GREEN BOOK WINS AT THE O$CARS BUT LOOSES AT THE BOX OFFICE! THE PUBLIC HAD ALREADY VOTED FOR AVENGER WITH THEIR WALLETS!

BUT BLACK PANTHER WAS A DISTANT SECOND

Again this year I truly appreciate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members telling me that GREEN BOOK was the Best motion picture of the year, but in the ONLY category that really counts – MONEY MADE – it appears the International audience made a different decision.  When it comes to picking movies, I always "trust the mob" so here is how the movie going paying public ranked this year’s movies as of 25 February 2019.

In a departure from the norm, two of this year’s eight nominees for Best Picture are among the eight top money maker of the past year with Black Panther coming in a distant second at $1.347 Billion and Bohemian Rhapsody was #6 bringing in $861 Million.  This year’s Top earner and crowd favorite was AVENGER: Infinity War with a whopping $2,048.4 take at the box office.  That means AVENGER made nearly 30 times more money at the box office then the Academy’s “Best” picture selection – GREEN BOOK.  Although I’m sure winning the Oscar is a great honor, I’m confident the producers of GREEN BOOK would gladly trade their Oscar for the extra $1.979 Billion Avenger earned.

Hence, as in past years in the money spending public’s opinion it was again no contest ….and the WINNER is, bank statement Please (drum roll), the hands down winner by a country mile is (sorry GREEN BOOK): AVENGER: Infinity War!

As a footnote, if BlacKKKlansman had won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam would have been really pissed off since it would have been a rip off of his 1984 Halloween costume and he has his Medical School yearbook photo to prove it.

HOW MUCH BORDER FENCE DOES $5.7 BILLION BUY?

Based on the cost of border barriers already completed, $5.7 Billion should just about seal the entire US-Mexico Border. According to a recent US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) briefing (slide above), between 2007 - 2009 (2 years) they built 400 miles of Border Barrier in support of US Customs and Border Protection at a total cost of $1.3B. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Cumulative Price Change since 2010 to today is 15.16% (yearly average inflation rate has been 1.78%). Doing the math that means $1.3B of 2009 dollars is ~$1.5B in 2019 dollars ($1,497,042,502.84 to be exact) so $5.7B should buy another 1523 miles of border wall. Given USACE has already built 400 miles, if Trump builds another 1523 miles then he should have 1923 miles completed. The entire United States and Mexico border is only 1954 miles so that leaves only 31 more miles to build to completely seal the US-Mexico border 100%.

All I did was take the briefing slide from the USACE briefing (the briefing is posted on the Army Engineer Association website under the August 2018 Industry Seminar) and extrapolate from the numbers there to estimate the cost. In the construction World, past experience or analogous estimating is a recognized method for estimating the cost of future work of similar scope but that number would be the contracting costs so would include any access roads but not land purchases nor would it account for significant differences in terrain.  I can’t speak to what other “experts” estimate, only how much the existing 400 miles of barrier actually cost. To be honest, I don’t contemplate all 1954 miles of border will require fencing nor do I expect the unfinished portions of barrier be as easy or inexpensive to construct as what has been completed.  I do believe the $50 - $70 Billion some Members of Congress are throwing around wildly exaggerate the cost and that the actually cost will be in $7 - $10 Billion range for what really requires fencing.  Just something to ponder.

Washington DC 2018 Yearly Homicide Statistics Just Out - DC Regaining their "Murder Capital of the National" Mantle

Today, New Year’s Day 1 January 2019, the Washington Post published the homicide statistics for Washington, DC and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia adjacent suburbs in an article entitled: "Homicides spike in District as shootings become more lethal, police say" . The stats once again clearly demonstrated that any WaPo reader so naïve as to believes the myth that onerous gun laws yield safer communities needed to look no further than the stats in this WaPo 1 Jan 19 article to be disabused of that fantasy. Using the data in that article and the latest Census Bureau population numbers, I calculated the homicide rates of DC and the adjacent Maryland and Virginia suburbs.  Here are the results:

Maryland:  4.3 Homicides/100,000 citizens – 85 Homicides

(Montgomery Co Population = 1,058,810 – 19 Homicides; PG Co = 912,756 – 66)

Virginia:  2.3 Homicides/100,000 citizens – 35 Homicides

(Arlington Population = 234,965 - 3 Homicides; Fairfax = 1,148433 - 14; Alexandria = 160,035 - 4)

DC:  22.8 Homicides/100,000 citizens - 160 Homicides

(702,455 Population – 160 Homicides)

This means a DC resident, where firearms are virtually impossible to own, is almost 10 times more likely to be a homicide victim then one of us Gun Tottin Virginians who live in a state where gun ownership is almost unrestricted.  Even a Marylander with very restrictive gun laws is over five times less likely to be a homicide victim than a DC resident; much better than DC but a Marylander is still almost twice as likely to be a homicide victim than one of us Virginia Gun Totters!

This article clearly shows the breathtaking disparity in homicide rates between the jurisdictions of DC or Maryland that not only don’t have the death penalty but where criminals have little chance of being confronted by a law abiding citizen who just might have a gun of their own and Virginia where gun ownership is almost unrestricted and the only question for murders is “do you prefer the needle or the chair?” That same WaPo article noted that 40% of DC homicide offenders had a previous gun arrest

 

The statistics clearly demonstrate that contrary to liberal rhetoric, it is an “inconvenient truth” that “guns actually do make us safer.” Ask any Bostonian who was directed to “shelter in place” during the Marathon Bomber manhunt how they feel about owning a gun now!  Could it be that homicidal maniacs would much rather commit their crimes in jurisdictions like DC and MD without the death penalty and are not so anxious to attack law-abiding VA citizens as they might be "packing heat?"

Biden vs. Trump -- Not Quite the Rumble in the Jungle but Maybe the Septuagenarian Scuffle

Has everyone been following in the News the back and forth between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump about who would win a fist fight between them.

You got to admit, it's somewhat humorous to watch two confirmed cowards debate each other about who would win a fistfight. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden went through so many obscene machinations to dodge the Vietnam draft it was breathtaking. They did everything short of maiming themselves which neither had the guts to do and when they actually received their Draft Notices after their 5th deferments ran out and were unfortunate enough to pass their draft physicals, they were undeterred by that small setback. Both went shopping for a sympathetic doctor who successfully “discovered” an undetected disqualification so they could send a less eligible (and definitely poorer and less educated) replacement in their stead.  Thinking about it, Trump and Biden might have a lot more in common than people realize.

Now, as long as we’re naming Vietnam era Draft Dodgers in the here, let’s not forget Clinton, Romney, Sanders, Cheney and most current Members of Congress. Seems Draft Dodging was a bi-partisan character flaw that afflicted politicians at a much higher rate than the rest of the general population. By comparison, those cowards make "W" look like a war hero! (Bush flying antique Air National Guard Convair F-102s was probably in more danger than I was during my extended CIB-earning tour in Vietnam!).

As for Draft Dodging Members of Congress that come from that 1941-1950 cohort (the prime service age during the war), there are still 27 Senators from that age cohort of which only three (3) saw active military duty and only one sports a Vietnam Service Ribbon. In the House there are still 99 from that cohort with ten (10) having seen active duty but only four (4) Vietnam Vets. Then there’s Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) who claimed to be a Vietnam Vet but was really a reservist whose only active duty was a short stint for training. In his defense, he had seen a HBO rerun of the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon” and he was very active in his unit’s “Toys for Tots” campaign so might be suffering from PTSD.

The Day After - Weighing-In on the 2018 Academy Awards Best Picture Winner - The Shape of Water - 5 March 2018

It’s that time of the year again when the Old Colonel gets to weigh in on the Academy Awards and I truly appreciate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences telling me what the best motion pictures of the year were but in the ONLY category that really counts – MONEY MADE – it appears the American and International audiences have made different decisions.  When it comes to picking movies, I always "trust the mob" so here is how the movie going and paying public ranked this year’s movies as of 5 March 2018, the day after the Academy gave the Best Picture award to The Shape of Water!

Notice NONE of the nine nominated pictures is even among the ten top money maker of the past year, or even close for that matter. According to the Mob, the Best Picture of 2017 was Star Wars: The Last Jedi taking in $1.33B Worldwide which was more than ten times what the winner, The Shape of Water, made and over two and a half times what the top nominee, Dunkirk, took in.  Star Wars made 35 times more than Phantom Thread earned.  Although some of the nominees might earn more between now and the end of their theater run, none including Dunkirk will crack the Top Ten earnings list where the poorest performer, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, earned $794.9M.

One thing I'm confident of is that the producers of The Shape of Water would gladly trade their Oscar for the $1.33B Star Wars: The Last Jedi earned.

Was Nancy Pelosi's Dad a Nazi Alt-Right Bigot?

House Minority Leader Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi Seems to Have Forgotten Her Southern Heritage

House Minority Leader Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi woke up from her 30-year slumber last week and suddenly decided to be outraged by the Confederate statues standing in the halls of Congress. After serving as Speaker of the House for four years without noticing the statues, she now suddenly finds them "reprehensible" and is demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan have them removed immediately but her family history makes her newfound outrage a bit awkward.

The Lee-Jackson statue in her childhood hometown of Baltimore was removed yesterday but it seems the 1948 statue dedication ceremony was presided over by then Maryland Governor William Preston Lane Jr. and Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr, Nancy's Dad. Nine year old Nancy stood close by during the ceremony beaming with pride along with the 3000 other attendees. The statue was erected with a $100,000 donation from Baltimorean J. Henry Ferguson whose father was a friend of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Mayor D’Alesandro's dedication speech include these inspiring words:  “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions.”

I suspect today Nancy would consider her Dad/s words "Hate Speech!" Here is the link to the Baltimore Sun article to verify this information:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-monuments-removed-20170816-story.html

Marylanders Remove Statue of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and They Don't Even Know Who He Was!

Now that Marylanders are eradicating all traces of Roger B. Taney, they will never know why they ever built tributes to this distinguished Marylander in the first place but then again, most have probably never been curious why anyway.  He was not JUST a Supreme Court Justice, he was the fifth CHIEF JUSTICE of the United States serving for over 28 years (1836-64) which made him the second longest serving Chief Justice in US history behind only John Marshall.  He was also the Attorney General (1831-33) and the Secretary of the Treasury (1833-34) and he was the first non-protestant ever to serve in a president’s cabinet.  He even swore in Abraham Lincoln as President and remained loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War.

The Dred Scott vs. Sandford decision for which he is now being vilified was a 7-2 decision with Taney in the majority and was decided on the basis of interpreting the Constitution as it was written.  It took the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to "fix" the Constitution so it appears Taney's interpretation was correct at the time of the decision. Recall this Article IV, Section 2 passage was only voided by the 13th Amendment: "No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged form such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." I don't think anyone wants to empower the Supreme Court to amend the Constitution or legislate from their bench.

Taney was personally against slavery and, when he inherited slaves at the death of his father, he manumitted all of them and even provided pensions to the ones too old to work.  He famously condemned Slavery as “a blot on our National character.”  Chief Justice Taney even administered the oath of office to Abraham Lincoln on 4 March 1861.

Finally, the USCGC Taney (WHEC-37) was one of the Coast Guard’s most historic ships and is now a museum ship in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988.  I suspect Marylanders next move will be to try to sink her one night soon.