JOHN HINDERAKER: The Left’s Impulse to Bully Is Universal. “It is widely understood that the Left wants to impose censorship on the rest of us, and where it can, it will. The experience of conservative speakers on university campuses is the most obvious proof. But the truth, I think, is worse: it isn’t just censorship. The Left wants to bully disagreement out of existence. . . . Here in the U.S., we are witnessing a populist revolt against bullying liberalism, but what we are seeing here is mild, I suspect, compared with what is in store in Europe. And, of course, when all dissent on what millions see as the most vital issues of the day is barred as ‘far right,’ it is inevitable that unsavory elements will be part of the populist uprising.”
Archive for 2016
November 6, 2016
LOVE IN THE TIME OF ROBOTS:
Female robots offer a particularly provocative window into the current cultural mood. And they’re everywhere, including sprawling alongside naked men in a huge orgy on Sunday’s episode of “Westworld.” Margaret Atwood, whose 2015 book “The Heart Goes Last” features sexbots of both genders, calls female machines emblems of the discomfort that women stir in some men. “They’d rather have a simulacrum that doesn’t talk back, resist, or despise them,” Ms. Atwood observed in an email.
This is rich. Women have been using robots — a vibrator is a primitive sex robot, after all — and calling them instruments of sexual liberation (and even calling it “sex with machines”) precisely because they free them from having to deal sexually with men, who bring complications and an upsetting tendency toward having their own needs and desires. But when men do it, even in fiction, it’s problematic.
Self-awareness fail: The word “vibrator” doesn’t even appear in this article.
WELL, YES: Tim Carney on Hillary: A President We Simply Cannot Trust.
Nobody trusts Hillary Clinton. Neither Republicans nor Democrats trust her. Her oldest friends and her closest allies don’t trust her. And she has consistently earned that distrust by lying, changing her story, bending the rules, hiding her work, and stonewalling.
Only 11 percent of likely voters find her “honest and trustworthy,” a NBC News poll found over the summer. Less than one in four Democrats were willing to use that label for her.
Even Donald Trump is more trustworthy than Clinton, voters told the Washington Post. In a recent Post poll Trump won on the trustworthiness question by a 12-point margin. Trump this fall has consistently won that question by double-digit margins.
Her closest confidantes don’t trust her, hacked emails show. In September 2015, Hillary Clinton said at an Ohio campaign event. “You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center … I plead guilty.”
Five days later, Neera Tanden, a honcho in the Clinton campaign, emailed campaign chairman John Podesta asking, “Why did she call herself a moderate?” Podesta replied, “I pushed her on this on Sunday night. She claims she didn’t remember saying it. Not sure I believe her.”
If Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief and longtime top-aide readily assumes she lied to him about something that small, you have to wonder if she feels any fealty to the truth in any circumstances.
Oh, I don’t wonder.
OBAMACARE VICTIMS REVOLT: From Breitbart.com. The American middle class has been victimized by legislation conceived, passed and implemented by the Democratic Party. ObamaCare did not get a single Republican vote. Now we have a disaster. The chickens have come home to roost is another way of putting it. (bumped)
BRITAIN’S NEW PROBLEM: “White Flight.”
THE HILL: Experts hedge bets as election tightens. It’s Schrodinger’s election now: Hillary and Donald are each both President-elect and not President-elect, and they’ll stay that way until we open the box in a couple of days.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THOSE EMAILS BEHIND THE CURTAIN: “A spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Sunday that if Wikileaks were to publish a bombshell email in the final two days of the election, it would likely not be authentic.”
YEAH, BUT SEE TRUMP’S OFFENSIVE. JAY-Z IS JUST KEEPIN’ IT REAL. Jay Z repeatedly drops n-word, f-bomb during concert for Hillary Clinton.
HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO RAMPANT AGE DISCRIMINATION? Seeking ‘to be visible,’ more Americans 65 and older are getting plastic surgery.
Maria Vargas was fed up with looking like an old woman. That was how the 68-year-old felt when she walked down the street. “I’d lost the looks of men,” said Vargas, who is divorced. “I’d walk by men and men would probably go, “Yeah, there’s a cute grandma.’” So in February, after months of wrestling with the decision, she got a neck lift.
“I got so excited about the difference that it made that I was like, ‘Oh my god, I want more,” said Vargas, a Sacramento, CA resident who had never had elective plastic surgery before. Now, she said, “No 30- or 45-year-old guy is going to ask me, ‘Hey, what’s your number, honey?’ But a 60-year-old will.”
Wait, I thought the Male Gaze was a bad thing. Plus:
There are different economic considerations now. More Americans 65 and older are working than at any time since the turn of the century, and many face age discrimination.
If opportunities are accruing to the young “and you begin to get old, you want to fit in….You’re invisible. And maybe this is the way for people to be visible.” Milner said.
Or at least not mistreated.
NOVEMBER SURPRISE. Comey: Review of Emails Doesn’t Change Conclusion on Hillary.
HOW LIGHT FROM YOUR SMARTPHONE MESSES WITH YOUR BODY.
MEET THE DOGS OF AMAZON.
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Nanostructured Transistor Enables Glucose Sensing Contact Lens.
JUST THINK OF HIM AS A DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE WITH A BYLINE, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE:
As Twitchy asks, “Why was CNBC’s John Harwood allowed to moderate a GOP debate?”
AT AMAZON, deals on Small Appliances.
Plus, save on Coffee, Tea, and Espresso.
IF HILLARY WAS A REPUBLICAN, COMEDIANS WOULD HAVE A FIELD DAY WITH HER LATEST DEBACLE: Clinton directed her maid to print out classified materials.
WELL, AT LEAST YOU’D BE LESS LIKELY TO CATCH SOMETHING: Going to the Emergency Room Without Leaving the Living Room. “When Mrs. Vitale falls or seems lethargic or short of breath, her aides no longer call 911. They dial the House Calls service at Northwell Health, the system that includes Long Island Jewish Medical Center and that dispatches what it calls community paramedics. They often arrive in an S.U.V. instead of an ambulance. And with 40 hours of training in addition to the usual paramedic curriculum, they can treat most of Mrs. Vitale’s problems on the spot instead of bustling her away.”
I DON’T THINK THAT “MAN CAVES” ARE A SIGN THAT MEN TOOK OVER AMERICA’S BASEMENTS. I think it’s more a case of the decline of male space elsewhere in the house.
RELATED (From Ed): This Acculturated article titled “The Case Against Man Caves” makes a useful distinction:
There is, of course, a long history of specifically male spaces in the family home; workshops and studies come to mind. So the man cave is neither unique nor problematic just for being an isolated male space. And while one might say that booze and sports represent a degradation not just of masculinity but of humanity from literature and craftsmanship, we won’t pursue that line of argument here.
What differentiates the man cave from these more traditional male spaces is that workshops and studies are designed to accommodate a particular, elevating interest. These rooms are only isolated inasmuch as the activities proper to them are best pursued without distraction. With the man cave, however, the isolation from the family—the escape—is the primary purpose of the space. The man cave, therefore, is the image of the traditional male space without its substance.
Of course, a workshop or study could become an escape—a place to hide from family duties or to indulge selfish habits. But this would be a misuse, or abuse, of a space set aside for humane recreations. By contrast, the man cave by its very name announces that it is for me. Whatever happens in the room is merely an artifact of my desires and my personality.
(Emphasis mine.)
FASTER, PLEASE: Alzheimer’s treatment within reach after successful drug trial.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Sex Is So Good.