FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Current mood.
•   Last Friday I mentioned a long-distance diagnosis of the allegedly dying Hillary Clinton by one John R. Coppedge, M.D., of Texas, every bit as ridiculous as previous long-distance diagnoses of Barack Obama I'd seen in crappy wingnut sites, but in this case published by the respectable D.C. tipsheet The Hill. Well, now look what The Hill is cooking:

Clinton’s sixth nerve palsy: What difference does it make?
By Zev Shulkin, contributor

This put in mind of Daniel Plainview crying "I am the Third Revelation!" The Sixth Nerve Palsy hath oped the Seventh Seal! Shulkin, "an ophthalmologist in Dallas, Texas," saw Clinton on the TV in 2013 when "Clinton appeared before Congress with thick glasses" and noticed "the left lens of Hillary’s glasses appeared hazy and a close-up of her black frames revealed a sticker with vertical lines. That sticker is commonly used to manage diplopia or double vision," leading Shulkin to "surmise from looking at the direction of the lines on Hillary’s glasses, that Clinton developed a sixth cranial nerve paralysis or palsy as the result of her fall" that year. No wonder she did so badly in the debate on Monday! Next week: The Hill finds a guy who can do EKGs with his personal Mind-Ray (patent pending).

•   Here's a screenshot of what appears at the top of disqus' alicublog comments section when I go to it:

I realize these come-ons are to a great extent tailored to me, or rather to an algorithm's idea of me and my interests based on what my internet usage reveals -- mainly that I'm an old white man who visits a lot of rightwing sites. I include this because it suggests, in its poetic way, the reason why Trump and his enablers are hammering on about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. People say Trump's obsessed with her and maybe out of control but -- at the risk of sounding like my more Scott Adams-ish friends who think everything Trump does is 12-D chess -- I think his logic is more like the logic of this advertising: That old guys like me are susceptible to the cheesiest, most LCD appeals, especially when it comes to women, and would be swayed by a story about this hot chick who acts all la-de-da and deserving of respect but she's really not because she was in a porn film -- well, okay, just Playboy magazine and a reality show, but don't worry, we'll find the good stuff if we keep looking! In other words Trump and his people, like the people behind this advertising, have a very low opinion of us, and offer us the opportunity to confirm it by electing him.  I think this is closer to the mark than most of the essays about what sub-classification of authoritarian Trump is.

•   Time for one more -- how about this doof from The Federalist? He's sort of Reform MRA -- that is, he accepts all the men-want-polygamy, women-want-hypergamy, alpha-males-get-all-the-trim red pill guff, a la:

If a man’s social status in its various incarnations plays a prominent role in his attractiveness to women, then a man’s promiscuity indicates that many women have recognized his social status. This effectively raises his standing further...

...but rather than portray this knowledge as secret wisdom with which dorks can get laid, he argues for the Restoration of Virtue, because he's moral, see, and thinks it's terrible that Young People Today are having sex, and assumes it's all very sad sex on account of a book he read, but doesn't like the implication that the girls are the "victims" of this very sad sex. In fact, he clearly thinks what's needed is more female victims:

In other words, any mutually beneficial bargain would have to restore chastity, slut-shaming, and early marriage while ending no-fault divorce... 

In the absence of the civilizing power of marriage and family and the virtue of chastity that facilitates it, it girls will always choose those boys to pursue, and the cycle will only ramp up as long as society overlooks this antisocial behavior of the girls because sensible people are afraid of being labeled misogynists for calling it out. 

If we want this ugly situation to change, then demanding more from boys while simultaneously disincentivising them from offering more is a losing proposition. The only viable time-tested option is to reverse course and begin recovering what we, as a society, have lost. 

We need to begin respecting men again. We need to recover the virtue of chastity even if it happens to make a slut feel ashamed...

Ugh. I never thought I'd say this, but at least the straight-up MRA guys seem like they're capable of enjoying themselves.