Notes On The Collapse

Of Cuckoo Clocks and Harry Lime

“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

—Harry Lime, from The Third Man

Harry Lime is one of my absolute favorite movie villains, and this line is the best in the movie.

Graham Greene himself said that, that it was the best line in his movie, and that Orson Welles came up with it himself the night before shooting. Welles later said that Alsatians invented the clock, but if he’d told an audience that, they’d be busy wondering about dogs and miss the point. When Welles said that, he knew quite well that the clock had been invented in Lorraine.

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About the War in Yemen and Iran

This won’t be popular. I can’t help that, but I do want to warn you before you read it, maybe save you some unnecessary rage. Lord knows there’s plenty of cause without this, and I wouldn’t add to it.

This country is doing the absolute right thing about the Houthis in Yemen.

For the benefit of those of you who won’t continue reading anything that isn’t venomously anti-Trump, I’ll add that there’s no particular virtue accruing to Trump over this except that he isn’t royally screwing it up. It’s kind of a no-brainer to any expert on the region. Which I’m not, but I’ve had it explained to me at great length by several people who are. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll try to put their arguments into a more understandable form.

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History As Shibboleth

Ten years ago, we were collectively bemoaning the phenomenon of people choosing their own ‘facts’ to suit their biases. Today, we’re worried about AI inventing things and leaving us unable to tell the difference.

As an aside, I’d like to point out that none of this is new. As for AI, the present iteration is… well, it’s artificial, but otherwise the term doesn’t really apply.

But more on that later.

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The Paradox of Propaganda

Question on a math test:

If you choose a random answer to this question, the probability that you’ll be correct is:
a) 25% b) 66% c) 50% d) 25%

The first option looks good. Four answers, one in four, 25%. Some people stop there and move on. But they’re wrong. Why? There are two answers that have 25%, and random choice gives that even odds — 50%. So obviously the correct answer is c… except if it is, the odds are back to 25% again.

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How Do I Publish My Book? A Guide

It’s the question I get asked most often. The short answer is, you probably don’t. A slightly longer version is, if you have plenty of money you don’t mind spending and never seeing again, you can.

The rule here is, If the percentages don’t get you, the con artists will.

I’ll break that down for you in a second. First, though, let’s consider what’s left that IS possible. Because, as I said above, if you have money, you can get published.

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An Unbiased Look At Trump’s Tariffs

Common wisdom has it that tariffs in general are bad for trade. They’re old-fashioned. The word “regressive” is thrown around by people who either aren’t certain what it means or really shouldn’t be.

And, in general, the common wisdom is quite correct: Tariffs, as a rule, are bad for business, which means they’re bad for the economy.

Mind you, most business experts will also be happy to tell you why exceptions ought to be made in order to protect their industry, but decidedly no other. Therein can be found the roots of a dirty little secret that most citizens don’t know about, most political partisans don’t care about, and most major media outlets didn’t bother to find out about.

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How To Begin?

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump”, his supporters immediately tune out. “Another mindless liberal” is one of the nicest things I’ve been called. It’s a little sad, because the next word from me is likely to be “but”.

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump, but”, the legion of his haters collectively throw up their hands. “Another Nazi lover” is usually truncated to “Another Nazi”.

And so it goes.

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Tariffs: Some Perspective

It’s easy to quote a simple internet meme and use it to point to Trump’s tariffs to call him an idiot. Thanks to memes, I now know that his list was generated by internet domain, that it’s a formula based on trade balance, that they’re effectively arbitrary numbers, and that it’s all theater. Thanks to a quick glance at my Robinhood account, I can tell that his tariff talk has wiped out a trillion dollars of other people’s money overnight (and, on paper, $200 of mine).

So, yes, I have cause to be irritated at the man. So do you. Fair enough — so far as it goes.

BUT.

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First Amendment Limits

TL;DR: It has some.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You’re sick of reading about Elon Musk and the App Formerly Known As Twitter. I know this through observation and extrapolation. If it’s not true of you, you’re an exception; congratulations on being thus exceptional.

Either way though, I won’t take up much of your valuable time.

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