Keeper of the Clown Bell

Oscar is back and here's the skinny. 8 movies and 6 themes - so let’s take the overarching ideas first: Conspire: There are forces much greater than you who conspire to ruin your life. Probably true, but what’s new about that and do movies really ever get to the bottom of it? Aren’t the Oscars part of a grand conspiracy too? Euro: There really is an ocean that separates the USA and Europe and it’s not made of water. Women: It’s a man’s world and a lady has to be pretty tough just to stay alive and really tough if she wants to actually live. Knights of the Golden Circle: Thespians fight for social justice and cynically denounce traditional virtue - the whole world is rotten to the core. Will: The fundamental characteristic of humanity is lauded and justified. Isolation: People need other people - no one can do it alone and the more help you get the better. The Flicks The Big Short: Stupid rehashing of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis and ensuing financial meltdow

 The "conservative" punditry meltdown is going China Syndrome because Trump is winning. As cited in previous blog posts the simple joy of watching and reading their histrionics is one of the greatest aspects of the Trump candidacy. I could honestly write a KOTCB blog post every day on the stupidity and small mindedness (to say nothing of libelous spirit) of their attacks - It gives me a much clearer insight into why "the Left" treats them with contempt and never listens/reads a word they say. Today NYTimes conservative op-ed writer David Brooks diagnoses  The Governing Cancer of Our Time and concludes that it has metastasized into a Trump lump that must be removed. He starts off by defaming the Founders of the nation: "We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society — politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers chose politi

It's hard for me to believe the NSA/FBI can't figure out how to break the security on an iPhone. You'd think the repetitive typing of ones pass code on the glass would create enough micro-abrasion for them to read the most common digits using some super-duper scanning device calibrated to 5 nines variability perimeter measurement quotient or something like that. But why break into the phone at all, the NSA already has all the outgoing and incoming phone numbers, all the text messages, all the emails and (probably) all the voice calls recorded and stored in Utah . I guess it all comes down to who watches the watchmen and Tim Cook is learning a hard lesson .

Being an American of average intelligence who doesn't give a rats ass about Spanish American history and with the cursory education I received on the subject during my school aged years I remember well my surprise when watching early 90's movie "A Few Good Men" which explores a military trial of a murder cover up at a place called Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The US Navy has a base in Cuba? How the hell could that be true? I thought we had this contentious, hateful stand off with Cuba and the Castro regime with boycotts and near nuclear war. How long have we had this naval base there? For well over 100 years as it turns out. Yes, you learn something new everyday and I learned a little bit about GITMO from that fine film where Captain Jack has his famous meltdown on the stand and blurts out "the truth" that leaves Tom Cruz shocked and speechless until he regains composure and gets back to his niggling question. But some people are incapable of

South Carolina has delivered it's verdict and JEB! is out after spending over $100M to win he lost and lost and lost. Now everyone is wondering where his votes will go - Rubio, Gov. K, ...? Um, I guess those are the only two options left (unless they go to Donald Trump, which some undoubtably will because Trump and Rubio's ideological support is almost identical). As was noted long ago , and sighted several times on this blog, the Donald has captured the sweet spot of the GOP electorate and there's no way to move him or his supporters. He's played a game of King of the Hill and he raced to the top right from the start and has been pushing down every opponent consistently and with dispatch. Those opponents have included every GOP rival who have, at times, pounced in coordinated attack but also include the broad press corps, liberal AND conservative pundits, Hillbilly, Obama and even the Pope. Pundits claim that Trump can't win because his favorability rating is

When passions and planning unite, a people and its institutions will fall into formation . Thats how artists make highly stylized music videos and stage performances with costumed dancers twerking in sync with the star. But to what end is the formation formed? In the case of one Beyonce Z it is to "reclaim" the word negro. Well, take it - it's all yours. Thanks for all the money and adulation, suckers! It's a far cry from the wonderful formations created by Motown legends The Spinners and the magical leads of Philippé Wynne who carved an indelible soul groove in my temporal lobe as a young pup tuning into AM radio in the dark hours post-bed time lights out. "Hey ya'll prepare yourself for the rubberband man You've never heard a sound Like the rubberband man You're bound to lose control When the rubberband starts to jam" Beyonce has been widely criticized for her video and Super Bowl (halftime) performance of Formation, w

There are worse places to kick the bucket than a bed in the “El Presidente" suite at Cibolo Creek Ranch in west Texas . Looks like a beautiful place with an interesting history and what the fuck a Supreme Court Justice was doing there is anybody's guess . Now there's a lot of confusion about replacing the old opera singer with some newfangled legal genius from the "progressive" wing of American Jurisprudence as if it's going to matter - it won't. Scalia was on the court for 30 years and did he successfully persuade any of his "progressive" co-jurists to alter their ideological approach to "the law" or read the US Constitution as it is written? Answer: NO. The truth is they all pretty much conjure their rulings out of thin air - and their dissents. The biggest problem with SCOTUS is that most of the justices are too damn old and should be turned out to pasture BEFORE they die at a luxury resort. Make a mandatory retirement age of 6

United Technologies Corporation Endorses Trump!!! There was a GOP debate last night in South Carolina , but all of it was a formality after Carrier announced the move of its HVAC plant from Indy to Mexico on Feb 11th. Workers very surprised and angry at the move: "If you don't want to here it other people do so let's quiet down... strictly a business decision". That's right suckers, you can get as angry as you want about it but you've got no one to blame but yourselves and your union bosses because you voted for it . Ya see, your 60% of the vote for BHO in 2012 gave him the authority to have his DOE issue new regulations for the HVAC industry in 2015 and here's the skinny on that: “The Department of Energy is attempting to save on power,” Kerry Cox, owner of Cox Precision Air in St George, said. “Problem is no one can really tell how much you save, estimations are about 5 percent annually on a utility bills, but it could cost you close to

Getting things done is hard. There is a mountain of information and tasks that modern man must do in the modern administrative state and as The State grows larger the task grow more numerous and complex. Additionally, in an interconnected world there are dependancies or gatekeepers (sometimes multiple of these) that thwart or deflect a given task. Often these obstacles are not the people themselves but the long checklists of procedural tasks that must be accomplished to win approval. It's not hard to get stuck in what at times seems like an infinite loop of process rejections where a desired outcome swirls and swirls in a eddy of oblivion on the river Styx. This is where the doer comes in an makes shit happen and in so doing wins the applause of the world and respect or hatred of his/her associates. Those who can get things done keep the engine of productivity going and tug all boats in their wake. But what if we build a society where things can't get done (at least not by

...but people buy it anyway It's an old idea that's back in fashion and with the rise of Bernie a true champion of Industrial Democracy is leading the vanguard of desperate "revolutionaries" to institute real change in Americas governing ideals. The numbers from New Hampshire are in and the Independent from Vermont is berning down the house of Clinton like some 1960's SDS goofball with a Molotov cocktail . Sane Democrats who actually own some piece of the American dream must be freaking out and initiating Plan B right now - can they keep putting it off for another primary and then another? At some point having Biden or Kerry swoop in to save the day is going to look like what it is - a desperate, last gasp effort to stop the Socialist fairy tale and save their general election prospects and the country. In all honesty, it might already be too late for the Democrats to save themselves from having their parties nomination stolen by a man who holds that party

As anyone who takes the trouble to look up the numbers can tell you, 80% of all alcohol sales are generated by about 20% of the population and that's a generous fudging of the numbers because 10% of that 20% are pikers. The real money comes from the 10% and in America those guzzling guys and gals drink Bud  - about $10B worth of suds per year. So it comes as a surprise that the King of Beers would hire the Queen of England (or at least, her proxy ) to lecture the freeborn American citizen about drinking, driving or anything else in the middle of a secular national Holliday but that's exactly what they did during last nights Super Bowl. It's downright un-American to watch this English prig bitch out the US beer lovers who might enjoy roaring down a dirty back road with a cold one in hand and a case of Bud on ice in the back seat. Piss off Queenie - stroll on down to the Pig & Whistle and drink a pint of warm ale with your bangers and mash and think about your tiny aut

The way it used to be done Andrew Klavan is one of my favorite artist-pundits on the planet and he just published some crazy gold smack on his PJMedia Blog titled " As Men Go, So Goes the Future " which is sure to generate some hate mail but I'm sure he already gets plenty of that. The title says it all but go ahead and read the whole thing - it's basically a commentary on Muslim gang rape in western Europe and how it's made possible by weakling Euro-fag men who've left the battlefield and gone off to the bath house or,  if brutish, are taking a sex tour of southeast Asia or just stopped having sex all together. It's all good, the men of middle eastern descent are moving in to "The West" and imposing a new and decidedly anti-feminist social order with little opposition and, in some quarters, acquiescence. But that's Europe and they're done so Klavan ends with this warning for America: In America, God willing, the future includes rig

Everything is Awesome ! Bernie loves Denmark but, being a Constitutional Monarchist , he would. Others aren't so happy with the Danes . My guess is that Donald Trump probably agrees with a good bit of Danish policy and has no beef with the country, but Ted Cruz is worried and thinks Trump might nuke the Danes during one of his middle of the night temper tantrums. Look, Denmark is sorry , but would Lord Business really nuke Lego's home turf (even on a bad day) and throw the world into absolute chaos? I know he's unpredictable and full of surprises but, wow, nuking Denmark would be hard to talk your way out of - even for the Donald. This "finger-on-the-button" ploy is bogus scaremongering and, for the love of God, think about the people who've had their finger on the button for the last 70 years. What about the "temperament" of the guy who's got his finger on it right now ! Truman - wonderful temperament - actually dropped two (2) nu

A little over a year ago I gave the rundown on the potential GOP field based on Roger Simon's observations in Politico (which were elephant dung) and, in retrospect, my take holds up - especially in light of last night's Iowa Caucus which for those who give a damn ( I don't ) was pretty important. Back in Jan. '15 my money was on Mike Pence to thread the Establishment/Tea Party needle and pull the Republicans together but, alas, come springtime  Mike Pence got sandbagged in an orchestrated effort (not sure who was behind it) to take him out and it worked . JEB! formally announced his candidacy on June 15 and like a domino Trump announced his run on June 16 with what seems to me to have been a singular focus of denying the Bush dynasty another 4 to 8 year stay in the White House. Now we have an amazing GOP field of players leading the pack: The top 5 winners out of Iowa are all Tea Party candidates - All of them have been mercilessly attacked by the Republican l