YOU’D HAVE TO HAVE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: Snooki Was Paid More For Rutgers Speech Than Hillary.
Archive for 2018
March 30, 2018
THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Guitar Center’s $1 billion in debt reveals this truth about musical tastes.
Ratings agency S&P Global downgraded Westlake Village-based Guitar Center Holdings Inc. for the second time last week as the troubled instrument retailer seeks to refinance and restructure more than $1 billion of debt.
“Most of what’s really selling today is rap and hip hop,” said George Gruhn, owner of the Gruhn Guitars shop in Nashville. “That’s outpacing other forms of music and they don’t use a lot of recognizable musical instruments.”
I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was…
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: What It’s Like to Visit ‘Dr. M,’ New York’s Erotic Masseur for Women.
I don’t have any sort of attachment to him, but he’s a comforting presence. I can focus on my pleasure and I don’t feel like “Ugh, god, I’ll have to spin around on his dick in return.”
Since I’ve been seeing him I’ve been calmer and I feel much less urgency with men. I don’t want to go out and have sex with a different guy every other night. It’s making me a little more selective. And I don’t have any of that sex anxiety like, “Ugh, do I have to sleep over?” Or, “Oh no, will he still be here in the morning?” . . .
I think for me the main appeal is that excitement that you’re going to be with someone for one hour who has no other purpose other than to please you. There’s nothing reciprocal. There are almost no other instances in your life where that holds true. You don’t have to smile. You don’t have to make anyone else feel good. There are few good things that happen to you in life that are quite so selfish.
The important thing is that, since this involves women getting off, it’s liberating and empowering, not tawdry and sleazy like it would be if it involved men.
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Let Hillary Speak!
IT’S COME TO THIS: New book slams ‘toxic geek masculinity’ in Big Bang Theory.
The new book Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media: Sexism, Trolling, and Identity Politics was written by Bridget Blodgett, a professor at the University of Maryland, and Anastasia Salter, who teaches classes on digital culture at the University of Central Florida.
Though computer geeks are often depicted as marginalized due to their social exclusion, Blodgett and Salter argue that the opposite is actually true, asserting that geeks are aligned “with a type of toxic straight white masculinity that is rooted deeply in current cultural struggles.”
Sod off, swampy.
I WOULD LIKE THAT: What If A Drug Could Make Your Blood Deadly To Mosquitoes?
WWII IMPERIAL JAPAN’S M1 Garand.
J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Trump Census Citizenship Question Helps Black Americans.
A Twitter pal told me today that the media’s treatment of the Parkland kids reminds him in a way of the “clown nose off, clown nose on” game played by politically minded comics like Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel. When Stewart and Kimmel are opining, the clown nose comes off. They’re making trenchant points about the right-wing enemy and their arguments should be taken seriously by voters. When the right takes them seriously and counterattacks, the clown nose goes back on: They’re just comedians, man. Lighten up. You’re embarrassing yourself by trying to joust with a court jester.
The Parkland students also have a dual identity that can be switched out as political circumstances require. When they’re attacking, they’re the inspiring young leaders of a policy push that’s going to succeed where so many adult-led efforts have failed. Don’t dismiss them because of their age. They know what they’re talking about and they deserve to be heard. Then, when they’re heard and criticized for their arguments or their rhetoric, they’re the apolitical child victims of a horrendous tragedy. You want to bicker about policy with … a kid? Whose friends were just murdered? What is wrong with you?
You’re a bad guy, as Don Lemon would, and did, say.
I think David Hogg’s become the lightning rod for most right-wing criticism, both measured and conspiratorial, partly because he’s been the canniest about exploiting that dual identity.
Allahpundit wrote that on Tuesday, before Hogg’s current freak out, over Laura Ingraham’s shot at his being rebuffed by various college admissions departments, in which he’s helping the left by causing Ingraham to lose sponsors. (What this has to do with gun control is unknown, but as they said about the future Sen. Blutarsky, forget it, he’s rolling.) And right on cue, clown nose on! Mediaite runs the headline, “Morning Joe Debates Ingraham Controversy: ‘We Can’t Have Animals on The Air Attacking Children!’”
To which Rod Dreher responds:
“Children”? Here’s a 17-year-old guy — old enough to join the military and bear arms for his country — who now has a national platform, one in which he accuses his opponents of bloodlust, but he’s still hiding behind the “children” thing? Well, of course: because it works.
Clown nose off, clown nose on.
Laura Ingraham ought not to have tweeted the thing she did, and she ought to have apologized (as she did). But now her livelihood is at stake, and this kid is reveling in his power to destroy his enemies, while draping himself in the mantle of Childhood Innocence. If you have a social media account, it’s time to think hard about whether it’s worth the risk of continuing with it. We now see that one tossed-off, ill-advised tweet, if it angers the right person, could cost you your job. David Hogg is turning into Anthony Fremont:
Fremont was the child played by Bill Mumy in the classic Twilight Zone episode with the super power to banish all of the adults “to the cornfield” when they displeased him. More Dreher:
We are manufacturing a cadre of Anthony Fremonts. We are creating a No-Trust Society, one in which people will have to turn inward out of self-protection. This is not going to end well. A reader who grew up under Czech communism told me recently that in the end, the only people you could trust back in the day were members of your family. Anybody else might have turned you in to the secret police as ideologically unreliable. This man’s priest turned out to be an informant. We aren’t there, but as the illiberal SJW Left gains power, we’re fast moving in that direction.
In the meantime, Jim Treacher believes that Fremont’s, err, Hogg’s future is assured, tweeting to CNN that “You guys are going to give him a job anyway,” so what difference does it make where he goes to school?
Not necessarily — Hogg might want to search on what Cindy Sheehan and Sandra Fluke are up to these days, to discover what happens to a mascot of the anointed when the DNC-MSM deems that their 15-minutes is up.
DAVID SHULKIN: Privatizing the V.A. Will Hurt Veterans.
Even more than when Shulkin ran the V.A.?
YES, THAT’S THE WORST OF TED KENNEDY’S SINS…Chappaquiddick Film About Kennedy Sex Scandal Rated PG-13 For ‘Historical Smoking.’
THIS BUD’S FOR YOU: Blue Moon’s brewer launching marijuana-infused ‘beer.’
“This is really about brewing great beers that beer drinkers love,” said Keith Villa, who developed Blue Moon Belgian Wheat and worked for MillerCoors for 32 years. “You’d just swap out an alcoholic beer for one of our beers.”
Several other companies offer cannabis beer, but they all lack the psychoactive compound, THC. Instead, they’re infused with hemp extract to give them a marijuana taste — and helps them grab headlines. Federal law prohibits brewers from using marijuana in their beers.
Villa’s “beer,” because it lacks alcohol, skirts that federal ban, even though marijuana itself remains federally illegal. The longtime brewer said since retirement he’s become a believer in the plant’s benefits, especially when paired with the technology developed by his partners at Colorado-based Ebbu, which specializes in extracting and analyzing marijuana compounds.
Several other companies already manufacture marijuana-infused drinks or offer marijuana powders to sprinkle on food or in teas, but Ebbu says its technology allows them to provide specific feelings, like euphoria or relaxation. For the past several years the company’s scientists been conducting double-blind tests on volunteers to help fine-tune their formulas.
“We’ve really been able to dial in on those sensations that can deliver a consistent experience for the users,” said Ebbu president Jon Cooper.
I dunno, I already get a consistent experience from beer.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: U.S. Troops to Test Augmented Reality By 2019: The device, called, HUD 3.0, will project critical data onto a soldier’s field of view.
I DIDN’T EXPECT THIS: Hartford Courant Editorial: Elizabeth Esty Must Resign.
Elizabeth Esty will likely spend the next several days defending her failure to take strong steps to protect a woman who’d been threatened and bullied — by a member of her own staff — by blaming the system and talking about the good she’s done in Congress.
She shouldn’t. She should resign.
After learning about the allegations against her chief of staff, Ms. Esty, the Democratic U.S. Representative for Connecticut’s 5th District, should have ensured that her former staffer was safe and that the man who’d threatened her was held accountable. Instead, she circled the wagons, called the lawyers and kept things quiet.
That’s appalling.
Well, it’s pretty typical actually, and nothing compared to Bill Clinton, whom I’m pretty sure the Courant never called on to resign. But the #MeToo torpedo that the Dems put in the water for Trump keeps circling back around on them. I’m cynical enough to think that they want her to resign more out of fear of losing a Democratic seat than anything else. Though there is a hypocrisy/payback angle:
Ms. Esty herself was among those who called for the resignation of fellow U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who stepped down late last year after allegations that he had sexually harassed female staff members.
Here’s what Ms. Esty had to say about Mr. Conyers at the time:
“I do think that reports that have come to light in the last 48 hours are of an extremely serious nature,” she said. “They involve people he had direct authority over, staff in his congressional office who are entirely reliant upon him for their livelihood. … I think it’s entirely unacceptable and I think he should resign.”
Ms. Esty’s responses so far have been disappointing. She has blamed the system and hasn’t taken nearly enough responsibility for her own actions.
But any prior year this wouldn’t be resignation-fodder. And, I predict, it won’t be next year, either. But this is 2018 and the Democrats, as part of a deliberate strategy of weaponizing female anger, have made such things a hanging offense, at least until it becomes inconvenient to the narrative. In the meantime, there’s collateral damage.
Related: Former Elizabeth Esty Aide: Congress Enables Domestic Violence and Harassment.
Full disclosure: I went to law school with Elizabeth Esty and quite liked her then. I don’t think we’ve spoken since, though, and I haven’t really followed her career, though I knew she was in Congress.
SUZANNE VENKER: When Men Lose, Women Lose Too.
GOOD FRIDAY MEETS LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela Famine: Churches Even Face Shortage in Communion Wafers Before Easter.
THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Why Whooping Cough Has Made a Comeback.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Starbucks forced to put cancer warning on its products in California.
Ahh, California’s Proposition 65, the gift that keeps on giving. What doesn’t cause cancer in California?
Back when I was still living there, I stopped going to the local Starbucks when the Obamacare laws required them to list the calories in their products on the menu boards. It just didn’t seem worth it for bad coffee, milk and flavoring. But such laws won’t stop Starbucks and most other corporations to reflexively keep pushing for bigger and more intrusive government.
DATA MISUSE AND “THE WEAPONIZATION OF EMOTION.”
Related: Social Media As Social Disease.
I DUNNO, WHEN I’VE GOTTEN A 7-DAY PRESCRIPTION IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S USUALLY COME BACK: Sinus infections treated with antibiotics for too long, CDC says.
21ST 7TH CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Married to a Child? Here’s a Brochure!
No joke — this is a guide being issued by the Swedish government.