How Much Longer Will Joe Be Protected? 

President Biden’s story about having nothing whatsoever to do with Hunter’s overseas consulting business keeps getting thinner. Even the corporate media is catching on.

On July 28, I talked about some of the evidence (including bank statements) of Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian money moving from overseas accounts into not only Hunter’s shell companies but into the private bank accounts of more than a half-dozen Biden family members.

The same day that article was published, Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business associate, testified before the House Oversight Committee about “at least 20” private phone conversations or personal meetings with Hunter and foreign executives where Joe Biden was present.

On July 31, in an interview conducted by Tucker Carlson, Archer admitted that Biden understood what those conversations were about. “Yeah,” he said, “I think I can definitively say at dinners and meetings, he knew there were business associates.” He even called Joe Biden’s presence during the meetings an “abuse of soft power.”

Archer also noted that Hunter was hired to be on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm, because that “offered the company the advantages associated with the Biden brand.”

At this point, and given the fact that Hunter was not able to get the first-in-US-history lifetime immunity for past and future felonies (agreed to by the Justice Department), I can’t see how his business of creating a personal net worth of more than $100 million by consulting with Russia, China, and Ukraine during the Obama years is going to be contained.

And as the details start to come out from whistleblowers and subpoenas, I can’t see how everyone that has been helping him won’t abandon him. And when that happens, the next to go will be “the big guy.”

Of course, I could be wrong. Let’s see what happens.

 

What to Do with the Student Debt Problem 

As I said on July 21, President Biden’s efforts to “forgive” student debt is not only a terrible idea from an economic and financial incentive perspective, it’s complexly immoral.

Here’s a much better idea – one that you won’t like if you like Biden, because it comes from Ron DeSantis: Make student loan debt dischargeable during bankruptcy. Like any other loan. That’s not possible now, but the prohibition against it doesn’t make sense.

DeSantis’s idea is to allow students buried in debt to declare bankruptcy and move on from there. But with a twist. “I think the universities should be responsible for the student debt,” he said. “You produce somebody that can be successful, they pay off the loans, great. If you don’t, then you’re gonna be on the hook.”

Nellie Bowles, writing in The Free Press, had this to say about the proposal:

“I like this a lot. Most of the people who want student debt forgiven argue that the government should do it all, that the truck driver’s taxes should cover that MA in Modernist Art. None of these activists would dare touch Harvard’s endowment (currently $53.2 billion as of June 2021) or any other university bank accounts. DeSantis is right. Free the student debtors. Raid the endowments. Make schools make their students employable, or at least, you know, functional. Let’s start there.”

“There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” – James Madison

“I Keep Writing the Same Poptimism Piece Because Nothing Ever Changes” 

An interesting article by Freddie deBoer on the political popularity of Taylor Swift and how it represents another regrettable stage in the morbidity of American culture. Click here.

* From The Huffington Post: A disturbing (and disturbingly superficial) account of how Barbie is inspiring many to end relationships. Click here.

* China’s internet regulator announced plans to curb teen phone use with a two-hour daily internet limit for 16- to 18-year-olds and by blocking their mobile internet access between 10 pm and 6 am. Click here.

* You never know what could happen when you stop paying your rent. Here’s a story about one couple that gambled on holding back rent payments and ended up losing control of an art collection worth millions.

* From CNN Travel: A short video report on a Danish man that spent 10 years visiting every country in the world (200) without flying. Click here.

* What to do when you run into a shark. Click here.

From CN: 

“I’ve always enjoyed your books and writing. Really enjoy your [blog] too. I just read the following book and thought it would make great fodder for you – The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age.”

Click here for some amazing photos of the first of two supermoons expected this month.

Are Liberals Really Smarter?

There is a widespread idea about liberals held by liberals – that they are smarter than conservatives. Studies show that this is not the case.

People that identify themselves as liberals tend to have more schooling and they may, as a result, have some higher academic skills in some areas. But there is no evidence that they think more accurately or effectively than conservatives.

One of the most obvious examples of poor thinking among liberals is in the area of macroeconomics. Liberals want bigger government and more debt because they believe that a small group of people that think as they do can regulate something as complex and organic as an economy.

Common sense tells you that debt is bad. And common experience tells you that it is nearly impossible to regulate with positive results a single household of six people, let alone a nation of 300 million.

If you want an even better example of a liberal thinking he’s saying something smart when he’s saying something really dumb, check out this article from Psychology Today.

And here’s a more serious and more interesting discussion of the issue from Scientific American.

Oppenheimer

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan

Based on the book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh

Release date (US): July 21, 2023

K and I saw Oppenheimer on a big screen. When we left the theater, I judged it “good.” Even “quite good.” But since then, it’s tumbled in my estimation.

The Robert Oppenheimer story is a fascinating one, worthy of many tellings. And, indeed, there have been many, in book form and on film. (Last night, I saw the 1989 movie Fat Man and Little Boy, starring Paul Newman.) The challenge is how to tell it. It could be presented as an action movie, a psychological thriller, a biography, a war story, or a documentary, of which there could be countless approaches.

After thinking about it, the reason my opinion of the movie dropped so precipitously is the fault of Christopher Nolan, the director. Among all the many options open to him, he chose to present the story as an action thriller. Nolan’s Oppenheimer was big on physical and emotional tension, big on sound and visuals. But it was weak on looking into Oppenheimer himself – his astonishing intelligence, his undeniable ambition, his attraction to communism, and his addictive infidelities. Nor does it teach the viewer much about the science behind the story, which is probably the most interesting thing.

Oppenheimer should not have been the big, artsy, intensely dramatic portrayal of a big historic moment that Nolan produced. Because however tempting it may have been to produce that movie, it doesn’t work very well because most of the most important action in the Oppenheimer story takes place inside the protagonist’s head.

The Plot (in short) 

During World War II, Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves Jr. appoints physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists spend years developing and designing the atomic bomb. Their work comes to fruition on July 16, 1945, as they witness the world’s first nuclear explosion, forever changing the course of history.

Critical Reception 

Reviews have been mostly positive. But in addition to giving praise where praise was due, every one that I read pointed out Oppenheimer’s many flaws.

* “Despite being overlong and unevenly paced, Oppenheimer contains moments of greatness and features one of the most compelling lead performances (by Cillian Murphy) in recent memory.” (James Berardinelli, ReelViews)

* “With its everyone-and-the-kitchen-sink casting, alternating between color and black and white, fit-for-Imax spectacle and Ludwig Göransson’s pounding musical score, Oppenheimer seeks to overwhelm the audience, an approach that works to an extent.” (Brian Lowry, CNN)

* “For all we learn about the creation and execution of the atomic bomb and its aftermath, the story could and should be told in a more digestible form. Instead, we have an overlong narrative that isn’t revelatory or surprising.” (Leonard Maltin)

* “Nolan has set out to make a moral epic, and he succeeds for the most part, or, rather, for the first two-thirds of Oppenheimer.” (Ty Burr)

* “Inevitably, it falls short of its ambitions. But it’s bracing to see a studio movie these days, particularly one with such huge scope, that at least attempts to serve up more than recycled goods.” (Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor)

You can watch the trailer here.

* Five songs that reference J. Robert Oppenheimer. Click here.

* 10 movies about scientific discovery like Oppenheimer. Click here.

* Four other movies about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb:

The Day After Trinity (Academy Award winning documentary, 1981)

Oppenheimer (TV mini series, with Sam Waterson as Oppenheimer, 1980)

To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb (2023)

The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2009)

How Lewis Strauss Orchestrated Robert Oppenheimer’s Downfall 

Oppenheimer, the movie, was, as I said above, a good movie, but not a great one. It suggested all sorts of historical and scientific questions it didn’t even try to answer. But one question it did answer was about the increasingly antagonistic relationship between Oppenheimer, the quantum physics genius, and Lewis Strauss, an amateur physicist who used his fortune and influence to become one of America’s most important atomic-energy advisors during the Cold War.

Click here for the whole story.