Monday Overnight Open Thread (10/23/17)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Quote I

There are people who thirst for blood like tigers. Any man who has once tasted this unlimited power over the blood, over the body and spirit of a human creature like himself, a creature created in the same image and subject to the same law of Christ; any man who has tasted this power, this boundless opportunity to humiliate most bitterly another being made in the image of God — becomes the servant instead of the master of his own emotions. Tyranny is a habit. It can and does eventually develop into a disease. I believe that the best of men may grow coarse, degrade to the level of a beast by sheer force of habit. Blood and power intoxicate one, they develop callousness and lust. The greatest perversions grow finally acceptable and even delicious to mind and heart. The man and the citizen perish in the tyrant for ever and the return to human dignity, remorse and spiritual rebirth becomes scarcely possible to him. Besides, the example and mere possibility of arbitrary power are contagious; they are indeed a great temptation. A society which regards such things calmly is already corrupt at the roots. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Quote II

You know how it works. When you criticize the alt-left, it’s hate speech. When they criticize you, it’s speaking truth to power. Howie Carr

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Humor in truth................

The ONT wonders if the reprobate Ted Kennedy received one of those awards?

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Soviet Union Naval Seals.

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Las Vegas massacre. We still haven't been told what the motive was. Mapping the massacre.

New York Times team including Malachy Browne, Drew Jordan, Nicole Fineman and Chris Cirillo has produced a video that maps a timeline of the Las Vegas massacre: “The shots began at 10:05. Twelve bursts of gunfire later, police broke down Stephen Paddock’s door at the Mandalay Bay. Using forensic analysis, The Times mapped 30 videos that show a vivid picture of what happened that night.”

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Do you use dating apps? Good news on the horizon.

He lives next door, is an excellent liar, and is only pretending to care how your parents are doing. No, not your ex, but rather a real-life psychopath. Most don’t realize that psychopaths are rarely tucked away in high security prisons, but often live right down the street. Thankfully, Dr. Pascal Wallisch has our back, and the psychologist is hoping to protect us, the 99 percent of the population that can physically feel empathy and regret, from those who can’t.

The term psychopath is used so often in media and everyday speech that the true meaning sometimes gets lost. Beyond the Hollywood glamor, psychopathy is a psychological diagnosis affecting a small but very prominent proportion of the global population

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Is Tesla about to change the auto insurance industry?

Tesla struck a deal with Liberty Mutual to create a customized insurance package — and the move shows how the electric automaker is intent on disrupting the insurance industry.

The new plan is called InsureMyTesla and was designed specifically for Tesla vehicles. Its benefits include replacing Teslas damaged beyond repair within one year. Tesla launched the package on October 13 in the US in all 50 states, but it already exists in 20 other countries, a company representative confirmed.

I suppose when you take a person's money and don't deliver as promised. Fewer cars on the road means fewer accidents.

And if you are lucky enough to purchase a Tesla you'll be spending some of your time charging the thing.

Long wait to purchase. Long wait to charge the thing. Leave it to the American Taxpayer to help out "Green Corporate Welfare". Musk just another mouth at the government teat.

Why build in the USA when you don't have the same obstacles American manufacturers have.

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Thank God Obama isn't POTUS. Other wise this despicable piece of shit would probably be walking the streets beside us.

Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who pleaded guilty Monday to deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009, says his Taliban captors were more “honest” with him than the Army has been since his release three years ago.

“At least the Taliban were honest enough to say, ‘I’m the guy who’s gonna cut your throat,’ ” Bergdahl tells British TV journalist Sean Langan in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine of London headlined "The Homecoming from Hell."

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Because being an Anti-Semitic asshole and just all around King Shit Touch isn't enough, Jimmy Carter wants President Trump to send him to North Korea to solve the tension.

Donald Trump loves delegating. He has the secretary of defense deciding troop levels in Afghanistan, his daughter pinch-hitting at meetings, and his son-in-law handling the Middle East, Mexico, China, criminal justice reform, and the opioid crisis. Now, former president Jimmy Carter has given Trump a way to hand off the de-escalation of tensions with North Korea, too: Send him.
“I would go, yes,” Carter told Maureen Dowd (paywall), who wrote that the 93-year-old former president is eager to work with Trump on the issue. When Dowd said that many in Washington were concerned about the rhetoric between Trump and Kim Jong-un, he said he was “afraid, too, of a situation. I don’t know what they’ll do. Because they want to save their regime. And we greatly overestimate China’s influence on North Korea. Particularly to Kim Jong-un. He’s never, so far as I know, been to China. And they have no relationship. Kim Jong-il did go to China and was very close to them.”

Because at age 93 he would hold up as well as Otto Warmbier.

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I sold my tickets otherwise I would have seen this.

So now, others are taking action in every way they can and are getting very creative in how they do so.

On Sunday morning, a plane circled the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field with a massive banner reading, “Real men and NFL owners should stand for our country!”

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The ONT Musical Interlude

October 23, 1962, 12 year old Little Stevie Wonder recorded his first single for Motown Records, 'Thank You For Loving Me All The Way' backed by the Funk Brothers. viathisdayinmusic.com

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October 23, 1993, Meat Loaf had his first UK No.1 with 'I'd Do Anything For Love' (But I Won't Do That'). It stayed at No.1 for seven weeks. A No.1 in twenty-eight countries and gave Meat Loaf his first US No.1 hit. via thisdayinmusic.com

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Photos

Rare photos from The Smithsonian.

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Do you have a stressful job? Why not vape some weed on the job?

“I have a high-pressure job,” said Amy S., the CEO of an Internet startup with more than a dozen employees. When she’s having a crazy day, the 40-year-old heads down to the alley across from her Canal Street office and reaches inside her Rebecca Minkoff handbag to retrieve her vaporizer. She spends 20 minutes or so puffing and making phone calls — to her adviser, her lawyer, her CPA, her dad.

“I’m not embarrassed,” she said. “I don’t think [smoking during the work day] should have a stigma. If I never told anyone, no one would know.”

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The problem with selling on credit? Payment. What happens when a monument company doesn't get paid?

After a North Carolina family was unable to pay their bills, the grave marker for their 5-year-old son was repossessed, leaving the grave only covered with a plywood slab.

The Charlotte Observer reports that earlier this month, the parents of Jake Leatherman visited his gravesite only to discover that the monument marking their son’s grave had been removed, and the only thing remaining covering his grave was mud and a slab of plywood. Jake, a 5-year-old child who lost his battle with Leukemia in 2016, had been laid to rest at Hickory Cemetery in Hickory, NC.

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As we approach Halloween, The ONT suggests that you don't go as John George Haigh.

The Acid Bath Murderer was one of the most gruesome serial killers of all time. While his abusive childhood may have played a huge role in his affinity for murder, this once-intelligent young man turned a dark corner he couldn’t come back from.

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Do you like cake? Do you like cake so much that you end up as our Genius Award Winner?

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To serve and protect and to be compassionate. Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Excuses.

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC, NOTWITHSTANDING ANY TERM IN THIS AGREEMENT, OTHER APPLICABLE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE ACECORP PROPERTIES OR ANY ACT OR FAILURE TO ACT BY ACECORP OR ITS VENDORS, YOU ARE EXCLUSIVELY LIABLE FOR ANY AND ALL SUBMITTED CONTENT YOU TRANSMIT VIA THE ACECORP PROPERTIES.

Close it up

Matt Damon and George Clooney: Goodness Us, We Never Heard a Blessed Thing About Weinstein's Misbehavior (Except for the Things We Did Hear About)

—Ace

They're out promoting a film Damon stars in and Clooney directed. Both men's careers were boosted by Harvey Weinstein. Both are saying they didn't know anything about his reputation of rape and assault and creeping, admitting only to knowing of vague "womanizing."

The trouble with that claim is, as John Sexton notes, Damon is also admitting to knowing more than that -- but he gets very, very vague about it.

"I knew the story about Gwyneth from Ben because he was with her after Brad [Pitt], so I knew that story," Damon said Monday on ABC News. "I never talked to Gwyneth about it, Ben told me. But I knew that they had come to whatever, you know, agreement or understanding that they had come to, she had handled it. She was, you know, the first lady of Miramax. And he treated her incredibly respectfully."

Rose McGowan "came to an understanding" with Weinstein, and "handied it." That doesn't mean the complained of behavior didn't happen. And not even Matt Damon's too stupid to think it means that.

John Sexton points out something very important: Even if Matt Damon believed that Gwenyth Paltrow had just "handled it" with Weinstein, why did he undertake to help spike a story about Harvey Weinstein's sexual misbehavior with another woman knowing that -- whether "handled" or not -- it was mostly likely true?

Two weeks ago, former New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman (now at The Wrap) wrote that Damon helped get her 2004 exposé on Weinstein scrubbed. Waxman got calls from Damon and Russell Crowe personally to tube a story that tied Fabrizio Lombardo, then heading Miramax’s Italian unit, to Weinstein’s sexual appetite and about a payoff to a woman who had accused Weinstein of non-consensual sexual behavior. Damon claimed he was just asked to talk about Lombardo’s work for Miramax, not anything to do with Weinstein.

However, he already knew about Weinstein’s sexual harassment of Paltrow by this time. She married Coldplay frontman Chris Martin in 2003, having ended the relationship with Affleck in 2000. If Waxman was writing about Weinstein in 2004, then Damon had an important piece of information -- or at least knew enough to refrain from running interference on a sex scandal at Miramax.

I can't steal everything from Sexton so read about James Toback, now accused by 38 women of First Degree Creepstering, including Weinstein-like rubbing and ejaculating on nonconsenting women, and James Gunn's attempts to warn everyone he knew about him.

It's another filthy-grubby story proving again that while Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, Hollywood is also Hollywood for ugly people.

Sexton links a particularly distressing account from an actress named Sari Kamin. Read that, if you can stomach it.

It gets worse as it goes on. Let me know at which point you tapped out.

Antifa, Which Routinely Attacks Citizens Without Provocation in "Self Defense," Now Pushing Gun Ownership and Shooting Practice, Also for "Self-Defense"

—Ace

The leftist media always freaks out about right-wing militias and suvivalists and dangerous gun-crazy anti-government radicals.

Think they'll freak out about a left-wing terrorist group with a long and bloody history of assaults and vandalism arming up, explicitly for "revolution"?

Or do you suppose they'll be a bit more sympathetic? Perhaps we'll even see some positive pieces about leftwingers "getting in touch" with America's gun culture.

Well, you don't have to wait for that -- the Buzzfeed piece Sexton links and critiques has "bought into" Antifa's line about arming up for "self-defense." Obviously.

The idea that these are “"elf-defens'” courses is really a bit of Antifa salesmanship which the author of the piece seems to have bought into. As the article makes clear, the members of the Haymaker Collective are watching videos of protests and learning both individual and group fighting techniques. In other words, the group is preparing people to participate in street battles. As we've all seen, Antifa is not averse to throwing the first punch in those confrontations. But it's not just martial arts, Antifa members are also training with firearms...

And, as could be predicted, Buzzfeed, which usually loses its shit over guns, seems suddenly receptive to the self-defense rationale for gun ownership.

Incidentally, given that the left is now claiming a right to disrupt quiet College Republican meetings in school libraries because, they say, the very existence of college Republicans is a disruption to other people's lives, one should understand "self-defense" to be a rather broad concept to the left.

And a Columbia Prof just helped shut down a speaker who was only speaking on campus via Skype, claiming the very act of him speaking constituted "an act of violence."

Your very existence is a "threat" to them, an "act of violence," to which they feel justified in using force to eradicate.

PS: Via @PoliticalShort, algebra and geometry are just tools of White Oppression.

Prof: Algebra, geometry perpetuate white privilege

Toni Airaksinen
New York Campus Correspondent
@Toni_Airaksinen
Today at 8:20 AM EDT

Gutierrez worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege because "emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi" give the impression that math "was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans."

She also worries that evaluations of math skills can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially if they do worse than their white counterparts.

Coming soon: An antifa thug murders someone, and the motive... is math.

#FakeNews CNN Must Have Some More #FakeNews Coming

—Ace

Because they seem to be proactively defending themselves for their next upcoming #FakeNews embarrassment.

The ad is being mocked...

"Considering all the mistakes they've made this year, you'd think they would be a tad bit less sanctimonious," the conservative writer David Harsanyi tweeted.

An account named Sister Toldjah said, "Some people are trying to tell me that a man is a woman, too."

Another account called Sister J said, "Has this ad been called 'transphobic' yet?"

...but I'm sure you lot can do a lot better.

Cuck College: Men Now Taking Courses on How to Unlearn Their "Toxic Masculinity"

—Ace

Upon graduation, you will receive a Participation Trophy, a fidget spinner, a pair of fuzzy footie pajamas, and a complimentary set of Designer Pronouns, suggested for you by a Gender Designer who will act as your personal shopper in choosing a set of the finest artisinal bespoke pronouns.

May I suggest something in a xhi/xhiim? Sounds exotic, like a bartender in Star Wars!

For some time, Stephen Hicks had felt like something was off. "My relationship ended, then a lot of things started collapsing in front of me," Hicks says. He began attending therapy, which made him realize that he needed to make a bigger change: "I wasn’t doing really terrible things, but I also wasn’t being the most ideal Stephen I could be," he says. "The bar is really lowered for cisgender guys."

So earlier this year, Hicks signed up for the pilot Rethink Masculinity class, a partnership between the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault.

The program bills itself as a class where men "learn how social constructs of masculinity harm them and the people around them, and work to construct healthier masculinities." Or, as Hicks puts it, "It was eight weeks of guys discussing how they can address their actions with better self-awareness and less toxicity."

Eight weeks obsessively oversharing your personal failings with marginal acquaintances?

Congratulations -- you're now a chick.

"We spoke of emotional labor, consent, violence, communication, empathy, and vulnerability," he adds, noting that the last subject, in particular, was a struggle for him: "[I was] trained and conditioned to be tough growing up."

Doesn't sound like you were trained very well, Sally.

From Lisa DePasquale, who has a new and just-at-the-right-moment book, The Social Justice Warrior Handbook, which I really have to read, especially because she quotes me.

(BTW: The title is ironic. The book pretends to be a Social Justice Warrior Handbook while mocking the Social Justice Warriors.)

Oh by the way:

U Penn Teacher: In Class, I Always Call on People of Color First, Then White Women, and Then, If I Feel Like It, Maybe one White Male

—Ace

This woman is a "Queer disabled feminst," according to her own description (and yes, she gives her credentials as "Queer disabled feminist" before mentioning her professional credentials of being a grad student in History at U Penn. Her identity comes first -- and let's face it, her identity is her actual credential.

She teaches classes as a teaching assistant, as many grad students do but I'm told this "progressive stack" is a very common thing in education. Indeed, her defense of her admitted, blatant discrimination is that it was taught to her from a professor.

In subsequent post, McKellop explains that the tactic - called progressive stacking - was one learned from a professor in undergrad. 'In normal life, who has the easiest time speaking, most opportunities? Flip it,' they added.

'The classroom is the place YOU get to control social setting.'

McKellop would continue to tweet about the reaction they were receiving for teaching the method and added: 'Penn thinks I'm racist and discriminatory towards my students for using a very well worn pedagogical tactic which includes calling on [people of color].'

The fact that it's "well worn" makes this worse, not better -- it's one thing to find out that a single girl was molested by her uncle. It's another thing entirely to find out that half the girls in a town were molested by their family members, and that it's an accepted, "well worn" tradition in the town.

Bret Weinstein, the former Evergreen professor, a liberal mugged by leftist reality, discusses this in this twitter thread, noting that there are great "extra-legal" penalties imposed on professors and students who attempt to tell the outside world about the New Jim Crow.

A friend was telling me he saw a comment on this story at some news site. Not only does this professor do this, but it's a common enough thing to do that it is considered sound practice and even has a name -- "progressive stacking." You work down through the stack -- female persons of color, male persons of color, white women, and lastly, obviously, white men -- moving from the Coalition of the Ascendant to the Deplorables.

Legal Insurrection discusses the "progressive stack," and notes that the last time it made big news was during Occupy Wall Street, where minorities were told to "step up" (to the front of the crowd) and white men were told to "step back." "Step up, step back" with a very detailed chart of racial/sexual value -- see the chart at the link.

By the way, sometimes Jewish people wonder where they are on "the stack."

As I keep telling my Jewish friends -- you're just plain ol' white, and therefore to be discriminated against. Congratulations, I guess?

In the progressive movement, Jews are considered privileged and "white," putting them low on the progressive stack spectrum. Standard anti-Zionist polemics portray Israel as a white-supremacist state, even though most Israeli Jews are refugees from or descendants of refugees from Arab countries. Israel also has rescued Jewish communities from non-white regions such as Ethiopia.

Jamie Palmer, writing at The Tower in April 2016, astutely points out the ugly side of the progressive stack, and how it is used against Jews:

A lot has been written in recent months about the unwelcome resurgence of political correctness and identity politics and the exasperating doctrines of the social justice Left. I will simply make the curt observation that the progressive stack--an organizing principle designed to foreground the voices of those deemed to be "marginalized"-- has not been kind to Jews.

This is partly because those in charge of arranging ethnicities into a hierarchy of oppression are still trying to decide whether or not Jews should to be considered "white" and therefore "privileged," and, as such, undeserving of the social protections from racism afforded to other minority groups (as though it were within their rights to define the Jews in the first place). This problem is, of course, exacerbated by the Livingstone Formulation.

But there is a further problem with the way racism is conceived and understood as a structural problem by social justice activists. According to the precepts of critical race theory, racism only results from a combination of prejudice and power. Since anti-Semitism is a conspiracy theory about the malign influence of a powerful and mendacious world Jewry, it essentially holds that the Jews are experiencing hatred on account of the power they hold. Anti-Semitism, therefore, is not racism at all, but something more akin to resistance.

A comment my friend read said that this term is used all the time in education circles. At teacher union meetings, for example, it is expected and demanded that the "stack" be followed in order, and if I white male dares to stand to speak before allowing those higher in the "stack" to speak first, jeering starts and people shout "Don't break the stack!"

So: An explicit racial/sexual pecking order. Jim Crow is back again, just with a different ordering.

By the way, this person claims that her pronouns are "they/them." What a surprise that she has vanity pronouns!

(That article, from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, is maddening, and maybe worth a hate-read if you want to get your blood pressure up -- it is fully supportive of discriminating against whites and men as a valid exercise in... non-discriminatory teaching.)

MeAgain! Megyn Kelly, Plummeting in the Ratings, Turns Back to Her Favorite Trick: Making It All About Herself

—Ace

First look at the headline -- which is not NBC just juicing the piece. Those are MeAgain's first words.

You will probably be expecting her to reveal that she'd complained of Bill O'Reilly making unwanted sexual advances towards her.

But no, that's just the clickbait headline talking.

If you bother watching the clip, the complaint to which she refers was a missive to Fox executives complaining that Bill O'Reilly, by stating on CNN that he "wasn't interested" in talking about Roger Ailes' sexual harassment situation because it would tarnish the reputation of his employer FoxNews, was contributing to the "culture" at FoxNews that made it harder for women to report harassment.

Which is a point worth making -- sort of. But she twists O'Reilly's words around --
Bill O'Reilly had said that no one ever complained about his "behavior," obviously referring to sexual harassment, and MeAgain deliberately misinterprets "behavior" to mean "words he said on CNN about not wanting to talk about sexual harassment."

I can't see any other interpretation but that she willfully misread O'Reilly's words to give her old story a fresh news hook, and then cooked her own headline to give it some Harvey Weinstein style heat.

Very cynical.

What begins as a suggestion that she was harassed or molested turns into merely this -- which itself is just cribbed and old news from her dumb book Settle For More:

"I wrote [in Settle For More], in part: 'Perhaps he didn't realize the kind of message his criticism sends to young women across this country about how men continue to view the issue of speaking out about sexual harassment," Kelly said. "Perhaps he didn't realize that his exact attitude of shaming women into shutting the hell up about harassment on grounds that 'it will disgrace the company' is in part how Fox News got into the decade-long Ailes mess to begin with. Perhaps it's his own history of harassment of women which has, as you both know, resulted in payouts to more than one woman, including recently, that blinded him to the folly of saying anything other than 'I am just so sorry for the women of this company who never should have had to go through that.'"

Your headline suggested molestation; your actual complaint is about messaging.

So, so MeAgain.

I'm sure you noticed that she makes herself the Brave Hero of this story by talking up her Secret Crusade for Women.

Again, I think she has a point worth making here. Not a big one, but a point. But she cooks the everloving shit out of this fairly minor story about her complaining about O'Reilly indirectly contributing to women hypothetically feeling uncomfortable in bringing complaints forward into a headline which strongly implies that the story you're about to hear will be about Bill O'Reilly raping or assaulting her.

Nice try, MeAgain. But your schtick of attempting to parlay your endless drama into ratings failed before and it will almost certainly fail again.

That's not to say Bill O'Reilly's a charmer. He's denying it all as a "smear," but the NYTimes reports that he settled a complaint with Lis Wiehl for $32 million, and that complaint alleged "repeated harassment and a non-consensual sexual relationship."

Non-consensual like rape, or non-consensual like "date me and I'll book you on the show more?" The latter is bad -- it's harassment and a form of coercion -- but we can't be sure she's talking rape.

Anyway, O'Reilly denies this, and Lis Wiehl signed affidavits withdrawing her complaints about harassment.

Of course, she seems to have withdrawn those in connection with a $32 million payout.

A lot of people are seizing upon that number and thinking that payout that large means that something must have happened.

Which does not mean that Megyn Kelly shouldn't be called to task for her clickbait self-promotion. The endless drama of Megyn must end at some point.

Related: More Fox Drama. Laura Ingraham is allegedly "terrorizing" Fox staffers with her tantrums.

Mueller Now Investigating the Podesta Group for Russia Lobbying

—Ace

Print story here.

According to Monday’s NBC News report, Manafort organized a PR campaign for a pro-Ukraine nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU), which reportedly was backed by a pro-Russia party. The Podesta Group reportedly was one of many firms that worked on the campaign.

According to NBC News, Mueller's team began looking at Podesta and his company and is now pursuing a criminal inquiry into whether the company violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The media doesn't like to talk about this, but Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group both worked to lobby on behalf of Russia -- so if Manafort's being investigated, why not the brother of Hillary's top adviser?

But now Robert Mueller's on the case to cover it up.

Maybe Mueller will give the Podesta Group a sweetheart plea deal like his FBI gave the Russian uranium racketeer.

The Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama-administration scandal.

The Clintons were just doing what the Clintons do: cashing in on their "public service." The Obama administration, with Secretary Clinton at the forefront but hardly alone, was knowingly compromising American national-security interests. The administration green-lighted the transfer of control over one-fifth of American uranium-mining capacity to Russia, a hostile regime --and specifically to Russia's state-controlled nuclear-energy conglomerate, Rosatom.

Worse, at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom’s American subsidiary was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses. Powered by The Obama administration also knew that congressional Republicans were trying to stop the transfer. Consequently, the Justice Department concealed what it knew. DOJ allowed the racketeering enterprise to continue compromising the American uranium industry rather than commencing a prosecution that would have scotched the transfer. Prosecutors waited four years before quietly pleading the case out for a song, in violation of Justice Department charging guidelines. Meanwhile, the administration stonewalled Congress, reportedly threatening an informant who wanted to go public.

Robert Mueller must resign. Immediately. Or be fired by Ron Rosenstein.

Who, frankly, given his high position in the DOJ throughout this period, is also up to his neck in this and must at least recuse himself.

Russian Spy Ring Got Close to Hillary Clinton; Previously, State Department Denied Russian Spy Ring Got Close to Hillary Clinton

—Ace

Breath deeply. Namaste. Prayer-hands. Warrior Pose.

Hillary Clinton may sometimes not be entirely truthful with you.

As Hillary Clinton was beginning her job as President Obama's chief diplomat, federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin's machine unleashed an influence campaign designed to win access to the new secretary of State, her husband Bill Clinton and members of their inner circle, according to interviews and once-sealed FBI records.

Some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal.

A female Russian spy posing as an American accountant, for instance, used a false identity to burrow her way into the employ of a major Democratic donor in hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton’s department, records show. The spy was arrested and deported as she moved closer to getting inside the secretary's department, agents said.

Other activities were perfectly legal and sitting in plain view, such as when a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled nuclear energy company hired a Washington firm to lobby the Obama administration. At the time it was hired, the firm was providing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in pro bono support to Bill Clinton’s global charitable initiative, and it legally helped the Russian company secure federal decisions that led to billions in new U.S. commercial nuclear business, records show.

Agents were surprised by the timing and size of a $500,000 check that a Kremlin-linked bank provided Bill Clinton with for a single speech in the summer of 2010. The payday came just weeks after Hillary Clinton helped arrange for American executives to travel to Moscow to support Putin’s efforts to build his own country's version of Silicon Valley, agents said.

...

"There is not one shred of doubt from the evidence that we had that the Russians had set their sights on Hillary Clinton’s circle, because she was the quarterback of the Obama-Russian reset strategy and the assumed successor to Obama as president," said a source familiar with the FBI’s evidence at the time, speaking only on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

How did the Russian spy going by the name Cynthia Murphy get close to Hillary Clinton? Through her biggest weakness, of course -- money. Murphy got close to a Hillary fundraiser named Alan Patricof.

Back in 2010, when the spy story broke, Hillary Clinton's office issued a statement that there was “no reason to think the Secretary was a target of this spy ring.”

Court documents and agents who worked the case suggest otherwise, saying the Russians were specifically targeting her department and any intelligence they could get on the new administration’s emerging foreign policy.

The article goes on to note an informant for the FBI -- whose disclosures about the Uranium One deal have made recent news -- reports that he kept hearing about Russian efforts to buy their way into Hillary's inner circle. That informant's lawyer, Victoria Toensing, states:

"I can confirm that my client while working undercover for the FBI and in the employ of the Russian energy firm TENEX witnessed numerous, detailed conversations in which Russian actors described their efforts to lobby, influence or ingratiate themselves with the Clintons in hopes of winning favorable uranium decisions from the Obama administration," attorney Victoria Toensing said.

Definitely click on the article because it links the spy ring encircling the Clintons' with the enormous amounts of Russian cash the Clintons were taking at the exact same time. But I can't excerpt the whole thing.

The informant is being blocked from going public by a Non-Disclosure Agreement the Obama administration forced him to sign.

That may change, though. Charles Grassley has invited him to speak to the Senate Judiciary committee. A majority vote on that committee would produce a subpoena, which would trump any NDA (and presumably immunize him against any attempted action against him for breaching it).

The NDA may not even be legal, but I know a lot of Benghazi whistleblowers believe it is, and aren't willing to talk without that grant of congressional immunity. (Which, bizarrely, Congress won't give them.)

The Morning Rant: J.V. Edition

—CBD

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

No idea what this is called, but "Thornless Rose" popped up, and I like it.

[Hat Tip: OregonMuse]

The Morning Report 10/23/17

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Hope everyone had a great weekend but it's Monday again so let's get right to it. In the lead is the Clinton/Obama Uranium 1 Scandal, which the media wing of the institutional left is pulling out all the stops to embargo. For whatever reason, Deputy Dawg is awake enough to not lift Obama's gag order on a crucial FBI informant who can probably bust this thing wide open, and Rep. Ron DeSantis of Florida is raising a stink about it. Good. That said, it's not stopping Mueller from continuing his witch hunt to bring down someone, anyone, from the PDT administration and taint him and his agenda. Great piece (meaning "BP raising") about one of his underlings who goes after people like a latter-day Thomas Torquemada, only to later have the convictions overturned, but not before destroying lives and reputations in his wake.

Sherrod Brown-stain got his ass handed to him by GOP Ohio Senate hopeful Josh Mandel over calling Steve Bannon a white nationalist. He also called Jewish PDT speech writer Steven Miller the same. In further evidence that the Democrats are running on empty, Frederica "Rhinstone Cowpie" Wilson is demanding General Kelly apologize for calling her out and exposing her as a low-life empty barrel. Not to have her steal the spotlight, Max-Scene Waters said at some event or other that she was going to "take out Trump." You mean, like, for a dinner and a movie?

And instead of just quietly turing into a centerpiece for the Capitol Routnda, the despicable John McStain took a thinly veiled swipe at PDT's Vietnam deferral, while Tom Hanks opened his mouth to attack him over the phone call to the KIA soldier's widow and mostly halitosis tinged with bile was emitted. Tom, you're an actor. You say the lines you are given without bumping into the furniture. Then again, that's exactly what you did, so, meh.

Meanwhile, Jon Cornyn is proving to be a loyal McConnell stooge by blocking a conservative judicial pick and the Foster Friess, like a Chamber of Cronyism-ist is putting in big bucks to go against Steve Bannon's outsider insurgents. Just more proof that the only thing preserving the crashing and burning Democrats is the GOP-e wing of the Deep State.

Lastly of note, with North Korea and perhaps even Iran in mind, PDT has ordered the USAF's strategic bomber force to once again go on 24-hour alert. Francis Fukuyama Hardest Hit.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

• US Preparing to Put Nuke Bombers Back on 24-Hour Alert for First Time Since "End" of Cold War
  
• Ron DeSantis: FBI Informant Must Be Allowed to Speak on Uranium 1 Deal
  
• Why is AG Snoozy McSnoozerson Hiding the FBI's Uranium 1 Informant?
  
• Josh Mandel Slams Sherrod Brown for Calling Bannon a White Supremacist
  
• PDT Unleashes CIA Kill Teams in Afghanistan
  
• Security Threat: Afghan Soldiers AWOL... in the USA
  
• Report: GOP Tax Plan Framework Could Raise GDP by 5%, Wages by 7%
  
• Mueller's Top Gun Known for Hardball Tactics... And Overturned Rulings
  
• Note to John McStain: Jealous, Bitter and Vindictive is No Way to Exit This Mortal Coil
  
• Note to Tom Hanks: Shut Up
  
• Foster Friess May Use His Billions to Counter Bannon's "War" on GOP-e Incumbents
  
• John Cornyn Holds Conservative Nominee Hostage for Swamp Kickback
  
• A Repeal Bill Even the GOP Can Pass
  
• Is Uranium 1 the Final Nail in Israel's Coffin?
  
• Perfect: Terrorism Sponsor Elected to UN Human Rights Council
  
• NFL Death Watch: At Week Seven, Several Stadia are Barely Half Full
  
• PDT: "Wacky" Wilson "Gift that Keeps On Giving," Will Turn off Dem Voters
  
• Asked if Their Crooked Democrat Colleague Bob Menendez Should Resign, 100% of Democrat Senators Said No

Sunday Overnight Open Thread (10/22/17) Too Much Edition?

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Quote I

The only white man you can trust is a dead white man. Robert Mugabe

Quote II

We have this American president, Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don't embrace homosexuality. We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality. Robert Mugabe

Quote III

"We did not send away whites. We took away land.” Robert Mugabe

With an attitude like that, why not be given a prestigious position?Robert Mugabe named Goodwill Ambassador. Holy Shit!!!!

The UK government has criticised the World Health Organization’s decision to appoint Robert Mugabe as a “goodwill ambassador”, calling the move “surprising and disappointing”.

A Downing Street spokesman said British diplomats had raised serious concerns with the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, over the decision to offer the high-profile role to the Zimbabwean president.

The UN body asked the 93-year-old, who has been in power since 1980, to help tackle non-communicable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes and asthma across Africa.

However, the move has been condemned by human rights groups and international bodies, which say Zimbabwe’s healthcare system has collapsed under Mugabe’s authoritarian regime. Most hospitals lack essential medicines and supplies, and nurses and doctors regularly go unpaid.

[UPDATE: W.H.O. rescinds ambassadorship.]

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Some are giving the phrase, "Fly The Friendly Skies" new meaning.

She first joined the airline “to travel the world, meet new people and get paid for living the lifestyle.”

Now, 15 years later, she claims she’s seen and heard it all — and revealed that two girls last year were making money by having sex with first class and business class passengers.

She said: “A stewardess was caught getting [business] on board as a prostitute. She was caught business-carding it — trying to drum up [business] on a flight.”

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Those that do, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, use duct tape.

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Why are we still using passwords?

The standard password has never been less effective or more susceptible to attacks. But some of the U.S.’s leading corporations say they’re also not ready to get rid of it.

Las Vegas, Nevada — Businesses knew that passwords were dead long before the theft of billions of user credentials from Yahoo! and information on more than 140 million people was stolen from Equifax. But for technical executives at some of the U.S.’s leading corporations, the twin events are serving as a long overdue coda for the technology world’s first swing at security: the simple password.

Still, executives speaking at the Akamai Edge Conference* here said that the much maligned password won’t be abandoned any time soon, even as data breaches and follow-on attacks like automated “credential stuffing” make passwords more susceptible than ever to abuse.

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We admitted we were powerless over sex, that our lives had become unmanageable. Harvey "F*cking Weinstein" is cured.

Harvey Weinstein has completed a one-week sex addiction rehab in Arizona
Psychologist says he is 'dealing with his anger' and starting to 'work on empathy'
This despite reports that Weinstein was boorish in group therapy session
Disgraced producer was pulled from group after one session, psychologist says
Weinstein will reportedly remain in Arizona for additional stint with doctors
Spokesperson says he has 'different recollection' of Lupita Nyong'o encounter
Unnamed Italian actress levies new rape claim over alleged 2013 incident

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The U.K. continues to be nuts.

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I'm not sure about you but once in awhile I would give up all this wisdom for my knees feeling better. "Aging gets a bad rap. But disease, decline and discomfort is far from the whole story."

In conversation with Nautilus, Jeste points out that some things get better with age, like the ability to make decisions, control emotions, and have compassion for others—in other words, we get wiser with age. The challenge to aging well, he argues, is to be an optimist, resilient and pro-active, allowing the benefits of age to shine through. The corresponding challenge for doctors is not just to increase lifespan, but to increase healthy life.

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Hey NFL This is what respect looks like.

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Opioids A physician's view on the matter.

At some point, I consulted an orthopedic surgeon to see whether she was a candidate for surgery. He said she wasn’t and strenuously advised that she stop taking the narcotics. “This is not something she should be on for the rest of her life,” he wrote. I then referred her to the hospital’s pain clinic. The anesthesiologist there sent her back after one visit with the message: “When I have a patient on a low-dose narcotic whose pain is reasonably well controlled, I call that success!” His comment rang true. Nevertheless, reared in medicine’s puritanical tradition, I wrote the prescriptions grudgingly until she died of a heart attack in her 70s.

Looking back, I was lucky. It’s nothing like what doctors and the nation face now.

The proliferation of opioid use in the United States is called an epidemic, but it more resembles metastatic cancer. The malignant effects extend far beyond the 300,000 Americans who’ve died since 2000. Prescription opioids are creating a pharmaceutically damaged underclass, trapping millions of people in a culture of victimhood and economic dependence, or for the unlucky, a world of criminal behavior and lethal illicit drugs. At the same time, opioids are damaging the medical profession and its practitioners in ways that will take years to acknowledge and redress.

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The ONT Musical Interlude

October 22, 2005, Waterloo by ABBA was voted the best song in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest. Viewers in 31 countries across Europe voted during a special show in Copenhagen to celebrate the annual event's 50th birthday. via thisdayinmusic.com

Are you f*cking kidding me?!?

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October 22, 1966, The Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’ made its debut on the US singles chart. Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the track was recorded over 6 weeks in four different Los Angeles studios, at a cost of over $16,000. The recording engineer would later say that the last take sounded exactly like the first, six months earlier. The record would reach No.1 on the US charts in December 1966. via thisdayinmusic.com

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In the old days when you were a new father you gave cigars away. Not anymore at least for our Genius Award Winner.

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Helping the less fortunate. Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Awkwardness.

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC. Coupons not accepted here.

Weekly commenter stats for week of 10-22-2017

Top 10 commenters:
1 [826 comments] 'Insomniac - Redneck Death Squad Ninja' [115.98 posts/day]
2 [418 comments] 'Christopher R Taylor'
3 [375 comments] 'publius, the Persistent Poperin Pear'
4 [358 comments] 'Mike Hammer, etc., etc.'
5 [357 comments] 'Mortimer - disappointed'
6 [328 comments] 'J.J. Sefton'
7 [314 comments] 'Steve and Cold Bear'
8 [305 comments] 'Professor Chaos aka gumdrop gorilla'
9 [301 comments] 'Peaches'
10 [300 comments] 'Tami'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [77 names] 'John Marston ' [10.81 unique names/day]
2 [55 names] 'Steve and Cold Bear'
3 [52 names] 'Duncanthrax'
4 [42 names] 'Under Fire'
5 [39 names] 'Harry Reid'
6 [37 names] 'flounder, rebel, vulgarian, deplorable, winner'
7 [37 names] 'andycanuck'
8 [31 names] 'The Political Hat'
9 [30 names] 'Bertram Cabot, Jr.'
10 [30 names] 'tu3031'

Close it up

BushObamaMcCain: We Don't Like This Upstart Trump, Not Very Much Indeed (MJ)

—Open Blogger

You know you're over the target when you're taking flak. McCain should be familiar with the cliche.

To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.

Food Thread: Food Processors, Chopped Nuts, And Doing Things By Hand

—CBD

When you need to chop some nuts, it pays to use the correct tool for the job.

I make a mean granola. And I have been using my trusty 25-year-old food processor to chop the almonds, but in spite of its convenience and speed, it doesn't do a great job. A small portion of the nuts is pulverized into dust, and some are missed completely. Is it a crisis that will drive me to (more) drink? No, but as some of you have noticed, and in Bluebell's case noted, I am a bit of a compulsive in the kitchen.

But my regular chef's knife does not have the appropriate curve for nut chopping. So I moved on to my trusty...um...scimitar. I have no idea what that knife is called, but it is used to butcher primals, though I use it to slice pork ribs, which it does quite well.

Anyway, the curve of the blade is pronounced enough that rocking it through whole almonds was effortless, and when I take into account washing the food processor, it doesn't take much longer, and does a much better job. It is also razor sharp, which really helps.

The moral of the story? Some things are best done by hand!

So what do you do by hand that can also be done with the aid of some mechanical device?

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So...Wegmans has finally arrived in the hinterland, and I organized a small expedition to visit.

Damn...the place is ridiculously big; far larger than the other one I visited in central NJ. The focus seems to be prepared foods to take out for lunch, which makes sense because there several corporate parks in the area.

But I wasn't thrilled by anything I saw. It was just big, but nothing special.

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I have revisited the Sazerac cocktail for a number of reasons, foremost of which is that I ran out of Regans Orange Bitters, and I cannot abide an Old Fashioned without it. So for the few days I was suffering in the wilderness I moved to the Sazerac, and oh what a cocktail it is.

But...the ingredients are strongly flavored, so small deviations in the recipe result in large changes in flavor. This makes it vital that you measure. In fact, you should be measuring whenever you make cocktails.

What's that you say? Are metric beakers extremely useful for the home bartender? Why yes...yes they are! When I experiment with various ratios in cocktails, using metric measures makes it easier. I know; that makes me a soccer-loving Euro-weanie, but it does work.

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From commenter "Gordon" I got a very interesting email about the Shepard's Pie recipe I posted last week.

The subject line of the email? Swineherd's Pie! Hah!

I tried your Shepherd's Pie recipe last night. But instead of ground beef, I used a pound or so of salsa-braised pulled pork, and used some defatted broth from the same pulled pork instead of beef broth. I also happened to have a gallon bag of good mashed potatoes that my wife brought home from an event, so I didn't have to make those.

Holy cow, that's good stuff. My wife finished her plate and went into the kitchen and portioned out the leftovers, announcing that she had her lunches covered for the week. If I wanted more, I'd just have to make it again tonight, which is no more difficult since I have more pork, pork jus and mash.

This one is a keeper for our household.

What a good idea. I think the replacement of ground beef with wonderfully textured pulled-pork is inspired. And the pop of the salsa flavor is a solid addition too. And defatting is key. You can always add fat, but taking it out of a finished dish is problem.
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Damned if I remember whether I made this, but it looks good, and the season is coming fast, so somebody try this and get back to me...stat!

Spicy Cornbread Stuffing with Red Peppers, Chipotle Chiles, and Andouille Sausage

In this recipe, the stuffing is baked outside of the turkey in a baking dish. If you want to stuff your turkey with it, prepare the stuffing through step 2, then follow the directions for microwaving the stuffing as described in the recipe for Roast Stuffed Crisped-Skin Turkey. To make the stuffing a day in advance, increase both the chicken stock and half-and-half by 1/4 cup each and refrigerate the unbaked stuffing 12 to 24 hours; before transferring it to the baking dish, let the stuffing stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes so that it loses its chill. Andouille is a spicy smoked Cajun sausage. If you cannot find any, chorizo makes a fine substitute.

Ingredients
12 cups cornbread broken into 1-inch pieces (include crumbs), spread in even layer on 2 baking sheets, and dried in 250-degree oven 50 to 60 minutes
3 cups chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups half-and-half
2 large eggs , beaten lightly
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), plus extra for baking dish
2 red bell peppers , cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3 medium onions , chopped fine (about 3 cups)
3 rib celery , chopped fine (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 -5 chipotle chiles en adobo , chopped (about 4 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons fresh sage leaves , minced
3 cloves garlic , minced
11/2 pounds andouille sausage , cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Place cornbread in large bowl. Whisk together stock, half-and-half, and eggs in medium bowl; pour over cornbread and toss very gently to coat so that cornbread does not break into smaller pieces. Set aside.

2. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in heated skillet; when foam subsides, add red bell peppers to skillet along with a third of the onion and celery. Sauté until softened, about 5 minutes, and transfer to medium bowl. Return skillet to heat and add remaining 4 tablespoons butter; when foam subsides, add remaining onion and celery and sauté, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in chipotle chiles en adobo, along with thyme, sage, and garlic. Add this mixture, along with sautéed onions and celery and andouille sausage, into cornbread and mix gently so that cornbread does not break into smaller pieces. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate to blend flavors, at least 1 hour or up to 4 hours.

3. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter 10 by 15-inch baking dish (or two 9-inch square or 11- by 7-inch baking dishes). Transfer stuffing to baking dish; pour any liquid accumulated in bottom of bowl over stuffing and, if necessary, gently press stuffing with rubber spatula to fit into baking dish. Bake until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.

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Food and cooking tips, great sourdough baguettes, spare bottles of Oban Scotch Whisky , fresh Morels and other goodies with impressive girth: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com

Close it up

The Best Of The Best

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

And when I listened to this woman and what she was saying, and what she was doing on TV, the only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this Earth. And you can always find them because they’re in Arlington National Cemetery. I went over there for an hour-and-a-half, walked among the stones, some of whom I put there because they were doing what I told them to do when they were killed. John F. Kelly

A simple "Thank you" isn't enough is it?

Uranium, Russia, Obama, Clinton, Money: A Match Made In Hell

—CBD

A few days ago, JackStraw, long-time commenter, seafood aficionado, jibe-master, Mets fan and ocean racer sent me a seven-year-old article about enriched uranium transfers from Ukraine to Russia. U.S. Helps Ukraine Send Uranium to Russia. It was the catalyst for a short email exchange about exactly what the hell is going on.

Ignoring the tongue-bath that CBS gives Obama, it really is odd that we would facilitate these transfers, with the expectation that Russia is going to do what they say they will do.

This week's removal of more than 110 pounds of highly enriched uranium followed a pledge by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to get rid of all of his country's highly enriched uranium by April 2012. The material will be blended down in Russia, rendering it useless for bomb making.

And as JackStraw pointed out:

Note the connection to Yanukovuch, the ex-Ukraine president who is in the middle of the Uranium One scandal and exiled to, yep, Russia.

Let's put the Uranium One scandal in perspective: The cool half-million bucks the Putin regime funneled to Bill Clinton was five times the amount it spent on those Facebook ads -- the ones the media-Democrat complex ludicrously suggests swung the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.

But it also brings up a larger point; should the world try to control nuclear proliferation? There are two issues that confound those attempts. The first is the obvious difficulty in controlling technology and knowledge. I am confident that there are enough people on this blog with enough skill and knowledge to build a nuclear weapon. Is it realistic to try to prevent sovereign nations from doing the same?

The second issue is: How reasonable is it to try to control the behavior of those sovereign nations? Americans bristle at the idea of the United Nations merely criticizing our internal policies. Imagine if they tried to embargo some critical material or technology!

I think a better strategy is to try to control the material and technology with the expectation that we will eventually fail, but at the same time make it abundantly clear what will happen if one of those sovereign countries goes nuclear.

Gee...I guess President Trump isn't so dumb after all!

Sunday Morning Book Thread: 10/22/2017

—CBD

One Hit Wonders

Let's face it, most authors never have a single hit, much less more than one. But there are books (fiction, for the purpose of this discussion) that I found wondrous, yet when I excitedly read another by the author, was disappointed.

City of Thieves was written by none other than David Benioff, of "Game Of Thrones" fame, and it is a beautiful, inspired, elegant book. Is it a great book that belongs on the never-to-be-published list of Dildo's 100 Great Books? No, but it is well worth a read, if for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of what it was like in Western Russia during WWII.

His other stuff? Eh. 25th Hour was readable but without any sympathetic character development, so it was like watching the story unfold from 10,00 feet above. And that is the best of a very small lot.

Anyway, who are your one-hit wonders?

EMT 10/22/17

—krakatoa

These two day weekends are just not doing it for me.

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (10/21/17) Short But Sweet Edition

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

An interesting look at The myth about dirty jobs, minimum wage and illegal immigrants.

What’s really ironic is that the people who are trying to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour are the same people who say, “Mexicans will do jobs that Americans don’t want.”

Get rid of the illegal Mexicans and see how fast that wage goes up to $15 on its own, no government intervention needed.

But, of course, that would require caring about the single mom, the ex-con trying to straighten out his life, the lonely elderly guy who wants to go back to work, the diabetes patient who needs a wheelchair because of his swollen feet, and the guy who finally kicked drugs and needs to start over. That would require having a social conscience.

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Wet behind the ears mayor of Stockton, CA attempts to create Utopia. Basic Income.

IN BRIEF

Stockton, California, is about to become the first city to test government-supported universal basic income in the U.S. The program is the idea of the city's 27-year-old mayor and will be primarily funded by the basic income advocacy group Economic Security Project.

27 year old attempting to do what mankind hasn't figured out over how many centuries? FFS I have scars older than this little prick.

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The ONT is always looking out for you. Male to Female Sex Ratio here in the USA.

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The dating world. Tinder brings out ancient mating behavior.

Tinder brings out the basic mating instincts of men and women as they choose between beauty and brains, a study has found. Men using the smartphone dating app tend to select “hot” candidates, while women are more likely to prize intelligence and stability. The findings may come as little surprise but suggest that Tinder reinforces ancient mating behaviour that evolved to help us survive, say scientists.

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When you hear the term "Black Market" what do you think of? Bootleg booze? Cigarettes? Dope? Try SPAM.

Hawaii is under siege by Spam bandits. Individuals in the state have pulled off a series of brazen canned-meat heists. The thefts have become so common, the Washington Post reports, that some shops are protecting the mystery-meat gold by locking it in plastic cases usually reserved for pricier items.

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So, the next time you have Hamburger Helper, will you picture this?

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I really don't want to meet Al Roker.

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NSFW

OK. Which one of you Morons pulled this off?

Police are investigating what is believed to be the biggest sex toy heist in history after brazen thieves helped themselves to around £45,000 worth of adult products.

The bizarre theft happened at an erotic trade fair in Berlin this week, and the victims have voiced their fury.

Fun Toys London had a stand at the annual Venus-Berlin exhibition, and staff were packing up when its boxes were stolen.

The balls on those people.

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Wow. What a nasty roommate. Looks like she'll have a room to herself for up to six years.

A Tennessee collegian poured liquid from the toilet into her dorm roommate’s water bottles, according to police who arrested the student on a felony tampering charge.

As detailed in a court filing, victim Erein Tiller this month told investigators that she recently “observed a decline in her health status consisting of weight loss, appetite suppression, and diarrhea and did not know the reasoning why.”

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Dogs vs. People

Watch till the end pic.twitter.com/o0HiZdAme0

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) October 19, 2017

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Ouch! That's going to leave a mark or two.

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NSFW Australian women are insecure.

Thousands of Australian women are rushing to go under the knife in ambitious quests to emulate the newly trending 'plump rumps' of their celebrity icons.
The rounded derrieres famously sported by Australian rapper Iggy Azalea and Kim Kardashian are believed to have inspired a generation of impressionable women.
More women than ever are looking to achieve the curvaceous bottoms, signalled by a giant surge in demand for Brazilian 'butt lift' surgery around the country.

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Who do you think did it? DUH!

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In school, birthday parties = good. Penis parties = you're probably going to be fired.

“In the videos, we see how they were preparing for the surprise party. And as the boy walked in, they surprised him with a hat that had a penis attached to the top and a string to be able to pull it so it can get erected,” said the mother.

The party included rubber penises, penis candles, penis hats and more.

“There was a cake that had a lollipop shaped as a vagina,” said the mother.

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1954, Born on this day, Eric Faulkner, singer, Bay City Rollers, (1975 UK No.1 single 'Bye Bye Baby', plus 11 other UK top 20 singles', 1976 US No.1 single 'Saturday Night').

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Buzzed. Drunk. Genius Award Winner Black Out Drunk.

Customers at a pub were left horrified when a drinker performed a sex act on a man in front of shocked customers, a court heard.
Lindsay O'Brian, 28, carried out the lewd act on Ian Jones, 37, at the Bodfor pub in Rhyl, in full view of pub-goers on the evening of October 3.
The incident was also captured on the pub's CCTV.
At Llandudno magistrates court, O'Brian's defence solicitor said she was 'ashamed and extremely embarrassed' - and revealed she had no idea what she had done when she woke up in police cells.

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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by an 'Ette (Whether she knows it or not).

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC. even on a Saturday night.

Close it up

Saturday Evening Movie Thread [Hosted By The JamesMadison]

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Play Ball!

So, we’re in the middle of the playoffs. We almost had a World Series rematch. What better time to talk about some baseball movies than now?

Thanks to kallisto for the idea.

America’s Pastime

Personally, I love the sport of baseball a lot more than any other (so you probably shouldn’t get your hopes up too high for one of these on another sport). I love the fact that it’s both an individual sport and a team sport at once. I love that it takes time and attention to appreciate. I love that it feels like a game and not a thinly veiled analogy for something else (like war). It knows what it is, it’s well proportioned, well balanced, and a great way to spend a summer afternoon. There’s also a very deep history to it allowing for peeks at America in completely different eras all through the familiar prism of this one sport.
Being such a beloved sport for so long, baseball has also inspired more than its share of movies. From Pride of the Yankee to Damn Yankees to The Sandlot we’ve seen movies find the inherent drama of the game and capitalize on it to create some wonderful films. Two of those (lesser) movies that my dad always had a VHS of while I was growing up were Major League II and Rookie of the Year, but my favorite has grown to be Moneyball.

Drama

Sudden Turnarounds

So, the history of the movie version of Moneyball isn’t 100% accurate, but it’s still a great piece of filmmaking. One thing that it does incredibly well, I think, is convey the true feeling of watching a baseball team through a year. This is highlighted in two sequences: The Streak, and the end of the season.
The Streak (where the A’s won 20 games in a row, an AL record maintained until this year when the Indians won 22), is an absolutely fantastic sequence, and it caps with the real life walk off home run after a roller coaster 20th game. Everything felt like it was going to end until that one play, and then an eruption of emotion. It wasn’t as predictable as the one, two, three homerun (Hatteberg knocked out the very first pitch), but it represents the expectation of the high, the withdrawal away from that high, and then the sudden apex.

The end of the yeah happens in game 5 of the ALDS. Oakland is riding high when, almost inexplicably, it all just comes to a sudden end. The soundtrack quiets, and all that’s left is the sound of a radio
personality talking about how the A’s were good, but just not good enough. That particular level and delivery of disappointment is familiar to anyone who follows sports. "We’re almost there!" "We lost? How did we lose?"

The Long Game

I think that the drama of baseball, though, comes in the length of the season, not in individual games. The drama of a game mostly comes from the culmination of a season’s worth of work (are we that nervous at the end of game 3 of 162?). Baseball is a game of tension that builds over months and peaks in individual games while movies take place over 90-120 minutes. Condensing all of that into such a small frame is difficult, so the drama really changes.
Still, baseball has inspired good films, and we should celebrate that. All I know is that I need a live rooster.

The Elephant in the Room

Weinstein.

I don’t care about the personalities behind movies. Certain people I wish to keep making movies forever (Terrence Malick being a prime example), but mostly, they’re all disposable and easily replaceable. That gets doubled when it comes to the non-creative types, like most producers. Seeing him burn makes me smile more than anything else.

But, movies are a medium, not an industry or Hollywood itself. People in Spain make movies who have never been to Hollywood. Francois Truffaut had only seen Hollywood movies when he made The 400 Blows. If I never saw a Hollywood film again (past, present, or future), I’d still never catch up with what’s been made much less what’s yet to come out.

Let Hollywood burn. All it’s really doing is making superhero movies these days anyway.

Movies of Today
Opening in Theaters:
The Snowman
Geostorm
Only the Brave

Next in my Netflix Queue:
The World According to Garp

Movies I Saw This Week:
The American (Netflix Rating 4/5 | Quality Rating 3/4) Poster blurb: "Pretty solid little thriller." [Netflix DVD]
Arrival (Netflix Rating 5/5 | Quality Rating 3.5/4) "Very smart scifi film that takes its concept to a wonderful and emotionally satisfying
place." [Personal Collection]
Blade Runner 2049 (Netflix Rating 5/5 | Quality Rating 4/4) "As smart and visually stunning as you’ve heard." [Theater]
Blow Out (Netflix Rating 5/5 | Quality Rating 4/4) "Hot damn, early Brian de Palma was great, wasn’t he?" [STARZ]
Flight of the Navigator (Netflix Rating 3/5 | Quality Rating 2.5/4) "Never rises above cute, but still, pretty cute." [Netflix DVD]
Kiss of the Spider Woman (Netflix Rating 3/5 | Quality Rating 2/4) "An actors’ showcase that ends up feeling emptier than expected. A disappointment." [Netflix DVD]
Friday the 13th (Netflix Rating 2/5 | Quality Rating 1/4) [Rewatch] "Trashy nonsense that barely qualifies as a movie." [STARZ]
Friday the 13th Part 2 (Netflix Rating 2/5 | Quality Rating 1.5/4) "Seriously? Is this supposed to be an actual movie?" [STARZ]

Contact

Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I’ve also archived all the old posts here, by request. I’ll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.

Close it up

Weekend Gun Thread

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

So it's cool right? It's not all black and scary.

Let's take a trip down Memory Lane or as is the case with some of us the Memory Cul de Sac.

When did you first fire a firearm? In my case I was 8 at my grandfather's farm. Here is a photo of the riffle I inherited after he passed away.

A .22 riffle. No identifying marks except for the hard use it experienced on the farm and/or in the barn over the years.

Any ideas what make and/or model it is or could be?

Besides the question when did you first shoot. What was the first gun you owned? Did you buy it? Was it a gift?

Ace of Spades Pet Thread

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Sit and back and relax and enjoy the world of pets and animals.

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A Little of This. A Little of That.

The Birds, The Bees and an Amorous bull.

A vet tech takes home a new pet. The problem with this new pet? It was taken to the vet to be euthanized.

Not quite the horse scene from 'Animal House'.

Lucky dog.

Not all dogs hate UPS drivers. Here's proof.

Not every dog wants to work for 'The Man'.

Oops these cuties took a wrong turn.

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Watch till the end pic.twitter.com/o0HiZdAme0

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) October 19, 2017

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Meet The PetMorons

Nothin' quite like azalea fed venison! This young buck basically lived in my front yard last year for a few months, but I haven't seen him this year. Actually, venison joke aside, I kind of hope he's ok! - Hrothgar

A unique PetMoron. Thanks Hrothgar.

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All of our pets are either walkons or "gifts". Mittens appeared on our doorstep a few years ago. She is quite the social cat and follows her friend Pugs on all our walks. Fortunately, we live on a quiet dead end street, in the country. Our gray tabby, Big Boy aka Ciccino. "Sweet Little Thing" in Italian, came from Arezzo, Italy in 2009. Yes, Mom, I'll be back to get him as soon as I get settled. Sure, famous last words! I used to call Ciccino "cicci" until I finally got our vet to tell me why everyone laughed when I called him Cicci. Pugs loves everyone and especially his cat friends. We've had him since 2015, when our vet called telling us he needed a home. We're his fourth family and his last. We're off to bed, hubby gets the least room. Big Boy and Pugs the most, Mittens and I share the rest of the space. -Lurker, annieb Ps that's a coonskin cap on the wine glass.

Thank you annieb. What a nice group of "kids" you have there.

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Leo made a previous appearance at 10 weeks of age, weighing in at 12 pounds.

Here he is at 6 months and 40 pounds.

Note the primary dog is bored of photos. -blaster

No mischief in those eyes of Leo. Yeah right. Cute dog.

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So - Good Old Publius does not, himself, have dogs - what with being a denizen of that most horrific of places known as the City of New York. However, Publius grew up with dogs and his famiglia has always kept them close. So, having recently visited the Pater and Mater Familia of the Redux clan, in the wilds of Nova Scotia, I give to you pictures of the Redux Clan's two remaining pooches. The first is Molly - she is a golden/lab mix and an absolute doll. My parents got her from a nearby family which could no longer keep her (and after having bred her etc.). She is a good hunting dog and loves the cool waters of our lake and the beach. Give her a stuffed toy and she will, lovingly, disembowel it. She is also addicted to petting - and if you pet her and stop she will put a paw right on your crotch, or other nearest body part, but usually your crotch, and then look at you with those mournful eyes until you pet her again. The other dog is a greyhound/saluki/German shepherd mix (!) and her name is "Turnpike Sally" because she was found wandering around the NJ Turnpike, emaciated and very scared. It apparently snarled traffic for a while until animal control got hold of her. Poor thing. Anyway - the Redux Clan fell in love, adopted her and shipped her to the compound in Canada. She used to be absolutely scared of everyone and over protective of the Redux parents. Yet time heals all wounds and she is the sweetest thing you will ever meet now - but is fast as the dickens and wily. She has a wonderful pampered life chasing ground squirrels at my parents' place. Here she is lounging on the Persian - no . . . the carpet, not the cat!. Aaah - `tis the life! "Good dog. Good dog."

Pax Ex.

Publius Redux

Thank you for thinking of us and submitting those photos. It is nice to know those dogs have a tough life. Real tough!

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Hi it's Keena. Never thought I was a cat person til a part Maine coon stray adopted us many years ago. He's 27 lbs and very loving w us but a big hunter. He even outsmarted a coyote. He kills everything: rats, mice, voles, birds, lizards and yes, baby bunnies. This is him at what we estimate is age 14! I just call him Kitty.

Thanks Keena. Quite the hunter you have on your hands there.

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Quite the group of pets this week. Thank you for the submissions.

If you have a funny pet video, a neat animal story or a pet photo or two you wish to share with us, we can be reached at petmorons at gmail dot com.

If you send in a pic, please include your pet's name and your nic.

Have a great week!!!

Close it up

Saturday Gardening Thread: Going Foliar [KT]

—Open Blogger

I love fall leaves. The photo above was posted by a blogger from Connecticut preparing to leave on a country-western dance hall/sightseeing road trip to Texas.

For anyone who stumbles onto this travel blog, and is not familiar with New England's fall foliage, scenes like this are what surround us for a few short weeks. We don't have to travel anywhere in particular...but, that doesn't stop us from driving distances in search of the "best" of what is already pretty amazing, almost anywhere you look.

I am only mentioning this, because autumn in New England is arguably my favorite time of year. But, I am making this little sacrifice of leaving New England at the height of our fall foliage season, in order to visit some equally beautiful places "down South".

Too bad you can't be in two places at once.

There are lots of places I would like to visit during the fall foliage season. Any nice leaf displays near where you live? In your yard?

Here's a photo from the City of Provo, Utah. Different color palette. There are some breath-taking expanses of golden aspens in the mountain range above Provo if you catch them at the right time.

The Horde does Photography and Art

Our own master photographer Don in Kansas took some photos at the botanical garden at the end of last month. The photo below isn't "fall foliage", but it is spectacular foliage. Coleus. Have you ever grown any that looks this good? There are some great flower close-ups (and other wonderful photos) at the link.

We got a nice surprise in the mail from George V, "Frequent reader, rare commenter".

Hi KT, I always enjoy the gardening thread, although I don't do much myself.

We do have some apple trees and a raspberry patch that have both produced well this year in our part of the world, Southeast Michigan. I finally got this picture out of the camera from early September as the fall berries started to come in. I've had new companions in the berry patch - this little fellow who's about 1 1/4" long and one who was even smaller. I've not seen this variety of bright green tree frog before in our yard. The first time I saw him he jumped away from my hand and I almost jumped out of my skin!

Thanks again for the gardening thread.

I love this little guy:

Speaking of apple trees, are you considering planting one? King Arthur Flour did a comparison of pies made from different apples. They chose Granny Smith as the best they tested. I am not sure I agree. Granny Smiths are often sold before they are ripe. I thought the cooking and selection tips in the comments were interesting. Would you choose apples to grow yourself for fresh eating, storage, cooking or a combination?

Incidentally, a friend made some mighty fine fried apples a couple of weeks ago. On the tart side, but buttery. Easier than pie. . .

Sherpa_K2 has send in a bouquet, or maybe a still life, for us to hang on the AoSHQ Garden Thread Refrigerator. I think it's great. Looks like someone ate some tomatoes before adding the sepals to the arrangement. Anyone care to do some flower I.D.?

He also send in in a lovely photo of an end-of-summer Hollyhock. I think it makes a nice challenge to JTB and others in The Horde who do drawing or painting from nature, because of the interesting open seed capsule below the flower.

Speaking of drawing, I took a bunch of leaves to Cub Scouts this week as part of a plant and tree identification project. The boys did rubbings (with old crayons, used sideways) of leaves between two sheets of paper. Recommended as a way to get kids, or yourself, away from electronics for a while. It's slightly magical to see the images of the leaves appear. Hollyhock leaves were the biggest leaves I took. They have a nice, somewhat hand-like "Halloween is coming" vein structure. If you or a kid you know would like to send in a leaf rubbing, maybe we could post it.

Those are shingles in the background. Wonder if a ladder was involved in the taking of that photo?

The Holihock disdains the common size
Of Herbs, and like a tree do's proudly rise,
Proud she appears, but try her, and you'll find
No plant more mild, or friendly to mankind
She gently all obstructions doth unbind.

Abraham Cowley

The poem above comes from Part 4 of 6 essays on hollyhocks at this site. The first known image of one in cultivation seems to be from 9th Century China.

We've discussed hollyhocks before, along with hollyhock dolls and parades, but it's been over a year. (Don't comment on old threads). The kind pictured was the ultra-double form favored in Victorian England. Some commenters expressed nostalgia for the single types. So I thought that maybe now was a good time for a little additional information on hollyhocks. For the artistically-minded, Frank Lloyd Wright did a Hollyhock House inspired by the geometry of this plant.

One of the challenges to growing hollyhocks is hollyhock rust, a fungal disease. There are some control strategies, but some of the single and semi-double kinds have some resistance, too. Vietnamese hollyhocks are recommended for Florida. Dwarf, award-winning Queenie Purple is recommended for New Orleans, between hurricane seasons. Nice flower list for the brave-hearted.

Happy Lights is the result of a cross between the common Alcea rosea and the rust-resistant yellow fig-leafed hollyhock. I like it.

Anything going on in your garden? If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden
at g mail dot com

Include your nic unless you want to be a lurker.

Close it up

Thread before the Gardening Thread: Thought Crimes Today [KT]

—Open Blogger

Hello, Horde. Hope your Saturday is going well. What with the "Practice Halloweens" on campus to help students pick inoffensive costumes and all, I have been thinking about how easy it is to commit a thought crime in America today.

I remember being horrified at the show trials in Life and Death in Shanghai, where proving your loyalty to communist thought could be a matter of life or death. What is happening in the USA today mostly seems stupider than those show trials. At least people sometimes had a chance to respond then.

In the case of the Boise State professor compared to a Nazi for saying that young children should not be empowered to choose their own gender, this is the part that bothers me the most:

While he has received withering personal attacks over his research, Yenor said that few have engaged with the ideas or have seriously attempted to refute his arguments.

Yenor said the personal attacks don't bother him, but he worries about the long-term impact on people worried that their views will not be argued with, but simply attacked on campus.

"That's been one of the most disappointing things," Yenor said. "Everyone in academia could live with having a debate about ideas, but a debate has to start with an understanding what the other person is arguing."

"It strikes me that there has really been, first of all, no effort to first understand what I'm arguing, and second of all, to get anywhere beyond name-calling and labeling," Yenor said.

Meanwhile, Peter Woods does a retrospective review of the essays of David Horowitz through about 2010: Battlefield Notes from a War Gone Unnoticed. Worth reading and thinking about. He had the right ideas. Why wasn't Horowitz more successful at stopping the advance of the Left on campus?

Below the fold, a video featuring Jordan Peterson on the dangers of unconscious bias testing by HR departments and governments: "You'd think we would learn from the 20th Century.

Saturday Morning Weird News Dump

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Good morning. Another Saturday morning has arrived. Here are just a few things that didn't get their due here at the AoSHQ this past week.

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(We all need a mug of this at times)

*****

• Wouldn't it be fun to set up a Weber grill and cook some bratwurst?
  
• Somethings are just wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
  
• Don't know why his parents didn't name him Dumb Shit.
  
• Time to cut the cord and the dish and the cell phone.
  
• Burrito, via air delivery.
  
• Someone has too much spare time on her hands.
  
• And another guy with too much time and not enough of something else on his hands.
  
• Break out the world's smallest violins.
  
• No word if our resident art critic will be using this in his daily threads.
  
• Chicago now has a new title.

  
  Enjoy the open thread. Be kind to one another and no running with sharp objects. Have a great weekend!
  

  Close it up

EMT 10/21/17

—krakatoa

Breaking: I'm going to sleep in on Saturday, so

ONT: DAY OF RAGE! Edition

—WeirdDave

Nah, not really. It's just the shrieking harpies on the left going nuts over the Congresswoman Wilson Gold Star feud reminded me of this cartoon:

My fondest wish is that I could give them all exactly what they want. Truly it is. If there was a continent like Australia available, I'd favor moving them all there at our expense and I'd sincerely wish them all the luck in the world with their little Utopia. Samuel Adams would approve.

WHY LET THEM GO?

Why, they are clearly our betters, just ask them. But if that's actually true, Kurt Schlicter wants to know why they can't actually be, you know, better.

It's not just the left. Kevin Williamson, who is probably still butt-hurt that he didn't make the Salon 25, writes a long column that he charmingly calls The White-Minstrel Show. The last 1/3 of it is good. He makes the point that so much of the reason that poor people are poor is often due to the poor choices they make. This is a valid point, and one that conservatives need to emphasize to counter the victim mentality. The first 2/3, however....he might as well have written “Fuckin' white trash” and left it at that. That's his biggest problem. He's a smart guy, and he clearly understands and articulates conservative principles well. He writes great short columns, but if he writes anything longer than a 750-1000 words his inner arrogance and ivory tower disdain shines through. (I'm sure his rebuttal would be to point to his upbringing in a shotgun shack in Texas, which he mentions in the article, but the ivory tower attitude can be learned, not just bred. Oh yes it can indeed)

Anyhow, if the Progs were given their own country, there's no reason to believe that they would create anything based upon natural rights and liberty. In fact, there's every reason to believe that they wouldn't cherish those values at all. Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom? I would bet every cent I've got that they would come up with another Venezuela. At least they'd probably live in harmony with Mother Gaia, right?

Good morning, remember that bear that destroyed that woman's kayak after she pepper sprayed it? pic.twitter.com/A260oqHJKG

— Zito (@_Zeets) April 4, 2017

Bah, enough of that crap, lets have some fun.

THIS IS COOL

Chevy Vega and the Vert-A-Pac Rail System in the 1970s

When Chevrolet started designing ‘Vega’ during the 1970s, one of the main objectives was to keep the cost of the car down around $2,000 in circa-1970 dollars. At the time, the freight charge for moving a loaded railroad car from the Lordstown assembly plant to the Pacific coast - the longest distance that cars produced at Lordstown would need to travel - was around $4,800. Since the Vega was a subcompact, it was possible to squeeze three more cars on a railroad car for a total of eighteen, instead of the usual fifteen. But that still worked out to around $300 per car – a substantial surcharge for a $2000 car. If only Chevrolet could get more Vegas on a railroad car, the cost per unit of hauling them would go down.

The engineers at GM and the Southern Pacific Railroad came up with a clever solution. Instead of loading the cars horizontally, the Vegas will be placed vertically on a specially designed auto-rack – the Vert-A-Pac. Within the same volume of an 89-foot car, the Vert-A-Pac could hold as many as 30 automobiles instead of 18.

That's damn clever. Now it was in service of the Vega, which was anything but, but still, pretty smart.

I LOVE THIS GUY

Say what you want about his talent, but imagine where the NFL would be now if they had encouraged players like Tim Tebow instead of the current crop of SJW wannabes. One of the marks of a great person is if they are comfortable mocking themself.

Watch the Heismans dress up as @TimTebow's career for Halloween. #HeismanHouse pic.twitter.com/WXRY4u9GW3

— Nissan (@NissanUSA) October 5, 2017

Related: Is this heaven? No, it's a Waffle House

Something else I love is Waffle House. Not for the food, although that isn't bad, and they have hash browns NAILED, but for what it is. Waffle House is a glimpse at corporate America as it should be.

HORRIFYING

It's almost Halloween! Yay! But if this is true, IMO it is more terrifying than any ghoul, ghost or goblin:

When you die you KNOW you're dead: Scientists discover the mind still works after the body shows no sign of life

FIDO FRIDAY

I read that last story to the dog. Any thoughts puppers?

Me too buddy, me too. Say, what else do dogs think?

NHS FOLLIES

Oh, I just can't fucking WAIT for single payer health care. How's that working out for you UK?

NHS waiting times: hospital bosses fear 'a return to 1999'

If I live to be a million, I'll never understand the inability of people to comprehend that government does NOTHING efficiently. I guess they are blinded by the siren song of “fair” (which isn't true either, single payer systems always lead to a two tiered health care system, but whatever). Still, the one complaint that is surely nothing more than a right wing scare tactic is that government will use its control of healthcare to control the people, right? Right?

NHS provokes fury with indefinite surgery ban for smokers and obese

Well, wonderful. Lets peek at the future:

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I know what men want. Men want to be really, really close to someone who will leave them alone. -Elayne Boozler

I love my wife and there is literally no one on the planet that I would rather spend time with, but Elayne has a point. Indeed, it's one of the reasons I'd rather spend time with Gingy. We both get this.

IMPORTANT WARNING FOR THE HORDE

Hacked Butt Plug Can Be Controlled 'From Anywhere'

Penetrating report. This is what happens when your bluetooth bill gets in a-rear-s. I'm sure they'll plug the leak soon, but until then, how many people will have a stroke when they find out they're getting the shaft. This can't be good in the end.

Tonight's ONT brought to you by Critical Theory:

Close it up

Fusion Collusion: Republicans Must Keep Up Pressure and Break the Democrats' Protection of Their Smear-Mill Ally

—Ace

Here's the collusion that Jake Tapper as well as the "conservatives" of the Salon Hot 25 aren't interested in.

The article begins with a brief history of Fusion's ways as a professional smear-mill, and then reports on the Democrats playing Mob Lawyer for them:

Fusion's secret weapon in its latest operation is the Democratic Party, whose most powerful members have made protecting Fusion's secrets their highest priority. Senate Democrats invoked a parliamentary maneuver in July to block temporarily Mr. Browder's public testimony. Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, has been engineering flaps to undercut and obstruct Mr. Nunes’s investigation. Democrats on the House Ethics Committee have deep-sixed what was meant to be a brief inquiry to clear Mr. Nunes so as to keep him sidelined.

Then there is the intel committee's meeting this week. Despite the spin, forcing Fusion to appear was Republicans’ only recourse after months of stonewalling. Fusion's letter ludicrously claimed that Mr. Nunes's subpoenas were invalid, which essentially forced the committee to show otherwise. It was a question of authority.

Florida Rep. Tom Rooney put the Fusion attendees through a series of questions not out of spite but to clarify finally just what topics the firm is refusing to talk about. The Fifth Amendment doesn’t provide protection against answering all questions. It only protects against providing self-incriminating evidence. It is therefore revealing that Fusion took the Fifth on every topic--from its relationship with British spook Christopher Steele, to the history of its work, to its role in the dossier.

The untold story is the Democrats' unprecedented behavior. Mr. Rooney had barely started when committee staffers for Mr. Schiff interrupted, accused him of badgering witnesses, and suggested he was acting unethically. Jaws dropped. Staff do not interrupt congressmen. They do not accuse them of misbehavior. And they certainly do not act as defense attorneys for witnesses.

If the invocation of the Fifth Amendment is honest, it means Fusion is confessing they broke the law in their relation with Russia and/or in preparing the document.

If they broke no laws here, then their invocation of the Fifth Amendment is dishonest, and that they're lying to protect something that isn't illegal but is highly compromising.

Either/or. Take your choice, fellas.

Mollie Hemingway takes the pass from Kimberly Strassel and alleyoops it.

I can't really quote her piece because she includes a lot of tweets from journ0list's shocked, shocked that Trump suggested the FBI paid for the PeePeeParty Dossier - but then she includes old reportage, which the Journ0lists never got round to reading, about the FBI trying to pay for it (but claiming, ultimately, they did not- that claim of course being put forth by anonymous source with an interest in claiming the FBI did not pay for it).

Her point is simple: Why are the Journ0lists who are so au currant with the Russia Investigation, watchin' ol' shovelfaced Rachel Maddow every night, entirely uninterested in, and uninformed about, very basic information about Fusion's and the FBI's role in this whole cooked up political operation against the president?

She highlights the shifting narrative -- when it was reported the FBI did pay for the dossier, the media used this as evidence of the dossier's reliability and seriousness.

But now that it looks like the FBI was colluding with an unregistered agent of Russia to pump disinformation to the American public, The media claims that Trump's noting old news reports about the FBI paying for the dossier are "fake news" and entirely invented.

They also claim that Trump's quotation of their own stories about the FBI paying for the dossier are a species of treason, as he's implicating -- egad! -- a part of the American government in this dirty dossier dealing.

They literally change their narrative completely according to the day's political needs.

Recording of Trump's Phone Call with Gold Star Widow Released; Woman Says He Did a Good Job of Praising Her Husband and Consoling Her

—Ace

How lunatic and stupid must the press (and the Salon Hot 25) be to have really believed Trump gets on the phone with families who've lost sons and husbands to war and says "Listen to me, your punk-ass boy knew exactly what he signed up for, you damned whore, and let me purchase your children for sale on the Asian sex market"?

Yet they believed this. They actually believed this lunatic narrative.

But trust and obey them! They are really good at thinking and will gladly do you thinking for you for a nominal cost!

The widow of a fallen soldier has released a recording of her call with President Trump -- and she says he did a great job as consoler-in-chief.

"At that moment when my world was upside down and me and my kids didn’t know which way we were going, it felt like I was talking to just another regular human," Natasha De Alencar told the Washington Post.

De Alencar’s husband, Army Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar, was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan on April 8, and Trump made the call four days later.

In the footage of the four-minute call, recorded by one of their four kids, Trump says he's sorry about the "whole situation" and calls her husband "an unbelievable hero."

He later invites her to the White House next time she is in DC.

Hit the link to hear the call, which, unbelievably enough, includes no racial slurs or attacks on the manhood of the fallen serviceman.

Conspiracy Theorist Rachel Maddow Puts Out a Conspiracy Theory So Insane Even the Huffington Post Is Calling Her Out

—Ace

This person, who I think is a liberal because she has me blocked, pointed out the utter fabulism of Maddow's conspiracy theory that the travel ban caused the deaths of the troops in Niger.

Maddow's conspiracy theory goes like this: Chad was patrolling in southwest Niger, but pulled out in protest of the travel ban. This resulted, somehow, in a successful attack against US troops in the southeast corner of Chad -- a 24 hour trip, at the least, due to the distance and poor roads.

Furthermore, the Chadian troops were patrolling against Boko Haram -- it's unlcear why a reduced Chadian presence in Boko Haram-controlled areas would cause the "uptick" in ISIS attacks in a completely different area of the country, 700 miles away.

Even the Huffington Post thinks that everyone's least-favorite dowdy conspiratorial auntie has gone 'round the bend.

It was a vintage Rachel Maddow stemwinder. A deft, 25-minute weaving of carefully curated sound bites, screenshots of news reports, slick maps and graphics, all strung together to make the case that something fishy is afoot. It's a style Maddow has perfected, and it has propelled her to the top of the ratings heap.

There was just one problem. Maddow's theory was so flimsy that it could be debunked by a quick glance at a map, let alone a phone call with an expert.

Janet Malcolm of The New Yorker recently described Maddow's show as "a piece of sleight of hand presented as a cable news show. It is TV entertainment at its finest. It permits liberals to enjoy themselves during what may be the most thoroughly unenjoyable time of their political lives'"

Thursday night&'s entertainment came in an attempt to pin the ambush that killed four Green Berets in Niger earlier this month on President Donald Trump's newest proposed travel ban...

...

Maddow';s segment was designed to strongly suggest, without outright stating, that Trump's addition of Chad in his latest travel ban prompted the country to remove its troops from Niger, leading to an increase in extremist attacks and ultimately claiming the lives of four U.S. soldiers.

Chad's pullout from Niger"had an immediate effect in emboldening ISIS attacks"; Maddow said.

That appears to be false. According to the Council on Foreign Relations and accounts from local residents, the attacks that have increased can be traced back to militant group Boko Haram, which is based just across the border in Nigeria. A group of Boko Haram militants broke away and formed the Islamic State West Africa, Laura Seay, an assistant professor in Colby College's Department of Government, told HuffPost. But they are separate from the so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, the group that reportedly carried out the ambush (although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack).

The pullout of Chadian troops happened on the opposite side of the country from where ISIS-affiliated militants attacked U.S. and Nigerien soldiers.

Chadian troops were present in Niger specifically to ward off the Boko Haram threat: "they had nothing to do with Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. They were also based almost 800 miles away, in an area called Diffa that's long been battling the group," Seay said.

Any expert asked about Chadian troops battling ISIS in Niger would have said "No, that's crazy," Seay added. "Everybody that I know is appalled by this. I would like to think that Maddow's researchers are more responsible."

...
"By reducing the story to its mythic fundamentals," Janet Malcolm wrote earlier this month, "Maddow creates the illusion of completeness that novels and short stories create. We feel that this is the story as we listen to and watch her tell."

It's a tactic that right-wing hosts like Sean Hannity and Alex Jones have perfected...

Formatting fixed. Sorry about that.

BTW, progs seem to be claiming that Trump sent the troops to Niger.

Nope. That was Obama.

But you'll have to excuse them for not knowing that -- the media didn't report on Obama's many, many wars. It was too busy jerking off on to his Nobel Peace Prize (with the winner getting to lick it clean).

They also didn't cover troop deaths under Obama -- which you can now see is once again officially big news.

Wonder why.

Playboy Will Feature a Transgender Playmate

—Ace

Men must be retrained to be gay.

Apparently gays and trannies are born that way and they are immutable in their sexuality, but heterosexuals can and must be retrained to be gay and/or trans.

To even suggest a gay person or trans person attempt to retrain their sexual preference or "gender identity" is a near crime, but it's a socially-approved pastime to endlessly propagandize that straight "cisgender" people "open their minds" and "put aside their hang-ups and Socially Constructed ideas of sexuality and gender" and try to become better people by experimenting with being trans or gay.

For the first time in its 64-year history, Playboy magazine will feature a transgender Playmate, a decision that Cooper Hefner, a top executive at the magazine, said on Thursday was in keeping with its founding mission of embracing changing attitudes about sex.

They're not changing all that much. Most boys like girls and most girls like boys.

The French model Ines Rau, 26, will appear as the November centerfold in the first issue since the death of Mr. Hefner’s father, the magazine’s founder, Hugh Hefner. Selecting Ms. Rau "very much speaks to the brand’s philosophy," said Mr. Hefner, 26, Playboy’s chief creative officer. "It’'s the right thing to do. We’re at a moment where gender roles are evolving."

Again, not to belabor a simple point, but apparently straight people's gender roles are "evolving," while gay and trans people's gender roles remain as fixed as the North Star.

No one subscribes to Playboy anyway, but if they did, I imagine they'd end this particular money suck.

Frederica Wilson, Selfless Defender of Gold Star Families: "I'm a Rock Star Now!"

—Ace

John Kelly said in his press conference that "empty barrels" often make the most noise, undboubtedly referring to Frederica Wilson.

now, I'm going to need you to do some deep calming breathing again (four seconds inhale through nose, four seconds exhale through mouth, hold on empty lungs for four seconds) in order to brace yourself for Frederica Wilson's response.

Because none of you -- none -- could possibly have seen her response coming.

If you feel the floor going soft and wobbly and the room spinning, please lay down and watch the below video.

It Begins? Former Teen Actor Accuses Talent Agent of Sexual Abuse

—Ace

I don't know if this accusation is true or not, but whether true or not, perhaps the taboo against reporting sexual crimes against Hollywood kids has been erased.

“Tyler Grasham, under the pretense of a business meeting regarding potential agency representation at APA Agency, fed me alcohol while I was underage and sexually assaulted me,” Lipman wrote in a letter uploaded on Facebook and Instagram.

“APA Agency has kept this man employed, working with kid actors. I find it incredibly difficult to believe they do not know of his predatory behavior, using his position within the company to prey on naive kids,” he continued. (Besides young clients like 14-year-old “It” and “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard, Grasham also represents adult actors like “Pretty Little Liars” star Keegan Allen).

Lipman told TheWrap he met Grasham when he was 17 or 18. He said he turned 18 in June of 2007, and was assaulted that summer. He cannot recall if the date of the assault was before or after his birthday, he said.

Lipman told TheWrap that he first met with Grasham at APA’s Beverly Hills office and that later they had another meeting at a restaurant where he “got me drunk.” The assault happened at Grasham’s home after that dinner, Lipman said. His account said that, after the assault, Grasham recruited friends of his to call Lipman and berate him or pressure him to stay silent.

On Wednesday evening, hours after Lipman posted his name, Grasham deleted his Facebook page and Instagram profile.

Meanwhile, Harvey Weinstein's apparent bi-coastal/international Get Out of Jail Free card with police agencies may have expired: The LAPD is investigating him for an alleged sexual assault dating from 2013.

An unnamed Italian model/actress has accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room in Los Angeles in 2013. She spoke with authorities in L.A. about the incident this week.

"The LAPD Robbery Homicide division has interviewed a potential assault victim involving Harvey Weinstein in 2013. The case is under investigation at this point," police department spokesperson Drake Madison on Thursday told The Hollywood Reporter.

The model has accused Weinstein of rape...

Oh, and I'm sure this will shock and stun you, but Harvey Weinstein isn't behaving well in his "sex rehab."

The movie mogul, who volunteered to go to rehab after a wave of allegations of sexual harassment and rape against him from women in Hollywood, isn't exactly in his element in therapy, falling asleep in sessions or talking on his phone, a source tells Page Six.

Weinstein was reported to be at an inpatient facility, but our source says he is actually being treated at an intensive outpatient facility, which allows him to spend nights at a hotel....

The source told us, “In one group therapy session, Harvey arrived 15 minutes late. Then, when it was his turn to speak, he launched into a speech about how this is all a conspiracy against him.”

He's also said to fall asleep during "therapy," only to be waken by his smuggled (banned) cellphone ringing.

In the End, It's Their Quirks That We Love [Warden]

—Open Blogger

My wife and I are approaching the outskirts of my hometown when she receives the text. My 79 year old father, who we're supposed to meet with his girlfriend at the county fair in a half an hour, has been admitted to the ER with chest pains.

Both of my boys, ages 11 and 6, are in the backseat, bored from the hour and a half drive, but eager to watch the demolition derby that is the final destination of an all day fall road trip.

I curse under my breath, then promptly miss my exit and begin raging at the cars around me as I look for an alternative route to the hospital. Anger is almost always my reaction when I'm scared or upset.

My wife tries to soothe me. I calm down for the sake of my boys, but I can't get the worst case scenario out of my mind. My dad had undergone a quadruple bypass just a few years prior, and he just hasn't been the same man since.

By the time we arrive at the hospital, my dad's girlfriend has texted again. They've moved him to observation and she is with him. I relax upon hearing the news.

We check in at the front desk. A curmudgeonly old hospital worker shows us how to find his room.

"Just follow the brown acorns. All the different sections are some sort of nature theme I guess," he says with casual disdain.

"Damned hippies!" I snarl dramatically.

The Morning Rant: J.V. Edition

—CBD

I'm sorry, but that is just retarded. The history of the damned world refutes every single word of that idiotic quotation. Freedom is pretty much a construct of Western Culture, and we have had to fight for it constantly for 2,500 years, didn't really achieve it until 1776, and it is in existential danger today.

So...George Bush: thank you for your service to this country. We'll take it from here. You lost any moral authority to criticize the current president because of your conspicuous silence for the previous eight years of an incredibly destructive presidency.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

I think I am beginning to understand why those high-falutin' art people think Rubens is pretty good.

I mean, he's no Rothko, but then, nobody is....

The Morning Report 10/20/17

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. The weekend's here, and despite the classy and epic smack-down of Frederica "empty barrel" Wilson, the potentially huge story is the Uranium 1 scandal and coverup. Incredibly, it turns out that Bill Clinton lobbied his own wife who was the Secretary of State to meet with Russian nuclear officials at the time when Obama was about to approve the sale of 20% of our uranium supply to a key global rival/enemy. And almost on the same day when he was collecting a cool $500,000 fee for a speaking engagement. This is without doubt the biggest government scandal in United States history. That is, it would be if the media covered it and if Attorney General Snoozy McSnoozerson the crime dawg started handing down indictments. So here's the Russian collusion, Mr. Mueller (*spit*). Except your mission is now obvious for all the world to see: to cover up the collusion between the last administration and Russia by trumping up charges against the current president in order to sabotage him and overthrow the 2016 election.

And meanwhile, as we have an incredible jobs report that underscores the success PDT is having in spite of the GOP and others, two former presidents have now deigned to completely disgrace themselves in public fora. Obama I expect this from; he's a lowlife scoundrel. But George W. Bush, silent for most of the eight years he was blood-libeled and then another eight years when the previously mentioned bastard laid waste to every American institution he could get his filthy hands on, now opens his cake-hole to trash President Trump, thinly veiled as it was. Sir, I will not address how insulting this is, but I will merely point out that it is revelatory, about your character (or lack thereof) and about who and what you represent; a globalist vision that will have America on its knees and subservient to some other power. You're not a Marxist stooge like the jug-eared dog-eater; but you serve the same purpose. Please go away and take your entire family with you. And take the Clintons with you too. You've all done enough damage.

In other big news, the Senate has approved of a $4 trillion dollar budget plan which paves the way for a vote on tax reform perhaps by Christmas. Potentially huge if PDT's proposals stay as intact as possible. Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

• Great Again: Fewest Jobless Claims Since 1973 Indicate Firm U.S. Job Market
  
• Bill Clinton Sought Permission from Wife's State Dept. to Meet Russky Nuke Official as Obama Pondered Uranium Decision
  
• Grassley Calls on Snoozy McSnoozerson to Release FBI Informant from Obama-era Gag Order on Uranium 1 Deal
  
• Senate Passes $4 Trillion Budget Blueprint in Crucial Step Towards Tax Reform
  
• General Kelly Flips Wilson's Wig; Sub-Literate Rhinestone Cow-Pie Claims Rebuke Makes Her a "Rock Star" or Something
  
• Silent for Eight Long Years as Obama Destroyed the Nation, Dubya Recites Probabale Gerson-Penned Diatribe Against PDT
  
• Unindicted Criminal Ex-President Slams PDT at Campaign Event
  
• McStain Denies Being Buzzfeed's Source for Pee-Pee-gate Dossier
  
• There Can Be No Compromise on Immigration Reform
  
• For What It's Worth, Different Poll Has Roy More +11 in Alabama Senate Race
  
• Gold Star Dad Makes Jake Flapper Eat His Words Turds
  
• Break Up the Judiciary: Arpaio Request to Erase Criminal Contempt Conviction Denied by Same Judge who Issued It
  
• PDT Takes a Knee... to King Corn; Tells EPA to Keep Ethanol Subsidies
  
• Puerto Rico Governor Praises Federal Relief Efforts to Hurricane Maria
  
• As Iranian Aggression Intensifies, Nikki Haley Blasts Mullahs at the UN...
  
• ...Meanwhile, Obama Holdover McGurk Is Undermining PDT's Iran Policy
  
• Intellectual Morons: Professor Evil Calls for the End of Humanity
  
• Break Up the Judiciary Part II: Scum Humanists Win Lawsuit Demanding World War 1 Crucifix Monument be Destroyed
  
• Nationwide FBI Sex Trafficking Sting Rescues 84 Children, Youngest Only 3 Months Old
  
• Ohio Muslim Father Shoots Daughter Twice in the Head... to Teach Her "Respect"
  
• Neocons's Siren Song Has Divorced the GOP from Its Voters
  
• When HUD Can Help
  
• Claude-Rains-Shocked-Face Dept.: Pervey Weinstein Not Taking Sex Rehab Seriously
  
• Guess Who Runs the MPAA in the Weinstein Era

Thursday Overnight Open Thread (10/19/17) Out Of Order Edition

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Quote I

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag. Donald Trump

Quote II

Our soldiers have nobly fought to protect freedom since our country's birth, and have fought to protect those that could not protect themselves, even in foreign lands when called upon. John Linder

Quote III

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift He could bestow to man while he lived on this earth -freedom. We also believe He gave us another gift nearly as precious - our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines - to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away. John F. Kelly

*****

As the days roll by and I think about my mortality, I guess I have come up with a bucket list. This is not one of them. Do you have anything like this on yours?

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa State Patrol says a man pulled over in Des Moines after a car pursuit told state troopers that he wanted to be chased because it was on his bucket list.

Des Moines television station KCCI reports that the man refused to halt a little before 7:30 a.m. Thursday when a trooper tried to stop him over a violation on Interstate 80. The 10- to 15-minute chase ended soon after he left the interstate. He was taken into custody.

That’s when the 46-year-old Des Moines resident shared his bucket list story with troopers. Court records don’t yet show that he’s been charged.

*****

Kids. Trans bullshit. We know it's wrong. Well known pediatrician destroys the bullshit of the left.

In her recent comments at a Heritage Foundation forum, Cretella destroys the current leftwing fascination with allowing, or forcing, children to move through transgender reassignment. She explains that the process is child abuse and is akin to forcibly sterilizing a generation of kids.

“Chemical castration is what you’re doing when you put any biologically normal child on puberty blockers. It’s treating puberty like a disease, arresting a normal process which is critical to normal development and bad for kids.

Sterilization: not good for kids. Prepping them for what will likely result in a case in girls a double mastectomy at 16 — not how you treat depression or anxiety and I have plenty of experience treating teenagers with depression, anxiety, even suicidal depression. Indoctrinating pre-school kids with the lie that you can be trapped in the wrong body, again, that’s disrupting their normal reality testing and cognitive development. Those things are abusive.

*****

The RNC is ripping the Democrats with hilarious schedule. Too bad they won't rip the know-nothing, do-nothing Republicans they supported in past elections.

The "media advisory" began by announcing "major changes" had been made to the schedule for the DNC meeting, taking place in Las Vegas later this week. The mock schedule announced that to RSVP, one should email party chairman "Professor Tom Perez" at Thomas.Perez@brown.edu, taking a swipe at Perez's fellowship at the notoriously left-wing Brown University.

The first item on the agenda are opening remarks from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who is in fact scheduled to speak at the "Women's Convention" later in the month. The next day includes presentations entitled, "Where is Michigan?: A geographical presentation of what exists between New York and Los Angeles," "No Money, Mo Problems: Investments the DNC would like to make – but can’t" and "The Menendez Mess: How to keep a convicted felon in the United States Senate."

*****

*****

Talk about a lack of oversight. Long term theft discovered at "correctional facility".

'If it wasn't so serious, you'd think it was a SNL skit': Man is arrested for stealing $1.2MILLION of FAJITAS in scam which lasted nine years

Gilberto Escamilla allegedly pulled off the scheme over nine years working at the Juvenile Justice Department in Cameron County, Texas

Escamilla admitted to the scheme after a meat vendor with the department called to verify an order

An employee believed it was a mistake because the facility doesn't serve fajitas
Investigators concluded that Escamilla had stolen $1,251,578 worth of fajitas over nine years that he would then sell on to customers

He has been charged with first-degree theft and is looking at serious jail time

h/t Hank Curmudgeon

*****

Tonight's ONT Musical Interlude

October 19, 1997, Original Alice Cooper band guitarist Glen Buxton died from pneumonia, aged 49. Born in Akron, Ohio, he attended High School in Phoenix, Arizona, where he met Dennis Dunaway and Vincent Furnier, later to call himself the titular Alice Cooper. Buxton co-wrote several classic Alice Cooper hits, including 'School's Out', 'I'm Eighteen' and 'Elected.' via thisdayinmusic.com

***

October 19, 1945, Born on this day, Jeannie C Riley, singer, (1968 US No.1 & UK No.12 'Harper Valley PTA'. Jeannie won a Grammy for the best female country singer of 1968) via thisdayinmusic.com

*****

Here are 15,000 reasons why one shouldn't jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I survived a 15,000 foot jump.

When you have a day in which everything seems to go wrong, remember that one day Cliff Judkins had in 1963. As a member of the Marine All Weather Fighter Squadron 323, Lt. Judkins was piloting his F-8 Crusader jet across the Pacific en route from California to Hawaii on the first leg of his assignment to Atsugi, Japan. He refueled mid-flight, and then everything fell apart. There was an explosion. Fuel spilled all over the plane, which caught fire. Ordered to eject, he found the ejection seat release did not work. The alternate release procedure did not work, either. We knew he had to exit the plane on his own. Then things got worse.

*****

Researching for The ONT one never knows what one will come across. For example I thought that this guy had fallen off the face of the earth. Obviously I was wrong. Jim Bakker is still on TV and making prophetic statements. Sorry it's a Huffpo link.

“If you don’t want to hear it, just shut me off,” he said in a clip from Friday’s show posted online by Right Wing Watch. “Especially you folks that monitor me every day to try to destroy me. Just go away. You don’t have to be there. You don’t have to hear it.”

Then he fired off his warning:

“One day, you’re going to shake your fist in God’s face. And you’re going to say, ‘God, why didn’t you warn me?’ He’s gonna say, ‘You sat there and you made fun of Jim Bakker all those years. I warned you, but you didn’t listen.’”

*****

Hollywood of yesteryear. Leering eyes and other assorted behaviors.

*****

Something tells me that calling Orkin or some other pest control company would have kept this man from being tonight's Genius Award Winner.

*****

Forget the payment plan. Forget the deductible. Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

*****

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by The Moron Olympics.

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC. No Morons were injured in the making of this ONT.

Close it up

How About Some Toilet Humor Until The ONT!

—CBD

But keep it clean....