Friday, September 19, 2014

FRIDAY ROUND-THE-HORN.

•   Kevin D. Williamson has another in his series of columns on why his current abode, New York, sucks, apparently pitched at gomers who can't understand why anyone would want to live in one of them itty-bitty apartments surrounded by blahs when they could have a nice spread in Butte. In this case Williamson focuses on that "inequality" you stupid hippies pretend to be concerned about, which he attributes not to the lack of jobs suitable to a middle class such as manufacturing once provided, nor to the rich outsiders who increasingly buy up the properties, but to "progressive policies" such as rent stabilization (which mainly helps poorer New Yorkers, which may be why people like Williamson hate it so much) and, natch, high taxes. "When it comes time to pay for college or to leave behind a bequest for children or grandchildren -- an important means of building wealth within families -- you’re almost certainly better off in San Antonio or Provo than in New York or San Francisco," hmmphs Williamson. His beef seems to be that a Bible salesman's family of eight can't afford a house on Fifth Avenue. Well, that's capitalism, comrade, take it up with the Invisible Hand. Also, I have to ask, as I do of all city-dwelling city-haters: If that's the way you feel about your progressive hellhole, why don't you move to Provo? The American Enterprise Institute says telecommuters are happier!

•   Hey look, here's the new #Benghazi -- whoops, I mean the new Journolist (tired today, can't keep my ginned-up controversies straight): This time, we are told by he-man woman-hater Milo Yiannopoulos, America is being assaulted not by Dave Weigel and his combine of communist journalists, but by "high-profile editors, reporters, and reviewers from heavyweight gaming news sites" -- i.e., nerds -- who are "engaging in activism on behalf of their reporting subjects" -- i.e., talking shop -- which is "disturbing to many in the industry, who have long suspected a persistent bias and unusual levels of co-operation and co-ordination from senior journalists" -- i.e., bros who enjoy harassing women. "It’s basically Journolist for people who didn’t go to Harvard," says Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds (Yale Law 1985), proving its pedigree as bullshit. On a similar note, PJ Media's J. Christian Adams has his own shocking expose on the campaign software Catalist, which is used by Democrats, for which reason Adams tries to make this legal product sound somehow worse than, say, the data mining tools used by every damn corporation, though his real complaint shines out halfway down the page:
Unfortunately, Republicans have no functioning counterpart data tool to Catalist. They have multiple and competing shells of Catalist, but they have nothing on the collaborative scale as Catalist, largely due to the fact that Republicans won’t collaborate and are fiercely territorial of their competing data sets.
That Adams doesn't realize how funny this is just makes it better, don't you think? You can go there and gather mangoes yourself, but let me leave you with this choice tantrum-fragment:
Leftist players sacrifice their egos for the larger messianic call of destroying Republicans, obliterating conservatives, and ultimately gutting the Constitution.
No fair -- socialism is winning!

243 comments:

  1. Sideshow Bill12:09 PM

    Why don't I move to Provo? Easy, backwards ass Mormons. Same reason I won't live in Texas (anymore, raised in Houston, grad school in Austin.) F'n ignorant small minded people that have no concern for anyone but themselves. Same reason I was happy to leave SC, i'm an atheist.

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  2. FrenchFriar12:51 PM

    The comments are over there at NRO precious. Lots of whining about the reality of the market forces they worship working against their desire for the middle class piece the big apple paradise pie.

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  3. Provo or Frisco, that whole"building wealth within families" thing is over for the vast majority of families, no matter how much "death tax" blather they spout. The only family Americans are building wealth within is the Waltons.

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  4. You know what they need? Fewer regulations to keep them down.

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  5. Glock H. Palin, Esq.1:04 PM

    "When it comes time to pay for college or to leave behind a bequest for
    children or grandchildren -- an important means of building wealth
    within families -- you’re almost certainly better off in San Antonio or
    Provo than in New York or San Francisco," hmmphs Williamson.

    Which explains the lack of entitled rich kids in New York.

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  6. geraldo nosebrawl1:07 PM

    "apparently pitched" is the operational term, because of course he's actually talking to other media industry/chattering class nerds like himself...just the resentful/hipster-chicks-wouldn't-date-me-in-college subset thereof who'd do something like pat themselves on the back for the masculine act of slapping a cell phone out of a female's hand.

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  7. ColBatGuano1:10 PM

    All those Dickensian orphans roaming the streets of New York picking Williamson's pockets could tell you stories.

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  8. Click on that link to "Jeremiah's Vanishing New York" over there on the left. Apparently there are whole swaths of the City that are now nothing but trendy little boutiques; stores and shops that have been there decades are being forced out with their rents going up, in some cases, 3000-4000%.

    That's not the result of "progressive policies". That's greed.

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  9. "When it comes time to pay for college or to leave behind a bequest for
    children or grandchildren -- an important means of building wealth
    within families"

    One of these things is not like the other. Here's a hint, Kevin: If your estate is going to be much larger than the $5,340,000 individual exemption, no one involved is honestly worrying about how to pay for college.

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  10. Gromet1:22 PM

    Kevin D. Williamson, armchair hayseed.


    Well, glad he's come out squarely in favor of medieval France's practice of accruing wealth and power inside sovereign family units, instead of America's official preference since 1883: wealth accruing to those who perform well on standardized tests. Honestly, the individual merit thing has always played better in imaginative fiction than at Skull & Bones meetings anyway, and the system worked out great for France, so let's just cut to the chase and have families build actual castles across Wyoming, where they can sit well-armed and accruing gold until they have more than enough to buy Per Se right out from under the Jews (or whatever), tear it down, and put up the biggest Bob Evans in the world.

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  11. The Little Rascals has lost its zip now that they've moved it to Duluth and all the characters live in McMansions on the same cul-de-sac.

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  12. Wealthy property developers! A socialist scourge, I tell ya!

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  13. Seriously. David Friggin' Koch, tied for #6 on the Forbes billionaire's list, lives in Manhattan. He obviously thinks he's getting good value for his money. I've also heard, even if Kevin hasn't, that #13 Michael Bloomberg resides in the city as well. Larry Ellison (#5) and Mark Zuckerberg (#14) live in California, albeit not in San Francisco proper. Even Bill Gates would rather live in the (admittedly low-tax) state of Washington than in East Bumfuck, Jesusland. Sure, most of the Walton clan live in Arkansas, but so what?

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  14. As for rent stabilization pricing working class people out of New York, ha ha ha.Actually, if you look at the data, you'll find that as more and more rent-stabilized properties have moved to market-rate, the proportion of working-class people living in New York has increased ... Whoa, hang on a second. I was holding the chart upside down. Never mind.

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  15. Things are so bad in New York that the children of the middle class, far from awaiting inherited wealth, are out begging for money to buy Christmas shoes for mom.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq10bz3PxyY

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  16. trizzlor1:36 PM

    "When it comes time to pay for college or to leave behind a bequest for children or grandchildren -- an important means of building wealth within families -- you’re almost certainly better off in San Antonio or Provo than in New York or San Francisco,"



    The estate tax in NY State doesn't kick in until a cool million. Unless Kevin's talking about the characters of a Whit Stillman movie, I don't think most struggling New Yorkers are stressed out over their bequest while trying to feed a family from clearance items at Duane Reade.

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  17. Who'll be able to afford rents like that?At a guess, JP Morgan Chase, Duane Reade, and Starbucks.

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  18. If these guys feel a need to be physically proximate to their workplaces, why don't they just start their own media enclave somewhere else? There's no reason most of these guys have to work out of New York. Media outlets have traditionally been located near cultural centers and major economic arteries, but with the shift to "opinion journalism" (which is all that most of these goobers do), that's not really necessary anymore. If all you're going to do is blather and kvetch, you can do that anywhere.


    So if they despise New York so much, I don't see why the lot of them can't just pull up stakes and start their own media center with blackjack and hookers in the noble Heartland. There are any number of mid-sized cities out here that are equipped to handle that kind of thing - or they could pick a real cowtown, if they wanted a soupcon of authenticity. Sean Hannity could lead the way - he's been complaining about this for months now anyway. I see all of the television personalities, bloggers, conservative "journalists," radio hosts and think tank cognoscenti abandoning the coasts, with disciples and big dreamers following close behind. Sure, there'd be a period of adjustment while everything got set up, but that wouldn't last more than a year or so - and for that effort, they'd get to punish those filthy progressive sophisticates.


    I can't think of any reason why they don't do this. Well...unless these guys don't really like the noble Heartland. You know, if these guys actually liked New York City, if they were those same urbanite sophisticates that they claim to hate and really just viewed those rural rubes as a source of income. But that's clearly not true.

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  19. I suspect Kevin finds plenty of things about New York to love - but if you're going to be a showman, you have to know your audience.

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  20. susanoftexas1:38 PM

    Williamson compares New York to Texas, saying inequality makes Texas a better bet, on the same day reports of growing inequality in Texas comes out. http://www.chron.com/news/article/Texas-income-inequality-gap-continues-to-grow-5764736.php?

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  21. You may have hit upon the next best-seller literary series, there: The Vassal of Wal-Mart.

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  22. Spaghetti Lee1:44 PM

    Maybe Kevin and co. should form a breakdancing team to save the local community center from those evil liberal gentrifiers.


    So many conservative articles seem to be about how miserable we all should be and we don't even know why. Vital service, that.

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  23. Spaghetti Lee1:46 PM

    It's not that hard, guys. Rents/taxes/etc. cost more in New York because everyone wants to live there. The middle class is being driven out because they can't afford those costs. Think of New York like a luxury hotel and Provo like a roadside Super 8. Yeah, you'll get into the latter one easier, but there's not much to do there.

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  24. Tracy1:46 PM

    Sure, but that would require Kevin the Dumb to do some research and find that both Dallas and San Antonio have more living under the poverty level as well. http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?fpt=table

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  25. redoubtagain1:48 PM

    "Where The Middle Class Goes To Die", eh, Kevin?
    Victim's Name: Class, A. Middle
    Victim's Age: Approx. 69 Years
    Cause Of Death: Strangulation by Republican "Economics"
    Weapon Used: Laffer Curve Wrapped in Gold Thread

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  26. mortimer20001:51 PM

    It's always nice when they take a moment from their endless pimping for rich people tax cuts, corporate irresponsibility, low wages/high profits, the elimination of labor unions and minimum wage laws, and so on, to grieve for the death of the middle-class.

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  27. BG, watery tart2:00 PM

    I got great pleasure out of Andrew Sullivan's leaving this place. You don't like it either, Kevin? Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

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  28. Sandnigger from Hell2:06 PM

    Liberals gentrify, and rich conservatives make money off it. White liberals talk about "blahs" and the "poors", and every time I hear or read about a professionally earnest writer of some sort or another who's "from Brooklyn" I know it means they're not. Fuck Kevin Williamson, and fuck you too.

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  29. Binky2:08 PM

    I recall Sullivan sneering at coastal elites from Provincetown while praising the wisdom of the inner parts of the US. As if an out gay man with an English accent could have been able to live freely in those "wise" parts of the country.

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  30. randomworker2:09 PM

    A. Most middle class people don't have to worry about the estate tax in NY because the exemption is over 2 million.
    B. Move to San Antonio. Please.

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  31. willf2:13 PM

    So you're probably not the city-dwelling city-hater that Roy was referring to then, are you?

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  32. Socialist Cubone2:14 PM

    Oh shit, so many edges! I'm cutting myself on all these edges!

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  33. Who'll be there to work there? Who'll buy shit? Or will they have to bus people in from Huntington and Cold Harbor just to keep their doors open?

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  34. to leave behind a bequest for children or grandchildren -- an important means of building wealth within families consolidating unearned privilege and perpetuating the vampirism of finance



    fixed.

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  35. I've lived in Utah (Brigham City, yet!) AND South Carolina, and I agree 1100%. Which is why I'm working on getting my ass back above the Mason-Dixon line.

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  36. montag22:22 PM

    The great mistake made about Williamson's posture is that he's concerned about middle-class people. He's not, not at all. He's whining on behalf of rich people whose big-city experience is spoiled by ordinary people. He doesn't like rent stabilization because rich people can't make as much money on real estate, and therefore, have a richer, grander big-city experience.

    The kind of people Williamson is fronting for live in NYC and Jackson Hole. And Palm Beach. And have a little villa outside Dubrovnik. And play ranches in Texas (for the tax write-offs).

    Shorter Williamson: Big cities are all clogged up with rude peasants, and rich people are inconvenienced by them.

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  37. Sandnigger from Hell2:22 PM

    Cut yourself on this. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140709/these-are-the-photos-gaza-too-graphic-for-some-news-media-to-show


    I live liberals. I really do.

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  38. Reminds me of the "free-market" douchebag I was listening to the other day whine about how these corporations hire undocumented workers and immigrants instead of Americans. He thought they shouldn't do that! Well, genius, how are you planning on dealing with that without regulations?

    It was all "I've shit the bed and how unfair that I'm covered in filth! It's the leftists' fault!"

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  39. Gromet2:28 PM

    King Arthur and the Knights of the Better Homes and Gardens 5-Piece Dinette Set, Free Store Pickup, Some Assembly Req.

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  40. I'm sorry, sir, you obviously have the wrong address. The New Republic is down the street two blocks. Just stop at The Corner and ask directions of the young man with the stains on his tie. Good day!

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  41. They should just wall Manhattan off, install a "poor door" for the proles, and admit what they're doing.

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  42. JeffCO2:35 PM

    Also, then they have to *see* the poors. Too.

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  43. blackjack and hookersSpeaking of which, Sheldon Adelson is #18 on the Forbes list, in between two more Bay-area guys who apparently don't realize how bad they've got it.

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  44. I'm guessing Mr. Williamson writes his columns from home, but can he be classified as a "telecommuter" when he consistently just mails it in?

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  45. Glock H. Palin, Esq.2:47 PM

    I suspect Kevin finds plenty of things about New York to love...

    Having liberal city to talk smack about for a paycheck no doubt being high on the list.

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  46. horatius2:50 PM

    If he's emailing it in, I think that qualifies.

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  47. montag23:02 PM

    Oh, I think Williamson wants everyone else to get the fuck out and go west somewhere, because his benefactors are inconvenienced.

    M'self, I think young Mr. Williamson deserves Provo, and good and hard.

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  48. Sandnigger from Hell3:09 PM

    I have the right address. I only come here when Atrios links, and his politics sucks. But I did a search on this site and I came up pretty much blank, except for something in the Voice defending Obama from charges that he's siding with Hamas. The piece was crap. You want substance? Here

    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n15/mouin-rabbani/israel-mows-the-lawn

    http://justworldnews.org/?p=3521



    Atrios: "The kids are alright!" No. They don't know shit.

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  49. I predict Building Wealth Within Families will replace Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps as the phrase psycho-sadistic Republicans like to pant while they're helping the goat over the fence (IYKWIM, &ITYD).

    I can easily imagine some two-legged hookworm like PRyan explaining that his plan to cut the minimum wage by two bucks will help Build Wealth Within Families.

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  50. KatWillow3:17 PM

    I'd love to go dumpster-diving with this comment!

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  51. edroso3:19 PM

    At last, an opposing POV that I can respect.

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  52. Leftist players sacrifice their egos for the larger messianic call of destroying Republicans, obliterating conservatives, and ultimately gutting the Constitution.

    While the righties are just in it for the cash grab- I'll show you my data set when you show me the cash.

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  53. KatWillow3:21 PM

    They cannot grasp the fact that if all their products are manufactured in China, Asia, South America, the people they fired here in the States won't be able to buy anything. Soooo... they must sell to the Chinese and Asians and S Americans, right? Except those folk are working for $2 a day, and can't afford to by iPhones and refrigerators and Huge-Screen TVs.

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  54. Cutting the minimum wage by two bucks an hour would build further wealth within the Spawn of Sam.

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  55. KatWillow3:24 PM

    You mean Good day!

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  56. montag23:24 PM

    Re: Adams' whining: The Repugs aren't "fiercely territorial of their competing data sets" because they're just short-sighted. They won't share their data sets because they'd rather lease them to the rubes for direct mail purposes and make millions on them. Just ask Richard Viguerie.


    I think it was Thomas Frank that pinned down information gathering and mail lists as the quintessential right-wing con job. So, no it's not "leftist players" who are "destroying Republicans," it's Republicans who are destroying Republicans.


    But, we already knew that.

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  57. Being the 4th in the series of the Further Thrilling Adventures of Kevin Williamson, Urban Explorer!!

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  58. Yes, thank you, I'm looking for some kind of folding knife. Maybe a four-inch blade. Something with high quality alloy. Needs to be real sharp. I'm planning on GUTTING THE CONSTITUTION.

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  59. montag23:28 PM

    And, probably would have an "in by eight, out by five" sign at the door.

    It is inevitable that the right wing will want to eventually bring the "sundown town" to NYC.

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  60. "It’s basically Journolist for people who didn’t go to Harvard," says Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds (Yale Law 1985)

    The Shining Shaming.
    ~

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  61. At last, an opposing POV that I can respect.Easy for you to say. You're not from Brooklyn. Or ... are you?

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  62. montag23:37 PM

    Ah, but that's what banks are for (that's why NYC is full of `em). Loan money, create debt, suck money out of the real economy. That's what keeps the Manhattan side of Park Ave humming, and David Koch whistling a happy tune while abusing the help.

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  63. montag23:40 PM

    The Shining Shaming Shitting.

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  64. Thanks to J. Christian Adams and his ilk, you'll probably want one of these shit squeegees for preparing the cutting surface beforehand.

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  65. There's some of that happening in parts of D.C. that were caught mid-gentrification by the housing bubble boom. Based on observation the building or unit sits empty until the owners realize they aren't going to trick another Vintage Doorknob shop into a $10K/mo lease or get anywhere near what they paid for it from the next buyer. At this point they either sell or lease it to whoever or take the space. You do go through periods where there are a lot of empty storefronts, which does nothing for the property values.

    Bah ahaha!

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  66. Spaghetti Lee3:50 PM

    Right-wing bloggers complaining about sinister left-wing cabals in the journalism biz is extra-hilarious, because the right wing blog world is more incestuous than a Game of Thrones-themed orgy. "Here's what Glenn Reynolds has to say on Jonah Goldberg's article on Jim Hoft's coverage of Kevin Williamson's persecution at the hands of liberals. Rod Dreher weighs in, quoting Ann Althouse, who says..." etc. etc. Half the stories on any given right-wing blog by volume are how right-wing blogs are either going to change the world or are being hounded into oblivion by liberals.

    I mean, this is barely journalism: they're 'exposing' what amounts to a video game industry trade publication. What sort of bizarre, stupid fantasy world do they live in where something like that is controversial or even noteworthy? If it's just that they're mad at being left out of the gossip circle, well, the answer to that is the same as ever: you're horrible people and everyone hates you.

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  67. It is totally unfair there is no cheat code to gain 100 Popularity Points!

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  68. edroso3:52 PM

    "I did a search on this site and I came up pretty much blank, except for something in the Voice defending Obama from charges that he's siding with Hamas..."


    Why tell me?

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  69. "high-profile editors, reporters, and reviewers from heavyweight gaming news sites . . . engaging in activism on behalf of their reporting subjects"


    Oh, for fuck's sake. I knew that this shit was bleeding into the wingnut-o-sphere, but I still didn't see this one coming. Basically, a bunch of MRA douchebags and manchild "hardcore gamers" have decided that because some game reviewers communicate with indie developers and activists with entertainment-based portfolios, it means that the whole sector is irredeemably corrupt. Uh huh.


    I realize that not all of you have closely followed the electronic entertainment trade press. Don't worry - that just means that you've led a productive life thus far. All you really need to know is that video game "journalists" are notorious for being industry whores. A combination of molecule-thin profit margins and a complete reliance on "exclusives" from game companies mean that video game publications have a very strong incentive to go easy on their subjects. It's nothing new, either - although many of the more egregious examples (*cough* IGN *cough*) are recent, this has always been true. I can't tell you how many popular magazines and websites I've seen abruptly wink out of existence because they didn't pimp themselves hard enough. The "independent" guys aren't any better, either - they get free shit from the companies they cover, and the people who give the softest reviews get the most swag.


    So, to summarize, all of games journalism has been in bed with the people they review for decades, and if anything it's getting worse. And yet, because a few bloggers send each other emails and follow Anita Sarkeesian on Twitter, this is supposed to be proof that these guys are corrupt. Hey, maybe you should treat the bullet wound in your chest before you complain about your scraped knee.

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  70. Nonsense! I am sure the Cthcheneys and the Bushes are doing quite well.

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  71. Reminds me of a little blogger's gag from years past, intended to highlight what a daisy chain the blogosphere really is. They'd put together a list of a hundred or so people. On the appointed day, each of them would put up a post that was something to the effect of "X had a really interesting point, and you should read the whole thing," with a link to the next person on the list. Follow it long enough, and the link chain eventually looped back to the person at the top. I always thought it was a shame that they couldn't get more high-profile bloggers involved - I'd love to see how long people would follow that chain of links before they found out what was going on.

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  72. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps3:58 PM

    (tearfully) You just don't understand! The games, man! The games!! The women are going to take away our good, popular murder simulators and objective 10-point game reviews and replace them with essays about feelings!

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  73. JennOfArk3:59 PM

    Leftist players sacrifice their egos for the larger messianic call of destroying Republicans, obliterating conservatives, and ultimately gutting the Constitution.


    I can't imagine there would be any mangoes choicer than this. Shorter goes something like this: Leftists, who reject conservative ideals of individualism, are winning because they refuse to be atomized individuals that are easy to pick off on a one-by-one basis.


    I mean, shit, that's probably the most concise refutation of the value of conservative ideas I've ever seen.

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  74. That's, um, interesting....

    [backs away slowly]

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  75. Spaghetti Lee4:01 PM

    Conservative have claimed through the ages that the easiest way for the elite to control the masses was to give them stuff and pamper them. Makes 'em soft, y'see. I think they've found a far better way to control people these days: fool them into thinking that they're completely independent and are accountable to no one and nothing. Like wolves trying to separate individual deer from a herd.

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  76. "how do you GET the wealth in your family in the first place? I... umm.... ... LOOK! OVER THERE! OCCUPY WALL STREET!" *grabs wallet, runs away*

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  77. Spaghetti Lee4:04 PM

    As a relative outside observer, I'm like, why can't there be more games about fat plumbers jumping on turtles or something? The rifle-sight subgenre just looks so damn boring. I can't tell any of them apart.

    I don't think there's anything dangerous or disturbed about the people who play games like that, but I think such games do deaden their creative faculties, especially when it comes to thinking about video games as a medium: what they could become vs. how small and same-y they actually are.

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  78. Yeah, three words: Pay day loans.

    Whee, 300% interest! Usury like Grandpa made!

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  79. There are creative games, they just don't sell for shit. Everyone from games "journalists" to forum-dwelling geeks will sing the praises of oddball and indie titles and condemn the Hollywoodification of the industry, and then go out and buy Realistic War Shooter 27-B the day it launches.


    Unfortunately, geeks have yet to learn how to vote with their wallets. I've seen people who will spend two months talking about how the next Marvel movie will suck, go out and see it anyway, and then - while confirming that it sucked - will wonder why the studios keep making such crap. Gee, I can't imagine.

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  80. But not too independent. You still need to watch these shows, buy these products, attend this church, hate these people, and give to this cause so you can make sure you're being independent without sliding into the trap of Dirty Hippiedom.

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  81. Concern troll is very concerned.

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  82. Okay, I'm lost. When did we start talking about Gaza?


    Just kidding. Really, I love it when people show in comment threats, post irrelevant links, and demand we talk about what they want to talk about. It always leads to very productive and civil conversations.

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  83. My befuddled noggin has trouble with deep philosophical precepts, but I was pondering recently the curious need for pampered, pasteled servants of convention to sit at keyboards and play the bushy-eyebrowed rugged individualist.

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  84. The douchebag I refer to below was also whining about going to the mall and having to see WOMEN! IN HIJAB! SHANIA LAW! ALERT ALERT

    Know what the solution to that is, buhbie? Amazon and Domino's. Never leave your house and you never have to see The Bad Non-White Non-Christians.

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  85. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps4:18 PM

    especially when it comes to thinking about video games as a medium: what
    they could become vs. how small and same-y they actually are.

    That's the crux of it: these people know that too, so they're dedicated to trying to intimidate anyone who starts to get any wise ideas.

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  86. The carefully-thought-out and reasoned 'nym just makes it all the better.

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  87. There was a Thomas Friedman book clutched in the decedent's right hand.

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  88. NUH-HUH 'cause Limbaugh says all conservatives are the cheefullest people ever and GOP World is just like Disney so happy and they're all so contended and it's us dirty miserable hippies what is all miserable and when has Rush ever ever been wrong except for a few million times every time he opens his piehole so shut up he makes mistakes he should get a mulligan just like George W. who was the best Preznit ever and liberated all those Iranaqis from torture so the right people could torture them and defeated terror so we're safer than ever except for Obama's ISIS Ebola freinds and all like that there so nyaaah.

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  89. Jed Pimpernel4:24 PM

    Why would a grifter want to share his info on the easy marks? There's only so much money in these rube's wallets.

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  90. Or: "That's a great question my friend. Communistic Democrats who want to make your grandmother bake penis cakes for gay men dressed in chaps while Obama steals your guns, have made it mighty difficult for good, God-fearing Americans to get ahead. But sign up for my weekend symposium, which costs just a fraction of the money you'll earn using the tips I'll give you, and you'll be building family wealth before you can say Bootstraps!"

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  91. Wait - isn't "controlling the girl" the whole point of male-entitlement stuff?

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  92. The post office has rules about delivering toxic sludge.

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  93. CALL OF DUTY LXVIII: Plumbers vs. NAZI TURTLES!

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  94. There is nobody more cutting-edge than a stodgy rich fat white guy with a bowtie.

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  95. And THEN grab wallet, run away.

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  96. Socialist Cubone4:38 PM

    We're not losing!


    They're cheating by self-sacrifice.

    ReplyDelete
  97. Wasn't there a Penny Arcade strip along those lines?

    ReplyDelete
  98. Socialist Cubone4:43 PM

    So let me get this straight, you spend your days hate reading Atrios and by extension places like this. And the reason for your hatred is that they don't support Hamas? Why would you expect them to in the first place?


    Is there any keyboard commando sadder than an al-Qaeda keyboard commando?

    ReplyDelete
  99. Sandnigger from Hell4:48 PM

    My first comment was in response to the word "blah" and also the "poors". The point was the hypocrisy of Park Slope liberalism, in NY, Philadelphia or anywhere else. "some of my best friends are blah" etc. when you can't even say the word "black". And Palestine is just a good example of where things go obviously off.

    ReplyDelete
  100. As a poor person myself, and a libertarian socialist, I've love to invite you to pour yourself a big cup of shut the fuck up.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Socialist Cubone4:52 PM

    No it was worse than that. They conspired to give support to Zoe Quinn by… DUH DUH DUH, writing her a nice letter, and getting a bunch of people to sign it.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Saying nice things = CORRPUTION!!!11

    don't forget she was trading sex for reviews! Her ex-boyfriend said so, and a more impartial source you could not find!

    ReplyDelete
  103. whetstone4:57 PM

    Cracked put it best: "do you realize that if what they're saying is true, then this is still the most pointless fucking bullshit anyone has ever forced us to read?"


    Amanda Marcotte made a good point: it took no time at all for right-wing anti-feminist vultures to start circling around this misogynist pseudo-scandal, plucking off impressionable young clods for the cause. Which makes sense—the #gamergate assholes ginned up their own little BENGHAZI. Good J.V. training for hyping pointless fucking bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  104. Remember - you're a hip, edgy individual, just like everybody else!

    ReplyDelete
  105. whetstone4:59 PM

    Not even "saying nice things." Jenn Frank, a very good writer and seemingly a very nice person, was accused of corruption for coming out against harassment. And quit the industry after days of hostility. See, because she once said something nice about one of the gamergate targets, she doesn't have the objectivity to write about why harassment is bad. In an opinion piece.

    ReplyDelete
  106. satch5:00 PM

    Jesus, Sandnigger... you DO know, don't you, where the term "Blah People" originated, right? And I assume you know the definition of "irony".

    ReplyDelete
  107. satch5:04 PM

    You think Kevin's whining now? Wait till we vote in Snake Plisskin as mayor.

    ReplyDelete
  108. "I AM MATURE INDIVIDUAL WHO DESERVES RESPECT!" he howled as he smeared his feces over the walls.

    ReplyDelete
  109. No on both counts, I'm sure.

    ReplyDelete
  110. I regret sometimes you can only upvote comments once.

    ReplyDelete
  111. BTW, nice "Step Up" reference, even though I hate you for making me think about that movie.

    ReplyDelete
  112. stepped_pyramids5:11 PM

    Shorter shorter: "The left's ideas work better than the right's ideas."

    ReplyDelete
  113. And how exactly is "building wealth within families" a solution to, and not a cause of, inequality?

    ReplyDelete
  114. More proof of their arrogance and un-Americaness!

    ReplyDelete
  115. stepped_pyramids5:14 PM

    So happy to see someone else link that video. It's one of my favorite things Retsupurae has ever done.

    ReplyDelete
  116. stepped_pyramids5:17 PM

    Also, people who don't buy Call of Gears of Duty Halo are pretty much automatically excluded from the category of "hardcore gamer", which is apparently the only type of gamer worth caring about, and are very likely to be "casuals", which is the worst thing anyone can be.

    ReplyDelete
  117. montag25:20 PM

    That's Williamson's tell. The middle class haven't been able to accumulate much wealth for the past forty years, precisely the years that, as Piketty documents, serious inequality--largely due to wealth accumulation by inheritance among the already rich--was becoming an ever-greater problem.

    The only middle class he's interested in are the middle children of the very, very rich.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Jay B.5:21 PM

    Given his vast history there and deep ties, Williamson could always trailblaze and be an urban vanguard in East St. Louis.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Jay B.5:23 PM

    Dude. You should host a Kickstarter or something.

    ReplyDelete
  120. they have nothing on the collaborative scale as Catalist, largely due to
    the fact that Republicans won’t collaborate and are fiercely
    territorial of their competing data sets.


    Gosh, you mean Libertarianism, competition and proprietary information isn't a route to automatic success? Damn liberal bias!

    ReplyDelete
  121. sharculese5:25 PM

    The whole thing has been reminding me of a round of I want to say Chuck Klosterman initiated thumbsucking a few years back about when will there be a Lester Bangs of video game journalism because now we know this answer is, "Never. Gamers wouldn't stand for that shit."

    ReplyDelete
  122. You might want to do a little research on the whole blacks-becoming-blahs thing. Hint: it wasn't Park Slope liberals.

    ReplyDelete
  123. sharculese5:32 PM

    Had the misfortune to listen to some wingnut rage jockey a couple weeks back and the think that struck me was how he had absolutely no idea what exactly he was so angry about, he just kept hopping from outrage to outrage with almost no connection.


    And then the topic turned to the Kate Upton photo leaks and he just turned absolutely giddy at being able to intrude into this young, wealthy, famous woman's life. It clearly wasn't even about her body, it was that she couldn't do anything to stop him from pawing sweatily through the contents of her phone and I thought "this is what it feels like to be constantly freaked out that being a white dude won't get you into heaven anymore."


    Happy. Sure.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Spaghetti Lee5:34 PM

    "Video Game: The Rapist" for $200, Trebek!

    ReplyDelete
  125. Are you kidding? It's full of imaginary 9-year-olds armed with taunts.

    ReplyDelete
  126. "Hardcore gamer." If there's ever a label that needed to be retired, that's it. Video games are a hobby, not a life choice - or at least they shouldn't be a lifestyle choice. I see these thirtysomething men screaming about fake gamer girls ruining their lives, I can't help but think that if they'd had some real life experiences when they were younger, it might have given them some perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  127. mgmonklewis5:40 PM

    armchair hayseed

    I would like to spend lazy afternoons rocking on the porch, chawin' terbacky, and whittlin' with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  128. mgmonklewis5:43 PM

    Also, if you can't find things in New York to love -- people, places, culture -- you're fucking lame.

    As a professor once said, "people who are boring are just boring themselves." Seriously: Most adults are able to make their own fun just about anyplace... but if you can't find anything to do in New York?! What, is Julie the Cruise Director from The Love Boat supposed to be your entertainment life coach?

    ReplyDelete
  129. sharculese5:44 PM

    Well, Missouri's out, at least. Last time Williamson went there a black kid called him a cracker.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Jay B.5:45 PM

    True. The funny thing is there is literally nothing stopping Williamson from moving to San Antonio. I went to UT with him. We both worked at the Daily Texan. He's from Texas. There are plenty of opportunities there for a right-wing asshole. And yet, he chose New York. I wonder why....

    ReplyDelete
  131. mgmonklewis5:45 PM

    save the local community center from those evil liberal gentrifiers

    It's like a jungle / sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.

    ReplyDelete
  132. sharculese5:46 PM

    *sigh* should've read the whole thread before assuming I was the first to come up with that one.

    ReplyDelete
  133. D. Sidhe5:49 PM

    He's just bitter because none of your superheroes have yet rescued him from a liberal cocktail party. Oh, how he misses Texas, but he's still hoping to get a selfie with Batman.

    ReplyDelete
  134. sharculese5:52 PM

    Congratulations on your bizarre, point-missing psychoanalysis of a two year old political meme.


    Follow question: do you know why grumpy cat is so grumpy? Does it have to do with Palestine?

    ReplyDelete
  135. sharculese5:55 PM

    Lots of hobbies have nouns for their participants. Philatelist. Bookworm. Fake Texan who paints to block out memories of a eight years of failure and disaster.


    The problem isn't that we have a word for people who play video games, it's that the people who use it insist it have only the most toxic connotations.

    ReplyDelete
  136. sharculese5:56 PM

    Ah, good ol' Custer's Revenge.

    ReplyDelete
  137. I'd go on GoFundMe except that "escaping wingnuts" would probably be viewed a controversial in the same way raising money "for" Darrin Wilson wasn't.

    ReplyDelete
  138. I thought he was dead!

    ReplyDelete
  139. GRUMPY CAT IS GRUMPY BECAUSE YOU ARE INSUFFICIENTLY REVOLUTIONARY

    ReplyDelete
  140. gocart mozart6:08 PM

    This. We should not be incentivizing poverty!

    ReplyDelete
  141. BTW, I think it went back to masturbating tearfully into back issues of Rampart. No big loss.

    ReplyDelete
  142. Yes, but people don't refer to themselves as "movie watchers" or "music listeners," do they? "Gamer" made sense as a term during that post-industry collapse period when video games were considered uncool. These days, I'd compare it to the term "audiophile," in that both carry that same hint of smug superiority - the implication that people who enjoy something casually are not only wrong, but stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  143. bulletsarepeopletoo6:12 PM

    "... there's not much to do there"

    There would be except no one wants to pay for it.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Harry Potter and the Deathly Sweatshop Factory (With Locked Doors To Prevent Stealing)

    ReplyDelete
  145. "'ey, guvn'r, aiwm just redistributin' the wealth laik thet Awlinsky chap told me to!"

    ReplyDelete
  146. "Gamer" =/= someone who plays Minecraft for hours at a time (*raises hand*) because even though it's a game and wildly successful at that you can't kill Enemies of America in it.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Duncan6:20 PM

    That last quotation ("Leftist players" etc.) is funny -- it's exactly what the left says about the Right: they're united, while we are divided by sectarian squabbling, and they're gutting the Constitution!

    ReplyDelete
  148. mortimer20006:22 PM

    Yes. Clearly this commenter is not aware of all Internet traditions.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Waffle_Man7:01 PM

    Her ex didn't even say that; he just said she cheated on him with a person who happened to be a journalist; last I heard he explicitly said he wasn't accusing her of trading sex for reviews.


    And the guy she allegedly slept with didn't write any reviews of her work.


    Literally this entire scandal is about the fact that a guy none of these people have ever met accused his girlfriend of cheating on him. That's what started this.


    It only became about journalism because... I don't fucking know. None of the instigating incidents involve bad games journalism; mainly, it seems to be about the fact that some people don't like the politics of some writers, which to them is exactly the same as those writers being hopelessly corrupt.


    As scary as it is, I legit thought Glenn Reynolds was better than this.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Mr. Wonderful7:14 PM

    I know you're going for Cockney, but Mrs. Wonderful and I need someone to translate Happy Valley for us. It's Yorkshire. You're hired.

    ReplyDelete
  151. "Awrite! No more medical expertiments f'r me!"

    ReplyDelete
  152. sophronia7:20 PM

    "Building wealth within families", huh? I remember when we called this by its old-fashioned name, aristocracy.

    ReplyDelete
  153. Smurch7:23 PM

    And with extreme prejudice.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Mr. Wonderful7:25 PM

    Surely I can find a way to fit "it hurts my immersion!" into daily discourse.

    ReplyDelete
  155. There's some "extreme prejudice" in Utah, fer sure.

    ReplyDelete
  156. Smurch7:31 PM

    Shining Shaming Shitting Shafting.

    ReplyDelete
  157. Gromet7:33 PM

    Huh. I never heard of The White Company, but it sounds interesting and I like Conan Doyle. So I have en-Kindled it.

    ReplyDelete
  158. JennOfArk7:35 PM

    "I'll take Swords for $400, Alex."


    "That's 'S' words."

    ReplyDelete
  159. Smurch7:36 PM

    Shining Shaming Shitting... Shafting

    ReplyDelete
  160. You've just described Tumblr.

    ReplyDelete
  161. J Neo Marvin7:41 PM

    Game Of Malls.

    ReplyDelete
  162. I legit thought Glenn Reynolds was better than this.

    Your first mistake, right there.

    ReplyDelete
  163. Stiftung Schtuping.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Yeabutusee, if it weren't for government handouts or free lunches or immigrants or Affirmative Action or free school lunches or nanny-state regulations that stop people from selling their organs and children or gay pride or feminists, members of the middle class (all six of them) would easily be able to salt away a couple of million dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Derelict8:32 PM

    Not me! I want to take this comment to Tavern on the Green, then spit my chaw on the floor while complaining about the lack of billionaires and big-money businesses in Manhattan.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Derelict8:34 PM

    This makes me wish I had died of dysentery along the trail.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Derelict8:36 PM

    You just won the internet for today.

    ReplyDelete
  168. I wish she was IFKWIMAITYD.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Call of Kumbaya: The Emotioning

    ReplyDelete
  170. FMguru9:58 PM

    Isn't this a classic Old Perfesser joint, citing the skyrocketing costs of tiny shoebox apartments in NYC and SF as proof that liberalism is crumbling? Instead of, you know, evidence that the demand to live in big, multicultural, diverse, liberal cities is far outstripping the supply of housing therein because that's where so many people (especially young people) want to live?

    ReplyDelete
  171. 20 bucks--half what it costs ya downtown.

    ReplyDelete
  172. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:59 PM

    Or its even older-fashioned bane: Dynasty...

    ReplyDelete
  173. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:00 PM

    First rule of Wingnuts: It's always projection.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Uh... Blah is a joke. Its not actually the case that we cant say the "ck" sound. Just fyi.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:12 PM

    Worse -


    they'll make girls into the protagonists

    . You'll have to control a girl.



    And the Alpha Gamers would never stand for that. Case in point: Tomb Raider. Why, if they'd written Lara as Larry, it would have been a hit!

    ReplyDelete
  176. FMguru10:14 PM

    Sullivan's travails in New York were the best things. More than eight million people manage to make a go of it every day in NYC, but Sullivan just kept failing over and over and over. It was McArdle-esque the way he was completely unable to do ordinary everyday things like have a package delivered or get an appliance installed.

    Of course, it was NYC's fault that it didn't screech to a halt and roll out the red carpet for big shot cultural force Andrew Sullivan. In reality, NYC showed him up for the middlebrow small-fry that he really is, and he couldn't handle it.

    ReplyDelete
  177. FMguru10:16 PM

    Sharting

    ReplyDelete
  178. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:16 PM

    Compared to the endless series of suckworthy Star Wars flicks, Marvel has put out some pretty decent fare.

    ReplyDelete
  179. nice spread in Butte.IYKWIMAITYD.

    ReplyDelete
  180. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:18 PM

    That's me, casual. Mostly because I can't afford any of that shit. And when horrible games like Duke Nukem Forever hit the shelves at $79, I'm almost glad...

    ReplyDelete
  181. montag210:22 PM

    I considered that, and then rejected it, since that is the particular province of Der Pantload.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:34 PM

    20 Saudis with box cutters beat you to it...

    ReplyDelete
  183. DocAmazing10:35 PM

    My wife and I watched that with the subtitle feature enabled.

    We needed to.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:40 PM

    No, see, the beauty of this grift is, they whip out the wallet, hand over their plastic, and smile expectantly all the way to bankruptcy court. All you have to do it count your loot.

    ReplyDelete
  185. DocAmazing10:42 PM

    You are the Duke
    You are A-number-one!

    ReplyDelete
  186. Hmmmm... make the mark WANT to get scammed... brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
  187. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:04 PM

    I guess it depends how much you like/need the Big Fish/little pond thing.

    ReplyDelete
  188. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:06 PM

    Dalziel & Pascoe was a bit hard to follow at times...

    ReplyDelete
  189. stepped_pyramids11:21 PM

    "cineaste/cinephile", "movie buff"

    ReplyDelete
  190. scottclevenger11:48 PM

    We were talking about this the other day, how in the early 80s people thought "Escape From New York" was actually prophetic, and they'd just wind up walling the whole place off. Now it's turned into that fucking space station from "Elysium."

    ReplyDelete
  191. billcinsd12:20 AM

    she had the best drugs

    ReplyDelete
  192. smut clyde12:50 AM

    "it hurts my immersion!"

    Did someone put leeches in the sensory deprivation tank again? I hate it when that happens.

    ReplyDelete
  193. smut clyde12:55 AM

    Leftist players sacrifice their egos for the larger messianic call" We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"
    -- Some radical leftwing revolutionary.

    ReplyDelete
  194. smut clyde12:58 AM

    back issues of Ramparts.
    So, not a magazine devoted to the anatomy of male sheep?

    ReplyDelete
  195. Neither devoted to castles.

    ReplyDelete
  196. ColBatGuano3:46 AM

    But not before shooting all the wildlife.

    ReplyDelete