Month: December 2012

SawLes Miserables tonight. I commend it to you as a very well-produced piece of cinema. Top-notch performances, beautiful singing voices (except for Russell Crowe, although he was more adequate than I was led to believe) and a revelation from Ann Hathaway, who demonstrates in a single three-minute shot that she is the most talented ... Read more

Igraduated from the University of Southern California in 1993. The year before, final exams were canceled because the school couldn't guarantee the safety of its students in the midst of the Rodney King riots. My friends and I holed up in my aunt and uncle's house in Bel Air for three days as we watched ... Read more

Firstoff, I still think the villain is going to be Gary Mitchell, but yes, I'm hedging my bets here. On Facebook, a friend asked if I was as confident about this prediction as I had been about Romney.Ouch.The answer is no - I was much more confident, and much more wrong, about Romney. So if ... Read more

So the new Star Trek Into Darkness teasers were released today.Watch and behold.http://youtu.be/9jFZOicwtBwNow watch and behold the Japanese version, which is exactly the same, except for the mind-blowing Wrath of Khan homage in the final shot.http://youtu.be/BrHlQUXFzfwGood stuff, I think. Yet the web is still abuzz as to who the bad guy is.The answer is that ... Read more

I'mconvinced that the greatest challenges we face as a nation are exacerbated by a woeful ignorance of basic economic principles that is not accompanied by an appropriate uncertainty in expressing economic opinions.In other words, when it comes to economics, our stupidity has done nothing to undermine our confidence.For instance, there are those who insist that ... Read more

Inmy post about Paul Krugman, I noted that taxes don't create prosperity. That provoked a response today from a thoughtful commentor named Levi, a reply which included the following observation:"In 2010 93% of the income gains went to the top 1%."I have not done any independent research to confirm this statistic, but I have no ... Read more