One of the latest bullshit Social Justice Warrior accusations is “whitewashing” (a subset of the bullshit “cultural appropriation” accusation) in which they condemn white actors for playing roles originated by non-white actors.
So how do Japanese people feel about Scarlet Johansson playing Major Kusanagi in the live-action remake of the Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell?
They’re just fine with it.
In other news, every non-Italian actor and actress who has ever played Romeo or Juliet is a racist…
(Aside: I actually think the plotlines of Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex series were a lot more compelling than those of the two movies…)
I expected to spend the weekend at the Levitation Music Festival here in Austin, but it got cancelled when it looked like t was going to be rained out. However, I did see a makeup show by Slowdive, which was the biggest reason I was attending anyway.
Scott Adams: “I give Clinton a 50% chance of making it to November with sufficiently good health to be considered a viable president.”
It’s good for the sake of the world that Islamic State fighters are no-talent assclowns. Maybe they should have drilled them more on military tactics than reciting the Koran. See how many basic military squad function mistakes you can count them making in this video.
“More than two decades ago, we heard the ‘misplaced fears’ and predictions of shootouts in the streets of Texas because of the CHL law. It didn’t happen — and it won’t happen because of SB 11, either.”
Rabid Puppies dominate the Hugo nominations again. The science fiction establishment was given the opportunity to address Sad Puppies concerns, but instead they continued to doubled down by backing the Social Justice Warriors at every turn. This has turned Sad Puppy voters into Rabid Puppy voters. The 2015 Hugos: “There are problems, but Vox Day is an odious troll.” The 2016 Hugos: “You know what? Fuck them. They deserve Vox Day.”
As today is a made-up celebration called “Earth Day,” be sure to have beef for dinner…
Reminder: “Officials at VA’s Phoenix hospital manipulated wait-time data to make it appear they were connecting doctors and veterans seeking appointments much faster than they actually were. This was done so VA managers at the Arizona facility could keep getting generous performance bonuses. They got their bonuses but dozens of waiting veterans died.” So how did the VA address the problem? They hired someone accused of doing the exact same thing at another hospital.
Following a congressional subpoena over Benghazi, Hillary’s state department staff hid requested files in another department. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
How Ted Cruz could beat Hillary Clinton. “Clinton is entering the general election with glaring vulnerabilities of her own. Her image is toxic to Republicans and independents, and her popularity among Democrats is now at an all-time low as a presidential candidate, according to Gallup’s polling. It won’t take a top-tier Republican candidate to win.” Also: “Cruz consistently runs far more competitively against Clinton than Trump does.”
“It’s not just Wall Street banks. Most companies and groups that paid Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to speak between 2013 and 2015 have lobbied federal agencies in recent years, and more than one-third are government contractors, an Associated Press review has found. Their interests are sprawling and would follow Clinton to the White House should she win election this fall.”
“Although our panel’s original estimates had Trump finishing with 1,175 pledged delegates, my revised deterministic projections have him at 1,155, and the probabilistic version has him at 1,159.”
“Walden is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people.”
Once again, Pat Condell brings the wood to the logic-defying spectacle of radical feminist apologists for fundamentalist Islam.
Some samples:
If, like me, you want to live in a world where men and women are completely equal, not just in theory but in actual practice, then you’d better get used to being called a racist by women who call themselves feminists. Progressive feminists, to be precise, or third wave feminists, as they’re sometimes known. Personally, I’m happy to be called any number of ugly names if it helps to draw attention in some small way to the glaring fact that progressive feminists are traitors to their gender. It’s entirely thanks to their poisonous influence that when it comes to Islam the words “feminist” and “hypocrite” go together as seamlessly as the words “dickless” and “jihad.”
Snip.
The number one rule of progressive feminism is that you never draw any kind of attention to the plight of women in the Muslim world being abused and persecuted every day by Muslim men. Being forcibly married, being punished for being raped. And whatever you do, don’t mention the thousand women a year in Pakistan who are murdered by members of their own family.
Snip.
The progressive sell-out to Islamic misogyny has been so total, we’re witnessing the death of feminism. There’s now such a complete lack of credibility, nobody takes it seriously any more. Feminism is now seen as merely a playpen for crybabies and bullies. Censorious small-minded safe-space harpies who hate being women, and who want everyone else to compensate them for it. And they’re such incorrigible whores to Islam, especially to Muslim men. They defer to them so eagerly on women’s rights, as if they have an unhealthy desire to be dominated by Muslim men.
A few media tidbits of interest have popped up as of late:
I missed this thumbsucker at BillMoyers.com on the decline of journalism from The Nation (no wonder I missed it) in March. It’s full of the usual “great old journalists can’t find jobs” laments, but the words “liberal” and “bias” are conspicuously missing from the piece itself, but not from the comments:
Newsrooms — where journalists were supposed to have their finger on the pulse of their readership — were always an amazingly insular island where true-believing liberals dismissively looked down upon their readers as dim witted and beneath contempt.
Today the mainstream legacy media, comprised of Liberal Democrats, continues to slant and suppress news and information to fit their agenda. Tom Blumer at NewsBusters gives the example of The Los Angeles Times that won’t publish any reader comments seen as denying or even expressing doubt about “climate change.”
Print “news” is now little more than heavily-biased, Leftist agenda reporting designed to advance Liberalism, Leftism, Marxism, Socialism, and all their “ism” offshoots (Feminism, Environmentalism, Globalism, etc.). 50% of your potential readers despise you for your biases and the other 50% agree with you, but still see the bias and thus, don’t trust you.
A big reason many people have turned away from traditional news sources such as papers, is the palpable hostility that so many journalists have for conservatives. Alienating a large part of your customer base isn’t exactly a winning business decision.
But the writer does mention the phrase “social justice” in his piece…in the context of an ex-reporter who landed a job running a strip club…
No wonder being a newspaper reporter now ranks as the worst job in America. “Most reporters long ago stopped reporting and began advocating, generally for Democrats and left-leaning causes. The pride that journalists once took in being objective and remaining separated from the story practically disappeared. It became a profession almost devoid of ethics and was contributing to a decline in readership even before the Internet made life difficult for them.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Layoffs at Salon. Wherever shall we find such insightful commentary as “Is Donald Trump a new Hitler?” now?
Via Moe Lane comes word that “Gabriel Snyder, the editor-in-chief at the New Republic who joined the magazine amid internal turmoil, is leaving his post.” The piece is full of the usual vacuous twaddle about what a great team he had assembled, etc. The piece notes that page hits are up, but fails to list how subscriptions (you know, the thing where readers actually pay to read your magazine; ask your parents if you’re unfamiliar with the term…) have been doing under the new TNR regime. In fact, I have been unable to find the any TNR circulation figure online after about 2010. If you can find them, drop me a line in the comments below.
TL:DR Summary: Social Justice Warriors tried to pull their usual social justice warrior thing, in this case trying to get a presenter for a programming conference called LambdaConf kicked off because he said politically incorrect things on his blog. LambdaConf told them, far too politely, to get stuffed. So next the SJW managed to pressure some sponsors into pulling out. In response, conference organizers put up an Indigopop appeal to make up the funding shortfall and support free speech.
But I have to thank the SJW things for one thing: Without them, it might have been a while before I delved into Urbit, the project of the guy they want to ban. It’s completely off the hook, utterly bonkers and probably entirely feasible. It’s halfway between early open source goals and something out of a Greg Egan novel. Here’s an early look at same from ClarkHat,
And by “all” I mean two different things. First, here’s Milo Yiannopoulos why it’s so important to beat the Social Justice Warriors now at the peak of their powers:
Second, here’s Yiannopoulos and Allum Bokhari’s very interesting piece “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide To The Alt-Right.” Interesting, in that the authors attempt to lay out the various strands of the so-called “Alt-Right,” but not necessarily persuasive.
It is very informative as to identifying various alt-Right clades from Twitter trends, comments trolls, and other online venues. However, nothing in the piece really explains how Donald Trump is capturing some 37% of Republican primary voters down in the wilds of meatspace. In that context, I am especially unconvinced that those the authors finger as “natural conservatives” think about cultural issues in the way the piece suggest they do. “Their perfect society does not necessarily produce a soaring GDP, but it does produce symphonies, basilicas and Old Masters.” While I am sure a fair number of Trump voters are indeed resentful of a national elite media that paints them as the redneck freaks of JesusLand, I would be greatly surprised if they give terribly much thought about symphonies and basilicas compared to economic insecurity, stagnant wages, and illegal aliens taking jobs away from Americans.
Similarly unpersuasive is the authors’ implied definition of “Establishment Conservatives.” As someone who has occasionally written for National Review and is backing Ted Cruz over Trump, I suppose I theoretically fit the definition. But this taxonomy (and the piece itself) completely ignores the Tea Party and its alternate media organs, lumping together everyone from David Brock to Ron Paul into some sort of amorphous political mass.
The piece is still worth reading, but with several grains of salt.
Have you seen the anti-Trump video that features women quoting Donald Trump’s most offensive statements about women?
I just showed it to a woman. She thought it was funny. Apparently nothing that Trump says comes off as offensive to her.
The reason I checked with a woman is because I didn’t trust my own reaction. To me, the video looked like the most tone-deaf ad of all time. I would rank it as among the worst I have ever seen in terms of persuasion. I’m guessing it worked in Trump’s favor.
On the 2D level of reality – where we pretend people are rational – the video makes perfect sense. The makers of the video figured women voters would not like a candidate that says bad things about women. That seems totally logical. I can see why they made the video.
But on the 3D level of persuasion, what the viewer sees is several average-looking women in bad moods complaining about a guy being, well… a guy. I assume men won’t be offended by the video because Trump is no more of a jerk than most men. And men probably don’t get a warm feeling from the judgmental, angry messengers in the video. That video looks like a huge fail to me.
While I’m not on-board with Adams’ “people are just moist robots” thesis, I think he’s right about this video.
“Oh look, Reginald! That uncouth vulgarian is distressing his class betters again!”
The ad ignores the reality that a great deal of Trump’s appeal is his willingness to transgress against the unspoken shibboleths of the overclass. People are voting Trump because they can’t punch an NPR host in their smug face over the radio.
When a whole bunch of dour middle-aged feminist scolds (which is what it comes off as) read Trump quotes in the manner of “celebrities read mean tweets,” the result is laughter, not outrage. The real tone of the ad is “We know better than you, and Trump offends our finely-tuned sensibilities! Doesn’t our naked contempt dissuade you from voting Trump, you dim-witted flyover country rubes?”
No wonder they disabled video comments on YouTube.
So the Our Principles PAC (headed up by ex-Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush staff) should stop running this thing, as it’s only helping Trump.
Ace of Spades reviews the latest Republican debate: “John Kasich: Continued playing to his core supporters of artisinal bong craftsmen and elderly public masturbators.” Donald Trump: “Added some substance to his foreign policy platform by declaring that he would force American soldiers to break the law and murder children. On other issues, he was less reassuring.” You’ll just have to go over and read the extended “clowns and burning blind children” metaphor for yourself…
Rich Lowry: “Cruz had a terrific night. He was strong and in command in his exchanges with Trump, and drew blood on Trump’s Hillary donations, his participation in the political influence game and the New York Times transcript.”
Republicans promised to build a wall along the Mexican border, fix illegal immigration, balance the budget, rein in the IRS, cut waste and fraud, defund Obama’s illegal executive orders. But every time they’re handed the controls of government, they invent some new excuse for not delivering.
The last budget that Republicans in the House and Senate passed did the opposite of everything the GOP leaders pledged when trying to get these people’s votes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed to be sending out an email to every Republican voter: Sorry, we lied.
Da Tech Guy further notes that Cruz was behind Trump in polling for the closed primaries in Iowa, Oklahoma and Alaska, but won all three. “Of the next 9 contests Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine (March 5th) Puerto Rico (March 6th), Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi (March 8th), all but Puerto Rico & Mississippi are closed primaries.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
“How the P.C. Police Propelled Donald Trump: By assailing sensible conservatives as sexists, racists, and imbeciles, they paved the way for a jackass who embodies their worst fears.” Oh, now you get it? Now, when it’s no longer convenient to ignore the truth for political gain? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.
“Racial justice is cool mainly when there’s something in it for the white liberal activist.”
If you didn’t notice on Tuesday, former senate candidate and International Man of Mystery Grady Yarbrough made the Railroad Commissioner runoff on the Democratic side along with Cody Garrett (who seems to tout how many unions he’s joined as a major achievement), and Wayne Christian and Gary Gates on the Republican side.
I see that Spotlight won the Oscar. Consider the source and take this piece with several grains of salt, but it suggests that the movie got the story all wrong and that some innocent priests were swept up in the same moral panic and “repressed memories” junk science that defined the McMartin Preschool case, with an added dollop of greedy trial lawyers on top.
Happy Leap Day, everyone! Enjoy a yuge LinkSwarm, and if you’re in Texas or another Super Tuesday state, take time to dig out your voter registration card for tomorrow.
The Case for Cruz: The Math. “In the states where Cruz is ahead of Rubio in the upcoming Super Tuesday, he is either beating Trump or within striking distance. In the states where Rubio is ahead of Cruz in the upcoming Super Tuesday, Trump has a huge lead. Rubio doesn’t lead in a single state.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Our cultural elites just can’t figure out why those ignorant gun- and religion-clinging redneck freaks of JesusLand keep flocking to Trump when he says he love them. It’s an insoluble mystery…
Trump University was a scam. “Many people believe that higher education is a de facto scam. Trump University, Donald Trump’s real-estate institution, was a de jure one.”
DNC vice chair steps down to support Bernie Sanders. An understandable move, given the DNC is so far in the tank for Hillary under Debbie Wasserman Schultz that supporting Sanders is probably looked on as akin to treason… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Mark Steyn lays out some grim election analysis: “No one loses as expensively as Republicans.”
720,000 taxpayers have their tax form information stolen from the IRS. Our country is in the very best of hands!
Merkel must have a political death wish: “German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday defended her open-door policy for migrants, rejecting any limit on the number of refugees allowed into her country despite divisions within her government.”
Stratfor analyses China’s new military facilities on Woody Island. “While the media’s response to China’s actions on Woody Island suggests that they represent a watershed moment in the militarization of the South China Sea, in reality they are neither surprising nor particularly meaningful.”
The truth about the MiG-29. Longish but interesting piece. Turn out the Soviet super fighter was very good at basic fighter aircraft maneuvers, but had poor avionics that severely limited the pilot’s situational awareness.
Beloved, innocent man shot down by Seattle police. And by “innocent” I mean “a convicted rapist with a gun, crack and heroin.”
“Turn down the fucking music.” “The more and more you attempt to compensate for the fact people have no social skills, making the music so loud conversation is impossible, the more and more intelligent and competent people you will drive away.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)