Author: Muttrox

If I win the election I will gladly show my tax returns.

Donald Trump, 2016

Should Trump have released his tax returns as every other presidential candidate did? I think so, but there’s no law. He was within his rights to say no.

Should the House (Ways and Means Committee) have demanded and fought for those records? Yes. There was legitimate reason.

Should he have fought the House trying to get these returns. Legally, no. Tactically, yes, since of course they don’t paint a great picture.

Should the House have publicized the lack of mandated tax audits for Trump? Yes. There’s clearly something corrupt going on here, and that should get attention.

Should the House have released summaries of notable information found? Yes. Information like this deserves to be publicized.

Should the House release aspects of the taxes that are likely criminal, and forward these to law enforcement as appropriate? Yes.

Should the House have released the full tax returns? I’m less sure. What is the vital public interest here that overrides the right of a private citizen to hold on to their private information. Why does running for office mean that your financial life has to be made public? As noted above, there is no law about what candidates must release, only tradition.

I’m pretty sure I’m wrong about this, but not seeing it!

Last year, the Celtics had the greatest in-season turnaround ever, that lead to an NBA finals outing. They worked over the summer. And for the first 25ish games of this season, the Celtics have been unstoppable.

They have lost their last three. Not understandable losses to strong teams, but repeatedly to teams they should have beaten easily. At home. Before that they managed to eke out an overtime win over the Lakers after two more bad losses. They’ve lost 5.5 of the last 6.

They have looked awful. Suddenly there is no passing, the defense is disjointed, open shots don’t go in the hoop, nothing looks right.

What the heck is going on?

It’s dreamy. It uses strings with Indian sounds that make me think of George Harrison. I could swear he preformed this on SNL but I can’t find the video.

The story behind the song? Beck said, “Well I went down to my basement. It was raining outside, and I wrote it.” Thanks Wikipedia, we’re all smarter now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9-Xatk0ajM

Give it a play, maybe in a dark room, and sink into it.

Political donations from corporations either are, or aren’t, effective.

If they don’t work, they should be banned by shareholders. You shouldn’t spend shareholder money for no gain.

If they do work, they should be banned by society.

As political donations undoubtedly work, political donations from corporations should be banned.

Despite nutty Supreme Court rulings, money isn’t speech, and political contributions aren’t speech.

Despite nutty Supreme Court rulings, corporations aren’t people. They are legal entities, and they have whatever rights and restrictions we give them as a condition of their existence. Political contribtuions is a right we shouldn’t give them.

These signs are terrible. What would you, as a driver, do differently if the number was 10,000? 2,000? 600? 50? Nothing! There is no context. There is no sense if this number is too high or too low. Georgians will drive 133 billion miles in 2022. Is one death per 112 million miles a lot? It doesn’t seem like much. It seems like the roads are ridiculously safe.

Numbers without context are easily misunderstood. “C’mon, if we all work at it we can beat last year.”

Update: This sums up the stupidity of it perfectly.

Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

For decades, I’ve been told I need to read the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. It’s one of the greatest fantasy series ever they said.

They were wrong.

This book is utter trash. It reads like a 12-year old girls fanfic about her favorite horse. A decent premise, with terrible characters, terrible plotting, terribly written. One giant wish fulfillment spew of dreck. It turns out that McCaffrey is the first woman to win a Hugo, and the first to win a Nebula. The committee must have been super drunk during those years.

Among Others (Jo Walters) – How did this win the Hugo and the Nebula. Barely fantasy, could have told what little story it has in under 100 pages. (And while I’m picking on women authors, The Doomsday Book is depressing pablum for several hundred pages with zero fantasy or science fiction.)

Dead Wake, by Erik Larson. Actually all of Erik Larson. Erik Larson is vastly overrated as an accessible historian. I’ve had the misfortune of reading three of his books, and they are all… meh. His fundamental flaw is throwing any random facts into the narrative, regardless of whether they support the narrative. The onslaught of irrelevant names and dates keeps the reader from actually following the history. His most recent work, The Splendid and the Vile is a perfect example. It takes everything interesting about World War II and Churchill and ignores it for countless pages of his daughters social adventures at garden parties. Who could possibly give a shit is beyond me.

If you like to read accessible history, stick with David McCullough, Steven Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, maybe Walter Isaacson for biographies.

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Everyone else loves this book. I don’t. An interesting conceit, done poorly.

Coming in a couple days later to add another. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice. WTH. Why is this a classic? It’s terrible. Just terrible. A bunch of psychosexual bullhockey that makes zero rational sense. How this ever got turned into a series of successful books, movies, and now a TV show — there’s no accounting for taste.

I get asked this a lot. Muttrox, what is your take on Elon Musk? Up or down? You have his cars, you’ve given him lots of money, how do you feel about that?

The bad:

He’s an asshole. Personally and professionally. Even worse than an asshole, he’s an asshole unnecessarily. Just because he is and he can.

He’s a sellout to China. The dictionary definition of selling out – he says things he knows are wrong to carry water for a foreign power and put more money in his pocket. Not great!

His new set of right wing views are noxious (especially considering how much government aid went into propping up Tesla).

He didn’t invent Tesla, and should stop acting like he did.

He shouldn’t be so rich. Crazy.

But:

All his Twitter awfulness comes down to a larger issue. The problem is that there’s only a few social media companies with unaccountable owners who can set their own policies for those platforms. Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is the first time there’s been an owner who supported the right in the platform, but the problem is that it shouldn’t come down to the decision of him. Trump should have banned from these platforms long ago, but the conservatives were right to worry how the decisions were made.

His right wing views are noxious, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. He’s allowed to change his mind and have whatever opinions he wants. You don’t like them, stop paying attention.

And, on balance:

What I really think is that these critiques this misses the larger point. Elon Musk became the richest man in the world. And what did he do? He basically invented the electric car industry. Without him, there is no doubt in my mind that we would be much further back in the electrification of personal vehicles. He significantly changed the curve of history. This is one of the greatest things we have done to combat climate change. Twenty years ago, would you have paid out 50 billion dollars to electrify a significant portion of US cars, and get the flywheel rolling so every other OEM was moving to electric only? Of course you would have. You would have paid 500 billion dollars. Well guess what, Elon did that. He deserves the rewards for it.

What about his other companies? A battery company, again making a direct push against climate change by supporting electrification. A solar panel company. Space-X, increasing the odds humanity can expand off of earth. Notice the theme? All these companies are tackling existential threats to human existence, and doing a pretty decent job at it.

I don’t care about the other stuff. Let him own Twitter and do whatever he wants. It’s always been a cesspool, now it’s a cesspool with a slightly worse owner. Who cares. The man has done significant work to save humanity. That vastly outweighs all the rest.

Muttroxia: How to Improve Professional / World Cup Soccer: I said it all four years ago. Nothing has changed. All these ideas would make the sport better.

Viva La France! Let’s go!

How many of these did you know already?

Born in the USA (Bruce Springsteen): This song is not a patriotic anthem. It’s a rather depressing tune about a veteran who’s having a hard time in life. Extra points for the Reagan campaign cluelessly using an anti-America song as their theme.

More Than Words (Extreme): This is not a touching love song about declaring emotions. It’s about getting laid. If you screw me, that will show your love more than words will.

Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who): This is one of the all-time anthems, an eight minute lesson in aggression and defiance. Or so you would think from the music. The message is truly about acceptance, and is passive. In the story this song comes from, the good guys have finally deposed the bad guys and everything is okay. Only it’s not, the new boss is the same as the old boss, the slogans on the left are the same as the slogans on the right, everything is the same as ever. Oh well, that’s how it goes, smile and grin at the change all around me, I won’t get fooled again. I won’t get fooled by revolutionary rhetoric and the idea that anything really changes. Kind of a downer, really.

Every Breath You Take (The Police): Not a love song, a psychopathic stalker song.

Norwegian Wood (Beatles): This is a song about arson. The girl won’t put out, so her house gets burnt down.

Paul McCartney explained that the term “Norwegian Wood” was an ironic reference to the cheap pine wall panelling then in vogue in London. McCartney commented on the final verse of the song: “In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn’t the decor of her house wonderful? But it didn’t, it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental.

I have no idea how I stumbled on her. Musgraves doesn’t write the most sophisticated music. Simple chords, simple melodies, simple playing… but done well. Nothing wrong with that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OFv566mj7s

I was surprised to find out she’s categorized a country artist. Her voice has that lilt but the music isn’t particularly country. Her other songs haven’t really done it for me. This one does!

How about them Celtics, eh? I am a hardcore fan and these last couple years have been amazing. Barring serious injury, this years edition will go down in the history books as one of the best teams ever to take the floor.

I have also followed Danilo Gallinari in his Hawks career. Gallinari is a good player. He can create his own shot and take over an offense for short stints. As an individual he is an asset to any team.

But as a team player? Not so much. The Hawks have never learned to play team ball and he’s an example of it. When he gets the ball it stays with him. Much like Jaylen Brown until recently, the entire flow of the offense stops. (The Number 21 ballhog in the league years ago.) Like Jaylen Brown he could do good things one on one, but it isn’t worth it to destroy the group dynamics.

Defensively, Gallinari is ordinary. The Hawks have never been good at defense, mostly because Trey Young refuses to try. Seriously, watch Trey play defense for a few minutes. Everyone blows right past him. Gallinari plays decent enough defense to try and cover for the five-on-four dynamics teams have against the Hawks, but is he anything special? No.

These Celtics thrive on team chemistry. They traded for Derrick White because he is a team player. They traded for Malcom Brogdon because he is a team player (and being incredibly gracious and quiet about leading the bench instead of starting). Gallinari does not fit into this team.

These Celtics don’t need Gallinari. They are already the best team in the league by a healthy margin. They are already improving even more as their defense is improving. They have Rob Williams returning soon, they are going to be even more dominant. They already have the deepest bench in the league, the next best options from Gallinari are great (Payton Pritchard would be starting on most teams, he barely even plays for us.) We’re going to get that 18th banner with or without him just fine.

Now is the time to get rid of Gallinari. Trade him for some draft picks, or money that can be used to keep the team together, or something. Get value while we can, but he doesn’t belong in Celtics green.