Bill Kristol's bad joke

I made an aside about Bill Kristol in 2016 could be a good year for minor party candidates.

The Atlantic wrote There's Still Time for a Serious Third-Party Presidential Run.  Yes, if it's the Libertarians or Greens, who will have ballot access in a majority of states; the Libertarians might have ballot access in all of them.  No, if it's William Kristol's quixotic crusade to draft someone like Romney as an Establishment alternative to Trump; the deadline to get a true independent on the ballot in Texas has already passed.  Besides, any idea Kristol favors is likely to be a bad one.

Earlier this month, Kristol proved me right when his search turned up--David French?

Over Memorial Day weekend, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard hinted that anti-Trump forces were poised to mount a major candidate to run as an independent. Last week, news broke that the candidate Kristol had in mind was French, a writer for the National Review who served in Iraq and was awarded a Bronze Star.

Really?  He couldn't get Jon Huntsman?  Fortunately, that news turned out to be too bad to be true.

In an article posted on the National Review’s website Sunday night, French said he opposes both Trump and Hillary Clinton but determined after “serious study” that he would not be the right candidate for the job.

“[G]iven the timing, the best chance for success goes to a person who either is extraordinarily wealthy (or has immediate access to extraordinary wealth) or is a transformational political talent. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve my country, and I thank God for the successes I’ve had as a lawyer and a writer, but it is plain to me that I’m not the right person for this effort,” he wrote.

Heath Ledger's Joker best summarizes my reaction to both announcements: and I thought my jokes were bad.


For more laughs, read Wonkette on the subject.

As for Kristol, he should give up on his quixotic quest, as I wrote in CNN and MSNBC interview Libertarian candidates William Weld and Gary Johnson.

[William] Weld running with Johnson [is] a very serious ticket should the Libertarians actually choose both. They are serious about being the alternative to Trump and whoever he picks (please, let it be either Gingrich or Palin--the laughs will keep coming all the way to Election Day!) Too bad neither will meet the approval of William Kristol; the Libertarians are insufficiently hawkish and interventionist for his taste. He'd be better off with Hillary Clinton, but he'll never admit it. No wonder liberals call him "Captain Always Wrong."

Well, he isn't always wrong; he's right in this tweet: "Official position of the leadership of the Republican Party: Trump is an inexcusable bigot, and Trump must be our next president."  Even a stuck clock is right twice a day.  My advice is to wait another 12 hours to listen to him again.

Drum corps for the California primary

"I'll see if I can put together a post featuring California corps for tonight" closed out Drum corps for the New Jersey Primary.  It turned out to be a bigger task than I expected, and it was a large enough undertaking that I separated the California corps from the New Jersey corps already!

Before I share the corps' performances, I will add to the analysis in the previous entry.  I forgot North Dakota, where the Democrats are holding a caucus.  FiveThirtyEight notes that Sanders is favored.  Added to expected wins in both South Dakota and Montana, and Sanders will at least break even in numbers of states tonight, although he'll likely be way behind Clinton in delegates, both on the night and certainly for the primary season.  As I wrote, I'm now ready for Hillary and I'll be taking my Bernie magnet off Pearl tomorrow.

Now that I've dispensed with the political analysis, it's time to present the corps so my readers can enjoy the marching music.  I begin with last year's DCI champions, the Blue Devils.


The encore performance above probably won't be taken down (the video of Carolina Crown's victory run from three years ago is still up), but just in case, here's the official clip.

Concord, CA – 1ST PLACE 97.650
George Zingali Best Color Guard Award, Fred Sanford Best Percussion Performance Award, John Brazale Best Visual Performance Award

The story of "Ink" was stories, exploring children’s storybook characters popping out on a drum corps field. Electronic sounds of typing and a pen scratching on paper accompanied numerous characters who brought a child’s imagination to life. Keep an eye out for the “Z” in the “A b C” and “X y Z” drill forms which is backward, as a child might have drawn it. There are dozens of little details like that throughout this production, all which helped the Devils ink their 17th DCI title.
...
“Dark Forest” by Dave Glyde © The Blue Devils; “Opening Title” from Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim © Rilting Music Inc. C/O Hal Leonard Music Publishing; “The Giant Attack” from Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim © WB Music Corp OBO Rilting Music, Inc.; “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” by Gordon L. Goodwin © Wingood Music Productions Inc.; “Children Will Listen” from Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim © Rilting Music Inc. C/O Hal Leonard Music Publishing; “The Last Midnight” from Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim © WB Music Corp OBO Rilting Music, Inc.

Now the other great California drum corps, the Santa Clara Vanguard with a show that fits this blog, The Spark of Invention.


In case that gets taken down, here's the official clip of the show.

Santa Clara, CA – 5TH PLACE 93.850

The genius of Nikola Tesla was fed through the prop Tesla Coils that turned on "The Spark of Invention." Check out the color guard’s use of flashlights as sparks and costumes printed with x-rays of each performers’ respective genders. In the closing number, the coils, uniform sashes, and flagpoles were lit with battery-powered LEDs, creating possibly the most photographed moment of the year. The fully illuminated corps members left streaks of light in their wake as they marched at top speed to the finish.
...
“Concerto For Piano And Orchestra” by John Corigliano © G. Schirmer, Inc.; “Invention No. 13 in A Minor” by J.S. Bach, Arr. J.D. Shaw © J.D. Shaw; “Pure Imagination” by Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley © Taradam Music, Inc.; “Virus Attack” from Virtuality by Amin Bhatia © Amin Bhatia Music

Yay, Tesla coils and a Theramin!

Follow over the jump for the rest of the California corps.

Drum corps for the New Jersey Primary

I concluded Drum corps for the Oregon primary by telling my readers "The big finale will come on June 7, when I feature corps from California and New Jersey, two great drum corps states."  That's today!

I begin with the political forecast.  FiveThirtyEight has predictions for both California and New Jersey.  Both show Hillary Clinton likely to win, in California with a 90% chance according to the polls-plus and 86% chance according to the polls-only, while she has more than a 99% chance of winning New Jersey.  Even without the Associated Press announcing yesterday that Clinton has enough delegates to win the nomination, I expected that today would be Bernie Sanders' last stand.  Just the same, he has a chance to go out on a high note with at least one victory tonight, as Montana and South Dakota, two likely Sanders states, and New Mexico, a likely Clinton state, also vote today.  He could go on a very high note if he upsets Clinton in California.  Whatever the outcome, this Sanders supporter is now ready for Hillary.

Enough analysis.  It's time for the drum corps to entertain my readers while they are waiting for the election returns.  In this first installment, I feature the corps from New Jersey, beginning with the Hawthorne Caballeros - 6.20.15 Wildwood, NJ.


I'm not done with the Cabs.  Here is the previous year's performance at the DCA championships: Hawthorne Caballeros 2014 Finals (Quality Audio).


Follow over the jump for more New Jersey corps.

Good news, bad news from jobs report

Last month, I showed the above graph showing the relationship between education and unemployment to my students* and I pointed out out to them that the recent pattern of a spike in unemployment for those with less than a high school diploma along with a flattening of unemployment for high school and college graduates looked a lot like the period right during late 2006 and early 2007, a year or less out from the onset of the Great Recession in December 2007.  I then repeated my prediction that I first made in 2014, updated twice in 2015, and twice early this year of a recession beginning late this year or early next year and no later than the end of 2017.  They gasped in apprehension at the prospect.

Friday, news came that gave a little more confidence in that prediction, the May Employment Report: 38,000 Jobs, 4.7% Unemployment Rate.  The good news was that unemployment fell.  In addition to the headline rate dropping, it fell among all educational classes with Jobsanger reporting the following:

Less than HS diploma...............7.1%
HS graduate...............5.1%
Some college...............3.9%
Bachelor's degree or more...............2.4%

All of those are at record post-recession lows except for those with less than a high school diploma.  Those are still above the post-recession low of 6.8% in December 2015, which is consistent with the pattern.  Even convincing so was the low number of jobs created along with the high number of people leaving the labor force.  That looks like the kind of change in the labor market that would happen in advance of a recession.

Now, the r-word didn't pass the lips of the reporters from the Wall Street Journal in Hilsenrath: What Jobs Report Means for the Fed, but other worries certainly did.

The U.S. added only 38,000 new jobs in May, the slowest pace since September 2010. How will the report be interpreted by the Federal Reserve? WSJ's Jon Hilsenrath discusses with Tanya Rivero.

The jobs report had a lot of other outlets worried, too.  FiveThirtyEight posted Hiring Really Is Slowing Down.  Vox published The economy just got its worst job report in years.  New York Magazine connected the poor economic performance to the election in Hillary Clinton Should Be Worried About This Lousy Jobs Report.  Yes, she should, but only if it persists.  After all, she is still leading Trump and Johnson in Michigan, Trump is attacking the judge in his case while his supporters were getting beat up in San Jose, and Clinton beat up on Trump's lack of foreign policy experience, among other things.  Last week was not a good one for Trump.

The people who aren't panicking are the economic bloggers, although they aren't happy about them, either.  Bill McBride called it disappointing, but pointed out that this has happened in the middle of expansions before, then repeated his prediction of 2 million new jobs by the end of the year.  New Deal Democrat over at the Bonddad Blog described the pattern as pre-recessionary, bragged a bit that he had been calling for something like this to happen beginning a year ago, but then said to expect "more reports of 1xx,000 to come. But at the same time, it is nowhere near as negative as it has been in the past at the onset of recessions."  In his next entry, he then reassured his readers "Despite the punk jobs report, the high frequency data is almost all positive or neutral.  There are very few negatives."  I'm with him.  I don't expect a recession to hit until next year now.

*If they look familiar, it's because I posted earlier versions in 2011 and 2015.  Despite the fulminations of Greer and Kunstler, the positive relationship between education and employment still holds.

'Star Wars' attack ads

In a year when polls show Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda beating Clinton and Darth Vader beating Trump and Darth Trump is a thing, it should come as no surprise that Star Wars is getting the same treatment as Game of Thrones--being turned into parodies of attack ads.  So for today's Sunday Entertainment feature, I'm showcasing a few of them, beginning with one post last week on the official Star Wars YouTube account--Princess Leia: What Is She Trying to Hide?.

There’s a lot you don’t know about Princess Leia. A lot she doesn’t want you to know. Find out more in this damaging Star Wars: Bloodline attack ad, first seen on The Star Wars Show.

Of course, this is really an ad for "Star Wars: Bloodline," not a political ad, but it works very well as a parody.

It turns out that this isn't a completely original concept, even if the execution is original.  Follow over the jump for an earlier attempt at an attack ad on Princess Leia.

1968 has arrived with a Weimar moment in San Jose

I made the following historical allusions to open and close The torches and pitchforks came out for Trump last night.

Last night, my wife and I watched as Donald Trump's rally on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus was "postponed" in the face of massive protests.  They were at least one step above calls to 'Dump Trump' and 'Arrest Snyder' at the Detroit Republican Debate.  My wife said that "the torches and pitchforks came out for the Trumpenstein monster last night."  Yes, they have, but a different image came to my mind.  The protests and the conflict afterward stuck me as just one step short of Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold fighting with the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten during the Weimar Republic.*  The mainstream media's came off as less alarmed, but not by very much.
...
As for ABC News' comparison of today to the summer of 1968, I think it's a better analogy than Weimar Germany.  We're not at either place yet, but 1968 is only blocks away and we're headed right for it. Weimar Germany, on the other hand, sits way out on the horizon where one can make it out with sharp eyes.  Let's hope we're not headed there.  Otherwise, it's welcome to Weimar America, where it's Springtime for Trump.

*The sides aren't as extreme as Sturmabteilung vs. Roter Frontkämpferbund--yet.

We've now arrived at 1968 and it's only June.  ABC News has the story in Trump Protesters Attack Supporters At San Jose Rally.

Supporters of the presumptive Republican nominee were sucker punched and pelted with eggs.

That's definitely a significant escalation from what happened in Chicago last March.  Then, tensions were high and there were a lot of confrontations that threatened violence, but I don't recall seeing any blood flowing.   This time, the crowd went from protesting to rioting.  Welcome to 1968.

As my readers can figure out, I consider this to be a bad development.  I understand why the protesters are reacting the way they are, but I also think it's dangerous and counterproductive.  Follow over the jump for people who agree with me.

Belated National Donut Day 2016!

Last year, I added another holiday to the list I celebrate here, National Donut Day.  The day was yesterday, and ABC News marked it by posting Nuts for Donuts | International Donut Day 2016.

Of all the made-up national food holidays, National Doughnut Day may be the best. Find out the history behind the tasty treat and don't forget to celebrate by visiting your local donut shop!

At least the video sticks to the history of the holiday itself without going too much into that of the donut, which I have a family connection to.  Time to be a good environmentalist and recycle.

I'm descended from the brother of Johnny Fry, the first Pony Express rider out of St. Joseph, Missouri.  He's connected to the origin of donuts.

Fry quickly gained a reputation for never failing to deliver the mail, regardless of weather or danger, and was a fast rider, averaging a speed of 12.5 miles per hour, including all stops. Local lore says that the donut was invented as a cake for Fry to eat while speeding by young girls homes near Troy, Kansas.

This is also family lore.  My father told me that the girls would try to give him cakes and cookies, but he rode so fast that when they tried to give them to him, they would just crumble.  The solution was a fried cake with a hole in the middle, which he could hook like a ring on a carousel.  Thus the donut was invented.

That's a really cool story.  Unfortunately, it's not the accepted one.   Smithsonian Magazine gives credit to someone else a couple of decades earlier in The history of the doughnut...Johnny Fry and his female admirers are not mentioned at all, not even to debunk the legend.  Darn.  Just the same, Happy National Donut Day!

And a belated Happy National Donut Day to my readers!

Driving update for June 2016: Pearl

Fifty-one days ago, I turned Pearl's odomenter past 26,000 miles, which I documented in Driving update for April 2016: Pearl plus bonus gas price report.   Today, the car passed 27,000 miles, so it's time for another driving update.

I drove Pearl an average of 19.61 miles/day, which translates to 598.0 miles/month.  That's considerably more than the 17.86 miles per day or 544.6 miles per standard month I drove her between February and April.  I wasn't expecting that.  As spring turns into summer, I stop driving to the more distant campus to teach, I attend fewer meetings, and I walk more, all of which should reduce my driving.  However, Dez has been in the shop for the past week, so Pearl has had to take up the slack, including driving to the shop and back three times.  Apparently, all that was enough to increase the miles I drove her over the baseline.

I wasn't alone in driving more.  Late last month, Doug Short quoted the U.S.D.O.T.'s March 2016 Traffic Volume Trends.

Travel on all roads and streets changed by 5.0% (13.0 billion vehicle miles) for March 2016 as compared with March 2015.
Travel for the month is estimated to be 273.4 billion vehicle miles.
The seasonally adjusted vehicle miles traveled for March 2016 is 268.2 billion miles, a 4.0% (10.3 billion vehicle miles) increase over March 2015. It also represents a 0.7% change (1.8 billion vehicle miles) compared with February 2016.
Cumulative Travel for 2016 changed by 4.2% (29.8 billion vehicle miles).
The cumulative estimate for the year is 746.0 billion vehicle miles of travel.

He also posted the following graph:


Looks like I'm not alone among Americans in driving more.  Let's see if the mileage for Dez really does drop because of a week of Pearl doing both cars' work and if I return to my usual decreased driving for the rest of the summer.

Examiner.com article on Clinton leading Trump and Johnson in Michigan

Hillary Clinton, seen here campaigning in New Jersey, has a more than four percent lead over Donald Trump in Michigan according to the latest poll.

Poll shows Clinton leading Trump and Johnson in Michigan

Late Tuesday evening, WDIV released the results of a poll it and the Detroit News commissioned.  It showed likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump by 4.5 percent in a two-way contest.

Clinton also led Trump in a three-way contest including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.  Her lead shrank to 4.1 percent when Johnson was included, indicating that the Libertarian candidate drew from both Republicans and Democrats.  Both leads were barely outside the margin of error, which was four percent.

“It appears that right now the support (for Johnson) comes equally from both sides,” pollster Richard Czuba of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group Inc., which conducted the poll, said to the Detroit News. “It’s kind of that middle that’s intrigued with the Libertarian option.”

Johnson got 11.5 percent when his name was included.  It's already a good year for minor party candidates, including the Michigan Libertarians.

More at the link, including good news for Bernie Sanders and a video of Clinton and Trump attacking each other over their legal problems.  May Clinton get the better of that exchange.

Examiner.com article on 2016 Michigan Libertarian nominees

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, seen here at the Free and Equal Debate in 2012, will head the Libertarian ticket as the party's nominee for President again.

Michigan Libertarians announce 2016 candidates from President to Park Commission

Wednesday morning, the Libertarian Party of Michigan released its list of nominees for offices from U.S. President to Ypsilanti Township Park Commissioner.  The candidates for state and local office had been nominated at the party's state convention in Lansing the weekend of May 14 and 15, while the nominees for President and Vice President were nominated May 29 at the Libertarian Party national convention in Orlando, Florida.

Two former two-term Republican Governors earned the Libertarians' nominations for President and Vice-President, Gary Johnson of New Mexico at the top of the ticket and William Weld of Massachusetts as Johnson's running mate.  Combined, the two of them have more executive experience than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

It looks like CNN and MSNBC got the Libertarian ticket they were hoping for.

Although it will be the second time Johnson has run as the Libertarian's nominee, it will be the first time he will be on Michigan ballots.  In 2012, Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, no relation, disqualified him under the state's sore loser law.

I told that story in Michigan Secretary of State attempts to screw over Libertarians.  She succeeded, too.

Now for the state party's nominees.

A nearly full slate of nominees for Congress will join Johnson and Weld on Michigan ballots with candidates in all districts except the Third.  In Washtenaw County, the Libertarian candidates are Ken Proctor of Charlotte in the Seventh District and Tom Bagwell of Wyandotte in the Twelfth.

All the rest of the Libertarian candidates on the ballot in Washtenaw County, Michigan, along with a video of Gary Johnson's and William Weld's nominations, at the link.  Read and watch there.

The most interesting in terms of practical effect are running for the lowest offices.

Finally, the Libertarians nominated three candidates for Ypsilanti Township Park Commissioner, Elizabeth Ceader, Lawrence W. Johnson, and Kalyn Sterzik.  Of this group, Johnson had previously run for Ypsilanti Township Trustee in 2012 and lost.  He and the rest may have more success this year.  There are currently four Democratic candidates on the August primary ballot for seven slots with no Republican candidates.  Unless another party nominates candidates or an independent files for the office, all three appear likely to be elected, serving as the opposition to the Democrats.

Even if these three are the only Libertarians elected in Michigan this year, 2016 would still be a good year for minor party candidates.