Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

It’s an interesting story that raises a lot of questions.

From what I can tell, nobody’s quite sure how he made his money. That seems to imply that he got it illegally — e.g., by bribing people, or doing nefarious deeds — or that he was on some secret payroll. Eric Weinstein (who honestly strikes me as a bit of a nut) says he might have been an asset for an intelligence agency.

That makes some sense. It would tie together several different threads.

But there’s a lot that needs to be investigated.

It’s odd that his client list been suppressed for so long, and seemingly protected by very powerful people. Why?

There are some serious questions about the circumstances surrounding his death. Although I should note that the famous skeptic Michael Shermer dismisses a lot of those questions and believes Epstein committed suicide.

The Epstein story fits with the increasingly popular view that there’s a cabal of rich and powerful people who run things behind the scenes, live by their own set of rules, and protect one another.

It’s possible that’s all it is. Maybe Epstein is simply a convenient avatar to attach to that story.

I think there’s more to it, but I don’t know how much more.

Rebel Moon is okay, I guess

Happy New Year everybody!

Captain Crowhill, Mrs. Crowhill and I watched Rebel Moon over the holidays. It’s okay, but it’s not great.

It’s very derivative, but that makes sense because it was written to be a Star Wars movie. It seems every Star Wars movie has to invoke the same concepts and scenes. E.g., here are some farmers eeking out an existence on a distant planet. Here we are in a new version of Mos Eisley, where there has to be a bar fight. And here’s the Han Solo character. Etc.

It’s a dark and gritty movie. Maybe this is my 60 year old eyes speaking, but I hate it when a movie is too dark.

The bad guys are over the top. No functional military could have the kinds of characters we see in this film.

They also get a little too realistic in the threat to the women in the opening scenes. It’s okay to imply rape (like with Jabba the Hut). We get it. You don’t have to be so gross about it.

The lead character is somewhat interesting, but the rest of them are pretty boring.

If you watch it knowing that it’s a failed Star Wars movie, you’ll get through it with a laugh or two.

No jokes from the pulpit!!

When I was a kid, someone in my family had a book called “It’s the Law!” with examples of stupid laws from around the country.

Some of them were just silly, like some jurisdiction where it was against the law to whistle underwater, but some of them made you wonder — like this one. In some county it was against the law for a preacher to tell a joke from the pulpit.

Your initial reaction to that is probably that it was some Puritan thing. You know, “a Puritan is someone who is constantly afraid that somebody somewhere is having a good time.” (Which is a historically inaccurate jibe against Puritians, but … nevermind.)

That law came the mind the other day when I saw some story about John Oliver.

I think John Oliver is a snarky jerk who’s wrong about most things. I haven’t heard him often, but when I have, he’s always struck me as the guy who is talented at misrepresenting an issue in an amusing way. It’s a little frightening to think that some people get their perspective on “the news” from people like Oliver.

That made me think of the law about preachers.

After listing to somebody like Oliver, it’s easy to imagine someone thinking that the world would be a better place if serious subjects weren’t the subject of comedy.

Is Pope Francis lost?

I don’t follow news about Frank the Hippie Pope, but this one caught my eye today. It reminded me of a comment from an orthodox Catholic friend who said the pope is lost.

Republicans, Democrats, Santos, and “principles”

Note: I’m taking it for granted that Santos was a creep who didn’t deserve to be in Congress.

When it came to ejecting Santos, there were some people who were saying that at least Republicans have some principles — that Democrats always stick up for their own, no matter what they say or do. That’s not completely true, but it seems to be generally true. Democrats toe the party line a lot better than Republicans.

But “principles” can get complicated.

On the one hand, having “principles” means you don’t allow a creep like Santos to stay in office. On the other hand, having “principles” means that you don’t allow evil people to take control.

As an extreme example, imagine one party had a one seat advantage over a Nazi party. Kicking out some of your guys out of “principle” might mean handing over control of the Congress to the Nazis. Is that really the “principled” thing to do?

It’s been said — and I think this has been generally true until very recently — that Democrats view Republicans as evil, while Republicans view Democrats as misguided. So to Democrats, handing over power to the Republicans is like handing over power to the Nazis, while to the Republicans, handing over power to the Democrats is more like an unfortunate setback.

This would help to explain why Democrats protect their own — even their lunatics — while Republicans are more likely to abandon them.