Grim's Hall

Porco Rosso

Tonight and again on the 23rd are your chances to see Porco Rosso on the big screen. It's about an ex-fighter pilot-turned-bounty hunter, and it takes up the themes of the brotherhood of war, honor vs. loyalty, honor vs. celebrity, Old World vs. New, genius vs. experience, and, of course, love. The early part of the movie is more for kids and is rather comic. For me it is an odd juxtaposition with the more serious themes that emerge later in the film. I guess, then, another theme would be the heart of a child vs. the heart of a combat veteran.

Being able to see it in theaters is due to the efforts of GKIDS, the distributor for some anime in the US. Last year, GKIDS sponsored Studio Ghibli Fest, which put one Studio Ghibli animated movie in theaters each month. It was apparently pretty successful, so they are doing it again this year. Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki's studio, the most famous Japanese anime studio. It created films like Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away.

If you are interested, you can see if any theaters near you are playing it by going to the Studio Ghibli Fest website, scrolling to Porco Rosso, and putting in your zip code.

Rule of law

Andrew McCarthy has written another in a series of articles digging into the bizarre misinformation campaign spinning out of the behavior of the FBI:

If you or I had set up an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws; if we had retained and transmitted thousands of classified emails on this non-secure system; if we had destroyed tens of thousands of government records; if we had carried out that destruction while those records were under subpoena; if we had lied to the FBI in our interview — well, we’d be writing this column from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. Yet, in a feat of dizzying ratiocination, Director Comey explained that to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would be to hold her to a nitpicking, selective standard of justice not imposed on other Americans.

So it was that the New York Times, in this week’s 4,100-word exposé on the origins of the FBI’s Trump–Russia probe, recycled the theme: Government investigators were savagely public about Clinton’s trifling missteps while keeping mum about the Manchurian candidate’s treasonous conspiracy with Putin.

As we contended in rebuttal on Thursday, the Times’ facts are selective and its narrative theme of disparate treatment is hogwash: Clinton’s bid was saved, not destroyed, by Obama’s law-enforcement agencies, which tanked a criminal case on which she should have been indicted. And the hush-hush approach taken to the counterintelligence case against Donald Trump was not intended to protect the Republican candidate; it was intended to protect the Obama administration from the specter of a Watergate-level scandal had its spying on the opposition party’s presidential campaign been revealed.

But let’s put that aside. Let’s consider the disparate-treatment claim on its own terms.

Highlanders

A small piece of a bit more than seven minutes. The first song is "Atholl Highlanders."

UPDATE: Dueling Highlanders.

If you're about Franklin, NC, they are holding a "Taste of Scotland" Festival from 14-17 June. I'll be out that way.

Music for a Stormy Weekend

Ted Cruz on Hamas

Apparently he's not too impressed with the media's treatment of the latest ~~invasion~~ peaceful protest.

Henry Kissinger: How the Enlightenment Ends

In a thoughtful exploration of philosophy and technology, Kissinger argues that AI developers should start thinking through the philosophical questions raised by AI and that the government should start seriously thinking about AI and its possible dangers. It's difficult to excerpt because he uses the entire article to make his point, but here is his hook:

As I listened to the speaker celebrate this technical progress, my experience as a historian and occasional practicing statesman gave me pause. What would be the impact on history of self-learning machines—machines that acquired knowledge by processes particular to themselves, and applied that knowledge to ends for which there may be no category of human understanding? Would these machines learn to communicate with one another? How would choices be made among emerging options? Was it possible that human history might go the way of the Incas, faced with a Spanish culture incomprehensible and even awe-inspiring to them? Were we at the edge of a new phase of human history?

"A Terrorist Organization"

Hamas, which claims 50 of the dead from yesterday's protests in Israel, is a named Foreign Terrorist Organization -- but all the coverage I've read is treating the deaths as if they were innocent "protesters."

The NRA, on the other hand....

WSJ: NRA vs. Authoritarianism

In New York, a telling exercise of power.

War and Natural Law

Soon I’ll have the ability to engage pieces like this again. I’m looking forward to it. For now, I’ll just forward it to your attention.

Felony relo

A Seattle councilwoman wants felony charges brought against Amazon for threatening to leave town if the city taxes workers to make a dent in the affordable housing crisis.

Socialists really need to find a solution to this problem of the golden goose walking off. Has anybody thought of putting up guard towers at the borders?

"Property can’t leave, so seize it."

Illinois flirts with the Caracas solution, a/k/a the Cuban (etc.) solution.

Speaking of Caracas, what amazes me if that buyers are still making cash offers on real estate, and even more, that sellers are still holding out for a better price. Let's hope they get one before cholera and cannibalism set in.

Happy Nabka Day

Seventy years after Israel had the effrontery to become a nation, seventy-three years after the Allies liberated the few remaining survivors at the concentration camps, a diseased culture still can't get over its antisemitism and do anything productive about refugees from long-lost wars.