UPDATE: From the comments: “This was the most polite and least damaging things the truckers can do to the government.” Yeah, if they don’t like the truckers coming out, wait until they stay home.
Archive for 2022
February 13, 2022
SUPERBOWL COMMENTARY FROM A FRIEND: “DR DRE: The most believable doctor we’ve seen on TV in two years.”
Heh. Indeed.
RAMS DEFEAT BENGALS TO WIN SUPER BOWL 56.
Related:
Here’s the video of every celebrity without a mask during the Super Bowl. But every kid in California will have to be wearing them tomorrow in school. They must all be holding their breaths the entire game. pic.twitter.com/Dc9yVd7RPf
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 14, 2022
RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: VIDEO: Not a Single Celebrity Is Wearing a Mask at Super Bowl Including Hypocrite Mayor Eric Garcetti.
OPEN THREAD: Watch this space: I’m open to fall from grace.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: A new Chinese rocket company has raised more than $100 million.
ANTHONY FAUCI’S SECRET: The Einstein Effect: People Trust Nonsense More if They Think a Scientist Said It.
I DON’T TRUST THEIR PRIORITIES: This is the Army’s plan to battle climate change—and still fight wars.
IT’S GOOD THAT AFTER BEING PUT IN CHARGE OF THE BORDER CRISIS AND THE UKRAINE NEGOTIATIONS, SHE STILL HAS TIME FOR THIS: V.P. Kamala Harris highlights lead water pipe replacement in N.J. visit.
DISPATCHES FROM THE POTEMKIN FOOTBALL VILLAGE: Los Angeles Accused Of Hiding Homeless Crisis For Super Bowl Weekend.
Related: The Coming Covid Apocalypse. “Something is going to break this weekend and it is not going to be pretty. LA County health officialdom has no credibility left to lose, so if they try to actually enforce anything the most likely outcome will be more than simply ignoring it. I dare them to go into a pub and start writing tickets when the crowd is three beers into the game. Or imagine you are an usher in the stadium, charged by some official, and you have to ask someone to leave because they finished their popcorn ten minutes ago and their mask is still down. That’ll make for interesting television between the plays. For certain they are going to look extremely foolish on global television.”
(Updated and bumped.)
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot: How to Choose the Right Face Mask.
—Bloomberg News, January 16th.
Chaser: Mask Mandates Didn’t Make Much of a Difference Anyway.
—Bloomberg Opinion, Friday.
Hangover: Twitter removes tweet from top Trump Covid-19 adviser saying masks don’t work.
—NBC News, October 18th, 2020.
The D.T.s: YouTube suspends Rand Paul after misleading video on masks.
—PBS, August 11th, 2021.
FLASHBACK: Prince Performs “Purple Rain” During Downpour during the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show (video).
Exit quote from Bruce Rodgers, the halftime show’s production designer:
The morning of the game, I opened the curtains in my hotel room, and I was like, “Oh my god, it was like a scene from Moby Dick.” It was, like, the winds were blowing, the palm trees, and the rain was one of those Miami rainstorms that just would not relent.
We’re in this truck, sitting behind Don Mischer [the halftime show’s producer]. And I remember Don said, um, “Put me on the phone with Prince.” Don says, “Now, I want you know it’s raining,” and Prince [was] like, “Yes, it’s raining.” [Don continued] “And are you okay?” And Prince is like, “Can you make it rain harder?”
And I was like, “…Right on.”
Heh, indeed. ™
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NN3gsSf-Ys
IT’S A WOMAN’S PREROGATIVE TO CHANGE HER MIND, EVEN ABOUT BEING A MAN: Woman, 26, who came out as a trans man at age 19 reveals she is now ‘DE-transitioning’ back to female – six years after starting testosterone and having her breasts surgically removed.
GET IN SHAPE: New Balance Men’s 481 V3 Trail Running Shoes. #CommissionEarned
56% OF AMERICANS SAY: WE WANT MASK MANDATES.
The people have spoken.
…but check back with them in a month and they might be speaking differently.
For now, one glance at this result from YouGov will show you why Joe Biden was scrupulously noncommittal when asked by Lester Holt a few days ago whether it’s time for mask mandates to go away. Democratic politicians know they need to roll back restrictions as we transition to endemic COVID. They learned the hard way in Virginia what can happen at the polls when they drag their feet on getting back to normal.
But their base really, really doesn’t want to.
* * * * * * * *
Having spent two years convincing themselves that maximum COVID precautions at all times is the ne plus ultra of civic virtue, Democrats will now have to somehow accept that abandoning that view doesn’t amount to sinking into right-wing vice. Essentially, they’ll need to be deprogrammed. Biden and his party’s establishment have less than nine months to do it.
“Deprogrammed,” huh? But pay no attention to all of that “mass formation psychosis” talk.
THE STORY BEHIND THE APPLE ‘1984’ AD THAT LAUNCHED THE SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL CRAZE:
The genesis of the commercial did not begin with the computer company. The advertising firm Chiat/Day had a germ of an idea; with the year 1984 looming, they wanted to cut a commercial that personified George Orwell’s novel of the same name/year. The issue was they did not have a client for their idea, but unlike the monolithic agencies in New York, Chiat/Day was headquartered in Los Angeles and as a result of that proximity to the studio system, they were used to pitching and auditions.
The agency was rebuffed by a number of companies, but their idea in search of a product was seen as a perfect fit by Apple head Steve Jobs. For one, he had a new product that would be unrolled in January of the coming year – the MacIntosh personal computer. Another fit for his company was that the biggest competitor in the computing sector was IBM, a market leader so big there was not any competition. Jobs viewed the company as the nefarious Big Brother, and his emerging alternate system could be positioned as the rebellious force.
Jobs wanted a big splash for his new computer, and so, a budget became no problem. Pegged at an already eye-widening budget for its time, the initial outlay of $750,000 swelled to $900,000, and it makes sense that this would be a one-minute production to rival Hollywood standards. Considering the dystopian nature of the material, a motion picture director was tabbed for the shoot. Ridley Scott had recently released his future-noir sci-fi thriller “Blade Runner,” and was hired to deliver the message of an iconoclastic product. His vision was clear and distinct, as we see the storyboards from the conception are very close to the finished product.
* * * * * * * *
The entire Apple corporate board hated the commercial. One member called for the Chiat/Day agency to be fired, and the board decided not to run the commercial during the Super Bowl, telling the ad team to sell off their time slots. A full minute had been purchased in the game’s third quarter, and a second slot for an edited, 30-second version was to run late in the game. But the agency’s CEO Jay Chiat took a defiant position.
Read the whole thing. 15 years ago there was the coda to the 1984 ad — the callback that Obama’s operatives produced, which was the first salvo to torpedo Hillary’s 2008 presidential bid:
Of course, as now know, both Hillary and Obama read Orwell’s book as a how-to guide:
● How Russiagate Began With Obama’s Iran Deal Domestic Spying Campaign.
● Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016.
Or to put it another way:
FIGHT THE POWER: Canada protests sound common refrain: ‘We stand for freedom.’ Do I detect a shift in tone from AP? Well, headline aside it’s mostly still toeing the Trudeu regime’s line about “fringe” protesters. Nazis, and QAnon, and Russia! Oh, my!
But:
In Paris, police prevented a threatened blockade of the French capital on Saturday. But a few dozen vehicles were able to disrupt traffic on the famed Champs-Elysees, prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd.
“The convoys are for the restoring of our liberties,” said Pierre-Louis Garnier, a 64-year-old who attended a protest in Paris on Friday to welcome an anticipated convoy that never materialized.
In the Netherlands, dozens of trucks and other vehicles, some waving Canadian flags, have descended on The Hague, the historic Dutch parliamentary complex.
“We are living now in police state,” said Hans Evenstain, a 76-year-old protester said Sunday. “That’s not a good life anymore. We want to move freely and that’s why we are here for us and for our children and our grandchildren.”
In Belgium, federal police were urging people to avoid Brussels on Monday, when a convoy is expected to gather in the country’s capital, and the headquarters of the 27-nation European Union.
In the New Zealand capital of Wellington, authorities have turned to blasting Barry Manilow songs and the 90s dance hit “Macarena” on loop to break up a convoy of protesters encamped outside Parliament this week.
Can I just say that in almost any setting, the people blasting Barry Manilow aren’t the good guys.
Flashback: Russians! Under my bed!
THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLLOW THROUGH: “I once asked a number of African hunting guides what the most common mistake was that hunters made when hunting dangerous game. Without exception, they said that it was firing the shot and then raising their head to admire their work. The PH’s pointed out that the proper move after firing the shot was to get right back on target and get ready to shoot again. We call this Follow Through. The same mistake is frequently made by defensive shooters.”
WHEN THE COSSACKS LET THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN ESCAPE UNDER THEIR HORSES IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE CZAR:
Or maybe they just don’t see a guy in a hot tub as an imminent threat to public safety.
Well, with the kind of hate and vitriol we’ve seen spewing from the likes of Justin Trudeau and various “respectable” pundits, this isn’t surprising.
MØØSE BITES CAN BE PRETTI NASTI: The Air Force dreads engaging wayward moose.
A moose bit my sister once. . . .
RUSSIA COULD HIT U.S. CHIP INDUSTRY, WHITE HOUSE WARNS: “The White House is warning the chip industry to diversify its supply chain in case Russia retaliates against threatened U.S. export curbs by blocking access to key materials, people familiar with the matter said. The potential for retaliation has garnered more attention in recent days after Techcet, a market research group, published a report on Feb. 1 highlighting the reliance of many semiconductor manufacturers on Russian and Ukrainian-sourced materials like neon, palladium and others. According to Techcet estimates, over 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon supplies come from Ukraine, while 35% of U.S. palladium is sourced from Russia.”