My Monthly Rant: A Plug (Unpaid) and a "Tweet"

This is from a group that calls itself "The Resistance" in its email communications. This  headshot picture of Trump seems to shown him in hellish flames (also very Wizard of Oz).  That is what "inflammatory" is all about.  I am not endorsing all this site's policies--although I agree with a boycott of direct Trump Co. companies and some of their enablers--I recognize that a boycott that is too broad is impractical.  But I do like their way with words. 

Dear 

How long will it be before Trump tries to arm fetuses?  Only for self-defense, of course.

In the wake of the mass shooting at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the Lyin’ King thinks he has a solution.  Guns for teachers. 

Well, at least he didn’t suggest bazookas for boys.  Or grenades for girls.

How could anyone this thick call himself President of the United States?  Please, contribute to our campaign to end the Trump Regime, and Stop Stupid >>

Would someone please explain to the Short-Fingered Vulgarian that crossfire is unlikely to end the problem of assault-weapon attacks in schools? 

Would someone please explain to the Talking Yam that his “brilliant” idea would fall victim to the simplest possible countermeasure?  The countermeasure called shoot the teacher first?

Just how dumb is this latest Trump-twaddle?

You could make a better argument for universal Facetiming to class.

You could make a better argument for mandatory bullet-proof vests for all students.

You could make a better argument for refusing school admission to anyone unless he or she is naked.  (Go try to conceal an AK-47 when you’re nude.)

And here is the ultimate better argument: Donald Trump should not be President of the United States.

Please contribute to $10, $25, $50 or whatever you can spare to the most important issue in America today: how to save us from the ignorance, asininity, imbecility, obtuseness, brainlessness, recklessness and outright idiocy of Donald J. Trump >>

http://www.lockhimupnow.org/trump_lies

And, for the RNC: 

a reply I liked (second-hand) for their request on Twitter for comments and suggestions: 

S.O.S. USA@DeliaMacD1

Replying to @GOP

1) Stop the corruption within your administration.
2) Sign the sanctions against Russia
3) Stop taking blood money from the NRA and sign common sense gun legislation
4) You broke our healthcare-fix it
5) Clean Dreamer Bill
6) Stop tweeting like a crazy loon

1:24 AM - Feb 24, 2018

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Italian Elections 2018

What could be less interesting, right?  Wrong! I won't say that this is a world-history making event, since Western civilization's continuation or development no longer depends on the fate of  political struggles in Rome (OK it's been awhile since that was the case), but I find it to be a subject with important ramifications, for both Europe and the US, as well as a fascinating case study.

Modern Italian culture, in all its facets, has been a particular interest of mine, ever since I "discovered its existence"in plain sight, Christopher Columbus-like, about 40 years ago.   A little background on the national scene follows--please bear with me and I will try to be brief. Then I will go into more depth about the likely outcomes and the major personalities involved. 

Italy since World War II has prospered spectacularly, but unevenly.  By most measures, Northern and Central Italy are on par with the most developed countries of Europe, but the Southern part of the boot and Sicily have lagged.  This has been true much longer; one could say that the initial disparity present at the founding of the modern state (mid-19th century) has never been remedied.  The Parliamentary state has consistently disappointed people's expectations, but there is still strong support among the people for democratic ideals.  The Italian economy is recovering more strongly recently after a long, slow recovery from the Great Crater, but it is still a difficult place to do business, for many reasons.  The wealth of the people comes from their great assets:  land and people, and to a large extent, the interaction of the two. 

Why Does It Matter? 
I will make this quick.  It is a significant country in Europe, and if its election is won by the right--which has various Trumpian characteristics among its leaders, including xenophobia, corruption (though probably not with Russia so much), immigration, turning the economy to the favor of the wealthy, and clownish behavior--it will be very harmful for the European Union as we currently know it.  Many of the center-right coalition openly advocate going the Brexit route, and Italy, unlike Britain, is a core member of the EU initiative from its very earliest form in the postwar EEC.

If we think more narrowly, the result is also significant for the US, in the sense that it is yet another very relevant test of democracy and of the public desire, or lack of desire, to reject tribalist and ultra-nationalist thinking, and thus a possible portent of upcoming US political soundings.  Unlike the US, Italy has  a very real current immigration problem--poverty-stricken people coming over to Italy in boats from Libya (after migrating there from many other Third World countries), and there is also a general Italian view that the country has not been properly supported by the rest of Europe in handling this peaceful, but unwanted, burden of handling mass migration. 

The Scenarios and Their Chances
So, to the political structure (of the moment):  This parliamentary election will be conducted March 5 under different rules from the last one, five years ago.  (In a somewhat rare occurrence among Italian governments since the postwar republic replaced constitutional monarchy, the Parliament remained intact for the full five-year term.)  The new Parliament will be composed of a mixture of proportional representation and "first-by-the-post" election of individual districts by plurality (like the US House).  The distribution of seats among the parties for the proportional portion* is somewhat apparent from the opinion polling--opinion moves fairly slowly, in general. The wild card is how the individual seats may play out, as the balances are very fine.  There are a number of possible coalitions, in classic Italian fashion.

On this one, I have some small skin in the game (predicti.org); I will make some references to the market they have on this election:  "Who will be Prime Minister on July 31?"
Here is my list of  the possible outcomes, in order of likelihood:

1) Generally unclear, no coalition easily identifiable.    This has two major variations:
a) totally indecisive result, and everyone sees that it's so (no party or coalition above 30% or so)--the Parliament might seat, make some new rules, or not, but just call a new election.
b) no surprises in the outcomes, continuing discussions, no new outcome on the horizon.  This could go on for a very long time--the 7/31 deadline is a good reference point, as it is shortly before the midsummer break called "ferragosto" when everyone, and especially the politicians, shut it down and go on vacation.  In this case, there could be a continuation of the caretaker government that has been running since the collapse of the Renzi government (see below).  Paolo Gentiloni is the Prime Minister, from the Partito Democratico (yes, the Democratic Party, and it is very comparable to the US one).  He's a dignified, moderate techno-bureaucrat; few would regret the result, though it would be a defeat for: 

2) The Center-right coalition.  This is the only currently-announced coalition that has any chance to get close to a governing majority by itself. The leader of this combination of five parties is none other than Silvio Berlusconi, back for another run at it after his conviction and retreat from the scene.  His party is called Forza Italia (I would translate it as "Go, Italy!"), and it's the only one of the alliance that has meaningful national appeal.  The problem is, because of his conviction, he's supposed to be ineligible to actually serve in the new government.  So, there's a very interesting range of possible PM's.  My money (in predictit.org) for this scenario is on Antonio Tajani, the most respectable of the leaders of Forza (FI).  His odds have surged--I bought him at .14 a month ago and he's up to .33 (on a .01 to .99 scale, pre-election;  after it's decided 7/31, values will go to 0 to 1.000).  Good gains so far, and I may hang around to see if I can make more.

3) Center-left coalition.  There are two big parties in this (potential) space:  the PD (Dems), who had control of Parliament the last five years, and the one-of-a-kind Italian invention called Movimento Cinque Stelle ("Five Star Movement", abbreviated as M5S).  It just missed five years ago, when headed by a sharp-tongued comedian, Beppe Grillo; it has shown some staying power after some purges and other separations se and is now headed by an emergent 31-year-old talent, Luigi di Maio.  Its themes have been opposition to the Establishment and all the other parties, use of 21st-Century technology to create democracy, bloc voting, and eternal internal squabble.  If di Maio has conquered that last tendency then he would be truly deserving of leadership, but probably not as the PM this time around.
They (M5S) and the PD will be the leading single parties in the proportional vote (as they were in 2013) dividing 50-60% of the total.  The question is whether these two could get together; every early indication is no (M5S has sworn off all alliances), but that underestimates the Italian impulse to conspire:  I believe that if the PD and M5S both became convinced that their alliance (after the election, of course, first they have to attack each other all through the campaign) were necessary to prevent someone like Berlusconi winning, they might find a way. 
If there were to be an actual agreement, I would think the likely form would be to agree upon someone unexpected, neither Gentiloni nor di Maio (and not PD leader Matteo Renzi):  they could find some sap from another of the many tiny parties sprinkled through this range, maybe someone who won their district but whose party didn't reach the 3% threshold level for proportional representation.  (In predictit.org terms, all Yes bets would then lose;  if you liked this theory, you'd bet No on everyone and make a relatively small profit.)  More likely that M5S would fulfill their promise of non-participation by abstaining for some center-left variation of government formation, thus allowing it to happen. 

4) "La Truffa" - Somehow, the center-right find some tricky way to put Berlusconi at the head of the government (despite his not being in the Parliament):  they make a law to allow it? 

5) A PD-dominated government - This is a variation on #1 in which the PD does surprisingly well, such that they--and any smaller partners they can find--get to 40% or so of the Parliamentary seats.  Then, suddenly, a government headed by Renzi would become a possibility. 
The problem is Renzi, for my taste the best prominent politician--intelligent, honest, uncorrupted--that Italy has had for a long time. (At least since the deaths of Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer, for those like me who've been following this stuff for decades.) Naturally, everyone hates him--except for his admirers, who have become a lot less numerous since he became a loser.  That happened with the electoral referendum last October.  He openly staked his career on it, a valiant but ultimately and totally unsuccessful crusade to make the company more governable by making it less democratic. 
Shards of his old support have since dropped off to various splinter groups (and the M5M) since then. He is now seen by the left as a would-be Napoleon who betrayed the working class; most of his remaining appeal is to the moderate left wing of the former Christian Democrat party, from whence he came.  I would say his game now is to let someone else try for a few years--and eventually fail.  He would hope to maintain his role until when he could then make a comeback.  He's still only 43. 

Additional Notes
It is rather unlikely that the scenario will present itself immediately from the electoral results (though we will not have to wait long to hear them--the polling is very efficient, as is the tabulation).  Instead, certainty that there will be no electoral majority, and the multiplicity of parties, will mean that the outcome will take weeks or months to emerge.  A recent article in The Economist suggests an obscure southern Italian party (Noi con l'italia--"we are with Italy"), recently formed, could get a surprising number of local district wins and become a critical factor.  In the respected Italian weekly magazine L'Espresso, a writer under the name of "corleone" (could he be from Sicily, perhaps?) points to the elections for the President of the two houses of Parliament (scheduled for March 23, or 18 days after the general election) to get a clue where this thing will be going. 

The other alternatives to Tajani or Berlusconi as PM for the center-right range from scary to laughable; the most noteworthy miscreant after Silvio is Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Lega Nord (Northern League), who leads a party popular in the North whose supporters are tired of the welfare queens and foreigners from Third World countries getting all their tax dollars.  You can see the appeal, right?  His party will be the second-largest in the center-right coalition, earning 13-15% and winning a number of constituencies. He is pretty much disqualified from being the PM because of the intense distaste everyone else has for him, but he would be a force* in the government if it happened:  I imagine he would then be able to lobby for sending the Italian navy down to patrol the Libyan shores, a provocative military stance that could either work--stopping the boatpeople, and their exploitative aggregators, at the Libyan ports--or start actual conflict.  (Libya was an Italian colony for decades, until the Fascists lost it during WWII.)

I have a lot of (very cheap) shares on Renzi, who is currently viewed as a longshot with no chance; a few on Gentiloni, hoping to average down sometime down the road; and a moderate bet on Tajani (another for which I will add more shares if his price drops).  I have No bets on Berlusconi, Salvini, and Di Maio.   The current polling--Wikipedia is maintaining an excellent graph which shows each data point for each party over time--indicates eight parties will make it past the 3% threshold (while several others will win seats through having localized strength.  If you'll permit me to use the TLA's (two-letter acronyms, or three-letter acronyms) I reviewed above, one gets, approximately, the following current values for those who name their choice:  M5S 28%, PD 23%,  FI 18%, LN 13%. Left Alliance 6%, 5% for a neo-Fascist remnant now called Fratelli d'Italia ("Brothers of Italy", a quote from the first line of the national anthem), and about 8% for others. 

*Sorry for the word, couldn't resist. 

Some Sporting Weekends

SBLII!
Seems that the owners of the Big Game have been persecuting those who use the official name of the professional American football championship in vain (or especially without the sponsor's name in front of it, now).  I was never one to refer to the SB in that fashion (I did a search), usually my name for it is the Stupid Bowl.   That's because, historically, the games tended not to be very close:  with the emotions so wound up, typically a team would get out ahead and then blitz the opposing quarterback silly and win by outrageous margins, while the announcers are forced to try to keep viewers watching somehow to justify their ridiculous advertising rates.  It's been a little better--the games, that is, I don't have an opinion of the trend in quality of ads-- in the last decade or so.

I don't have a favorite NFL team, but I do have a default rooting interest against the perennial champions in all the team sports.  This year's matchup was a fair one, of the top regular-season teams, from each conference, and they delivered a very strong game that ranks among the best--whatever the ratings.  t was a high-skill, closely-contested, fairly low-drama affair that followed expectations until the moment Tom Brady finally got sacked and fumbled late in the fourth quarter. The story of backup QB Nick Foles, who performed admirably, and proved superior in the key category of quarterback as pass receiver (not one you'll find in many fantasy leagues, for sure), is just as compelling a QB hero story to me as T.B. going for his Nth (poor Gisele in the owner's booth!) or the improbably-named Joe Montana, or some other popular future TV star like Peyton Manning or Bret Favre.  (But not as compelling as Colin Kapernick, when he first emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, that Monday NIght football game. Kapernick's story will make a better movie someday.)  I

I gave the Eagles about a 27% chance of winning the game, 5-2 odds. I didn't find that particular bet out there, but then I wasn't looking for bets on the Super Bowl.  I don't like betting on the spread on any of these sports, and to me the over-under, while statistically sound, doesn't have much relevnce to the game itself.  It's just a random variable with a probability distribution (though a different one each game depending on the circumstances).


Mowinckel Rules
I will admit I was somewhat anxious about the timing and location for the Winter Olympics.  It's bad enough that the town is a short distance from the heavily militarized border with North Korea; beyond that, note that Russia's team has been banned from the games because of the history of state-run doping. In that sense, the detente between north and South Korea-for the games, epitomized by the combined Korean hockey teams, offers two intentional thumbs in the eye (or is it both eyes) to the low-value TrumPence Korea saber-rattling strategy, and a great relief for fans that violence is not likely to spoil the fun.

I have been much more engaged with this year's Winter Olympics than the last couple ones.  I didn't see much of Sochi, but it seemed like a bummer to me; the Vancouver games were at a difficult time for me personally and I couldn't spare the time then.  The people who have emerged as young heroes this time, like Chloe Kim, the Korean skeleton genius (didn't get the name), Red Gerrard, the improbable Ester Ledecka (the snowboarder who won an Alpine event with borrowed skis), are very inspiring.

My favorite, though, is Ragnhild Mowinkel (rain-Hild, Mowinkel like Bullwinkel) a Norse woman who surprised everyone, including herself, by winning two silver medals in Alpine skiing--apparently she is the first woman to win medals from Norway in Alpine events.  She epitomizes the Viking Mystique: With the superior performance of the Norwegian men in Alpine skiiers supplementing their more typical successes (men and women) in the Nordic events, they are the runaway leaders in the national medal race.  It's the go-to country, as in, "we could only hope to go to Norway if we have to go into exile".   Certainly it's not producing people who would go to a shithole like this one.  But, I mean 'shithole' in the good sense-the importance of feces in the cycles of human and biological affairs is often underestimated.

It's hard to ignore the nationalistic element of the TV coverage of the Olympics, but i try.  Most of the ads, too, though I have to say I like the one for California Almonds that shows the US curler laying down a rock for the bored kids swiffing the kitchen floor.

Maybe I'm just getting to be a softie, but I'm also more amazed, and less bored, than ever before with the figure skating competition.  First, it seems like they finally have a scoring system that fairly determines outcomes. The quality of the top performances is sometimes breathtaking:  I'm thinking of the Japanese men's gold medal winner (and his teammate), the top two pairs dance teams, the Russian women!   And the Americans....

Look let's get real about this--anytime an American wins a medal in any Olympic sport, besides freestyle skiing/snowboarding or the bogus short track speed skating events, it's a major success. The point is, it always has been.  Look, we showed up, we tried.  I like the spirit--and the apparent amateur nature--of the US  men's hockey team (eliminated in the quarterfinals, in a "shootout"). These are not our games--we are participants.  I'm OK with that.

To make my point more clearly, Stupid Bowl is at heart a big, overhyped TV  show (think of the three-hour pregame, or the halftime extravaganza), but it offered a quality sporting event this year.  The Olympics are a quality sporting event despite the network's efforts to make it an entertainment program centered around nationalistic cheerleading.

Some Quick Hits
Basketball:  Now that we are finally getting past the trade deadline and the All-Star break, the real NBA season can begin.  I'm afraid I'm serious: the first two-thirds of the regular season seem to be little more than a warm-up for the pre-playoff exhibitions (the remaining regular season games) and the playoffs.  LeBron James finally has the teammates he wants, and he's ready to rally his team from their mediocre performance to crush the Eastern Conference opposition.  I will expect Spurs' coach Popovich to pull a rabbit out of his hat and suddenly put a healthy, rested Kawhi Leonard out there, with a similarly healthy and rested Rudy Gay, to supplement a mostly-young, partly terribly-old (Ginobili, Tony Parker) team that has learned to play well without them.  Will a boost like those two put them into Warriors-challenging territory?  We may find out in the second round of the playoffs; they could pull an upset of historic proportions.  The Houston Rockets have something to say, too; they want a shot at Golden State in the Western championship round--it may not happen that way, they may have to wait until next year, when the new scheme might have them playing each other in the finals.

I see the NBA is reconsidering its "one and done' policy with regard to college players.  They're probably thinking of just eliminating it--I would suggest going the other way to "two and done".  Despite the inequity, denying these future millionaires their gratification another year, making them work for nothing with insufficient career insurance, it would produce a better sport, both at the college level and the pros.  Not enough veteran savvy, too many talented youngsters with poor team skills.

P.S. There is one spirited contest remaining for the regular season:  a multi-sided battle of sneaky tanking strategies among eight different teams for the worst records, which will lead to higher draft picks.  The bad teams will find phony reasons to shut down their best players for the most minor injuries in order to help their chances to do badly.  The trade deadline moves had several aspects of this, for example the Bulls' trade of Nikola Mirotic, who failed to get with the program after returning from a long injury (his teammate busted his face with a fist in a team practice) and played his best ball, causing the Bulls unexpectedly to go on a lengthy win streak.  He had to be traded.  i love the NBA; the skill levels and athleticism are off the charts, but this is very bad.  The league has to change the rules so there is much less benefit in the draft lottery for finishing at the very bottom; instead, the teams that just miss the playoffs should get more chances to get good draft picks.

Soccer: I have to give the multi-millionaire Arabs who own Manchester City football club the credit due to them, as they have supplanted Chelseas's Roman Abramovich as the most effective big-time investors in producing a powerhouse English Premier League team.  They have a chance to tie, or even surpass, crosstown rival Manchester United's greatest single-year accomplishments.  As for Chelsea, they are in a decent shape to stay in the Champions League--next year--by finishing in the top four.  There are five very strong teams battling for the three open slots available behind Man City,.  As for this year, by getting nosed out for second in their first-round group, they ended up drawing Barcelona in the round of 16.  They are proving to be a worthy opponent, which means after their 1-1 draw at home (great strategy, almost, to keep Barca from getting that crucial away goal) they are probably in trouble in the rematch.  If they score first, they've got a real shot at pulling off the upset, but otherwise it is likely to go downhill very fast.

Baseball:  Speaking of multi-millionaire investors producing winning teams, the big preseason question is whether the Yankees have bought themselves into a chapionship team--I'm tempted to say, "again".  Certainly the signing of top slugger Giancarlo Stanton, to go with the Yanks' 2017 rookie breakout power sensation Aaron Judge is the stuff of Yankee legends:  Ruth-Gehrig-DiMaggio, Maris-Mantle, Mattingly-Reggie (that' was a trick; they never played together), regardless of whether they can take over the AL.  The defending champion Astros, hungry and unfulfilled Indians, and the RedSox all will try to make life difficult for them, as they can compare offensively and--at least the first two--probably have better starting pitching.
In the National League, the Nationals seem to be fading, leaving the Cubs and Dodgers as the big-time power brokers.  The Cubs stepped up, in the wake of likely allowing their formerly superstar starter Jake Arrieta to depart, by paying big money for Yu Darvish, the mercurial Japanese pticher who couldn't get it done for the Dodgers last year.  The Dodgers have plenty more where Darvish came from, though--I don't mean Japan, the Angels got the big Japanese name this year in Shohei Ohtani, who could be a crowd-pleasing sensation--I mean their bench: the Dodgers have six or seven potential ace starting pitchers, starting with the ace of trumps, Clayton Kershaw.  As for the Reds, they appear to be in Year 4 of an eight-year rebuilding program.  I just hope Joey Votto lasts long enough to still be playing then.

Tennis: My tennis world is still agog at Roger Federer's triumph defending his Australian Open title.  He didn't have to get past Rafael Nadal this time, but I think his level was such that he might have been able to do it again this year.  As for the women, the 2018 story will be when Serena returns.  It may not be real soon, but the crown remains empty until she comes back and has a go at taking it back.