Author: Papa Giorgio

Impressive Pinpoint Sailing ~ WOW!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Wild Oats XI has won a ninth Big Boat challenge as one of her supermaxi rivals narrowly avoided a collision in Sydney Harbour.

Scallywag came perilously close to hitting a NSW Maritime vessel and Sydney ferry at the start.

Asked how he avoided a collision, Scallywag skipper David Witt said “we spun the roulette wheel and come up with zero, we were very very lucky.

“You’d expect a boat with maritime written on the side of it would actually get out of the way.”…

(Wide World of Sports)

First CNN… now MSNBC

Published by Papa Giorgio

Safe Spaces are crumbling before our eyes and Trump isn’t even in office! CNN panel agrees… safe spaces are for the dogs!

  • Even leftist media outlets are developing an awareness that the rigid ideological homogeneity that characterizes institutions like higher education has led to liberals being out of touch, intellectually flabby, and in political decline (MOONBATTERY).

See also this POST!

California’s Green Death of a Thousand Cuts

Published by Papa Giorgio

John and Ken read from an L.A. TIMES article that raises the alarm a bit too late for Californians.

  • Californians are likely to pay more for gasoline, electricity, food and new homes — and to feel their lives jolted in myriad other ways — because their state broadly expanded its war on climate change this summer. The ambitious new goals will require complex regulations on an unprecedented scale, but were approved in Sacramento without a study of possible economic repercussions. Some of the nation’s top energy, housing and business experts say the effort may not only raise the cost of staples, but also slow the pace of job and income growth for millions of California families.

Not that most them care about the business climate anyways. The attrition has been happening for many years (More Businesses Leave California), and California is chasing alternative energy companies (Two Models: Prosperity or Egalitarianism) out of the state as well. An earlier discussion mentioned these new regulations hurting the economy of California (Jerry Brown Just Destroyed California’s Economy), but this article is just another nail in the coffin. Not to mention the many other factors killing California… like the teachers unions (California Teacher Unions Draining State Budget) and the pension promised benefits to the state’s other unions (State Deficits Budget Shortfall on Pensions || The Author of “Plunder” Interviewed).

Why You Should #DumpStarWars

Published by Papa Giorgio

There is a LANGUAGE warning that accompanies Gavin:

White Privilege in ROGUE ONE… no thanks, I will pass. Here is some info via HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:

In the wake of this week’s U.S. election, the symbol of Star Wars‘ Rebellion had been adopted by many fans protesting the victory of Donald Trump — and now, two of the writers of next month’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story have referenced the relationship between that movie and the current political reality on social media.

Chris Weitz tweeted the following Friday morning:

  • “Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization.”

Gary Whitta, the original writer on the project, responded in kind, tweeting:

  • “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women.”

By Friday night, the tweets had been deleted, but this from Weitz remained (to the right – link to another Hollywood Reporter story in graphic):

Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, retweeted the “Star Wars against hate” tweet.

As if to cement the connection, both Weitz and Whitta have changed their Twitter avatars to an image of the Rebel insignia with a safety pin through it, a reference to the symbol of solidarity with persecuted minorities that has gained currency in the U.S. following the election….

The DAILY CALLER continues to discuss the above graphic:

…The symbol was in fact spread and became a popular symbol for those wishing to resist Trump’s ascension to the White House, thereby giving the strong impression that the Star Wars franchise was opposed to the next president. The actor who plays Luke Skywalker, Mark Hammill, sharing it didn’t help alter that impression.

Weitz and Whitta both deleted the tweets in reference to the Empire as a white supremacist power and previous ones in which they compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and other unsavory figures. But not before their messages had spread around Twitter, providing further evidence to Trump supporters for why they would want to boycott the film. (RELATED: Obama’s Brother Boycotts Upcoming Star Wars Movie Over Trump Criticism)

Of course, many left-leaning journalists scoffed at this proposal. Esquire guffawed that Trump supporters had “no evidence” that the newest Star Wars iteration had anti-Trump overtones, even though the same publication had written up about the safety pin Rebellion badge previously.

The Daily Beast took the high road in covering the boycott by calling its adherents “no-sex-having, basement-dwelling neo-Nazis.” Numerous other outlets covered the protest in a similar fashion, all with the implication that you definitely need to see the new movie regardless of its quality.

A bit weird how all these journalists demand their audiences to see a movie because it’s being attacked by people you should hate. It reminds one an awful lot of the positive press surrounding the all-female Ghostbusters reboot, which was praised effusively simply because “misogynistic” trolls hated it. (RELATED: The Stars Of The New ‘Ghostbusters’ May Be Killing Their Own Film)

Sadly, that’s not the only similarities the latest Star Wars films share with the estrogen version of Ghostbusters. Both movies fit within the depressing Hollywood trend of pilfering popular franchises for every dime their worth with half-baked, banal rehashes of their original classics. The only difference between the original versions and the new reboots is better special effects, more diversity in the casting and a greater emphasis on “current year” values. (RELATED: 11 Serious Problems With The New Star Wars Movie)

And of course, the steep decline in quality.

So there’s enough of a reason to not want to see Rogue One to send a message to Hollywood to start making new and original projects instead of making an inferior version of “A New Hope” two years in a row….

Over-Simplifying the “Business” of Trump’s Presidency

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is the article Dennis Prager is reading from, and it is by Edwin Williamson via the WALL STREET JOURNAL (saved at Free Republic). Mind you, I wasn’t going to upload this audio, but after reading the article over at THE BLAZE,  I figured this myopic view that deconstructs things in a simplified manner may need a counterweight. At any rate, this whole “what Trump should do with his businesses” is more complicated than the media will allow for [both sides of the isle]. People like Ralph Nader are “already” calling for impeachment:

The media are full of warnings by self-appointed ethics watchdogs about President-electDonald Trump’s potential conflicts of interests. That Mr. Trump’s vast, complicated business empire presents a piñata of targets is undisputed. For his part, Mr. Trump has promised to hold a news conference on Dec. 15 to discuss his plans to leave his business operation “in total” so that he can “fully focus on running the country.”

Concerns stem from the fact that the Trump business empire extends to the far reaches of the globe, including to countries that may present tough policy decisions for President Trump. In both Turkey and the Philippines, the local Trump partner has close ties to a problematic government. Businesses in which Mr. Trump has an interest, such as Trump National Doral golf complex in Miami and an office building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York, have substantial borrowings from entities that will be regulated by the Trump administration or that are owned by potentially rival states, such as China.

The watchdogs fear that third parties, again including foreign state-owned entities, will lavish favorable deals on the Trump businesses, including staying at Trump hotels or entering into new partnerships, in the hope of currying favor with a Trump administration.

While no one outside the Trump family appears to know the details of the Trump businesses, a few key facts are known. They are complicated and based on two illiquid assets—real estate and the Trump name. Although the basic federal conflict-of-interest ban specifically exempts the president, some have proposed measures designed to avoid real or apparent conflicts of interest, generally based on the federal rules.

This newspaper editorialized on the subject, suggesting that Mr. Trump “liquidate his stake in the company” through a plan similar to one endorsed by Richard Painter and Norman Eisen, ethics lawyers for George W. Bush and President Obama, respectively. They have called on Mr. Trump to divest all of his holdings in the Trump Organization through an initial public offering or a leveraged buyout. Yet divestiture is unrealistic for many reasons. Besides their complexity and the time required to see them through, an IPO or buyout would generate other ethical issues.

An IPO would have to be cleared by the Securities and Exchange Commission. By the time Mr. Trump becomes president, there will be three SEC vacancies, and in the time required to organize and implement an IPO, the other two commissioners’ terms would expire. Mr. Trump would thus be appointing all five members of the agency regulating his IPO. Similarly, a leveraged buyout would require lending by Trump-regulated banks.

But the biggest problem with divestiture is that the value of Trump businesses is significantly dependent on, and inextricably tied to, the Trump name. Even if a buyer could be found who would pay what the Trump family considers the name to be worth, the buyer would certainly insist on perpetual, exclusive use of the Trump name. This would require that all users of the name—including Mr. Trump’s first wife, his minor son Barron and present and future grandchildren—relinquish their rights to the name.

In recent tweets on the subject, Mr. Trump has said he would turn over the running of his businesses to his children, and that “legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations.” The watchdogs want him to go further by establishing a “firewall” between himself and those running the Trump businesses, i.e., his children.

Clearly, this is unrealistic and would constantly generate allegations of unauthorized communications, shifting the focus from real conflicts of interests to whether the firewall has been breached. This would likely lead to demands for the installation of an intrusive “corporate monitor,” typically a $1,000-1,500 an hour ($2 million a year) ex-federal prosecutor.

[….]

Appearances of conflicts will be impossible to avoid. Almost any decision Mr. Trump makes as president will have an effect—good or bad—on his business interests. There is nothing that he can do to prevent those who believe that staying in his hotels or otherwise doing business with the Trump Organization will improve their relationships with the U.S.

There has been much talk about the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which provides that “no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust . . . shall without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”

The problem is that no court or the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has considered the clause in a context that is helpful in discerning how it will apply to the Trump businesses. So, we do not know what the clause means in the Trump context—other than that paying a market price to stay at a Trump hotel is not a violation….