For Natasha Hooper, the most important part of pre-date preparation isn’t getting her hair done, waxing her legs or buying a new dress.
Instead, she is more preoccupied with composing a list of conversational topics which she hopes will bridge the gap between her highbrow preoccupations, and the more mainstream interests of her dates. As an accidental indicator of how she views relationships.
Waiting in a bar for a young man a few weeks ago, she ran through possible options, before settling on the subject of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. A surefire way, the 22-year-old undergraduate reasoned, to guarantee an interesting debate. Just a guess on my part. The unidentified young man wasn't interested in debate.
Yet while the 30-year-old office worker who sat down in front of her was handsome, polite and smartly-dressed, the minute Natasha brought up the Labour leader’s policies, any spark of attraction was extinguished. ‘When I mentioned Jeremy Corbyn he said: “Who’s that?” I couldn’t believe it,’ says Natasha.
After 90 minutes discussing what she describes as ‘benign’ subjects, such as reality TV and football, Natasha made her excuses and left, no closer to finding Mr Right. A quote from M*A*S*H is helpful: She is trying to find a custom fit in an off the rack world.
With long dark hair, big brown eyes and a stunning Size 8 figure, Natasha — entering her final year at Goldsmiths, University of London — has no problem attracting male attention.
The issue, she explains, is the calibre of men she attracts. ‘I’m not claiming to be Albert Einstein, but I can’t seem to meet a man I find intellectually stimulating,’ she says. Nor is she the only well-educated young woman who says she is too clever to find love. Taking herself a whole lot less seriously would be a good place to start.
Indeed, she is one of a growing breed of women who fear — perhaps with good reason — they will be left on the proverbial shelf because of a shortage of educated men.
Recent figures from the university admissions service UCAS showed that 30,000 more women than men are starting degree courses in the UK. On A-level results day last month, 133,280 British women aged 18 secured a university place compared with 103,800 men of the same age.
The effects of this carry over into the workplace, where women aged from 22 to 29 typically now earn £1,111 more a year than their male peers. Read the rest at the link
#1
It is better to punch yourself in the balls as hard as you can or shoot yourself in the face than date a democrat.
Because none of it will ever make any sense.
See, You were given opposable thumbs which could save you a lifetime of hate, hurt, and cat 6 idiocy in your bedroom. I suggest you masturbate instead of breeding with hateful, disgusting democrats.
#2
He could of fixed her car or house or plumbing or power or computer or many even in bed - but no she only worried about politics. What a worthless shrew.
#4
1) She's not that attractive...
2) ...who confuses (intentionally or otherwise) smug leftwing politics with 'high intellect'. I'd only date this broad to see if I could cause her to faint when I'd tell her what I thought of Corbin.
#7
This is the MGTOW movement. "Men going their own way". They've seen what an awful deal marriage is for men, and know the women out there are toxic and will never be happy with a mere human. They've checked out of the race and are relaxing poolside. Meanwhile crazy ladies like this are going to screech while they find that they drove off all the men.
#9
30,000 more women than men are starting degree courses in the UK.
Leaving aside the whole cat-lady thing for a moment... we keep seeing stats about more women getting college degrees than men, but no one ever mentions what these degrees are.
Dollars to donuts, they are not in STEM fields but rather MFAs in Pottery, Ancient Etruscan Women's Poetry, and various Grievance Studies - fields which pretty much guarantee the they won't be able to pay off their student loans. "Do you want fries with that?"
#13
#7 you are correct. A fellow in England has written a book on the subject. Industrialized world is in population decline hence the immigration efforts. The poor will have children. The Moslem promote large families. The role of man has been attacked for many years in the western world. Look how people now avoid NFL. Same thing. The women protest. The men pay. Life is so much calmer single. So much less drama. The women are so critical of their men. Never support or praise. When the women have money their biggest fear is a man will steal it from them. These are the well educated women who have paid off their school bills and have purchased their homes in their twenties. Talking to them is like talking to a calculator. Young and old women are turning to drugs to escape. The life expectancy for women is now the same as for men. So many women strung out and warn out who are also impossible to communicate with.
#14
I would like to add I have recently seen people from Nepal. Large families traveling here. Seems a large population in Baltimore and I believe Indiana. One group with grandparents their children and their children with a newborn as well. I'd guess about fifteen. Smiling happy people. Then a little girl asked if the picture of a young girl was lost. No she was not old enough to purchase alcohol or tobacco products. Her dad asked her what is alcohol?. Her response was beer?. They left but she came back and waved goodbye. Very nice smiling people.
"Like many arts degrees, her media and communications course is dominated by female students, and Natasha claims the few male undergraduates ‘lack the intellectual maturity to handle conversations’."
Yep
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2017 8:43 Comments ||
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#18
I could write a best seller, if I could demand research papers from 1 through 17. And to think, it's only just 0845.
#19
If she was truly intellectual or intelligent or well-read, whe wouldn't need to prepare a script of topics to discuss with a date. If you can't talk off the top of your head about macroeconomics or monetary policy, don't script it.
A true phony in all of its manifestations.
Maybe she should read a book or two, go to a museum or attend a concert instead of complaining on Facebook or twitter.
#21
This is the slow paced version of the Darwin awards. Not as flashy as the lit farts, dumping gasoline on fire-pits or any other "hold my beer" activities, but just as effective. In 20 years Natasha will be moaning and kvetching about how men denied her the biological need to make another clone of herself.
She obviously makes herself pretty for a date and takes time to think about what to talk about. That's good not bad. Furthermore, if you live in Britain, you really should know who Jeremy Corbyn is.
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/27/2017 12:10 Comments ||
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#25
She may be considered a nine in UK, but stateside she's a lardy, smug four.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/27/2017 12:28 Comments ||
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#26
>30,000 more women than men are starting degree courses in the UK
and they're doing it in useless wage destroying areas. Yet they have the nerve to call themselves clever.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2017 15:11 Comments ||
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#29
It would probably help our undergraduate to read Re-Modeling the Mind: Personality in Balance, written by a friend of mine, to figure out what kind of man she really would be happiest married to, and how to communicate with him, instead of assuming that she is a high status female who deserves a particular kind of trophy husband. I strongly suspect the polite, dapper office gentleman knows exactly who Mr. Corbin is, and pegged Ms Hooper as an undesirable lefty pseudo-intellectual as soon as she brought up the topic.
As for finding gentlemen who share her "highbrow interests", she would be wise to volunteer for political campaigns and otherwise actively pursue her activities connected to those interests, looking to the gentlemen there for her matirmonial targets -- the location and activity would presort for conversational topics, and she would be able to see how they function in their natural environment.
And by the way: a truly intelligent young woman -- much like a truly intelligent young man -- can find ways to connect commonplace subjects like footie and reality TV to more esoteric subjects. But such conversations don't happen when one party goes in assuming the other will have nothing to say worth listening to. Our girl has what used to be called a false class consciousness, a dreadful handicap.
[National Post] [It is] my belief that Trump will destroy North Korea’s artillery batteries directed at Seoul, the immense capital of South Korea, and all aspects of its nuclear program, by a pre-emptive conventional strike of air, sea and ground-launched missiles and large precision bombs. He will probably certify Iranian compliance with Obama’s contemptible delayed nuclear enabling agreement, but advise Iran that the United States will not tolerate Iran’s continued intervention in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen. And he will likely gradually turn up the heat on those infiltrations and threaten the military option against Iran’s nuclear program, with the support of almost all of the Arab world, and the quiescence of Russia and Turkey, which will be invited to replace Iran, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as the chief Muslim power in the Middle East.
If my expectations are mistaken, in 20 years there will be 30 or 40 nuclear military powers in the world, a diffusion of nuclear danger only partially mitigated by anti-missile defenses provided by the United States, the only country which is sophisticated enough to do so, protecting that country and its allies.
Canadians should rise above the obtuseness of most of the available media and hope that the U.S. government does just this. If it does not, the semi-manageable nuclear club we have known will before long become a nuclear-weaponized playpen infested by terminally dangerous psychopaths.
The nuclear genie can never be put back in the bottle, and the pledge of the nuclear powers to attempt to negotiate nuclear disarmament between themselves while discouraging other countries from becoming nuclear powers is essentially hypocrisy. They have not disarmed, can not, and it is not desirable that they do, because if they did the whole world would be subject to blackmail from any irresponsible despot who applied the well-known and accessible knowledge of how to assemble and deliver a nuclear weapon.
[VictoryGirlsBlog] Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few days, you’ve likely heard of the guano crazy jogger in Colorado Springs, who has been defecating on people’s lawns. In public. In full view of children, pets, and other innocents. The Washington Post reported about a week ago that this daft bint has been squatting on one family’s property for the past several weeks, and even though the homeowner confronted her, she simply said "sorry," and trotted off.
The family kept finding the runner’s poop, [Cathy] Budde said, and the dirty paper napkins she leaves behind. The apparently remorseless runner has pooped on the sidewalk in front of the Budde family’s home at least once a week for the past seven weeks, according to Budde. Once, Budde was able to take a picture, which showed a brunette woman running in a gray tank top and shorts.
Well, it turns out the brunette woman is not exactly that.
#3
Whatever happened to flaming bags of dogshit on the concrete steps, and watching the neighbor you hate stomp it out only to realize what's really on his shoes when he starts to walk back into the house? I miss that stuff.
[38 North] US President Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19 may well come to be viewed as "historic," but not in a good way. This article will leave for others the impact of Donald Trump’s and Kim Jong Un’s reality TV show rhetoric. But the substance of Trump’s speech‐including threats to both North Korea and the Iran deal‐may have closed any remaining doors to a diplomatic resolution to this crisis surrounding North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Moreover, Trump’s speech and the North Korean reaction seem to have set us on a path that could very well end in a major war in Asia. The escalating threats and the closing off of diplomatic options by both sides makes it now more likely than ever that President Trump will have to make good on his threat to "utterly destroy" a nation of 25 million people. The strategic consequences of carrying out this threat, even if successful, will be felt for the remainder of this century, largely to the detriment of the United States and the Western World.
Echoes of the Past
Major wars are not created with a single action. They flow from a series of decisions that drive participants towards a sense that no other action but war can extricate them from their predicament. For example, many historians now credit Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany’s July 2, 1914 telegram to the Austrian government, which gave his ally a so-called blank check to do whatever it wished in the crisis with Serbia, as the fatal step that set the machinery inexorably in motion for the catastrophe of World War I. Trump shares one common and dangerous trait with the Kaiser: both were amateur militarists given to public bluster and adopting an ultra-nationalist bully-boy style of diplomacy, in part to cover up vast weaknesses in their own characters and their lack of understanding of their countries’ true strengths. But neither of these individuals intended to unleash catastrophe. Certainly, the Kaiser would never have sent his blank check if he had known it would result in the fall of his own dynasty, the disappearance of centuries-old empires, the death of millions, and the emergence of Nazism in his country. No doubt, Trump sees himself as a heroic figure standing up to a mad tyrant using rhetoric, economic pressure and, if necessary, military force to break him. He does not see because he does not understand the vast risks he is running for his own citizens, or millions of residents of East Asia.
Why the Alarm?
What could prompt the author to make such apocalyptic historical parallels from what, in the context of the never-ending stream of ill-considered words from this President, was a fairly average speech? First, it was uttered in an unstable, nuclear-armed strategic environment. Second, it confirmed in front of the entire global community that should conflict come, it would be total in nature with the survival of both the North Korean regime and its entire population at stake. Third, the US and North Korea are blind to alternative end states to the one they fear/desire. This is how leaders come to see war as the only choice. Finally, the speech undercut any possibility that North Korea would consider making any concession on its nuclear deterrent by underlining that the US will not keep its word even when it has negotiated an agreement with a hostile government.
#7
...may have closed any remaining doors to a diplomatic resolution to this crisis surrounding North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs
Which means exactly what? That we should ♫smile♫ and pay them to screw us again, and again, and again?
#9
the North doesn't want a bomb so much as they want big piles of cash in order to 'stop making a bomb' which they'll continue to make to keep the cash flowing.
[Daily Caller] News aggregator Matt Drudge tweeted Wednesday that recent GOP legislative failures have shattered the "illusion there is a difference between parties."
Drudge said that the GOP’s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and now the possibility they raise taxes on the wealthy proves that they aren’t any different than Democrats.
"First keep Obamacare, now raise taxes on top earners?" he tweeted. "At least illusion there is difference between parties is finished once and for all!"
#1
Contributors at the Burg have often mentioned this aspect of Washington politics for many years. Yes, the Pubs and Dems have melded into one party, The Beltway Party. The Beltway Party spends much of its time trying to get re-elected and protecting its turf, The Swamp.
[American News from a month ago] Hillary Clinton is still whining about her humiliating loss to President Donald Trump in last year’s election. She plans to take him down and her plan involves some powerful Republicans.
Wikileaks named Paul Ryan, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain as Republicans who were paid off by Clinton to ensure that Donald Trump lost the election, or undermine him if he won as reported by Conservative Daily Post. Her evil plot was revealed in an email sent last July from Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta to top aide Huma Abedin.
Podesta detailed how the funds were being redirected from Clinton’s campaign to the Super PACs of Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush.
"JB, CF, and JK PACS will be noticeably silent for the rest of the campaign." The email continued, "Each will receive a significant allowance from advertising budget. HRC is in the loop and has talked to all three personally. Eyes only."
As revealed in other emails, several members of the Republican Party were bought off in order to push the Clinton agenda forward.
Only one day before Speaker of the House Paul Ryan retracted Donald Trump’s invitation to speak at an event in Wisconsin, an email was sent out that could be to blame. It read, "He is on board, will retract the invitation to speak. Eyes only."
Other Clinton emails imply that money is being moved to Republican elected officials in the House and Senate. For example, right after John McCain attacked President Trump by publicly criticizing him, FEC records show that two large donations from PACS and private sources went to the senator immediately after.
#1
Her [Clinton] evil plot was revealed in an email sent last July from Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta to top aide Huma Abedin.
This womyn is not only evil but she is dangerous and crazier than a bedbug on steroids. Trump needs to try find a way to prosecute her for her many crimes or she will keep coming back to cause him trouble like Freddy Kruger. He needs a knockout blow that takes her out of politics--something like a felony conviction. Charity fraud is a good place to start. Election rigging and fraud is another area. Espionage? That shouldn't be too hard to pull off. There are most likely some far darker areas to take a look at as well.
#3
I'd believe that Hildabeest's allies/PACs/Campaign paid the firm for that dossier and gave it to McCain to damage Trump. Outright cash seems ....not so credible
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2017 15:21 Comments ||
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#4
Outright cash seems ....not so credible
On the other hand, Obama's NSA spied on everyone and there, probably, were things to find
#5
I may not know what I'm doing, but the phrase: “JB, CF, and JK PACS will be noticeably silent for the rest of the campaign. Each will receive a significant allowance from advertising budget. HRC is in the loop and has talked to all three personally. Eyes only.” is not found by the Wikileak search engine.
Document 1078645 references fighting Houthis in Yemen.
When the verification is done bye a prostitute, it's a pretty good bet that Snopes is no longer a viable source of "true or false". Right now if anybody try to use Snopes a story is true or false, I automatically discredit that person.
Is itt true, or is it false? I'll believe Wikileaks before I believe Snopes.
[Townhall] I'm calling foul on all the leftists rushing to protect the NFL's protest crusaders from President Donald Trump's criticism of their national anthem antics.
Their shabby line of defense? The NFL is a "private enterprise" whose "rights" are being violated by those who dare to challenge the league's political radicalization. The anti-Trump Democratic Coalition has even filed an ethics complaint alleging that the president's comments constitute a criminal violation against using government offices "to influence the employment decisions and practices" of a private entity.
Funny. These fair-weather friends of corporate free speech and the First Amendment were nowhere to be found when Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were vowing to shut down Chick-Fil-A in their towns as government retaliation against the founders' private religious beliefs.
As for the NFL's status as a "private" enterprise? That's some Super Bowl-sized audacity right there. I first started tracking publicly subsidized sports boondoggles with my very first watchdog website, Porkwatch, back in 1999. Since then, taxpayers at all levels of government have foot the bill for football stadiums to the tune of an estimated $1 billion every year.
Over the past decade, new tax-supported NFL stadiums rose up for the Indianapolis Colts (the $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium), the Dallas Cowboys (the $1.15 billion AT&T Stadium) the New York Jets and Giants (the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings (the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium), the Atlanta Falcons (the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium), and the San Francisco 49ers (the $1.3 billion Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara).
#3
Nice job of tracking VRWC. The results are a bit frightening, but a nice job nonetheless. I take it you've read.... 'We're just too clever to find a boyfriend!'
#4
#3 Nice job of tracking VRWC. The results are a bit frightening, but a nice job nonetheless. I take it you've read.... 'We're just too clever to find a boyfriend!'
Oh, yes.
Btw, I used the Chick-Fil-A analogy this morning. The "hearer" (they don't listen) quickly changed the subject.
[The Hill] President Trump and the GOP establishment took a hit on Tuesday, as former judge Roy Moore defeated incumbent Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) to become the GOP’s nominee for December’s general election in the Yellowhammer State.
Moore won a comfortable victory, despite Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) backing Strange.
What were the main takeaways? [Bulletized from article]
- Trump backed the wrong man.
- A serious defeat for McConnell
- Bragging rights for Bannon and Breitbart
- Could more GOP senators eye the exit? [Besides the rhino Bob Corker]
- Moore could give GOP heartburn [Takeaway without a downside]
Alabama conservatives rallied to Moore’s banner, but he is a deeply controversial figure renowned for his incendiary statements.
Among his past pronouncements, he has argued that "homosexual conduct should be illegal"; has falsely suggested that former President Obama was not born in the United States; and has asserted incorrectly that parts of Indiana and Illinois are under Islamic "Sharia law." Many share the opinions listed above.
Moore was suspended from his state’s Supreme Court twice: Once for defying a court order to remove a statue of Christianity’s Ten Commandments from the state’s judicial building; and, more recently, for instructing the state’s judges, in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court, to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
He will be a magnet for media attention, especially if he wins in December. There are plenty of his would-be colleagues in the Senate GOP who will not relish the idea of being forced to answer for some of his positions. No problem, leave NOW and avoid the rush.
#2
Congress has brought this on itself. People are sending this do nothing parasite body a message that they have had enough of business as usual. Time for a big shakeup.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/27/2017 5:46 Comments ||
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#4
Judge Roy Bean Moore is a lighting rod. The people voted for him. What are the chances Moore will beat Dem. Doug Jones? Mitch McConnell is the biggest loser? It seemed self evident prior to this election. The people seem to be getting fed up with "inevitable" elections, i.e. being told who their candidate and who the winner will be.
[PJMedia] At Asia Times today, I explain why the entire world (excepting Israel) have lined up against the Kurds:
...I just want to add that our foreign policy elite is a pack of hypocritical, yellow-bellied, two-faced, fork-tongued, lying polecats who wouldn't acknowledge the truth if it were tattooed on their ophidian foreheads.
Since September 11, 2001, we've been told that America has to ally with moderate Muslims against "extremism." There are in fact moderate Muslims in the world. The Kurds are "moderate Muslims."
...The Kurds are everything that George W. Bush and Barack Obama told us we should find in the Islamic world, and more. They want nothing but friendship with the United States of America. And we have thrown them under the bus. There isn't an Appalachian outhouse that stinks worse than our foreign policy Establishment.
Why have we thrown them under the bus? Because we're afraid of unsettling "extremists," that is, the radical jihadists who have been killing Americans for decades. Kurdish independence would below up the artificial state of Iraq, which turned into an Iranian satrapy under majority Shi'ite rule as arranged by George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice and the nation-builders of the Republican Establishment. It would destabilize Turkey, where Kurds of military age will outnumber Turks a generation from now. Turkish President Erdogan wants to restore Ottoman glory and the prospect of losing the Kurdish-majority Southeast drives him crazy. Turkey, notionally the Southeast flank of NATO, has already turned its back on the West, and lined up with Russia and China.
... why are we so beholden to the doomed and destructive regimes of Iran, Syria, Turkey and Iraq that we cannot extend a hand of friendship to the Kurds? Their path to statehood may be tortuous and prolonged, but America should offer our counsel and support. If we do not, the rest of the Muslim world will smile grimly and exploit our moral cowardice. Mike Flynn's dismissal is a tragedy the extent of which we are just begining to grasp.
#1
Why have we thrown them under the bus? Because we're afraid of unsettling "extremists," that is, the radical jihadists who have been killing Americans for decades.
Russian troops have established a temporary bridge through the Euphrates River near Deir Ezzor city, the Russian military’s TV channel Zvezda reported on Tuesday.
According to Zvezda, the bridge was established under a constant fire from ISIS terrorists within 2 days. The Russian task force suffered no casualties.
The length of the bridge is 200 m. It allows to transfer cars, armoured vehicles and battle tanks from the western to the eastern bank of the Euphrates.
Zvezda’s article argues that the birde is established for conducting humanitarian missions and delivering aid to civilians in Deir Ezzor.
However, it’s hard to believe that the 200-m long bridge is needed for this. Especially considering the fact, that a major part of the eastern bank is still in the hands of ISIS.
Most likely, this bridge will be an important supply line for governmnet troops operating against ISIS northeast of Deir Ezzor city.
At the same time, the Russian state-run Russia 1 channel clearly says that the bridge will be used as a supply line for government troops fighting ISIS.
Videos at the link, and it should be noted that not even Russian divisions and maneuver corps have bridging units at their disposal. Neither do Russian Naval Infantry units have them. Only armies and fronts have them. The only active front/army I am aware of is the Russian Transcaucus Front (Chechnya) and the Russian 58th Army.
#1
Regarding the general killed near there... Wikipedia:
In August 2017, according to the publicly released Russian information,[1] he was appointed commander of the 5th Red Banner Army and ″shortly thereafter″ left for Syria on tour of duty as a senior military adviser.
[AccordingToHoyt] ...The good news is that the idiots are self idenfying. From the NFL taking a knee in response to.... G-d knows what. Apparently "I’m black, and even though I’m a millionaire, you’re mean to me." or perhaps "I liked how much attention the idiot who took a knee got and I want that attention." to Star Trek STD cast members taking a knee in solidarity with the NFL because "well, we have no clue why, but it has something to do with being anti-Trump and stuff. Besides, a lot of players are black, so they’re obviously right, and we denounce ourselves." "Besides our show sucks, and if we’re uber left we can convince the rest of Hollywood it was great but no one watched it because we spoke truth to power." (Aka Rolling left and dying.)
And then there’s this. No seriously, a guy with a high school education, probably with "athlete’s breaks" is calling half the nation uneducated. This is the old, old bullshit of "if only you were educated, you’d be progressive" leading to all the idiot-flakes saying "educate yourself" when you disagree with them.
Some gems from that one:
"At the end of the day, I don’t think a lot of people was educated," he said.
"I’ve done things for my daughter and realized I shouldn’t have gave my daughter that many damn Skittles."
"And am I saying that the people of Ohio wasn’t educated?"
""Am I saying that some of the other states that voted for him was uneducated?"
Actually what LeBron James is proving is that you can get a High School diploma in America while being a complete moron.
So, the good news is that they hear their own echo chamber ad nauseum, they’ve lost track of any opposing opinion, the media has lost all integrity and the left thinks they’re winning without realizing they’re just disgusting the normal people out there.
As Ace of Spades put it, they used to try to appear "just like you" and that led us to think they couldn’t be bad people even though they advocated appalling things. Now they’ve lost track of what "normal" is.
I can’t find the link, but I’m sure one of you will. (I linked it at instapundit, I think.) The thing is they’ve lost track of what the average person thinks, and so they think pushing brightly hair colored gender-indeterminate super heroes (for instance) will cause us to accept weird-hair-gender-indeterminate-feminists, instead of turning away from comics. Or they think that having barely literate sport stars and unhinged singers/actors lecture us on how bad Trump is will make us side with them instead of going "Oh, good Lord, I don’t like him that much, but if you hate him..."
The bad news? The bad news is how far the long march through the institutions has got before they thought they were safe to come out of the commie-closet.
I don’t know how one deals with a communist like Rapone. I’ve been told being a communist is not an objection to being an officer in the United States Army. Well, if it’s not, it ought to be. Anyone who believes in the communist manifesto and also that communism will win (briefly, before everyone dies screaming?) cannot in good faith take the oath of allegiance to protect and defend the Constitution. This is the same reason convinced communists shouldn’t be able to become US citizens.
The good news? The good news is that the more they think they already won, the more they crawl out of the closet, the easier it is to isolate them and counter their years and years of undercover work to undermine the republic.
They are only effective while they’re buried and hidden.
[WeeklyStandard] If you were in the NFL, would you take a knee? Or stand up and sing?
Colin K.
Glad somebody finally asked. For I’ve long suspected racism from NFL owners, since I’m a middle-aged white guy who has a 25 percent BMI, can still run a sub-two minute 40, and yet here I remain, unsigned.
Whether I took a knee would depend on a lot of factors, like whether we were playing on artificial turf or natural grass. (If the latter, I’m for solidarity and all, I just don’t want to stain my pants.) Also, it would depend on how many cameras are on hand and how many other kneelers there were. It’s hard work these days, being a virtue-signaler when everyone is also being "brave" by simultaneously signaling their virtue. Back during simpler times, like say, Tommie Smith’s and John Carlos’s Black Power salute on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, it was literally just two guys on a pedestal. Nowadays, it’s like being an extra in a crowd shot in Spartacus. You might even have to trip over creeps like Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones if you want to broadcast to the world that you’re a Person of Conscience™.
I don’t wish to relitigate the NFL’s whole #TakeAKnee saga. Everything that could be said about it pretty much has been. Twice. You have to get out of the blocks pretty fast if you want to say something novel and/or stake out your moral high ground in these here Divided States of America, where it’s clear that our national sport is no longer baseball or football, but rather ripping each other to shreds on the airwaves and Internet.
To that end, I will admit something unpleasant about myself: When all this business started, the only knee I wanted to take was to Colin Kaepernick’s solar plexus. He reflexively got on my nerves, spitting on a symbol so many of us hold dear, with his new-fangled faux-radical Angela Davis hair and his cops-as-pigs socks (and I don’t even particularly care for cops, who in my neck of the woods spend a lot more time bleeding revenue out of law-abiding citizens with speeding tickets than they do fighting real crime). If Kaepernick truly cared about abuses of authority and Oppressed Peoples of the Land on his Blame America First tour, he’d be a lot easier to take seriously if he didn’t show up in Fidel Castro t-shirts, as the late dictator held an entire island of slaves for the better part of a half-century.
And yet, I flash back to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s maxim that the test of a first-rate intelligence is to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, while still detesting both of them. (I paraphrase.) For Donald Trump once again has taken a worthy idea (serving as a custodian of our patriotic sacred symbols) and sullied it with his boorish behavior, his total lack of judiciousness, his Twitter buffoonery, and his injurious choice of words. ("Get that son of a bitch off the field.")
As a first amendment absolutist who just returned from Berkeley where innocent profile subjects of mine were beaten with sticks right in front of me by creepy fascists in ISIS pajamas who didn’t like what they had to say, I would defend to the death both Colin Kaepernick’s and Donald Trump’s respective rights to be assholes. But just because we have the constitutionally-enshrined right to be assholes doesn’t mean we should be.
And in keeping with the a-hole motif, another maxim I wouldn’t mind seeing carved in granite at the anti-A-holes monument I support erecting on the mall in Washington is that if you side with the asshole you like against the asshole you don’t like, in order to punish the latter, soon enough, you will become an asshole, too.
Make no mistake: That is what we are becoming. It now aptly describes large swaths of both the pro-Trump and #Resist Trump movements. It’s the reason why this seemingly trivial NFL story has legs, even as the world collapses around us. The current dialogue, such as it is, is so polarized and rancid, that the extremists of both sides have not only become more extreme, but many good old-fashioned moderates‐now on the Endangered Species List‐are becoming extremists, too. This is not going to end well.
We are losing it. "Losing what?" you might ask. Everything. We are losing the ability to track in specifics instead of generalities‐the latter being the rocket fuel of the identity politics conservatives profess to hate. We are losing the ability to see people as individuals as opposed to blocs or cartoon characters or pawns upon whom we work out our pre-fab political positions. We are losing the ability, on both sides, to follow Atticus Finch’s advice about understanding our own lack of understanding: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
We are perpetually feeding on a binge-diet of hatred and distrust and mutual suspicion, often unable to even recall, like the Bloods and the Crips with their endless cycle of gang warfare, who fired the first shot or why it was ever fired. We’re losing the ability, as a people, to be a people, collectively. After a period of relative calm in our history, we’re coming to resemble that apocalyptic passage in Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins: "Even now, late as it is, nobody can really believe that it didn’t work after all. The U.S.A. didn’t work! Is it even possible that from the beginning it never did work? That the thing always had a flaw in it, a place where it would shear, and that all this time we were not really different from Ecuador and Bosnia-Herzegovina, just richer."
So while I’m not yet quite ready to don my Colin Kaepernick skin suit, I did let my kneejerk anger over his disciples’ demonstration this past weekend recede a bit, even as I acknowledge their right to demonstrate away in the middle of a song I love, but don’t particularly like melodically. (Many of the protesters have shifted emphasis, and are instead protesting Trump’s demagoguery, as our president seems incapable of walking past a hot stove without pouring lighter fluid on the burner.) Instead, I did something I try to do with some regularity. Something we should all do. To read someone I disagree with, and not for the purposes of saying what an idiot they are on Twitter, but to actually subject my thinking to challenge. Sometimes, I go far afield while doing this, and sometimes, I stay closer to home. In this case, I didn’t have to go far at all, as I read my colleague Jonathan V. Last’s riveting, sober, and thoughtful reflection on the beef many of the NFL kneelers might have, and why, once we turn the volume down, we should give it an honest hearing.
As JVL wrote of police excesses: "Now, you might ask if this sample is a handful of isolated incidents, or the tip of the iceberg. That’s an important question and one about which every American ought to be curious, because the answer is not obvious. What is obvious is that if this sort of thing happens to middle-class white people, then there’s every reason to believe that it happens to poor black people, too. Probably more often. And possibly, much, much more often."
I was recently struck by another couple passages as well, written by Marilynne Robinson, a good liberal. (Yes, there’s still plenty of them. Despite reports to the contrary, they haven’t all become Antifa supporters or intersectionality bloggers.) In her epistolary novel Gilead, written in the form of a letter from a dying Congregationalist pastor, John Ames, to his young son, Ames addresses the importance of real tolerance, not the kind paid lip service to by social justice warriors, who often find true tolerance intolerable. Ames writes about the essentialness of what is now a dying art‐the art of not taking offense:
In every important way we are such secrets from one another, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, intraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us ... When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.
The cock-eyed optimist in me hopes that it’s not too late to turn this American experiment of ours around, to follow the Reverend Ames’s advice. The realist in me fears that it might be later than we think.
#2
Yet another commentator writing a history-free and context-free screed, stretching to grasp the role of impartial observer.
Tea Party anyone?
I recall the efforts to remain civil in the 1970's when the techniques being practiced today were first developed to stop the pro-life movement. Patience and courtesy totally wasted on the unworthy, like tossing pearls to swine.
I made a very interesting observation a few days ago: the Aramaic word for "Enemy" entirely incorporates, as the base word, the Aramaic word for "Enmity": Thus, when Jesus said to love your enemy, He was actually objecting to the enmity you would have to have, to qualify to have an enemy. There is a difference between HAVING an enemy and BEING an enemy: If they hate you without a cause, then you are THEIR enemy, but they are not YOUR enemy if you don't first have enmity toward them.
The upshot is that Jesus was forbidding enmity, but did not forbid the observation that someone has enmity toward you, and thus is dangerous in the same way a hungry bear or Lion would be dangerous (He did that all the time, and modified his behavior to avoid danger). You can sympathize with a hungry bear, but you don't give it what it wants if what it wants is YOU for dinner.
I got this while reading the Book of Esther: Mordecai did not have any enmity toward Haman, just no respect, probably because Haman was the kind of guy who, when disrespected, embraced and welcomed enmity.
#3
That was lovely, Ptah, and a very useful way of approaching the subject. I have missed you thinking aloud, but presumably you have other, more urgent projects nowadays.
Emmanuel talks about his experience joining the military, as well as, his experience coming home from war. The stories of so many veterans demand our attention. Our veterans deserve better.
BLUF:
[Hot Air] With that complete lack of engagement in professional football, why would Jonathan and so many of his progressive colleagues be so completely driven to support and gin up protests taking place on the gridiron? Why did they suddenly care so much about the intersection of racial identity politics and football?
The answer is that they don’t. This has little or nothing to do with police shootings, racial profiling or any of the rest of it. What we’re seeing is an almost brilliant and concerted effort to damage, if not eliminate, the National Football League.
Why? Because the activist Left has despised the NFL for years. They hate everything about it. It’s a game filled with big, tough, manly men engaging in the closest thing to warfare you can manage without guns. It’s a game rife with symbolism and, yes... nationalism. Even people who would never buy an album from a country singer could feel their blood heating up when Hank Williams used to sing, Are you Ready for Some Football. The military loves football and they fly jets over the stadiums in formation and send our nation’s finest out to pay tribute. And it’s not just the military. Our police and other first responders are frequently called out for honors at the games. Everything about it screams of apple pie, fireworks and patriotism. (Or, if you prefer, God, guns and flags.) And the activist Left hates it. Probably the only sporting event they despise more is NASCAR.
#1
The NFL is its own creation and its own fault. It quite being sports competition for personality driven entertainment some time back, birthing fantasy football as a way to interest fans in games they would normally not watch or care about other than rankings. Sports entertainment coverage pushed this as well, and not just ESPN.
The talking heads did not help as their coverage of an event strayed further and further from the event they were supposed to be covering and into politics and culture, but the NFL opened that door with the identity themes such as breast cancer month.
They also let themselves be pushed around by the players' union which is why the NFL won't and can't do anything about this except ride the tiger.
#2
As a Lifelong San Diego Chargers fan, I really now understand it's a business. FUCK the NFL. You run it like a business, then remember sometimes businesses fail.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2017 20:30 Comments ||
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#3
I'm glad San Diego didn't pony up the money for a stadium for a team that will circle the drain like the rest of the NFL as this continues and fear of microconcussions start to starve the system of young players.
BLUF:
[American Spectator] And the NFL has the audacity to suggest that the current politicization in football was created by Donald Trump? Though I don't agree with him using his platform as president to call for the firing of kneeling players or for a boycott of the NFL, these are certainly not circumstances of his design.
On Monday Night Football this week, the Dallas Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals both locked arms and knelt before the National Anthem, acknowledging the protesters' position. Then they stood and locked arms during the National Anthem. It was a charade all too obviously meant to placate fans, while still giving a platform to espouse the dangerous and entirely untrue Black Lives Matter narrative. "Unity" was the theme. More "division" is what you can expect.
The most troubling thought crossing my mind? That somewhere, Colin Kaepernick is smiling, quite pleased with himself.
[Breitbart} San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich had plenty to say in response to President Donald Trump denouncing national anthem protests while speaking Monday at his team’s media day.
Popovich called the United States of America "an embarrassment" and followed that up by saying white people "especially" need to be made "uncomfortable" for any change to be made.
"There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change," Popovich explained. "Whether it’s the LGBT movement, women’s suffrage, race, it doesn’t matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people because we’re comfortable. We still have no clue of what being born white means."
"If you read some of the recent literature, you’ll realize there really is no such thing as whiteness, but we kind of made that up. That’s not my original thought, but it’s true," he continued.
#5
A Polack who dropped outta college,
Prefering kielbasa to knowledge:
"Piss off! Do I trigger? This ignorant Danziger
Can't tell Shinola from "polish"!
#9
I tend to avoid things that make me uncomfortable so I guess I'll be avoiding San Antonio Spurs basketball games. That doesn't hurt nearly as much as missing the Raiders but they made me so uncomfortable last Sunday evening that I'll be avoiding them too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/27/2017 12:05 Comments ||
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#10
Last Sunday morning the minister at our church talked about forgiveness. I guess I can forgive these people if they'd just get back to playing basketball or football instead of calling me a racist and disrespecting my country.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/27/2017 12:07 Comments ||
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#11
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what "white privilege" is so that I can sit back and enjoy it.
#12
That preaching apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. Pity for him preaching is death for entertainment (and as stated above not his f***ing job!).
#14
Abu Uluque #9: ...Raiders but they made me so uncomfortable last Sunday evening...
Watching the Raiders players uniformed thugs slouching on the benches awoke a visceral anger. I wished for all of their adversaries to give them the full Conan treatment for enemies.
Two months after S&P downgraded the state capital of Connecticut, Hartford, to junk, when it cuts its bond rating from BB+ to BB- citing growing liquidity pressures and weaker market access, the city which has been rumored is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection and which has seen an exodus of corporations and businesses in recent months, just got more bad news when S&P downgraded it by a whopping 4 notches deeper into junk territory, from BB- to CC, stating that "a default, a distressed exchange, or redemption appears to be a virtual certainty."
"The downgrade to 'CC' reflects our opinion that a default, a distressed exchange, or redemption appears to be a virtual certainty," said S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Victor Medeiros.
The rating agency also warned that it could take additional action to lower the rating to 'Default' if the city executes a bond restructuring or distressed exchange, or files for bankruptcy.
In our view, the potential for a bond restructuring or distressed exchange offering has solidified with the news that both bond insurers are open to supporting such a measure in an effort to head off a bankruptcy filing. Under our criteria, we would consider any distressed offer where the investor receives less value than the promise of the original securities to be tantamount to a default.
In short: while Chicago has so far dodged the bullet, the capital of America's richest state (on a per capita basis), will - according to S&P - be also the first to default in the coming months.
Full S&P note below:
Hartford, CT GO Debt Rating Lowered Four Notches To 'CC' On Likely Default
S&P Global Ratings has lowered its rating four notches to 'CC' from 'B-' on Hartford, Conn.'s general obligation (GO) bonds and Hartford Stadium Authority's lease revenue bonds. The ratings remain on CreditWatch with negative implications, where they were placed on May 15, 2017. At this rating level and due to the characteristics of the city's appropriation-supported debt, we believe its appropriation and GO debt share similar risk and have therefore made no notching distinction. We could differentiate the GO and appropriation ratings again in the future based on our view of their relative vulnerability to nonpayment.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Conrad Black
[Daily Caller] News aggregator Matt Drudge tweeted Wednesday that recent GOP legislative failures have shattered the "illusion there is a difference between parties."
[Townhall] I'm calling foul on all the leftists rushing to protect the NFL's protest crusaders from President Donald Trump's criticism of their national anthem antics.
Emmanuel talks about his experience joining the military, as well as, his experience coming home from war. The stories of so many veterans demand our attention. Our veterans deserve better.
[Breitbart} San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich had plenty to say in response to President Donald Trump denouncing national anthem protests while speaking Monday at his team’s media day.
