Millennials are gonna be in big trouble!

Detroit cops posing as drug dealers get customers who are Detroit cops posing as drug buyers. Hilarity ensues:

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/detroit-police-officers-fight-each-other-in-undercover-op-gone-wrong

Via Cosh:

And if something feels abundant, whether it’s liberty or oil, human nature dictates that its value will fall. Maybe that explains the current vogue among students for banning, removing and silencing.

Going through old favorites: Taxes.

Short-view nostalgia.

A note on mea culpas.

https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/930951378863906816

For like thirty hours there, it seemed like it was over.

About Roy Moore.

From an unsigned editorial in yesterday's Boston Globe (first quarter):

Headline: "The place to stop Roy Moore? The ballot box."

"Massachusetts voters repeatedly sent a man some blamed for causing a woman’s death to the Senate — and nobody told us we couldn’t.

"Voters in Alabama are entitled to the same deference.

"It goes almost without saying that former judge, alleged child abuser, and Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore would be a terrible lawmaker. He deserves to lose his election in December. But the reported GOP schemes to deny him the seat if he wins would be an affront to democracy, and the party should clarify that it intends to respect the will of voters..."

(Can't give a direct link, I'm afraid.)

(To clarify: I agree with the above editorial.)

"For Alabama Women, Disgust, Fatigue and a Sense Moore Could Win Anyway"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/us/alabama-women-roy-moore.html

Quote:

"...Not everyone was overly concerned. Susan Remick, 48, a principal at an elementary school, said: 'This all happened many years ago, correct? I honestly think we’re paying too much attention to it.' Ms. Remick, a Republican, said there were many more pressing problems. And the fact that the allegations were so old bothered her. 'I’m a little disappointed in society right now,” she said. 'It ultimately hurts somebody’s reputation. If it were true at the time, it should have been addressed at the time.' "

(snip)

Before you agree with that, think about what the principal is failing to remember. (Chances are she doesn't even remember the decade she's referring to, if she's well under 50.)

Here's what a reader said in response, in Tuesday's NYT:

"To the school principal in Alabama who said the allegations against Roy Moore should have been addressed at the time: Let me remind her and others who agree with her what society was like 40 years ago.

"First, children were taught that adults in authority should be respected and obeyed, that they could do no wrong. Schools and medical establishments were decades away from teaching children about improper touching.

"Second, girls were taught that they were responsible for the reactions of boys and men. If a boy 'went too far,' it was probably her fault.

"Third, even if a child did report a sexual assault to her mother, the mother was likely either not to believe her, or to be afraid to carry the report further. The mother might fear retaliation by the man, or ostracism by her community.

"It is difficult to imagine the repression, hypocrisy and denial that existed then. I speak from bitter experience."

ANNE MATLACK EVANS, NAPA, CALIF.

Massachusetts voters repeatedly sent a man some blamed for causing a woman’s death to the Senate — and nobody told us we couldn’t. ~ lenona at November 16, 2017 7:50 AM

"I was pulled over in Massachusetts for reckless driving. When brought before the judge, I was asked if I knew what the punishment for drunk driving in that state was. I said, 'I don't know, reelection to the Senate?'" ~ Emo Phillips

Third, even if a child did report a sexual assault to her mother, the mother was likely either not to believe her, or to be afraid to carry the report further. The mother might fear retaliation by the man, or ostracism by her community. ~ ANNE MATLACK EVANS, NAPA, CALIF. (by lenona at November 16, 2017 8:03 AM)

In one case, the mother, when told by her daughter that the 30-something Roy Moore wanted to date her, called her the "luckiest girl in the world."

Yep, it's game on.

So some parents are screwed up and shouldn't be parents. What else is new?

Also, going on a date doesn't make any unwanted sexual touching legal, regardless of age.

As for that reader response Lenona, Haaa hahahahaha.

Long story short, we all know if Moore had a D after his name instead of an R then everyone complaining would be called a prude and a scold. Including Ms Evans I suspect. Which is why so very many people just don't care anymore. Settle it in the ballot box. It is the people of Alabama's choice to make.

"Long story short, we all know if Moore had a D after his name instead of an R then everyone complaining would be called a prude and a scold."

Naw they just would never hear about it in the first place. Tried talking to people about the Senator Menendez trial, they never heard of it.

Editorial: But the reported GOP schemes to deny [Moore] the seat if he wins would be an affront to democracy, and the party should clarify that it intends to respect the will of voters..."

Me: Although senators can't deny Moore the seat, the Constitution allows for the Senate to remove politicians like Moore who have shown that they do not obey the Constitution. Like shark lawyers that can't swim, throwing Moore to the bottom of the lake is a good start.

The voters are not entitled to keep a scofflaw like Moore in office if he violates the Constitution. The Senate should throw Moore out of the Senate for the right reasons however, which is that he violated the Constitution as an Alabama judge(and Moore took an oath even as a state judge to obey the U.S. Constitution).

America is not a democracy, or Trump wouldn't be president when losing by 2,900,000 votes. (I didn't vote for either Hillary or Trump.)

It's been, like, two hours tops, but it seems like Franken is done & dusted.

Hours.

Annnnnnd here come the cruel mashups!

I love this part of the process.

Also, Al, how could 'marrying bacon' not be a joke?

Sanctimony collapses under it's own weight.

TEH PATRIARCHY STARTS EARLY!

https://twitter.com/sarahtaber00/status/930829519400980480

Meanwhile, on Pennsylvania Avenue, this old favorite came to mind, linked by Big Mac:

(((?)))? @ThomasHCrown

So a lot of people don't have much experience with real estate developers. Donald Trump is basically a walking cliche. I'll explain.
6:14 AM - 21 Jun 2016


1,067 Retweets
2,145 Likes


First, remember that at a certain scale, developers aren't pitching land or location. They're pitching themselves.

What this means is that as far as their mouths are concerned, they always produce fantastic improvement and they always have giant wallets.

Their first job is to get investors to buy into them -- their vision, their capability, their magic. They sell themselves first and always.

But the next developer who doesn't hit a snag will be the first. Trump has hit a lot of snags in his life.

So Trump falls back on one of the traditional escape routes: Make this all about the investors and not him.

This works more often with sophisticated investors than you'd think, because they are still composed of humans.

So the problem isn't the project and never the developer, it's a lack of investment, a stingy attitude, pick your horse-hockey.

"If you won't back this project enough to get over the ordinary bumps, I'LL DO IT MYSELF."

Invariably, when you hear that, it means a few things. (1) The project is in danger. (2) There's no easy way out. (3) The developer is thin.

Having represented more than a few developers and banks, I've gotten to see this in real time and forensically. It's a cliche.

Now, the next step -- when the investors don't immediately fall for this garbage -- is something showy to prove the dude still can throw.

Maybe he puts $1m of his own money (NOTE FACE VALUE; $200M; PERSONAL GUARANTY) down to show he's not afraid to commit.

The likelihood of that million ever showing up is roughly half.

The point isn't to cover 1/12 of the shortfall. It's to convince the investors that the brave developer sees a bright light ahead.

Why else would he have invested [$1M/the first tranche of $250K] if not?

This is in itself a surprisingly effective tactic, which is to say, it sometimes works at all.

Rational humans recognize what a sunk cost is. Trump, like most developers, is betting that he's not dealing with that kind of human.

A lot of [bankers/investors/elderly/middle aged marks] will be moved both by the personal investment and sunk costs and double down.

This gives the developer room to do one of three things. (1) Structure for bankruptcy/exit. (2) Turn it around. (3) Keep screwing up.

Remember: At this point, his goal isn't seeing the project to a successful conclusion. That would be great, but it's not his goal.

It's to stay alive and keep himself viable for the next project.

If you step back and look, he's saying that if you won't give him money, he'll give himself money and you won't be part of him.

That's the real tell: This isn't about paying the note or mitigating damage. It's about him. It's always about him.

We are at that stage with Donald Trump now.

Mr. Trump is falling back on his playbook because he invested in a bad project and got a lot of marks to buy in with him.

He may or may not launch his own Hannity News Channel, he may or may not do anything in particular the rest of the race.

What I guaran-damn-tee he's not going to do is liquidate $750M of his own assets in a fire sale and push through to the end.

As far as he's concerned, that's *our* job.

This, right here, is what's so depressing about the Trump phenomenon. It's just a mixed-use project in a far outlying county.

The whole project was sold on the idea that people would go out of their way to exist around something they never wanted anyway.

Our nominally expert-level political class was outpaced and out-maneuvered by a penny-ante real estate developer on autopilot.

This proves either that they're not controlled by bankers (who know this game) or that they're just really bad bankers themselves.

So now we have to somehow get a 1/3-done shopping center to market for the big season because foreclosure ain't gonna do jack.


And the developer has already structured himself to file a Chapter 7, skip the guaranty, and still own his yacht.

Of course, the shopping center/condo complex is three counties away from the nearest major suburb and there are no roads to the site.

So even if we get the thing built up, the locals don't want it and can't afford it, there are no anchor tenants and no accessibility.

The only bright spot: Sean Hannity will TOTALLY buy one of those condos.

So we are now at the point at which the major investors have ignored the concept of sunk costs and have doubled down.

They have either ignored or wished away the fact that the developer's promise to self fund went the way all such promises too.

What's remarkable in this particular failed investment is that the major investors have strong-armed the minor ones.

This isn't just buying into the con, it is in fact chugging the Flavor Aid.

A lot of people are saying, Shouldn't the failed nature of this investment be obvious by now?

After all, they broke ground on the convention, and half of it promptly sank into a sinkhole.

This is a fundamental misapprehension of how these projects almost invariably collapse.

People can make themselves stupid if they try, and when they've invested a lot of emotional energy, they make themselves stupid very easily.

You have to remember that any development is not really about money if the developer is successful in pushing his vision.

But this stage of the failed project, the project is about heart, will, and putting good money after bad.

Right now, the Republican National Committee has bought into the idea that it is either finish the project or go bust.

That, and not anything else he has done so far, is proof the Trump has successfully seen this project to what he sees as its end.

He has successfully convinced otherwise rational people that his project is really theirs.

So those ordinarily rational people look at the collapsing structure, and see not what it is, but what they hope it will be.

He isn't selling any particular idea or ideology. He is selling himself, and all those cold eyes brilliant people are fully invested.

Trump himself is a disaster, but he COULD BE a winner, he COULD BE salvation from Clinton, he COULD BE malleable, he COULD BE...

The people who haven't bought in see a catastrophe unfurling. Just a little bit, so do the people who haven't.

That's a lot fewer typos than usual when mobile.

So let's talk Likely Next Big Disasters/Option Contracts for Expanding Ownership Share.

We are in waters now only well-trod before the real estate bubble burst, and analogies are gonna get weird without a FDIC.

At this point in the project, the developer has successfully conned/convinced, against all common sense and odds, big money in deeper.

He has done so despite making a total mockery of his "I've got my own skin in the game" claim. High-five, dude.

So to review, he's only spending time, not capital, on this. He's also clearly hedging with his other investments.

He has to keep the game going long enough to put this project on auto-pilot and completely end any personal exposure.

He's going to have his investors -- who are already in for pennies and pounds -- as a captive audience. He needs to finish.



Note that I didn't say "finish strong." The marks already have to believe because their own skin is on the line.

His acceptance speech, I still can't believe I'm writing those words, is gonna be long on ridiculous and hyperbolic vision.

And if not there, then everywhere else, because (1) dance with him what brung ya and (2) gotta string along the marks just a bit farther.

They've already invested in the project and put their own capital on the line. Now he needs them to take over and hand him the profits.


See, that's the sign of a truly successful developer of his sort: He does nothing, everyone else does everything, he profits.

The bank puts in its own project manager to finish. The investors add capital for a new architect. Someone donates his own grading company.

THIS IS A THING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND HAPPENED A LOT BEFORE SEPTEMBER 2008. (It's like crack cocaine ran in rivers.)

Dude is gonna be off checking out his other properties and posing for photo ops because he does that as part of his breakfast routine.

What's gonna be super-amazing is when, in the aftermath of this half-built disaster, the investors conclude it's everyone else's fault.

It's never gonna be Trump's fault, and that's the one thing they'll get right. No one made them fall for a gigantic cliche.

I read that and thing of Snoopy/Ben & their ilk.

And that is just the start of your problems Crid.

But an accurate read on Trump none the less.

Yeah, it would have been neat to get this one done before lunchtime E.S.T.

Short view, long view. There's always some sane person ready to spoil our fun.

Rational humans recognize what a sunk cost is. Trump, like most developers, is betting that he's not dealing with that kind of human. ~ @ThomasHCrown (posted by Crid at November 16, 2017 9:48 AM)

Chances are he was not. We learned in business school about a thing called the sunk cost fallacy, also known as the Concorde Fallacy, after the decisions by the French and British governments to continue spending on the development of a plane for which there was no longer a viable economic case.

It's a common error in financial decision-making. That is, we've already spent millions on this, we need to carry it through to the end so we don't lose those millions. The decision to press ahead is based on a fear of loss, an inability to let go of a decision already made.

You'll see non-millions examples in your everyday life. Eating too much in a restaurant because you don't want the already-purchased food to be wasted. Carrying on with a bad relationship because you've already invested so much time into it. Watching a movie all the way through since you've seen half of it already.

Okay, actually, that long view piece wasn't very good. Sorry, I'll make it up to you.


Every other hyperlink I've ever posted here is shining, spinning gold, and you're lucky to have me at these rates.

Also, Al, how could 'marrying bacon' not be a joke?

Sanctimony collapses under it's own weight.

Crid at November 16, 2017 9:21 AM

Al, "I could support recognizing a constitutional right to marry bacon" is not comparing gay marriage to marrying breakfast meat.

It is, however, making the point that one can argue a Constitutional right to almost anything. And pointing out the fallacy of believing that, since such an argument can be made, the argument is correct and deserves support.

It's in the same vein as Sol Wachtler's famous quip about a grand jury indicting a ham sandwich.

No one is indicting or marrying meat.

"The voters are not entitled to keep a scofflaw like Moore in office if he violates the Constitution. The Senate should throw Moore out of the Senate for the right reasons however, which is that he violated the Constitution as an Alabama judge(and Moore took an oath even as a state judge to obey the U.S. Constitution)"

If we could throw someone out of the senate for violating the constitution, as a judge or an elected official, there wouldnt be many left. Often you don't even know if you have violated the constitution until an issue works it way up to and through the Supreme Court. (And this isn't the standard for throwing someone out of the senate) Some research on the process and grounds might be in order.

As Isab hinted at in her parenthetical, it would be unprecedented for the Senate to expel a member for actions they took prior to being elected to the Senate. Is that a good precedent to set? Will people who are accused of thing that they supposedly did decades ago have to prove their innocence? And then what happens after they are in office -- does being in Congress constitute a hall pass, as seems to be the case now?

Yo, Adrian! This particular sexual assault charge might be Over the Top.

This is promising. Hopefully they're not exaggerating.

Fisker claims the batteries it's developing have an energy density 2.5 times that of current batteries, and they should be capable of providing a 500-mile driving range. The company also says the batteries could be recharged in as little as a minute. Both claims are similar to past claims from others, including Sakti3. Other benefits include lower estimated cost than conventional lithium-ion batteries as well as very little risk of fires or explosions.

https://www.autoblog.com/2017/11/13/fisker-has-filed-patents-for-solid-state-batteries/

> "I could support recognizing a
> constitutional right to
> marry bacon"

Well... Okay.

But still.

This guy wasn't ever funny on Saturday Night Live. And he was there in the funny years.

I'll believe it when I've seen it IRA. I.e. when they actually go into production or heck when they show off a reasonable research prototype even. I've seen this so many times that when I hear 'We'll have x in 5 years' I figure 50 years from now they might have something.

More tech, this time hauling cargo into space and back.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/the-dream-chaser-spacecraft-has-completed-a-successful-free-flight/

This guy wasn't ever funny on Saturday Night Live. ~ Crid at November 16, 2017 12:10 PM

No, he wasn't. I thought Stewart Smalley was the most annoying character in the history of that show. And the "I'm good enough..." skits were singularly unfunny, even the one with Michael Jordan.

His books weren't funny either. For a guy who made a living as a humor writer, you'd think he could at least be funny on paper, but no. I don't understand how he kept getting work.

And then he got elected to the Senate. He may have a Harvard degree, but I've never seen evidence of either heightened humor or intelligence from him.

I actually read Franken's Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, in which he impugns various conservative personalities as liars. I found the book interesting, even though I'm a conservative myself.

He recounted a story in the book in which conservative pundit Rich Lowry indicated that he thought some liberal personality, maybe Franken himself, was a wimp on some issue. Franken responded by challenging Lowry to a fistfight in the parking garage of the building where Franken worked at the time.

I thought that really long comment was Orion's.

You don't have to thank me.

That library

I was wrong and Lenona was 100% correct. There are a whole bunch of women who've made accusations out loud.

I'm sincerely sorry for not knowing that.

And surprised his political opponents have made them into household names, even for the detail-averse news skimmers.

It is now dark night in the District of Columbia, and it seems obvious that Franken is going to skate.

What a fool I was, all those hours ago to think he might lose his job, and that an actual social change might actually be consummated by these scandals (no pun intented)!

Silly me.

"It is now dark night in the District of Columbia, and it seems obvious that Franken is going to skate."

Add "cynic" to the list of things you may have in mind for me, but I'll be surprised if anything happens, even though talk radio is belaboring this right now.

There are umpteen cases where politics has given Lady Justice a grope. Lautenberg running in NJ after the eligibility window closed because it would mean a Republican win by default, Bill C being excused endlessly...

But I have to ask: Where has gender equality gone?

If Weird Al Franken had grabbed the breasts of a sleeping male as a joke, there would be hearty guffaws and a "Ha, ha, ya got me asshole."
Instead, we see a woman scarred for life.

> Instead, we see a woman
> scarred for life.

Naw. He did that to her. If someone had taken a smirky photo of my sleeptime genitals being theatrically molested, I'd have been annoyed too. And people of whatever gender can imagine an intrusive figure trying to force a kiss.

Especially easy to imgaine if you were an attractive child... and I was GORGEOUS. Going to church where those old ladies wore perfume and shitty hats was a NIGHTMARE.

Franken's a Cat-7 swirling Frunobulax Dorkmundus, and Tweeden is in no sense living under a Stat of Limmies. He did that shit, and made it a point to photographically record his arrogance: She can be as pissed for as long as she likes.... For decades, if not "life." It was a goddam USO tour, and her husband was RIGHT THERE.

Thanks, Crid.

and her husband was RIGHT THERE.

So why didnt he do anything?