Posts Tagged ‘under the fedora’

Five Quick GOP Debate Thoughts Under the Fedora, Nikki you’re so fine, DeSantis slow and steady, Christie v Ramaswary undercard, Invisible men , In Summation

Posted: August 24, 2023 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, elections, politics, primaries
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Yesterday I had expected to be home in time to watch the GOP debate live because thanks to BidenomicsTM there has not been enough work at work for full 8 hour days but as two people were on vacation and two more had left finding other jobs I ended up working a full shift and getting home at 1:00 am after dropping off my car at the garage for a pre-inspection checkup didn’t get to see the GOP debate till 1:05 which meant a long night and given the repairs and inspection this morning for my 1999 LeSabre (it passed) I’ve not had time to comment till now.

The first thing that jumped out at me was Nikki Haley who much to my surprise sounded like the credible presidential candidate and make several excellent points, particularly on the fact that there was absolutely no chance of passing a national abortion ban. She seemed ready to showcase herself as a credible alternative to Donald Trump and without a question accomplished that mission. The proof will be if Trump comes after her.

There was a lot of speculation that everyone would be targeting Ron DeSantis but that wasn’t the case. DeSantis made his points very well and seemed to spend his time focusing on the failures of the Biden administration (something that it seemed to me the moderators were doing all they could to avoid dealing with that subject). While Haley was the star there is no question DeSantis did what he wanted to do which was make the case that he had produced and would continue to do so. Ed Morrissey put it best:

This reality is likely why the Trump campaign has apparently invested plenty of time claiming this was all bad news for the Florida governor. The facts alas don’t match with that rethoric.

In terms of entertainment Chris Christie was the primary source of it spending all his time throwing punches at Ramaswamy as there was no Trump to attack while occasionally touting his record as a conservative governing a deep blue state (a record that wasn’t as bad as people remember it to be) Ramaswamy handled it well and make me smile by forthrightly calling climate change BS and speaking truths concerning Ukraine and other subjects that were being dodged. I thought he acquitted himself well.

Most of the rest of the field was invisible, Tim Scott particularly, although he did better than Hutchinson & Bergum who showed they didn’t belong on that stage. As for Mike Pence he kept talking about the achievements of the Trump/Pence admin which is a legit move and was rather adamant that despite the Biden admin making a point to pass a law preventing a VP to reject electors after the fact (a point he never mentioned btw) he in his opinion had no authority to reject the electors in 2020. I think he’s dead wrong but I also think he actually believes he believes that

Finally several quick thoughts:

  • I think the debate moderation demonstrated little difference between Fox & the rest of the MSM
  • It’s apparently still possible to have an actual debate about substance, at least without Trump
  • The whole Trump “counter programing” plan really doesn’t work when in a streaming era
  • It seemed to me Youtube did all it could to steer people to the spin rather than the debate
  • When the first round of debate cuts come half of those candidates should be gone
  • I’ve yet to watch the Trump interview I’ll do so tonight when I get home from work
  • I suspect Trump will reverse his no debate position once the field is down to 3 or 4 but we’ll see

Five Under the Fedora Truths Homeless for Fun and Profit, All Beers Look Alike to Me, Breaking a Twitter Habit, The Chosen Speeding Up and Biden Economy expectations

Posted: August 16, 2023 by datechguy in business, culture, economy, education, entertainment, tech, twitter
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Glenn Reynolds notes the shock of some that passing a law concerning homeless camps and actually enforcing it has caused camps to vanish. This is a disaster for some NGO’s in the sense that they get a lot of government and state money to solve a problem that can be solved by just enforcing the law.

Key quote:

We get urban decay because we tolerate it. And as for the nonprofits/NGOs, homelessness is far too lucrative a problem to solve.

There is no incentive to solve a problem that is both a profit center for you and allows you to claim virtue.

Speaking of profit centers there is a 2nd post at Insty today on a man who will be teaching about the Budlight fiasco at business school. It’s is certainly a subject worth scholarship but it that had a line that likely floated under the radar to most people that I found absolutely hilarious:

He emphasized that beer is essentially the same product, and what sets it apart is the power of its brand

I would submit and suggest this is pretty much true. I suspect a lot of brand loyalty in beer is all about habit. Break that habit and you break that brand.

And Speaking of Breaking the habit as of Today Tweetdeck is no longer a free service when I tried to access it today I was redirected to a screen offering me a blue subscription check for $80 a year.

The real point is Twitter’s value basically comes from addicting people to multiple streams of data and giving folks who want to reach a maximum size audience (advertisers etc) access to that stream. This move gives an incentive for people to walk away from the stream and once people are broken of the addiction your done.

While Elon Musk should of course make the best possible business decision for his product I submit and suggest this is rather foolish. Tweetdeck makes twitter useful because it allows you to view multiple streams in the same window. Without it twitter involves too many tabs and simply isn’t worth my time. I might keep a tab with my DM page available and I might answer embedded tweets I see elsewhere but if you want to get me to see something by putting it on twitter odds are starting today I’ll miss it

On a totally different note I was shocked to see that season 4 of the chosen was going to include the razing of Lazarus from the dead.

Given that this is the last big miracle before the entry into Jerusalem I figured we would see it till at least season 5, particularly since we are going to get the beheading of John the Baptist this season which comes much earlier.

That suggests that either season 7 is going to be all passion and resurrection, with season six all Jerusalem

(Don’t be surprised with the number of characters there is plenty of material for this to be the case) and Season five everything else OR that Dallas plans on moving up the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and having a large chunk of season seven covering a big chunk of acts.

Either way it will be interesting to see how he handles it.

Finally we have regularly been getting short weeks at work. Last week was 30 hours, the week before 32 and the week before 30 which is a great incentive to burn vacation days for people and unpaid time off has been offered which can be tempting on a really beautiful summers day.

Yesterday on the drive in all of us in the car agreed that we would be lucky to end up with four hours although one of us was optimistic enough to suggest me might manage 6.

Much to my shock and everyone else’s as well there seemed there was plenty of work in my department and by moving some people to it during the day ( and letting a few go home early who wanted to ) all of us who stayed managed to our delight a full 8 hours of work which guarantees us at least a 32 hour week.

That’s how bad the Biden economy is, it’s so bad that getting a full days work in the middle of a work week on a day you’re scheduled to work a full day is a pleasant surprise worthy of note

Quick Under the Fedora: Interesting Anger, Bleeding Credibility, Ah for the days of DDT, the IRS to the Rescue and Zuck at it again

Posted: July 10, 2023 by datechguy in under the fedora
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The Outsized reaction of the professional left to the performance of the movie the “Sound of Freedom” last week and Disney’s decision to sit on it for a week seems rather odd, particularly when you note how consistent and united this reaction is.

Why you would think the left and their allies had a big hand in that pie. And if they didn’t before they might now.

The medical profession gave up a lot of credibility during the COVID business when they decided that a funeral for your father was murder but large scale marches for the causes of the left were just fine and dandy but nothing destroys the reputation of your family doctor then watching her ask your eight year old son if he identifies as a boy or girl or something else.

It’s stories like this that make my lack of grandchildren at the moment a lot more bearable.

There’s news that a new Malaria vaccine in Africa has not been that successful but is being pushed anyways.

Oddly enough there was a time when Malaria was on the run, but then came the ban on DDT.

A lot of folks ended up dead because of that, but a lot of leftists were able to feel good about themselves which is all that apparently matters.

President Biden remarked that Ukraine is having trouble with ammo.

I understand the IRS has been stockpiling for years, perhaps they can spare a bit.

I wasn’t paying much attention to Facebook/Meta new Threads app and have no intention or desire to get on it, but apparently a lot of people did hoping to do an ah HA on Elon Musk.

Alas they are discovering the truth of the old saying, when a company is offering a product to you for free, you’re the product to wit:

.

There are times when I thank my lucky stars to have been born and grown up before all these things were considered essential to life.

Quick Bits of Advice Under the Fedora, Picking a Lawyer, Why Coaches Exist, Killing Golden Geese, Al Capone Gangster and Legacies

Posted: July 1, 2023 by datechguy in baseball, culture, the courts, under the fedora
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Some Advice:

If hiring a lawyer, make sure that none of them had to get therapy from their law school as a student over SCOTUS rulings they didn’t like.

There is a reason why third base coaches exist to let you know if it’s a good idea to take that extra base. If he puts up a stop sign with two outs in the last of the 9th when you represent the tying run listen to him.

If you are counting on $1000+ from a relative as a wedding gift, it’s a bad idea to inform them that they are not welcome at your wedding because you would be frightened by their presence because they vote conservative and not invite them on those grounds.

Not only will for forfeit that thousand dollar payday, but you will forfeit any future paydays that might have come up.

Reality doesn’t care if something is proven in court or not. Reality IS. If you base reality on court decisions or the lack thereof you will find yourself played for a fool.

Finally if your business or organization relies heavily on recommendations from current customers or users to family members for new bodies, don’t mistreat said existing customers. They’ll advise people to stay away.

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