Anaheim's Race Problem

“The mayor said he wanted relations between ethnic groups to be kinder,” says Moreno. “I raised my hand and asked him if he knew the Spanish word for that. He didn’t, nor did another city council woman.

You know what they say: you shouldn't communicate in a language you both know when you could fail to communicate in languages you don't.

The issue appears to be that the police spend too much time policing the areas near Disneyland and also do too much policing of gang-infested areas, including killing armed and dangerous gang members who openly fire weapons in public. I guess the solution is to . . . police the Latino parts of the community more without doing anything about the gangs?

Without knowing anything about the situation I assumed they had valid complaints, but now that I have some details it sounds like it's a garden-variety riot.

Endogenous

My girlfriend, who grew up in China, asked me why gun laws might be endogenous in a regression of murder rates on gun laws (i.e. concealed carry permitted). She said she understands that attitudes towards gun use and ownership are omitted variables but how would they influence the laws?

"We'll, culture influences how people vote."
"Oh, you people vote!"

And that is all I have to say about that.

Menino brings best, and worst, of mob politics to Boston

Mayor Menino is threatening to block Chick-fil-A from opening in downtown Boston with the time-honored tactic of strangling the chain with bullshit regulation. This the method is popular in China as a way to Communist Party (CCP) thugs to crush competition to their and their friends' businesses.

The Mayor's stated goal, which we have little reason to question, is to stick it to Chil-fil-A for donating millions to anti-gay hate groups. The founder reportedly said he was "guilty as charged" in supporting the traditional family when asked if he funded anti-gay groups. I haven't read the details on Chick-fil-A's hate group donations but it is the conventional wisdom that is happened and it doesn't seem like the company is doing much to dispute the claims.

I don't have a big problem with sticking it to Chick-fil-A for being bigots.

But I'm not sure Menino should have that power. According to the Boston Herald the past he has used it to block Wal-Mart from coming to Roxbury and offering lower prices to a neighborhood where the median household income is about half the city median. I guess he likes sticking it to people on a budget as much as to bigots.

Market predicts Dark Knight audiences unafraid

An insane gunman at a Dark Knight Rises midnight showing killed 12 people. Networks are taking down TV spots for the movie, at least for now. Will fear and decreased advertising cause a slump in ticket sales, or will the increased publicity draw in interest?

The Hollywood Stock Exchange says it's mostly a wash as a derivative that pays based on total box office revenue went nowhere today (up 1.28% or an expected increase of $6.24 million).

There are a few caveats in order. When a good movie is released the stock usually jumps up just prior to release and again over the release weekend. (See the pattern for The Avengers here.) The increase prior to release reflects information from reviewers saying the movie is good, which suggests more repeat viewers and good word of mouth down the road. The increase at release reflects resolution of uncertainty over whether the general public agrees with the critics (usually it does) and new information like new box office tracking data. In the case of The Avengers critics gave the movie a big thumbs up but when CinemaScore revealed the average viewer gave the movie an A+ the stock jumped substantially (on 5/5) as it became clear repeat viewings and word of mouth would be particularly strong. Data on sales at midnight release and Friday and Saturday estimates may have contributed to the increase as well.

In light of that pattern we might have expected the TDKR stock to jump a few percentage points today on resolution of uncertainty (in its favor) and good word of mouth. I'll plug my positive review here: it's as good as the other two. Reports do indicate that TDKR broke midnight box office records by a nice margin ($25-30 million vs The Avengers $18) but I think that was widely expected based on tracking data as this report from yesterday indicates. So I think taking the slight upward movement at face value is reasonable.

That's good news. It'd be ironic, and sad, if fear kept the masses from seeing a film largely about overcoming fear.

"Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up." - Thomas Wayne


Update: Today, July 21st, TDRK is down $11 million and the opening at $77.2 million was somewhat weaker than some projections in the $80-90 range. It looks like some people are being deterred by fear but only something like 2% of people interested in the film. I'm think it's a good showing for American courage.

Can the Supreme Court define marriage too?

The Supreme Court ruled that the mandate is a tax and many conservatives insist that the court is the final word on how we refer to the mandate.

When the court one day rules that marriage is not defined as "a union of one man and one woman" and that "gay marriages" are marriages, will conservatives be quick to insist that is now how we must talk about marriage?

David Stern's negative endorsement

from ESPN

Obama's campaign held a fundraiser last February at the Orlando-area home of Vince Carter of the Dallas Mavericks. Attendees included Paul, who plays point guard for the Los Angeles Clippers, NBA commissioner David Stern and former NBA stars Magic Johnson and Alonzo Mourning.

I might have to sit this election out. That's a pretty strong negative endorsement.

Scott Brown beats English language to pulp

Scott Brown went to war on the English language last night with the incoherent statement that

Foreign aid is important for humanitarian reasons, and to help give us leverage in negotiations involving our own national security. But, while it is a relatively small portion of our budget, we ought not spend a penny more than is necessary to accomplish these vital goals.

in the middle of a discussion of cutting spending. Since tens of thousands of children are dying from preventable diseases like malaria on a daily basis because we don't spend more, I'm going to assume helping them doesn't count as "humanitarian." I think humanitarian here means rebuilding countries after we went to war with them and maybe some disaster relief.

I don't think Brown ever had a chance of getting my vote even though I'm presumably the kind of Democrat he is targeting (white, male, blue-collar background). But he slammed the door shut and I'll probably go ahead and volunteer for Warren since a friend has been prodding me to do.