On Andrew Tate

Ep. 9 The Andrew Tate interview pic.twitter.com/0KKMzSVmMO

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 11, 2023

Andrew Tate offers a comic book concept of masculine excellence and what it means to be a man, which no doubt appeals to young, uneducated men with undeveloped principles and limited prospects.  Go to the gym and be a bad ass.

Of course they eat it up.  It's like feeding red meat to the jackals.

Okay fine.

But what I don't hear from him is:  Finish your education, speak and write proper English, read widely, play chess, learn to code, write poetry.  Not to mention:  Be honest and generous, treat people fairly, integrity in all things, etc.  There seems to be no place in his idea of masculine excellence for these qualities and skills.  I wonder if he thinks Magnus Carlsen is a real man?  Maybe.

But how about the youth pastor at your church, who also leads the choir and appreciates a quiet game of chess?  Is he a man of masculine excellence?

Ironically, Tate's father, now deceased, was a noted chess master.

Today, no doubt, Andrew Tate would describe Bill Gates as a man of masculine excellence.  What, with his fleet of private jets and all.  But just imagine if Tate had met Gates in 1975.  Nerdy, scrawny Bill, hapless with women, had just dropped out of college.  And all he could talk about was sorting pancakes.  We can just imagine Tate's sneer.  I mean, if you waste time sorting the pancakes, they're gonna get cold.

I don't really have a problem with Tate's advice.  But he is a simpleton who appeals to other simpletons.  He does strike me as a leader of a pack of wolves.  And I actually think he'd appreciate that comparison.

Let's add more to his definition of a man.  How about get married and be a faithful husband and father.  In this interview, Tate lets it slip that he has children with multiple women.

Here's an idea for what it takes to be a real man:  Be responsible.

Now no discussion of Andrew Tate would be complete without talking about women.  That is, Tate's take on women.  Let's set aside his predatory tone and the fact that he seems to view women as just another possession.  His argument is that the market for high value women is now international.  And if you want a high value woman, you are no longer competing only with the car salesman across town, but also with some hotshot Parisian property magnate with a private jet.  This is no doubt true.

But I think men should carefully evaluate the definition of a high value woman.  Just as the definition of masculine excellence extends far beyond Tate's limited comprehension, surely the definition of high value woman extends beyond a caricature of Meghan Markle or Kim Kardashian?  If a Parisian high-flyer can seduce your high value woman, best to let her fly.  Ask yourself:  Is she really high value?  You might even wonder about the high value status of the Parisian.  It's not a given; far from it.  Turns out, Bill Gates is an unfaithful cad.

But Tate says it doesn't matter.  He makes it clear that fidelity is not part of masculine excellence.  And there's no doubt, Tate's concept of masculine excellence appeals to a certain type of woman.  And yes, there are a lot of them; you see them everywhere.  So of course, Tate preaches his success.  But are these women really high value?  High supply and high demand means cheap; like the market for Tiktok videos.

To the extent that Tate's message is successful, and of course it is, it's due to the deterioration of women's standards.  Ironically, when Tate argues that women have more choices, this should imply that their standards have risen.  But the reality is that women's standards have never been lower.  And using this obvious fact, Tate promotes transactional relationships based on a shared character of the basest variety.  If you doubt me on this, just Google Andrew Tate's PhD course.  There's your man of masculine excellence.

In fact there are very few high value women.  The real problem is that we, as a society, have lost sight of what exactly is a good man and a good woman.  The problem is so bad that young men are turning to a charlatan like Andrew Tate for advice.  Men and women should consider their own definition of high value.  Here's mine.  Certainly do not allow a simpleton to define it for you.

But sure, if you want a Kim Kardashian type, take Tate's advice.

Update

30 July 2023

Yesterday Candace Owens also posted an interview with Andrew Tate.  Another long (three hour) interview.  It did not really change my mind about Tate.  But I did watch it to see if it would.

Two notes.  First, I noticed how Tate "reverted" to Islam.  Candace let this go.  But it's a supremacist religion.  You don't convert to Islam, you revert to it.  It's appropriate, a supremacist religion for a supremacist man.  I'm sure he fits right in.

I also note Tate's comments on how when he meets a man, any man, he considers whether or not he could beat the man in a fist fight.  I actually know this is true for many ruffians.  But it's never true for men of good will.  Decent men of substance.  These men.  Besides, there are all kinds of fights.  I know it's trite, but you can take the man out of the ghetto, but it is much more difficult to take the ghetto out of the man.

Tate is nothing but a common thug.

Owens X Tate: The Interview https://t.co/c7TwEcSZFY

— Candace Owens Podcast (@CandaceOwensPod) July 28, 2023

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Covid and the Nuremberg Code

Everyone should watch this

Let's make this simple:  All actions taken during the Covid medical response should have been tested against the Nuremberg Code.  And since this was not done at the time, we should do so now.

I also believe that there should now be severe penalties for anyone and everyone who mandated, pressured, or coerced others to act without informed consent and/or against their will.  No, we cannot hang all of these people.  But at a minimum, they should be named and shamed.  None of these people should ever hold positions of responsibility again.

Finally, there should be penalties for anyone who disallowed open debate and discussion on what was going on and how to stop it.  Surely this active, real time censorship slowed effective treatment and promoted ineffective treatments, causing death for many.

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Tales From Baobaoan

Part Three:  How to be an idiot in the Philippines

So one day last week, we are out for our morning walk.  It's the same everyday.  Three and a half miles through the rice fields.  This is what it looks like.  We walk up to the National Highway and back again.

The thing about rice farming in the Philippines is, it is farming.  When someone says I am a farmer, he means rice farmer.  Any other crop would make him less of a farmer.  Maybe even, less of a man.  The other thing to know about rice farming here is that all the farmers grow rice on these tiny plots.  Anywhere from, say, a quarter of an acre to maybe ten acres.  And ten acres would be an extremely large farm here.

Needless to say, they don't make any money.  I mean, year in and year out, they don't make money.  There's just too many farmers growing rice on too many tiny plots.  So none of them benefit from any economies of scale.  For all their efforts, the rice is expensive to produce.  And the worst part of it is that the farmers don't seem to understand this.

But rice farming is not just an occupation here, it is identity.  The farmers have a familial and intimate attachment to the land.  It is what and who they are.  Further, their cultural conviction that rice is the only crop worthy of their efforts borders on Stockholm Syndrome.  So naturally, the economics don't seem to matter.

Anyway, on this day we ran into a group of people all wearing the same logo shirts.  So I asked what kind of a group they were.  One of the leaders says:  We are an organization encouraging organic farming (sponsored by the government).

Me  You mean organic rice farming?

Leader  Well yes.

Me  Why not organic vegetable farming?  Say onions.

Onions have recently been very expensive here.  The leader mumbled something about how onions don't need a lot of organic material to grow.  And hey, what do I know?  I do know that all vegetables are generally expensive here.  It's a question of limited supply and limited demand.

Me  So where is all this organic material going to come from?  I mean, I never see any livestock here.

Leader  Yeah, we have to import it.

Me  Well wouldn't it be a good idea to encourage the raising of livestock here?  Then you could make your own organic fertilizers.

Leader  No, we don't have room for that here in the Philippines.

I scratch my head.

Me  Well, how about right there?

I point to the rice fields across the street.

Leader  No, no, it would be impossible to raise livestock there.

Me  Why is that?

She looked at me like I was an idiot.

Leader  Well obviously...because those are rice fields.

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Philippine Beauty Standards

The High Demand for Filipino Porcelain

For an expat living in the Philippines, Roger & Ismi Rupuesto have an informative Youtube channel.  But here, I think they are a bit off.

It's an interesting topic; one my Filipina wife and I often talk about. No doubt Roger and Ismi are correct about how Filipino men view Filipina beauty. But in my opinion, they are way off on the foreign men. Well, at least the American men. I can't really speak for the others. But for Americans, Filipina beauty is not new. For Americans, it is not a question of "newness" or "uniqueness." Rather it is a question of access and availability. Because I can assure you, there are many beautiful women in the US. By any standard of beauty. Remember, America is a nation of immigrants. It might be worth pointing out that more Filipinos live in the US than any other country, other than the Philippines itself. In any case, in the US there is no single ethnic standard for beauty.

The American men who come to the Philippines just don't have the same access to beauty in the US that the Philippines offers. So while Filipino men may turn up their noses to the "common" beauty all around them, the American expats know better than to be so cavalier with what is right in front of them.

However, an increasing number of Filipino women have come to believe that Korean and Chinese porcelain paleness is the ultimate standard of beauty. And then they try to mimic the porcelain dolls with harmful Michael Jackson style skin bleach and worse, dodgy pills, and you may not believe this, a weekly intravenous solution of glutathione. Of course, all of this just makes them look pallid and unhealthy. In the US, when we say someone looks "pale," we mean sick.

And yet so many Filipinas are now doing this. I mean, did they behave this way a generation ago? I'm not sure. But personally, I think it is an unnatural cultural contagion. No doubt heavily fueled by a pervasive and pernicious social media. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that social media has reached dystopian levels in the Philippines. The smartphone zombies and their attached devices are everywhere. But the saddest part of the advancing Philippine zombie apocalypse is the ubiquitous pageant of porcelain dolls. It is a travesty.

But it doesn't end there. Once a Filipina achieves this porcelain doll status, because it is status and not beauty that she is seeking, she then turns around and looks down on other Filipinas with a more natural beauty. Authentic natural beauty; read brown skin. Filipinos call it morena. The doll says: Oh, she looks like a nanny. And what she means is, she looks lower class. It's similar to Chinese culture, where they look down on darker skin tone as a sign that someone works in the fields. My point is, this is not even about beauty so much as it is about class. Or at least striving to appear higher class. That's what it's about: Striving.

And these Filipinas are so very proud of their paleness. Just like an American or European might like to show off a nice tan, Filipinas like to show off their paleness. Short skirts and short shorts, with legs whiter than an Irish grandmother's. It seems really twisted. I would go so far to say that Filipinas are willing to sacrifice their beauty in order to appear higher class. To an American, the contrived paleness and associated haughtiness just seem sort of...sad and pathetic. I am embarrassed for these women.

But twisted is the correct word. I mean, here we are in the tropics, eight degrees above the equator, and these women look like they could be from Edinburgh. So today, the Philippines is a tropical paradise inhabited by raven-haired apparitions of tropical beauty. The Filipinas create this dissonance themselves and at the same time seem casually oblivious to their very real sacrifice. Dissonance squared; it is surreal.

Again, it doesn't end there. No doubt there are social and professional environments that discriminate against dark-skinned Filipinas. For instance, if you go into my bank, all the tellers are women, and they all have unnaturally light skin. So whoever makes the hiring decisions, simply does not hire morena Filipinas. I mean, they don't want tellers that look like nannies, right? So yes, it is definitely striving, but sadly, some may feel an element of necessity – At least if you want certain jobs. Or perhaps to fit into certain social settings.

And so now Filipino men and women no longer recognize their own innate beauty. Which is terribly ironic, because everyone else in the world does recognize Philippine beauty, Philippine natural beauty. Yes, I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But still. Plus, the Philippines has an above average number of men who identify as gay or some other LGBTQ+ variant. End result: Below average western men flock to the Philippines for ready access to beauty. Of course they do.

It is said that when Cecil Rhodes first got to South Africa, he could pick up diamonds on the beach. The natives did not appreciate what they had. But that did not make the diamonds any less valuable.

And one natural Filipina is worth more than all the diamonds in the world.

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The List

Corporations supporting gender ideology and the radical trans agenda

You cannot just not buy Bud Light or Jack Daniels.  No one at Bud Light made this most recent marketing decision, no matter what Alissa Heinerscheid might have you believe.  These decisions are simply not made at the brand level.  Rather, they are made higher up the corporate food chain.  So it is not just Bud Light, but all of the AB Inbev brands that we should boycott...er, reconsider.

Anyway, I think we should start a list:

AB InBev (Owner of Bud Light – All brands)

Brown-Forman (Owner of Jack Daniels – All brands)

Diageo (Owner of J&B Scotch Whiskey – All brands)

Hershey's Chocolate (All brands)

L'Oréal (Owner of Maybelline – All brands)

Nike (Owner of Nike women's wear – Also Converse)

Proctor & Gamble (Owner of Gillette – All brands)

Plus consider this:  Isn't it funny that AB Inbev chose to target the Bud Light customer base rather than, say for example, the Michelob Ultra customer base?  Surely the Ultra customer base would have been much more receptive to this advertising scheme.  So why did they choose Bud Light?  The only possible answer to that question is that this is not a beer marketing campaign.  It is rather a pro trans campaign (and lecture), which the company has decided is more important than this particular brand.  In other words, they decided to sacrifice the brand and its customers for what they believe to be the greater good.  Clearly they hold the Bud Light customer base in contempt, people in need of a good lecture.

In any case, how hard is it to choose a Heineken?  Or switch to Jeremy's Razors or pick up a Cadbury bar?  Jeremy has chocolate too.  All I can add is thank God Diageo sold Bombay Sapphire to Bacardi 25 years ago.  But will Bacardi be far behind?  I have never been a Bud Light drinker.  I'm not even a big beer drinker.  But on occasion when I have had a taste for a beer, I have quite often picked up Michelob Ultra.  I wonder if AB Inbev factored that into their analysis?  They are not stupid, so clearly they just don't care.

Of course, the decision makers are managers, not owners.  So hey, it's not their own money they're throwing away.  And the bulk of their owners are other institutions, also run by the management class.  So turns out, there is little or no accountability for these decisions.

Anyway back to the list, if you look at it in this comprehensive way, well that's a lot of products.  Too many to keep up with.  But I hope this list helps.  We all do what we can.

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Half-Assed as a Cultural Norm

In the Philippines bahala na yields half-assed results (for everything)

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines half-assed as:  Done with little effort or care; incompetent or inadequate.  There do not seem to be any really good synonyms.  I wish there were; I'd be happy to use another term.  But, for example, unserious just does not seem to convey the same level of complete disregard and utter indifference for sufficient care and due diligence.  It just doesn't.  Apathetic may be closer, but it does not capture the inferior results.  Halfhearted and lackadaisical are good, but they lack the proper vigor.  No, it's a half-assed attitude which, of course, produces a half-assed result.  There really is no substitute.

So what is bahala na?  The video above explains it very well, and I prefer to leave it to a Filipino to explain anyway.  She deals with the issue with good humor, and I think that is exactly how it needs to be addressed.  Though I'm not sure that I can agree that the Philippines should blame the Spanish for this.  The Spanish left over a century ago.  A point she acknowledges at the end of the video.

A while back, I met a Filipino seaman.  As an island nation, many people here work in commercial shipping.  This guy worked as the second officer on a cargo ship.  He told me that mariners from other countries do not like working with mariners from the Philippines.  I asked why and he shrugged and said they are prejudiced against Filipinos.  At the time, I just accepted that as true.

But today, I'm not so sure.  Could it be that the foreign mariners just do not like working with people who consistently do a half-assed job?

And that is not all.  Bahala na breeds genuine contempt for anyone who wants to and tries to do a good job.  They think these people are just plain stupid for making the completely unnecessary extra effort.  There is an element of peer pressure involved.  Forget pride in a job well done.  In the Philippines there is no shame for a sloppy or unfinished job.  The only shame seems to be for the poor sap who puts in the extra effort.

In America, we have an expression:  Perfect is the enemy of good.  Well in the Philippines, adequate is the enemy of just barely enough to get by and not one bit more.  It is a cultural phenomenon.  I think it is worth pointing out that, expression or not, many many people in the West strive for perfection, or at least as close as they can get to it.  Certainly, you also see this in Japan.  Of course a Japanese mariner is going to dread the idea of working with a Filipino mariner.

So if we reject Spanish responsibility for this attitude, where does it come from?  One is tempted to blame sheer laziness – Everywhere you turn, there is a noticeable lack of industriousness.  And while that is certainly part of it, I don't think that is the whole story.

No, perhaps I am speculating, but I think it is a question of exposure.  Exposure to quality, craftsmanship, precision, durability, diligence, completeness, consistency, accomplishment, integrity, fidelity, etc.  And even things like excellent customer service, critical thinking, openness to change, self-improvement, learning and curiosity, attention to detail, punctuality, organization and planning, etc.  The list could go on and on.  But if you are not exposed to these hallmarks, you cannot possibly understand and value them, and you cannot possibly know to strive for them.

For instance, not all Filipinos share this attitude.  Many of the most ambitious and hard-working Filipinos leave to work in other countries.  Countries where the bahala na attitude will quickly get you fired.  And I notice that people who return to the Philippines after working long stints overseas seem to have lost the attitude.  Why?  Again, I think it is exposure to these qualities.  Even here in the Philippines, there are people who seem to have moved beyond bahala na.  But they are pretty rare.  I would guess you find more of them in the cities.

In any case, I would call bahala na the dominant cultural attitude of the country.  And it is crippling.  Economically, financially, culturally, socially, politically.  It spans all aspects of Filipino life.

As she said at the end of the video, the Philippine people must decide what kind of country they want.  This is the most important point:  It is a choice.  Not only as a society.  But also for each individual.

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Maybe it's the Hair

FTX head honcho, Sam Bankman-Fried (left) and WeWork boss, Adam Neumann (right)

Am I the only one who notices that an adult haircut might be some type of indicator of... er, financial responsibility?  I mean seriously, would you invest money with these guys?

You cannot use the same logic based on what they wear.  We've seen photos of both of these guys in business attire.  They are willing to put on a coat and tie when necessary.  But they are unwilling to get a proper haircut.  Maybe we should pay attention to that.

I have written previously about all the beards.
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Crazy Times Demand Principled Choices

Compliance is always a choice

Yesterday we made a trip to the Philippine Bureau of Immigration in order to extend my visa.  While our local office is never particularly busy, naturally one does tend to run into other expats.  Yesterday this fellow walks in behind me and he looked American or European.  He was late twenties, early thirties.

So I asked him:  "Hey brother, where are you from?"

"Russia."  I did not expect that.

"Oh" I said, thinking that he was definitely conscription material, "well, I'm glad you're here."  He smiled and gave me a knowing look.  I think he must have instinctively known I was referring to Putin's war in Ukraine.

After a bit of chit-chat in perfect English, I learned that he was waiting on his Russian (not Filipino) wife to join him here.  How interesting is that?  Then he asked me:  "So why are you here?"

I thought about giving him my customary answer to this question:  "My wife is from here."  It's true, but essentially evasive.  Instead I said:  "Well, the US has gone crazy."

He did not miss a beat:  "Yes...Russia too."

We both nodded knowingly.

By this time I was done, and he was being called to the counter.  So I left wondering how many of his contemporaries are here?  And in other countries?

I wish them good luck and long life.

It is one thing to be patriotic, and fight for your country.  It is quite another to risk your life for the whims of a corrupt political class.  Clearly this applies to Russian conscripts in Ukraine; just as it once applied to US conscripts in Vietnam.  Some people, especially in the US, especially during the Vietnam War, viewed conscription as a no choice situation.  Or worse, a patriotic duty.

But looking back at the Vietnam War, can anyone explain the US interest?  Of course not.  It was not about patriotism, much less fighting for your country.  No, it was about a corrupt political class and their self-serving misconceptions.  Remember, these are the same people who let Cuba go, but decided a poor country on the other side of the world, was worth dead Americans.  No, no, Cuba may have been worth war, but certainly not Vietnam.

I think it is worth noting that even George Kennan, father of our containment strategy, thought involvement in Vietnam was a preoccupation and a mistake.  But Johnson and McNamara, and Nixon and Kissinger, did not care about poor dead midwestern farm boys anymore than Putin cares about young dead Russians.

Here's a rule for you:  If you give corrupt politicians the tool of conscription, they will use it to further their corruption.  Every time.  And they only get away with this with our sanction.  Just don't give it; always question everything.  And just like with the Covid vaccine, there is always a choice.  Unpleasant though it may be.

Compliance is always a choice.

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McDonald's is Wasting Ray Kroc's Legacy

It is a slow motion corporate suicide

When I was a kid, I always liked McDonald's.  But I stopped patronizing them when the bad experiences became the rule, rather than the exception.  In the last, say, twenty-five years, I have only eaten at McDonald's in a pinch.  Here in the Philippines, my wife and I have been to McDonald's exactly three times.  Each time for breakfast, when it was the only available option.  Our orders were wrong every time.  It is no big deal to me.  Bad service; I just quit giving them money.

But for many years it has been obvious to me that there is something very wrong with McDonald's.  It is a management problem.  Without caring enough to do some research, that's about all I knew about it.  But their bad behavior stretches back to the early 1970's when they ripped-off their whole McDonaldland ad campaign.  More recently, McDonald's managers failed to warn franchisees about abusive hoax phone calls.  Courts ruled against McDonald's in both of these cases.  But for McDonald's, the judgments were peanuts.  What kind of people act this way? 

Well, people who figure it will be cheaper to pay a judgment rather than act in a responsible manner.  Nevertheless, over the years, I have known many people who have bought McDonald's stock, and swear by it.  I never joined them.

The video above is almost two years old, but it only popped up on my YouTube home page today.  Now "broken" ice cream machines are a well-known and longstanding problem with McDonald's.  And like many people, I always assumed that the problem was that McDonald's employees just did not want the hassle of cleaning the machines.  So they would tell everyone that the machine is out-of-order.  But it turns out, the problem is much more systemic.  This is yet another corporate management problem.  And I suspect, at its core, this is another ethical problem.

The video confirms what I have long suspected about McDonald's management and management attitude.  While I am rather leery of franchising in general, it is worth noting that McDonald's corporate managers do not work for the franchisees.  No franchisor does.  To my mind, it's just a bad business model for the franchisees.  But I am not even convinced that McDonald's managers know they work for the shareholders.  And they sure-as-hell don't work for the customers.

After World War Two, it took forty years for Montgomery Ward to go out-of-business.  Sear's utterly incompetent management followed, but somewhat faster.  I do wonder if McDonald's is going down the same path.  These corporate fat cats become complacent.  And entrenched.  And deaf.

That is what this story is really about.  Broken ice cream machines are not the problem; they are a symptom.  The root problem is bad, unresponsive management.  They are, at best, incompetent.  At worst, they're still the unethical management organization that they were fifty years ago.  Judge for yourself.

You see, after a management team goes bad, they tend to perpetuate their problems, however they manifest.  At upper levels of an organization, it is almost impossible for a bad manager to hire and/or retain a good manager.  It just doesn't happen.  Gresham's Law kicks in:  The bad drive out the good.  There is just no way a bad manager, incompetent or dishonest, can keep a competent, honest manager around.  So what do they do?  They hire people as bad or worse than themselves.  This can go on for years.

I mean what are the odds that the CEO of McDonald's is unaware of their ice cream problem?  One can only speculate why he has not fixed it.  And make no mistake, this is a fixable problem.  Just ask Wendys, or Chick-fil-A, or even Burger King.  Ask Dairy Queen.  The current CEO has been with the company since 2015.  He was appointed CEO in 2019 after the board fired the previous CEO.  No surprise there.  It is also worth noting that the company has had three CEOs in the last ten years.

This whole thing is an unmitigated disaster for McDonald's.  That video has over eleven million views.  And just think about it.  To watch a half hour video on something as esoteric as McDonald's ice cream machine problem.  Who would do that?  Well, perhaps the millions of frustrated customers.  Perhaps all of their competitors.

At this very hour, two years later, twelve percent of McDonald's machines are down.  Note, that is two years since the video came out; the problem was around for years before that.  So where is the CEO?  My guess?  He's out playing golf with the Taylor (ice cream machine) CEO.  Also, I would not be surprised if he hasn't spent a good part of the last two years bullying Google to take down that video:  Take that video down or McDonald's will pull all advertising off YouTube.  Though, I am surprised he has failed (so far).  I'd be willing to bet that he has spent more time on the PR aspects of this problem than on the actual, fixable, problem itself.  Actually, we know this is true because otherwise, the problem would be fixed.

In any case, at some point it becomes impossible to turn around an organization without outside intervention.  And I don't mean bankruptcy; I mean a Carl Icahn type intervention.  Someone who will come in and fire everyone.

The franchisees can only hope.  They're pretty much stuck with the bad McDonald's management.  Though yes, they did volunteer.

The customers can only hope.  But they might just eventually decamp to Wendy's and Dairy Queen.

And, the shareholder's?  Well so far the management problem has not had a major impact on the company's performance.  But how long will that last?

And Taylor?  I cannot end without some comment on their role in all this.  Evidently Taylor does make ice cream machines that work.  So they make a number of machines that work, plus they make the McDonald's machine which does not work.  So clearly they are intentionally selling McDonald's franchisees defective machines in order to juice their repair business.  And that is bad and also unethical.  But here's the thing.  McDonald's knows about this problem and yet they have forced their franchisees to buy the machines anyway.  Taylor is not forcing them to buy the defective product; McDonald's is.  As bad as Taylor's role in this fiasco may be, McDonald's is so much worse.

Again, no surprise.

Now almost six years ago, there was a report (behind paywall) in the The Wall Street Journal that McDonald's would allow franchisees to purchase a machine from a Taylor competitor.  I have no idea what happened with this.  You would think that would have been the end of it.  But clearly not – when twelve percent of their machines are still down.  Could the franchisees not also buy other model Taylor machines?  You know, the ones that work?  If an alternative has been available for so long, why is there still a problem?  One suspects the answer to that question points back to McDonald's management.

In any case, what would be the "worst case fix" for this problem?  Well, McDonald's could pull out all the defective Taylor machines.  Sure, sue Taylor if you like.  But first get rid of the machines.  One wonders why they don't do this?  Cost?  In a cost versus reputation contest, what wins?  But my guess is that it is not cost or reputation that really matters.

No something stinks.  There's an ethical problem here somewhere.

Update, 7 March 2026

Find an update to this story here.

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Watching Yellowstone from the Philippines

Season Five Now Available

I enjoyed the first four seasons of Yellowstone.  But after watching season four, I heard Ben Shapiro talking about it.  He pointed out that the writing is abysmal.  And I thought to myself, that is exactly correct, and vowed that I was done with the show.  I have always thought that good writing is the hallmark of good television.  Yet, here I am again, watching season five, and enjoying it.

Why?

Well Taylor Sheridan's writing is a bit better this year.  But not so much better to make a difference.  Hey I get it, Sheridan is a busy man.  But if we, all of us, are not watching Yellowstone for the writing, why are we watching?

The acting?  It's good.  Maybe not exceptional, but certainly well above average.  The casting?  Well with one major exception, the casting is perfection.  The exception?  Kelly Reilly.  I don't find her credible in the role of Beth Dutton.  The Beth Dutton character is a wounded child of uninhibited chutzpah and intellectual gravitas.  Reilly just does not have the acting skills to pull it off.  And it is such an important role.  The role needs a young Jodie Foster type.  Perhaps a young Faye Dunaway.  I don't know enough about today's Hollywood that I can name a suitable alternate actress.  But you get the idea.  The cinematography?  Maybe.  But it's Montana; it's really hard to screw that up.  Overall, the production values are first rate.  In any case, none of this is why we are watching Yellowstone.

No, we watch Yellowstone for the atmosphere.

And what is the atmosphere of Yellowstone?  Well, let's start with what it is not.  It is not woke.  It has no left coast values.  In fact, the show berates Californians at every available opportunity.  It is not politically correct.  It is not vegan or vegetarian.  It is an extremely pro-environment show, but in a way that the so-called environmentalist posers, in their North Face parkas, hate.  The show does not highlight America's supposed racial problems.  Or feminist issues.  Or proper gender ideology.  There are no trans cowboys in the show and no one states their preferred pronouns.  Think Madam Secretary.  It is anti-government and certainly anti-bureaucracy.  The writers seem to understand what no one on the left does:  Government is, at best, a hindrance to the productive.

Yellowstone is pro family, pro private enterprise, and pro rural lifestyle.  Pro Second Amendment.  It is pro rancher, and yes it must be added, pro beef.  No wonder the left hates it.  I am surprised, but glad, to report that there is almost no religion in the show.  It would be impossible to label it Christian television.  It is just not a Christian show by any stretch of the imagination.  If anything, I guess you could call it secular conservative.  I think this is really beneficial because the Hollywood left cannot simply dismiss the show as mere Christian propaganda for the flyover philistines.

There is one other aspect to the atmosphere worth pointing out.  Today's novelists and other writers seem to have lost faith in their protagonists.  Every lead must have flaws and personal demons, and the story is as much about overcoming these internal issues as anything else.  Think House.  No doubt post modernists would describe this as more realistic.  Real life is not black and white.  The best example I have seen of this is the show Homeland, where the lead character is so encumbered with mental illness that she needs electric shock therapy.  Without denying the gray in everything, personally I think this has gone too far.  Sure, no one is truly all good or all bad.  But for Christ's sake it is also not realistic that our CIA operatives undergo ECT between assignments.

Without such nonsense, Yellowstone is just more fun to watch.

In short, it is everything that our contemporary bien-pensants hate.  I think it is a miracle that a production of this type can even be made today.

So I encourage you to watch Yellowstone...for the atmosphere.  You won't find it anywhere else.

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