musician acting, an actor musicianing, or what? I'm not gonna make that call. Not qualified.

But back to the OTHER version of the movie, the latest one, that has about 5 songs I'd put on my album, we all know "Shallow," and people fell silent and left theatres all over the world sloppy with tears after "I'll Never Love Again," but my personal favourite from the movie is what I will force you to watch and listen to now: "I'll Always Remember Us This Way."

I love that! But then again, you can't beat the lyrics to the Bradley Cooper song we never get to hear all the way through. It's called "Maybe It's Time." And just soak up these lyrics!

Maybe it's time to let the old ways die
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die

Nobody knows what awaits for the dead
Nobody knows what awaits for the dead
Some folks just believe in the things they've heard
And the things they read
Nobody knows what awaits for the dead

I'm glad I can't go back to where I came from
I'm glad those days are gone, gone for good
But if I could take spirits from my past and bring' 'em here
You know I would, you know I would

Nobody speaks to God these days
Nobody speaks to God these days
I'd like to think he's looking down and laughing at our ways
Nobody speaks to God these days

When I was a child they tried to fool me
Said the…

When I was a child they tried to fool me
Said the worldly man was lost and that the hell was real
Well, I've seen hell in Reno
And this world's one big ol' Catherine wheel
Spinnin' still

Maybe it's time to let the old ways die
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change your plans
Hella drain to change your mind
Maybe it's time to let the old ways die
Oh, maybe it's time to let the old ways die

God is looking down and laughing at our ways. Yeah while he gets a big ball of clay ready to start all over again. That's brilliant! A Catherine wheel, I've heard, is a torture device for breaking the victim's bones one at a time very painfully. Well, like the word, "torture" would imply. And I can't tell you how many times I've doubted Hell and thought that this is it and Heaven must be death, our euthanasia.

Another good one, or in keeping with our genre, "good 'un" would be "Fallin' and Flyin'" from the soundtrack of  "Crazy Heart." It IS funny how fallin' feels like flyin' for a little while. I reckon old Trump will underconstubulate shortly!

I'd include a few from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" like Tim Curry singing "Sweet Transvestite," and, of course, "Time Warp." It's astounding!

I'm going to exclude Prince and "Purple Rain" cuz it would just clog up the album. There are WAY too many! And Prince was NO actor! He cheated. So did David Bowie in all his singing parts. They were excellent, of course, but what'd you expect?

Probably Kate Winslet "What if?" from the "Christmas Carol" soundtrack. She's got the best rack, the best sense of humour, the best voice, it's just not fair to the rest of womankind!

Definitely the highlight of the unpopular movie, "The Cable Guy" was Jim Carrey singing the Jefferson Airplane!

Maybe one from Joaquin and Reese as Johnny and June Carter Cash...

Nick Cage? Okay, maybe not. But honourable mention for impersonating Elvis in "Wild at Heart."

I think I'd pretty much reserve the entire B side for Jaimie Foxx doing all his Ray Charles songs! Loved Ray Charles and loved JF in that movie! Nuff said. Moving on...

Maybe Hugh Laurie, (House), singing "Minnie the Moocher," or something like that. He's GOOD!

Definitely Bruce Willis if not for his singing at least for his harp playin'!

"Man of Constant Sorrow" by the Soggy Bottom Boys is a must!

You know who else is good? Cedric Diggery! Okay, most of you losers know him from his Twilight fame, but I'm so sick of vampire crap! This guy's voice though! He's like an old guy with the blues in a young man's body! Check HIM out! Plays about 100 instruments too!

Kevin Spacey can sing almost as well as he can do impressions. If you haven't seen him do either, you're missing out! I'd just lob him requests from my catalogue of faves and see which one he does the best. Then I'd put it on the album.

I'm gonna put Jack Black in here and I'm sure that won't surprise you but it won't be for a song he sings. It'll be for his NON-singing performance of Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine." That was from the movie, "High Fidelity." Also catch his rendition of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" in that same flick.

I think I put a Susan Sarandon (don't forget she was in Rocky Horror too) song on the album but I'm sure this is now a double album.

But okay, you've lasted this long, how about one out of left field? Someone you'd never expect. Someone you've probably heard of, (oh I think so), but would grab the mike out of his hand if he got on the stage for a relative's birthday Karaoke party. Oh yeah, brace yourselves. Jackie Chan was educated at the Peking (that's modern day Beijing) Opera School, and has released TWENTY successful albums! The things you learn when you live in China for a while!

No, I was just kidding. He's the last person I'd put on this list. Can't carry a tune in a bucket.

Ancient Chinese secret! And imagine how many times he's been Kung Fu chopped in the vocal chords! RESPECT!

I am sure I've forgotten a few so I'll leave space at the bottom of this post. But it's quite a list, no? Please comment if you feel I need to add to it.

2030 Vision

It's been a long week, but I've been formulating something new in my head. The various components aren't new but they're fitting together into something new and actually positive. I mean ACTUAL positive, not the kind of faux positive I've talked about here before. (see past post called "Living Life to Its Least). To give an example of the mental defense mechanisms many of us have developed to fake ourselves into believing we're positive, here's the kind of settling I see Americans doing all the time: How many, and I include myself in this, saw the photo or vid of Trump hugging the American flag and thought, "Well AT LEAST he didn't grab it by the pussy."

We know Trump doesn't care about the majority of Americans. He can't even come close to relating to them. And the majority of the people who are attracted by positions of leadership are from the clueless class. To give a great example:

Those audience members only got to come back for Ellen's 12 Days of Giveaways shows because Ellen is nice, she's a real person who did not grow up rich and she probably doesn't want to be president. Why not? I mean seriously! Can you think of a president who would be better? If Gates were left to his own unbelievable grocery obliviousness, those audience members woulda got jack-o-diddly! They are lucky Ellen has a spirit of giving. Where'd she get that? From growing up broke. People who grow up rich are separated from regular people their whole lives and are socialized to think of them as inferior. Other than a little noblesse oblige here and there, all us regular folk experience from the rich is a spirit of taking. That's how they get rich. We are customers to them. Consumers. Chattel for their businesses. And we are kept well beyond arms length so they think nothing of screwing us over for an extra buck because they don't know us.

Now you might be saying, "Hold on there Dave, Bill Gates gives more to charity than anybody!" I'm not going to say that's all his wife Melinda, but it could be. Actually, I think Bill might be starting to enjoy the feeling he gets from sharing his wealth. And good for him! But even his billions in philanthropy aren't really coming close to what he should be paying in taxes. But not to belittle the wonderful wave of rich people becoming charitable, here's a list of pretty good  American billionaires. They're out there. I mean, they didn't have to give ANYthing. So, kudos to them! Really! But again, if things were the way they should be, if we had Ellen as POTUS, not Whacka-cheese-doodle Trump, these guys would all be paying their fair shares of taxes and wouldn't NEED to be charitable. Also, their taxes would go to a fairly transparent, regulated, non-corrupt government that would spend them properly.

SIGH! Seems like a dream, doesn't it? If this were the case, even Joe Wallmart worker would own his house that has a two-car garage and a swimming pool. This isn't as big a pipedream as some people would have you believe. The people who would have us believe this ARE the people in charge of most countries, banks and businesses in the world today. Most, but not all. There are some places where they do things right. And if we don't hurry up and follow their leads, we're all going to be swamped by the age of automation. It's coming folks, and countries like Canada, the U.S., China, and many others, are being run by small groups of people who want to force automation onto the public without paying us for it.

That's a bit of a confusing statement so let me cite a couple of things I've found in my research that help explain it. Some I've taught of and blogged about before, but some I haven't. In 2013 Oxford University did a study that published the scary statement that 47% of all U.S. jobs are at risk of automation. They studied 702 occupations, what they reckon worked out to about 97% of all jobs in the U.S., and found that the jobs most at risk were repetitive, low skill, replicatable through machine learning. A LOT of the jobs we're focusing on with the new and crappy math/science-heavy education systems in North America. The jobs that are safest? The ones that require creativity and social intelligence. Now I bet you wish you didn't allow your kids' schools to eliminate art, P.E., literature, music and languages, don't you? I remember when this disastrous trend began in Canada and I really hated it. Do you think this was done innocently? I'll come back to that.

Certainly there will be new jobs that take the place of old jobs. Remember when bank machines came out? People thought they stole tellers' jobs. Actually tellers just expanded their duties. (I still don't think we should have to pay to use them though!) This will happen for some. And others will need to retrain. But it's gonna suck for a 40-year-old truck driver being replaced by a self-driving vehicle to go back to school and become a social worker. Especially with the present state of education nowadays in which schools, like governments, are run like corporations and care less about good education than money.

I know this is still sounding really negative, but hang in there. Here comes the hope. Sorta... In 1930, John Maynard Keynes, maybe the best known economist ever, wrote a letter to the people of 2030 that he called his grandchildren. In it he predicted (in the midst of the depression!) an economic output of 8 times what there was in 1930. While that has proven to be very likely (we're over half way there already) he also, naturally, assumed we'd all be rich. Also, and this is the huge snag in his fortune telling, Keynes figured people would be down to about a 15-hour week. Yeah. While still rich. And producing way more. Old Keynes made one massive error in expecting humanity to follow the social path of working together in brotherhood and recognizing the greed for money as what it is: a "disgusting morbidity." He didn't think chrematistics would dominate world commerce. He foresaw capitalism as an ugly, temporary, but necessary stage in human development in which a generation or two work hard to make an easier future for our kids. By now we should be concentrating our time and efforts on more noble pursuits in the development of humanity. And we could be. SHOULD be! If not for just a few people.

Whether you agree with me and Keynesy or not, and whether you agree with that Oxford study or not, automation is coming and it's going to be a very, very, very, very hard thing to ask our employers if they would kindly give us more money for working fewer hours in exchange for this automation. But that is exactly what needs to happen. The days of increasing wealth and working our arses off are over! We've EARNED automation! It really should not be something to fear, rather, it would be welcomed in a proper society. But our societies teach us that robots are stealing our jobs. I don't like using the damn self-checkout at the grocery store or the friggin' slow, malfunctioning automated order boards at fast food restaurants. I honestly want to rip them all out of the floor and run them over with a truck. And we all really should think that way because Safeway, McDonald's, Burger King, THEY didn't buy those things, WE did. If they want our permission to use the automation, they need to pay us more and lower our workweeks.

Remember when Trump promised millions in tax credits to the Carrier company and promised new jobs? Then they just screwed the workers, cut jobs and bought machines to replace them? This sort of shit happens ALL THE TIME! So instead of giving us easier lives in which we will have the time to spend our wealth, machines will make it harder to find work and people will actually become LESS wealthy. Because of the unsustainability of capitalist greed as a way of life.

But, okay, let's finally get to the good part. I promised positivity and I will deliver. There really IS a way to get the social development that we need to happen concurrently with automation. And it doesn't require violent protests, strikes, or even government overhauls, though we might see them. As mentioned, there ARE some countries already preparing for automation. They're making their 2030's brighter than Canada or the U.S. will experience. And they're starting with (well DUH) education.

I have difficulty watching this next video without shedding a tear. It's like paradise right here on earth! Where is it? Finland!

 

 

Here's a link just in case.

It's the longest video I've tried to put on this blog before so it might not work, but it describes how Finland has cut the average school time for kids to a few hours a day. Some days they don't go at all. And they study useful things. They have fun. The best part and the very first step every country needs to take is Finland has no private schools. They're illegal. This way rich kids go to the same schools as poor kids. Although there are no "poor" kids, just kids who are not as rich. Rich families want their kids to get the best education like every country in the world, so the rich families make sure the public schools are the best. Financing is not a problem. Finnish kids have almost no homework and more time after school to develop socially. With their friends. Friends from school. Rich and not as rich kids become friends. So when someone becomes a banker or politician or CEO and he/she has an opportunity to screw somebody over, it's going to be a friend. So probably not as easy. You wanna know how everybody in Norway got rich off their oil? The government charged the drillers high tax rates and actually gave the money to the people. This is how that happens, folks! It doesn't happen in the socially maladapted cultures of the U.S. and Canada and we both have way more oil than Norway.

Finland and some other countries who are properly progressing are used to short work days and short work weeks in schools and workplaces. Any skeptics might see this as the hole in the system. Au contraire mes amis. It has been studied to the hilt and ignored way past the hilt and all the way down the handle of the sword, that in school as well as on the job, people are just not productive working 8 hour days and 40 hour weeks. So if you think Finnish students or workers lag behind, you'd be wrong. They get more done by studying and working less.

People pay taxes because the taxation is fair. The rich have no problem paying high taxes because they are helping friends and their own kids by making their country better as we've seen in the example of the schools. Everybody's lives are just better. Any country who tries these things will have the same results. And they know it. But they choose not to let us enjoy our lives like the Scandinavians.

We have countries in which the separation of haves and have-nots is just increasing. This increases the competitiveness of the people. Strangers are seen as competitors and enemies, not as friends and brothers. Computers and machines are viewed as job-stealers instead of conveniences and quality of life improvements. Mistrust leads to violence, stress and overworked/underpaid, shitty lives. And our governments, banks and rich people make sure our schools suck and our jobs suck. They keep things this way on purpose.

Maybe this could partly explain the intriguing "Hitchbot" experiment.

Here's what happens to some robots in America. It appears 2030 is farther away in some countries than others. Unless you want to end up like Hitchbot, let's eliminate private schools. That's where we need to start. I am the result of the good school system Canada used to have and has eliminated, otherwise I might not know this. Time to turn that around. All over the world. Because things are getting way out of hand and 2030 is coming fast.