Adam Carolla Has Never Been Funny

Adam Carolla has never been funny.

The managing editor of Breitbart news:

Either Men Are Funnier Than Women, or Rolling Stone Is Sexist
by Alexander Marlow

What follows is a gotcha of leftistbrainsploding proportions...

Last week, Rolling Stone published their "50 Funniest People Now" list and featured only 12 women out of 52 comics.

I have a number of problems with the article, not limited to but including the fact that a) For a publication that considers itself edgy, the only surprise in the list is that they shoehorned 52 names into a "Top 50" list, b) They audaciously claim Tina Fey's 2008 Sarah Palin sketches were not "mean-spirited," and c) They leave world's most downloaded podcaster, comedian Adam Carolla, off the list entirely. I would bet big money that Carolla is ommitted purely because he doesn't resemble RS's politically correct world view. Still, according to Rolling Stone, the Podcast King and bestselling author is not as funny as Charles Barkley or Joan Rivers.

A) Don't pretend you give a shit about edginess.
B) The Sarah Palin battle is over. She won. She has your money.
C) Adam Carolla has never been funny. Charles Barkley and Joan Rivers are funnier than Adam Carolla.
D) "Ommitted" Mr. Managing Editor?

Yet, the most newsworthy item is the breakdown of 40 men to 12 women on the list.

In June of last year, Carolla was ripped unmercifully in countless media outlets for saying in an interview with the New York Post that "dudes are funnier than chicks." He clarified that he didn't mean that all "dudes" are funnier than all "chicks," but that a greater percentage of men are funny:

The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks

[...]

When it comes to comedy, of course there’s Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Kathy Griffin — super-funny chicks. But if you’re playing the odds? No.

If Joy Behar or Sherri Shepherd was a dude, they’d be off TV.

But this was the headline of the Post article: "The man's man Macho laughman Adam Carolla says Tom Cruise is from outer space and women just aren’t funny." Of course, Carolla never said women "aren't funny," he said they're not as funny as men.

Predictably, the media attempted to brand him as a sexist.

Now let's return to the Rolling Stone article, where they list over three times as many men as women in their list of top comedians right now. The only reasonable conclusion to draw from it is that Rolling Stone considers men funnier, and yet, when Carolla said this, he was tarred and feathered.

So which is it, are men funnier than women or is Rolling Stone sexist?

Let's continue with the list theme.

~) Maybe the list IS sexist!
!) Maybe Rolling Stone IS sexist! Go go feminist hero!
@) Maybe you give zero shits either way.
#) Rolling Stone ≠ The Media.
=) One list does not mean that now and forever X is true, however much you think snow disproves global warming.
$) Captain Crunch is really good.
%) There might be reasons beyond comedy why a woman might not want to have co-workers like Adam Carolla.
^) Curse the liberal New York Post for distorting the words of Adam Carolla.
&) Adam Carolla should be used to being ripped unmercifully because he is not funny.
*) As of today Adam Carolla is off TV.

Group photos and cocktail hour!

As I said in my last post, our grand exit kind of fizzled when we realized we didn't have a get away car. Not like we would have been leaving though because we wanted to do a few pictures in the church with family and our bridal party after the ceremony was over. I won't bore you with pictures- just a few of my favorite family ones.

Note- my dad is a horrible photo taker. Half the time, he looks like a little kid fake smiling (kind of like in the group shot below), but I do really like the photo with him below- it's definitely more a natural look!

With my mom and dad, my husband and mother-in-law
One of my favorite pictures of the day with my niece
Our parents

As we were taking pictures, someone told me what time it was and I realized we were running a little behind! Because we had a smaller ceremony, we were inviting about 100 more people to the reception. We did all our photos before hand- so there was only an hour and a half of time in between the start of the ceremony and start of reception. Everything had been a bit behind, and I didn't want our guests to be waiting too long for us at the reception. So we quickly wrapped up the photos and took off. In my husbands Camry. With our best man squished in the backseat. There was no need for some fancy getaway car for the short drive to the reception. So it was a fun 20 minute drive of "holy shit, we're married!"

One of our favorite parts of the reception was when we first got there. We wanted to do some sort of receiving line to greet those who hadn't been at the ceremony and we hadn't yet seen. But in my opinion (and no judging if you did this), I hate receiving lines. You stand in line for a long time to give the bride and groom a hug and move on. And then you have to go wait in a bar line. Too much waiting- too many lines. So we combined the two. For the first 45 minutes of our reception (basically the cocktail hour), Doug and I bar tended. And it was a blast!! Everyone loved coming into the reception to see us behind the bar- and at least when they waited in line, they were able to get a drink at the end. We also walked around to tables after we finished eating, especially those of the adults since they weren't as likely to come to the after party.

I received the apron at my shower from my parent's neighbors daughter- who I think is 7 and made it for me herself!
So cute, and the sunflowers were perfect :)

 After we finished bar tending, one of the women working in the kitchen was supposed to take over. I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason- that didn't happen. Instead our family and friends jumped in and rotated throughout the night. At first I felt bad that people were having to do that, but everyone who stood behind the bar said it was some of the most fun they had all night! They got to visit with a lot of people and no one was stuck doing it alone. Two of my aunt's actually battled with one of my bridesmaids/one of Doug's groomsmen about whose turn it was!

It might not have been traditional- but the whole bar situation worked out perfectly- and was very us!

By the way- our bar consisted of only wine and beer. We had 3 different kinds of beer (Bud Light, Molson and Great Lakes Dortmunder...as well as a few Guinness for my dad and his college friends). We had a red wine (Fred's Red- one of my favorites and normally only $9.99!) and a white, as well as a few different bottles from our local winery- which is mostly sweeter wines, but something that definitely appealed to our guests.

Two, three, many GOPs

David Brooks writes:

Bette Davis and William Dix in The Nanny, 1965. Via Unimonster's Crypt.

The Republicans have been getting down to cleaning up the place, with admirable dispatch. Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana announced to the National Republican Committee that you actually can go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, and that it's time to say goodbye to being the stupid party. Representative Paul Ryan spoke to the National Review Institute on why prudence is preferable to spasmodic protest, and I'm sure Mr. Buckley was smiling down when I typed "spasmodic", a word that young idiot Lowry probably doesn't even know how to spell.

For some reason the Institute didn't ask me to speak, although I'm told Charles Krauthammer did give me a shout out.* Of course it's partly the price I pay for remaining serenely above the fray, as a public intellectual, and I don't really mind. I do have some advice for Republicans, though, to the effect that stupid is as stupid does, and if they want to get out of that hole Obama dug for them, they'd better get smart.

Jindal may have put on his little nanny uniform and spanked the party over its stubborn stupidity, but the only policy ideas he offered were as resolutely stupid as ever, repeating the same old saw about how government is evil but governors are good. There seemed to be a conviction that it was fine to be stupid, as long as you didn't look stupid, which is not the way the party is going to reinvent itself.

In the first place, once you've explained that the government is a vicious all-devouring beast, it becomes problematic to articulate a positive program for doing something with it. It confuses people. Frankly, that myth of Encroaching Government and its endless duel with Liberty is about ready to be retired. It has done a wonderful job of recruiting voters from the South and West since Barry Goldwater first took it on tour in 1964, but it will not going to be able to squeeze out much more, now that they're starting to realize that their disability checks and the little scooters they ride around the WalMart with actually come from Washington.

Those Republicans are probably not going to change. It's hard to dress for dinner if you didn't bring a tux, and it's hard to detach yourself from imprudent old ideas if you don't know where to purchase some new ones. Ideas exist in the brain, like a comfortable old line of rail track, and you can't get a new one simply by derailing; that wouldn't be prudent at all. You need an entrepreneur to buy up the the right of way and bribe all the authorities.

What's needed is an additional Republican party, a Smarty party if you will, suited to the more sophisticated conservatives of the coasts and the Rust Belt from Minneapolis to Cleveland. In place of the tedious old myth of the Encroaching Government, it could make use of some new myths, such as Mancur Olson's myth of the Bloated Government and Charles Murray's myth of the American Split into two nations, one high-IQ and one low-IQ. The new Republicans could develop a cocktail of policy ideas to confront both of these imaginary crises at once. Like spiffy new institutions to replace the bloated and sclerotic ones targeted at the needs of the low-IQs, such as day-trading accounts for seniors instead of social security, and no institutions at all for the high-IQs, how does that sound?

Hulk Hogan as Mr. Nanny, 1993, from Bleacher Report.

*When asked who his favorite liberal columnist was, he answered, “David Brooks”  prompting chuckles from the audience.

Aw Shucks

Gomer Pyle gets married:

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -

Jim Nabors, the Hawaii resident well known for his starring role in the 1960s television sitcom "Gomer Pyle, USMC," married his longtime male partner early this month, he told Hawaii News Now Tuesday.

Nabors, 82, said he married his companion of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, who's 64, in Seattle on Jan. 15.

Quick! I Need a Truckload of Onions!

Foodie nightmares commence:

About 27 tonnes of caramelised brown goat cheese - a delicacy known as Brunost - caught light as it was being driven through the Brattli Tunnel at Tysfjord, northern Norway, last week.

The fire raged for five days and smouldering toxic gases were slowing the recovery operation, officials said.

Bastard Bait

If he doesn't have it already the BBBB will soon be enslaved by this:

Going to the chapel...

I figure it's about time I get on with wedding recaps. We last left off with our first look and bridal party pictures at the winery. From there, we headed to the church- which is only about a 5 minute drive from the winery. My brother was once again was designated as my transportation- their Venza served perfectly for me to spread out my dress in the back seat.

As we pulled up to the church, we noticed people milling around outside, including our piano player. And quickly realized the church was locked. My mom had keys, but she wasn't yet there. Thankfully, our church is in a tiny town, and everyone who goes to the church has keys. A quick trip by two guests (thank you Brewers!) and the church was unlocked. I proceeded to hide behind the church so people wouldn't see me- and we took a few more pictures.

I do need to note that our ceremony was just family and close friends. As you'll see- our church is tiny. But it is the church I grew up in, not to mention the fact that it is gorgeous and over 250 years old. I couldn't imagine getting married anywhere else.

One of my favorites outside the church

Our other flower girl- my cousin's daughter
As we were waiting to walk in, she was being hilarious!
She said to my bridesmaids "This is my first time being a flower girl. I'm going to be in SO many pictures!"

A quick shot of church. From the back wall.
You can see just how small it really is!

Entering first from the front were our deacon, my lovely husband and his brother/best man. The rest of our groomsmen then escorted in the mothers/grandmother. 

Groomsmen Dustin with my grandma (and the only photo of her from my wedding- she left the reception early because of noise. I'm still a little upset I don't have more photos of her!)
Groomsmen Matt with my mother-in-law
Groomsmen Matt/my brother with my mom

 

 

After the mothers entered, they lit the candles up front then sat. My bridesmaids followed, one by one. And then the show stopper- and I wish I meant me! But no- our flower girls. They were seriously the cutest! We had been really worried that my niece wouldn't walk or hold hands with my cousin. But they were pros!

I mean seriously. Can it get cuter?

And then it was my turn! I wasn't at all nervous. The first look and photos before had really had calmed what little nerves I had. Seriously, I was more calm my entire wedding day than I had ever thought possible. I was just happy and excited. It was amazing to see everyone I love in one place- and walking down the aisle, I loved looking around and seeing everyone's smiling faces. Especially my soon-to-be husbands waiting for me at the end!

This first picture makes me so happy that we got married in this church!

The rest of the ceremony is a bit of a blur. Our deacon, who I have said many times in the past, is my dad's best friend. And his wife is my mom's best friend. I have known him for my entire life, and it was so wonderful to have him marry us. His sermon was interactive- and Doug kept messing up, which was hilarious. Caroline was also running back and forth between my brother and sister-in-law and yelling, "Hi. Hi. HI DOUG." So the ceremony was somewhat light hearted and fun- which was perfect for us.

I love the picture of us laughing

Before we knew it, reading were done, rings were exchanged, vows were said- and we were married!! And on our way out the door. We did a quick escape around the church as everyone lined up on the path in the back with the ribbon wands. These made for some of our favorite pictures of the day- and yet one more reason I love my church!

The ribbons and happy newly weds!

While this part of the day was only 30-45 minutes (we did a Catholic ceremony, but not full mass), it just makes my heart happy. Not only did I get to marry the love of my life (duh), but all those we love most were around us. And it was only about to get better at the reception!

Side note: We didn't really think about an exit after we went through the ribbon wands. So we had to walk back around and everyone just kind of milled around. It wasn't a big deal- but kind of awkward when we realized we didn't know what to do!

And sorry for the insane picture overload!

Never degrading and humiliating enough for you, Jerry

Ancient Roman military latrine, based on ruins of Vercovicium at Housesteads, Northumberland. Painter uncredited.

Retired General William "Jerry" Boykin, famous for explaining to the Ummah that the God of Islam is an idol—and saying Allah is an idol is kind of like saying Jesus is Athena's husband, so wrong it's not even offensive—has now come forward with his problems with ladies and their lady parts coming into combat.

“What I’ve raised is the issue of mixing the genders in those combat units, where there is no privacy, where they’re out on extended operations and there’s no opportunity for people to have any privacy whatsoever,” the retired lieutenant general insisted.

“Now, as a man who has been there and as a man who has some experience in those kinds of units, I certainly don’t want to be in that environment with a female because it’s degrading and humiliating enough to do your personal hygiene and the other normal functions among your teammates,” Boykin opined. (Raw Story)

Yes, bad enough having those nancy-boys scoping out his manly characteristic in the shower, now it'll be girls peeping when he's on the potty! By all means let them fight, but they have to have their own latrines, just like Mrs. Boykin.

Actually, given that he's now serving as executive vice president of the Family Research Council, he might want to look into doing some Family Research on how many American families are having to cope with the single-toilet lifestyle. Perhaps we ought to move them all into Spartan-style single-sex dorms. So the degradation and humiliation can be held to the appropriate levels.

Veni, vidi, vavavoomsi

Rick Scott Conquistador (2011). From The Reid Report.

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the former vice-presidential candidate, said Sunday that President Obama was ignoring the nation’s problems, choosing instead to focus on the “political conquest” of the Republican Party. (New York Times, 1/27/2013)

That explains everything! That Obama never really believed in the two-party solution. He wants to settle Democrats in Republican territory, where they'll take all the water and arable land for themselves, with their God-and-guns, and Republicans will be reduced to working as hospital orderlies and cucumber pickers. Every time he offers to up the Medicare age, every time he fails to prosecute a criminal banker, he's planting another flag in your Right Bank hills.

You guys are so right to not cooperate—probably the only thing that's keeping you from being totally absorbed.

Bush the Crusader (2008). Image from HorsesAss.

Theme and Variation

Imənna just be bad and steal this whole goddamned post:

A Feast of Pure Reason
By Fred Schwarz
January 28, 2013 3:17 P.M.

This morning’s New York Times says The New Republic is “the journalism equivalent of high-fiber pasta.” Like much of what I read in the Times, that’s a little too Zen for me, but it got me thinking about what sort of food National Review might correspond to. Here are some possibilities:

A nice big bowl of Lucky Charms. Start with the plain beige cereal part: That represents writers like Ramesh and VDH, whose stuff is tasty and filled with vitamins, establishing a solid base. The marshmallow bits are guys like Lileks and Rob Long, who add color and variety and a bit of crunchiness. And the milk is Rich and the editorial staff, who provide context and hold everything together, hopefully without making it too soggy. Or, returning to the pasta theme...

Farfalle with prosciutto and green peas. Farfalle because of all the conservatives who wear bow ties; prosciutto because with its rich, aged flavor, created using methods that have been passed down for centuries, it represents the accumulated wisdom of the ages; and peas because they go so well with prosciutto.

A peanut-butter sandwich. Because NR’s editors have been quite partial to them over the years.

Chop suey. Back in the mid-20th century, when every Chinese restaurant still had chop suey on the menu, the standard joke about Chinese food was that an hour after eating it, you were hungry again. The same principle applies to the Corner, which keeps its readers coming back to get the latest updates.

Yorkshire pudding. In recognition of the deep and longstanding British influence on NR — though, if you’re borrowing from the Brits, better ideas than food, right?

Don’t know what we’d have for dessert, except maybe a dobostorte with only three layers — because seven would be wasteful (it’s Austrian, after all).

It stands on its own, but I suppose I have to add something for form's sake:

Fluffernutter
Organic peanut butter and marshmallow creme on soft white bread at Star Provisions, Atlanta

The childhood favorite--peanut butter and marshmallow fluff--gets an all-around upgrade at Anne Quatrano's gourmet-to-go café. They bake a light, pillowy white bread--"the base for any good sandwich is fresh bread," says chef de cuisine Gary Fincer--and make the silky fluff in-house from egg whites and sugar, like a meringue. The peanut butter comes from Big Spoon Roasters, an artisan nut-butter company in North Carolina, which Fincer prefers for its rustic taste. "It's not homogenized, so the oil separates to the top and you have to stir it back in. We like it because it's just really peanutty--there are no additives or sugar, and it's not too processed. It's a grown-up peanut butter," he says. Once assembled, the sandwich is griddled on the flattop, so the finished product is buttery and crisp on the outside and sweet and creamy within.

Star Provision's Fluffernutter
Marshmallow Fluff:
1 cup egg whites
1 1/2 cup plus 1 cup glucose
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sugar

Whisk egg white with 1 1/2 cup glucose and vanilla on low speed using a whisk attachment. In a saucepan, add sugar, 1 cup water, and 1 cup glucose. Cook until temperature reaches 240 degrees, then add to the egg whites while mixing constantly, until it is fluffy, silky, and smooth.

White Bread
1 egg
1.76 ounces milk
15.9 ounces water
1.76 ounces fresh yeast
2.45 ounces soft butter
1/2 ounce kosher salt
3.5 ounces sugar
2.2 pounds flour

Place the egg, milk, water, yeast, and soft butter in the mixing bowl. Add salt, sugar, and flour. Mix on low until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and is smooth and soft, not sticky. Let rest for 90 minutes. Portion at 1 1/2 pounds for a large pullman. Shape, cover with plastic, and let rise until doubled. Bake in convection oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool on cooling rack.

Assembly: Toast bread lightly, smear with marshmallow fluff and Big Spoon Roasters peanut butter, and season with salt.

UPDATE:

Since it seems HTML Mencken is on a posting jag I suppose I should add more links to Fred Schwarz's text in tribute.

Latest obsessions

There have been a few awesome things in my life right now. And I don't mean events or things that have happened. I mean a tv show and a book. A tv show and a book that I'm obsessed with.

Now, I know I'm a little late to the Downton Abbey train...but seriously- I am in love. 



Last week, when I was working from home, I decided to throw it on as background noise. We had started the first episode once before, and I just couldn't get into it. Apparently I was just sleepy or not really in the mood for it- because this time around, that all changed. I watched most of the first season in one day. One day. Granted, it's only 7 episodes....but that's still 7 hours of TV. 

I finished season 2 last night and am now ready for more! Thankfully season 3 episodes are on pbs.org so I can catch up! Which I will be starting tonight when I get home.

One of the awesome things about taking the rapid to work when it snows is that it gives me a solid hour and a half of reading time each day. I normally read before bed anyway, but the book selection then is crappy romance novels that don't require me to read too closely, seeing as I normally fall asleep anyway. So the train/bus is a perfect time to read books that are actually good.

I had started Bossypants by Tina Fey on our honeymoon. Which was like 4 months ago. And was finally able to finish it last week during  a few train rides. It was hilarious. Like laugh out loud on the train, getting weird looks from other riders, hilarious. 

 

As a fan (though unfortunately not avid watcher) of 30 Rock, and obsessed with Mean Girls (I mean seriously- that movie is insanely funny), plus just an overall Tina Fey fan- I knew this was a must read. And I was right. Her writing is very much how she speaks/acts. Sarcastic, funny, yet still honest and and a true look at her life. And seriously- with chapters like this one, you can't miss.

 

Call 911, honey, and I'll put on the popcorn.

"Mickey Clarke". Image from Milwaukee County First.

Sometimes you run across a character so compelling that you just don't want to let him go, as in the case of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, via ThinkProgress:

I’m Sheriff David Clarke, and I want to talk to you about something personal…your safety. It’s no longer a spectator sport; I need you in the game, but are you ready?

With officers laid-off and furloughed, simply calling 9-1-1 and waiting is no longer your best option. You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back; but are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?

I must say I kind of like the idea of my safety as a spectator sport. Could I get a beer? Who did the national anthem? Were there special days when everybody got a free towel? Alas, no more, according to Sheriff Clarke, an African American Rush Limbaugh Democrat, if you know what I mean, and no, neither do I:

He said he could either whine about budget cuts that forced him to lay off 48 deputies last year or he could get creative.

My first thought was, no law enforcement officer wants his entire population sleeping with guns under the bed: this is a stunt to make a case for higher taxes. But tax issues don't seem to be the reasons for the cut:

With his 2012 budget, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele proposed to cut more than $14 million and 240 positions from thesheriff’s office -- cuts larger than for any other county department.

His rationale?

When it comes to crime fighting, Abele essentially said, the sheriff’s office doesn’t do much.

"By statute and by practice, the sheriff plays only a limited role as a traditional law enforcement agency," Abele said in his budget remarks to the County Board on Sept. 29, 2011.

"For example, in 2009 the sheriff reported only 12 crimes to the FBI, compared to 41,000 for the City of Milwaukee and 3,200 for West Allis, and even 242 for the UWM Police Department."

Wait.

The sheriff’s department, covering the entire county, reported far fewer crimes to the FBI than the campus police at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee?

Politifact rates this only half true, as the sheriff's department actually reported 19 crimes in 2009, not to mention making well over a thousand arrests for offenses that were not crimes, mainly OWI and disorderly conduct. But then Politifact would rate it half true if you said the sun rises in the east, since this is not the case at the North and South Poles, at least if you were a Democrat.

Uncredited photo via the sheriff's admirers at Breitbart.com.

Sheriff Clarke is truly devoted to guns, with a passion that sometimes gets him into trouble, as in last summer, when he up and purchased 565 Glock pistols for what I am pretty sure is fewer than 400 officers, for $75,000. County supervisor John Weishan criticized the move:

“This excessive buy indicates total mismanagement of taxpayer dollars on the part of Sheriff Clarke,” said Supervisor Weishan. “A responsible leader would have purchased smaller amounts of weapons at reasonable intervals during the past several years.”

Clarke responded as follows:

“Apparently this partisan hack has pulled his head out of his ass once again to say something stupid. The next time little boy Weishan says something intelligent or accurate will be the first. This is the same idiot who recently diminished the danger of law enforcement work several weeks before one of my officers lost his life in the line of duty. He would do Milwaukee County good by crawling back into his hole.” 

I must say diminishing the danger of law enforcement work sounds like a good thing to me. In any event, reporter Chris Liebenthal goes on to note that the tragic death of Deputy Sergio Aleman would not have been prevented by any number of Glocks, since he was killed in a traffic accident. Liebenthal earned himself an anonymous comment:

This is the most poorly written article I have ever read. By all means, if you actually believe the garbage you are posting, run for sheriff yourself. This article does not even dignify a response, but I found it necessary to let the writer know how little intelligence he really has. Please save yourself the embarrassment by finding a new profession as this writing gig is clearly not working for you.

Hmm. You think the one who talks about diminishing danger and the one who talks about dignifying responses could be related in some way? And could they both be related to Donald Trump?

Oh, and the reason for the mouse ears in the picture: As you know, under the national asset forfeiture program, property seized by federal authorities in connection with drug and other crimes is shared out to state and local law enforcement agencies, Clarke's office having received upwards of $800,000 since 2008, to compensate victims and deter crime. Some of Clarke's charges in the program are $11,400 in workout equipment for his command staff, $8,200 for nine flat-screen televisions for the same officers, and $24,900 for 50 employees to be trained in Disney's Approach to Business Excellence with Disney Destinations, LLC, to improve the department's "customer service". I trust they'll start referring to the deputies, prison guards, etc. as "cast members".

Image from the Disney Parks Blog.

Steveston

Developments

Danwei:

About 20 km outside Beijing, tourists sitting in tour buses from Beijing north-eastwards towards the Badaling section of the Great Wall can spot the remains of an eerie shell of a castle some distance from the expressway. With concrete spires sticking out above dusty corn fields, the castle remains as a relic of the grandiose ideas of men who’ve long since passed through the grinding mill of elite politics, corruption and prison in China. All around Beijing, architectural artefacts of previous decades remain, many decayed and going to ruin.

This article is a tour through some of the more spectacular wastelands of contemporary Beijing, places that will surely be developed into something entirely different at some point in the future, when the interest groups that control the land and construction finally make a deal they can live with.

Hipster gun nuts

Image from AttentionDoozers.

From the promotion page for the NRA Wine Club.

Mikeb302000 has discovered a softer side to the National Rifle Association: The NRA Wine Club, which will ship you half a dozen carefully selected bottles every month. A little vernaccia, maybe, to enjoy as you clean that AR-15, or pack the heat of a mellow pinot noir in your Cellar Master Wine Tote for afters when you're out on the prowl for intruders or illegal immigrants. And don't forget that you're helping defend basic freedoms with every sip.

Next up: The NRA Record Club Album of the Month—Ted Nugent Sings the Mel Tormé Songbook.

The Vast Mobility

David Brooks writes:

One of the most entertaining spectacles of the Age of Obama in this second act is going to be the gigantic pro wrestling match over inequality in our society, between Nature in the form of meritocracy and Artifice in the form of government. Because meritocracy, the market-driven process that lifts some of us out of the equality in which we were all born to float to the top like the oil in a vinaigrette, is in direct conflict with the collectivism of the Obama government, which aims to leave us all the same, in cheap black suits with no lapels and a Little Red Book to wave in the air as the president drives by in his limousine. Who do you think is going to win? 

We are all born equal, of course, each in his or her appropriate station in life, and then certain things happen to make us less equal. The first thing is our education system, a gigantic crane claw machine that our colleges and universities use to pluck high school kids out of our towns and villages, but at different levels of skill and resources, so that Harvard, with an unlimited supply of quarters, gets all the teddy bears, while Arizona State has to be satisfied with plastic key rings.

From Lindsay and Christian's wedding at the Rockefeller Chapel.

The smart kids from Leipzig, Pennsylvania, Elbow, Nevada, and West New York, New Jersey who make it into the top schools, coming from a situation of happy equality, now find themselves in tooth-and-claw competition with graduates of ivy-covered boarding schools and Montessori programs who have spent the last twelve years taking lessons in getting themselves noticed, acquiring distinctive accomplishments, attitudes, and manners. Used to a social scene that values roots, they are plunged into one in which mobility is what counts, people flitting like hummingbirds from culture to culture and taking just a sip from each, rootless cosmopolitans concerned only with self-fulfillment. Raised to sweep off their caps and tug their forelocks in the presence of the great, now they encounter the great as their slovenly roommates, leaving the dishes in the sink and the underwear on the floor, careless and supremely confident. 

What's amazing is that this works, turning our slum kids and peasant children into elegant young members of the ruling class. Of course they can't go home again, if only because there's nobody there who could afford to employ them, but there are enclaves all over, from Hoboken to Palo Alto, that serve as magnets where they can live with their kind, with a sufficiency of coffee bars, yoga studios, and Korean restaurants. Or they could get a Ph.D. in political science and get a teaching job, because it turns out a degree from one of those same ten or eleven schools is the main thing you need to get a political science teaching job, according to Robert Oprisko (and a good thing too! though Oprisko, for some reason, seems to think graduates of other places might be able to handle the work).

Barack and Michelle Obama come out of these hothouses of aristocracy, as do most of the members of the administration, most of us writers at the Times, and many of our readers—imagine trying to follow my sophisticated prose if you did your lit classes in Austin or Buffalo! And yet they are doing their best to undo the effects of the system, by redistributing money from high to low. The health care bill alone takes $20,000 from the average member of the 1% and divvies it up among between 25 and 50 more or less indigent families.

University of Chicago women's soccer.

In the first place, this is not enough to make a difference: it's like dividing up a spoonful of caviar ("Care for an egg, dear?"). And then it's going to people in places like the San Joaquin valley, where most don't even have high school degrees, and to make matters worse, they have to spend it on health insurance so they don't even have a chance of spending it where it counts, on tuition at Brown or Williams, or getting a pied-à-terre in Dumbo. 

Obama's relentless focus on redistribution ignores the reality that inequality in our country is caused by the fact that there just aren't enough really good schools to take care of everybody. And centralizing all the decision-making in Washington isn't going to stop the Georgetown graduates from staying there instead of moving back to Iowa and Nebraska to teach their cousins how to make a macchiato and wear those little fedoras. It will just mean more of a division than ever between people who know how to use the lobster fork and people who eat at Red Lobster. 

And I'm not saying Republicans have a better plan for dealing with this. In the first place, Republicans don't think it needs to be dealt with. All I'm saying is, there ought to be a second place here somewhere, but Obama doesn't know what it is any more than I do.

If only he'd written the dissertation instead of that book, he could have had a respectable job. 

The Intersection Between Video and Painting

The VAG Ian Wallace exhibition is astoundingly boring, but apparently he was on about the "intersection of painting and photography" which I don't really believe applies to putting a big photograph near a rectangle of colour. But what do I know.

The obvious problem there, labourwise, is that you have to do two things: take the photo and paint the painting. Video, however, will do your paint-swipes for you if your subject is in motion or you have a sufficiently palsied hand.

Voila! A pulse to wipe the slate clean at intervals offset to the loop of the video and you have as many paintings as frames in the loop, which, if you let this run in Quartz Composer or as a screensaver, is about 1865 possible paintings (one of which might be good!) and thus close to two million equivalent words, making me a prolific writer in the bargain. Take that, Wallace!



Sound by robots because they work cheap.

That Ain't Right

WHAT THE F UPDATE:

I suppose I am allowed to draw no conclusions from French contribution to METAL Fairyland:

Cheap shots 1/25/13: Don't touch that uterus

Senator Paul gesticulated furiously as Secretary Clinton listened, with downcast eyes. Image from Grub Street Lodger.

You think he has mommy issues?

RAND PAUL: I think that ultimately with your leaving you accept responsibility for the worst culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it’s inexcusable. The thing is that, we can understand that you’re not reading every cable. I can understand that maybe you’re not aware of the cable from the ambassador in Vienna that asked for $100,000 for an electrical charging station. I can understand that maybe you’re not aware that your department spent $100,000 on three comedians who went to India on a promotional tour called “Make Chi Not War,” but I think you might be able to understand and might be aware of the $80 million spent on a consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif that will never be built. I think it’s inexcusable that you did not know about this and did not read these cables. (Washington Free Beacon)

Image from Democratic Underground.

The Vixen wonders:

Have we reached infinite football-pull, where it turns out Obama was Lucy all the time? And it's the GOP who will never ever kick the ball? I don't know what that means, but I kind of like it. The GOP can't move the ball without Obama's permission. And he's already said he'll protect our entitlement programs. So what do they get? Niente?  It sort of looks like niente.

In a word, yes. Weird, I know, but we'll just have to start getting used to the idea that you don't always have to be the victim.

11th Doctor vs. a Dalek, by Wild Guru Larry. From Photoree.

Caroli at Crooks & Liars:

[Fox News commentator Keith Ablow] pronounces President Obama's push for gun control in the wake of the Newtown tragedy as a "hijack" of the issue in order to advance his "personal desire for gun control." Ablow then goes on to say that the real problem is "untreated mental illness."

Ah, but whose mental illness? You probably think that Fox is blaming the mental illness of the Newtown shooter, to deflect it from the lethal instrument?

It's way weirder than that:

Claiming "the autonomy of others did him no favors as a kid when he was abandoned again and again," Ablow goes on to say that this abandonment led Obama to believe "the collective needs to be empowered and all the better if [Obama is] the center of the collective and the most powerful person."

In other words, all this talk of gun control has nothing to do with the rights of children and innocent individuals to live their lives without having them cut short by some lunatic with an assault rifle. No, really, it's just about how Barack Obama's mother left him with her parents in Hawaii while she earned a living and a PhD.

Barack's difficult childhood has left him with an insane compulsion to take your firearms away. He's a ballistokleptomaniac! And his madness inevitably leaves children all over the country unarmed and unable to defend themselves against it. Get that man a psychiatrist quick, or we'll all die!

From ErinEliseMusic.

Don't touch that uterus, Ma'am, it's a crime scene.

Should a recently introduced bill in New Mexico become law, rape victims will be required to carry their pregnancies to term during their sexual assault trials or face charges of “tampering with evidence.” (Think Progress)

Doesn't say where they'll auction the little nippers off after trial.

Practical Politics

More stuff from old Smithsonian feeds:

The executioners of the Ottoman Empire were never noted for their mercy; just ask the teenage Sultan Osman II, who in May 1622 suffered an excruciating death by “compression of the testicles”–as contemporary chronicles put it–at the hands of an assassin known as Pehlivan the Oil Wrestler. There was reason for this ruthlessness, however; for much of its history (the most successful bit, in fact), the Ottoman dynasty flourished—ruling over modern Turkey, the Balkans and most of North Africa and the Middle East—thanks in part to the staggering violence it meted out to the highest and mightiest members of society.

Seen from this perspective, it might be argued that the Ottomans’ decline set in early in the 17th century, precisely at the point when they abandoned the policy of ritually murdering a significant proportion of the royal family whenever a sultan died, and substituted the Western notion of simply giving the job to the first-born son instead. Before then, Ottoman succession had been governed by the “law of fratricide” drawn up by Mehmed II in the middle of the 15th century. Under the terms of this remarkable piece of legislation, whichever member of the ruling dynasty succeeded in seizing the throne on the death of the old sultan was not merely permitted, but enjoined, to murder all his brothers (together with any inconvenient uncles and cousins) in order to reduce the risk of subsequent rebellion and civil war. Although it was not invariably applied, Mehmed’s law resulted in the deaths of at least 80 members of the House of Osman over a period of 150 years. These victims included all 19 siblings of Sultan Mehmed III—some of whom were still infants at the breast, but all of whom were strangled with silk handkerchiefs immediately after their brother’s accession in 1595.

[...]

For most of the bostancıs’ victims, the sentence was carried out immediately after the serving of the fatal sherbet by a group of five muscular young janissaries, members of the sultan’s elite infantry. For a grand vizier, however, there was still a chance: as soon as the death sentence was passed, the condemned man would be allowed to run as fast as he was able the 300 yards or so from the palace, through the gardens, and down to the Fish Market Gate on the southern side of the palace complex, overlooking the Bosphorus, which was the appointed place of execution. [...]

If the deposed vizier reached the Fish Market Gate before the head gardener, his sentence was commuted to mere banishment. But if the condemned man found the bostanci basha waiting for him at the gate, he was summarily executed and his body hurled into the sea.

Running from office.

Background Noise

Hey Townhall! Dance! DANCE! DO THAT CRAZY BIGOT DANCE!



But wait, what's that?



That's right crackers, you've gone far enough and it's gun-confiscatin' time.

Being Helpful

Jay Nordlinger:

The AP reported — though “reported” is not the word — “HAWKISH NETANYAHU LIKELY TO BE RE-ELECTED.” The wire service continued, “Israelis, who head to the polls Tuesday, no longer seem to believe that peace with the Palestinians is possible.”

I have two comments on the AP’s spin: First, they have called Netanyahu “hawkish,” and that he is. But I wonder whether they would refer to a dovish leader as “dovish.”

Wonder no more!

Second, it may be that Israelis voting for Netanyahu are realistic: realistic about what it takes to make peace, keep peace, and ensure national survival. Maybe they think that Netanyahu stands between them and annihilation by Iran. Maybe they think that he is the one to look out for Israeli interests when there is a hostile, or semi-hostile, in the Oval Office. Maybe they think that true peace with the Palestinians can be forged only on a realistic basis, not on wishful thinking.

I recommend removal of that last clause.

Concussive evidence

Can't tell you how much I hoped she'd get a chance to say something like this, and say it!

Via ThinkProgress.

What'd I tell you?

Image from Ask the Mighty Italian Moustache.

At +972, Ami Kaufman notes that the Knesset will be a little less fascist than it was before the elections, and with lots more women and social activist types, so that's to the good, and that the biggest losers are American political consultants:

Stan Greenberg: The polls at certain points had Labor well over 20 seats, yet they ended with a mere 15 seats (99% of the vote counted). A mere two seats more than the all-time low that Ehud Barak was responsible for. It takes American genius to only get two more seats after the social protests that should have boosted Labor sky high, if they had played their cards right.

Arthur Finkelstein: According to reports, Finkelstein (who left the country just days before the election) was the architect of unifying Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, worth 42 seats back then. They’ve dropped to 33, maybe less (99% of the vote counted).

You read it here (for example here) that Netanyahu was a lot weaker than he looked, and knew it, so we're a winner in the prediction stakes, and I suppose his continuing weakness will help the IDF, the Mossad, and the indispensable President Obama keep him from invading Iran, so they're winners too.

Wild man Tom Friedman, Mystax Mysteriorum (Mustache of Mysteries), has an idea on that score:

Rather than negotiating with Iran’s leaders in secret — which, so far, has produced nothing and allows the Iranian leaders to control the narrative and tell their people that they’re suffering sanctions because of U.S. intransigence — why not negotiate with the Iranian people? President Obama should put a simple offer on the table, in Farsi, for all Iranians to see: The U.S. and its allies will permit Iran to maintain a civil nuclear enrichment capability — which it claims is all it wants to meet power needs — provided it agrees to U.N. observers and restrictions that would prevent Tehran from ever assembling a nuclear bomb.

He assumes, I think, that the offer has already been made and rejected in secret. He might get a big surprise! I know if I were his Supreme Leadership I'd be suspicious of such a proposal made in secret—I'd remember what happened with North Korea in 1994—but I'd jump on a public one if the U.S. put out a credible timetable. Friedman's a fool, and it's a fool's idea, but sometimes that's just what one needs, as when the mustached psychotic of Broadway and 79th stops you on the sidewalk to tell you to tie your shoe.

Another foolish idea from Mr. Mystax is this:

On Israel-Palestine, the secretary of state should publicly offer President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority the following: the U.S. would recognize the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as the independent State of Palestine on the provisional basis of the June 4, 1967, lines, support its full U.N. membership and send an ambassador to Ramallah, on the condition that Palestinians accept the principle of “two states for two peoples” — an Arab state and a Jewish state in line with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 — and agree that permanent borders, security and land swaps would be negotiated directly with Israel. The status of the refugees would be negotiated between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents all Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine. Gaza, now a de facto statelet, would be recognized as part of Palestine only when its government recognizes Israel, renounces violence and rejoins the West Bank. 

Or, as his alter id Really Tom Friedman puts it,

In the future we’re all going to speak languages we can’t understand and we must begin with strife in the Middle East. Or North Africa. It works if you just speak loud, simple English. Like: “NO ONE. KNOWS WHAT. JUDEA. AND SAMARIA. ARE SUPPOSED. TO BE. MAYBE THE ROMANS DID.” Or: “I’M SORRY. ABOUT YOUR. GRANDFATHER. YOU CAN’T HAVE. THESE OLIVE GROVES. ANYMORE. BECAUSE SOME HASIDS. FROM LONG ISLAND. LIVE THERE NOW.” 

This time I like the version published in the Times, with the formal recognition, better. In fact it kind of takes my breath away. If Serious People are starting to think like this, perhaps the hopey-changey has really arrived.

Image from Mouse Medicine.